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4/15/2012 24 Comments

Black Face Blogging: On Indigenous Knowledge

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Dear White women and men,

The other day I encountered a White man – he had African Indigenous art all over his walls. As we talked he began to argue that all my Indigenous knowledge (IK) was lost.  I said to him, "no it is not, my IK is all around me, and further as a matter of fact it is sitting right in front of you (meaning me)." When I returned home and thought about it more, I realized that it was his IK that is lost to him – not my IK to me.  And this is why he collects the IK of other nations and nails it to his walls.  It is a projection of his own loss.

The other day I was walking with an elder – or better said an Indigenous man.  Eventually we encountered a White woman in desperate need of IK. It was in the way that she looked at him with worship in her eyes and glee on her face that helped me appreciate the interference of a "White woman's gaze".  I could never genuinely look at an "elder" in that way – man or woman.  When I thought about it more I realized that the adoring White woman made me more vulnerable than I already am.  Oh, how I wish that White women and White men for that matter would take the effort and return to their own IK and leave other Indigenous women and men the space they need to do the work they have to do.  And yes, I do know that some "elders" want and expect White people to look at them in a particular way – this is precisely one aspect of my point.

The other day I observed an Anishinaabe man engaged in ceremony. It was apparent that all the White women and White men thought he was a great holder of IK.  In my mind I thought when the day comes that he has an Indigenous woman (not a White woman) of equal status working in equal unison with him will be the day that I consider a man a great holder of IK.

The other day I encountered a White woman who argued that it is okay for others to rely on Indigenous men and the IK that they carry void of the presence and participation of women.  This person argued this even though she knew full well that patriarchy was an issue in our society even for the men she loves and cares for.  "Why is it then that the exotic Indigenous man is good enough for her?" is a question I ask myself.  Obviously this person has not learned the lesson that gender balance is fundamental before all else.  One reason I suspect she thinks it is okay is because this man and his knowledge came to her in a dream.  In any one of the IK traditions a White woman's dream or vision does not represent IK, the ultimate truth, nor for that matter what is sacred.

I know many Indigenous people who do not think the way White men and White women fortify yet another oppressive patriarchy is okay.  Many know that your need for other peoples' IK is a barrier to our wellness and the community work that we have to do.  That said, if you really want to do contemporary IK work such as address some of the injustices imposed on us, help Indigenous women as we define help to be, not as you define help to be.  For example, many know that Indigenous women are more likely to suffer from sexualized violence. There are now over six hundred missing and murdered women documented in Canada.  Further, forty-five percent of Indigenous mothers age fifteen years and under have a child where the father's signature is not on the birth certificate.  Often times this lack of a signature is not the mother's fault.  Rather, rape, gang rape, and other acts of sexualized violence; as well as fathers refusing to officially acknowledge with a signature that they are the fathers are some of the reasons why this this happens.  As a result of the lack of a father's signature many mothers and babies of Indigenous nations are placed in vulnerable locations in their communities and are denied their treaty rights such as housing.

Having voiced this, also know that people genuinely interested in the revolution of IK must begin with their own IK.  We all have it - even White people have it.  Yay!  As Anishinaabe respected traditional knowledge holder Jim Dumont has stated - all people need to go a back to their own IK. "What is this some may ask?"  It is the knowledge that predates patriarchy, industrialization, materialism, and the economic paradigm that is now hegemonic.  Go find, express, and celebrate your own IK.  Clearly, as we move forward other peoples' IK must not be a free-for-all.  If it were a free-for-all no one would do the hard work they have to do and sadly we would remain void of significant IK.  Further, our attempt at gaining the required critical mass would be confounded if we simply took other peoples' IK.  Interestingly, after wrestling with the dynamics impinging on your own IK you will have a better idea of your place in other peoples' IK traditions.

Worthy of stressing in your process to your IK you need to be cognizant of the fact that we should not step on other people as we collectively come to IK.  Feminist theory is careful to point out that in our effort toward emancipation we must think and act in the context of respecting the needs of others who are less fortunate.  Clearly one has not gained emancipation if they have denied others in their process of emancipation.  White feminism was critiqued for not being cognizant of this a while back and has evolved to this more enlightened understanding.  Thank goodness as Indigenous and Black women are in need of good informed allies.

To this end, Dear Non-Indigenous White women and White men, it is not racism you experience from me. Rather, it is hurt and anger generated due to your need for "my" IK, a hurt no less that is generated by your selfishness and a lack of critical thinking.  Stop defining these feelings through your need for "my" IK.

