As you start to read this blog post, your first impression may be that I have lost track of the title above, but I promise you that I will maneuver my way back around to the indigenous people of British Columbia, Canada. I promise. 🙂
Indigenous, aboriginal, first nation … so many people displaced by northern Europeans (and others) in the last 500 years (and longer).
But let me tell you the back-story of why this means so much to me.
A few years ago I was camping out on the Pacific Coast of Washington. Indeed, Towhee the Trailer was parked right next to the ocean beach. I met two women who were staying in a yurt in the same campground … staying in a yurt is a nice way to go camping! We became friends immediately and spent a number of evenings sitting out on the beach, on the sand, right next to the water of the Pacific Ocean, telling our stories, talking about our lives, our hopes, listening to the ocean. One of those women enjoyed building campfires. (What a treat, to watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean to the west as we gathered around a small campfire to warm ourselves and our friendship.)
As very young children, these two women friends met in school in Germany … one woman was/is German. The other woman was/is the daughter of USA citizens who were employees of a private USA company doing business in Germany; they were not in the USA military, so that daughter attended a local private school rather than a military school. These two women met as very young girls in that school. They became best of friends, and have remained close friends throughout life. The German woman visits the USA one or two times a year (without her German husband or their German kids) … and the USA woman visits Germany one or two times a year (without her USA wife or their USA kids). Once every few years, the spouses and kids do travel back and forth, but the friendship between these two women means the world to them.
Even just THAT story warms my heart.
One evening while the three of us were sitting around the campfire out on that beach right next to the Pacific Ocean, the three of us had become so comfortable that there were silences and thoughtful times and even times when one or another of us might sing a song or two. The German woman asked me about indigenous people here in the USA, in North America, and asked what I knew and thought and felt about all of that. That started a very long and heartfelt conversation among the three of us. As the conversation died down, I turned the question around and asked the German woman about indigenous people in Europe. That startled her, and she paused for a few moments, then said, “No one has ever asked me that. But that would be me, and my family, and everyone I know there. We are the indigenous people there. We are still there, we were never driven out, we and our families have been there forever.”
All three of us were a bit stunned, since we’d never thought about that in such detail or in relation to our own lives. Nor truly seriously thought of how we would feel if we were driven from our homes, had our children taken from us (or had us removed from our parents), had our spiritual practices made illegal, had our crops destroyed, our food and clothing changed, our language and our history destroyed, etc.
Part of my ancestry and DNA is Scottish … and in particular I’m a descendant of the ancient Picts in Scotland (so named by the invading Romans because the Picts drew ink images, ink pictures on their skin). The Romans, and the French, and the Danes, and the Norwegians, etc, all/each invaded Scotland and fairly quickly destroyed that “Pict” culture. So, as I sat there out on that Pacific Ocean beach in the USA with my two friends, I realized that I was indigenous to Scotland. My immediate ancestors, my parents and grandparents hadn’t lived there, but at least two of my great grandparents had lived in Scotland, were born there, and their ancestors too had lived there for thousands of years. They came from the central area of Scotland (around Meigle and Coupar Angus) where a large group of the Picts had lived. I have the DNA and genetic memories of the Picts in Scotland who lived there for thousands of years, before any other humans lived there, a culture and a people who no longer exist. Except I do. I exist. And there are a good number of other people who have that same ancient DNA too, and have those same ancestors too.
That gave me an entirely new view of what it means to be indigenous … and what it means to have your people and your culture, your world, destroyed, or nearly so.
And so, that brings me to the title of this blog post … Indigenous People of British Columbia, Canada. I was meandering around on the internet the other day and came across five extraordinary videos. I’ll share them with you here. Keep in mind that the word “Illahee” means “water”, and water is life.
Turn your sound on. And click on the little box in the lower right hand corner of each video to enlarge the videos. You’ll see why I loved boating here so much. And you’ll see why I love the people here so much.
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Whales.
Bears.
Mountains.
Rainforest.
Water.
Some of us know a specific place on this planet where we came from, where our long-ago ancestors lived, maybe some of us still live there and are doing everything we can to protect that place and honor it and our ancestors. But in the bigger picture … the bigger picture of our entire planet … every one of us is indigenous to this planet “earth”. This land, this water, this air, all over the earth … this is our home.
I’m so very impressed with the people who made these five videos in British Columbia, Canada. I hope I learn from them. I hope we all do.