Chi-Miigwetch,

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24 Comments
Randall Mitchell link
4/24/2012 04:45:55 am

Spirituality is a personal emotional state that I hold dear to my heart. Mainstream society has lost this due to the lack of caring for one another and their selfish motivations and very little knowledge of the "Creator"; as most Indigenous people understand and love as a powerful and all-knowing "Spirit of the Universe". Non-indigenous people have no idea of a spiritual way of living unless they have an open mind and accept life terms as they really are and not what they "think" it should be. I really enjoyed your blog and desperately want to live on Parry Island Reservation like my Grandfather . He lived there all his life and his body is buried there as well. I say his body because I believe we join with the "Universal Spirits" when we pass from this physical world into the Spiritual Universe. Please email me on any comments you might have. Miigwetch.

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Lynn Gehl
4/24/2012 04:57:00 am

Miigwetch Randy for your comments.
Lynn

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carla
4/24/2012 02:20:17 pm

i am Canadian. Ancestors from Canada. From Celtic nation. The Ceremony, the path walked by me is in tune with your ways and beliefs. So I attend Ceremony. Sweat Lodge. I live by myself; believe in the tenets of the Red Road, It is the path chosen for me to follow. I find it difficult to believe that the spirit discriminates culture...each is put here for a reason..even desperate 'white' women. Am sure there are desperate, adoring clinging women in all nations who think the way over there is the right way....

Also...maybe it is the prophecys of the ancestors from many nations coming to pass...could be we live in a very special time in this universe...lol life is good.

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Lynn Gehl
5/24/2012 01:45:51 am

Thank you for your comments Carla. I stress, though, that one's interest in other peoples' IK does not mean one should do so void of a moral code. I wonder, "Are you a good ally that makes sure you do not interfer with Indigenous politics?" I have posted a few links that may interest you.

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Lynn Gehl
5/24/2012 02:04:42 am

Thank you for your comments Carla. I stress, though, that one's interest in other peoples' IK does not mean one should do so void of a moral code. I wonder, "Are you a good ally and do you make sure you do not interfere with Indigenous politics in a way that oppresses some?" I have posted a few links that may interest you.

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Naima
4/27/2012 03:52:34 am

I am blown away by what is outlined here. You have captured the essences of the various issues right on...thanks for sharing and as I walk with my IK i must acknowledge that there are so many without and so many with much more than I bring to the table.

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Lynn Gehl
5/24/2012 01:42:34 am

Thank you for your comments Naima.

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Debbie
5/13/2012 01:03:12 pm

Lynn, I agree we all have indigenous knowledge (IK as you put it) and I agree the best "medecine" for our souls is the one that comes from our own genetic, geographic, and /or cultural origins. I am lucky because I was raised in a very traditional farming culture just before that way of life expired and it's very old, deep culture still resonates in me, but I have to look very honestly in myself to locate it and it takes a lot of critical self-reflection.

When I was young, I hungered for the cultures of others. Now I stand in my own culture but honour the ways of others. It feels like a very different perspective. Thanks for raising this issue in your blog. I think about this a great deal too. Culture has become something you can buy and sell, and whites are desperate to avoid looking at their own privilege. I don't judge those who feel they have a true calling to walk alongside indigenous peoples and support them, but claiming an indigenous name or sacred rite adds up to theft for me. Culture theft.

Keeo up the reflections.

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Catherine
5/15/2012 10:50:47 pm

Comment deleted

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Lynn Gehl
5/24/2012 02:00:55 am

Catherine,

Talking about the dynamics between cultures is different than your approach that offers a valid critque within a culture.

For many "cultural theft" is a useful choice of words.

Peter
5/14/2012 04:45:45 am

I agree with some of what you have written.
At the same time I would say just what elders have told me and that is "There are many roads to that high place." It is good if ppl would use their own IK, sure, it can be very powerful and very healing, but some ppl are ill and need that help now.
As an elder now, I know that it is not up to me who takes part in ceremony or gets healing, it is up to creation. Creation dictates who will be present and is able to take part in ceremony. The longer I travel the earth the more similarities I see and encounter among the ppl. I was once told that the creator only see's ppl who can do creations work. Creator doesn't see race. Only us as human beings do we see things from a racial perspective.
As far as ownership, we would be like other races if we said, "we own" these ways..Creation lends us these tools, ceremonies, songs, dreams, names, clans. We don't own them. Only thing we own is our own body...That's how I see things.

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Catherine
5/15/2012 11:21:04 pm

Comment deleted

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Lynn Gehl
5/24/2012 01:54:07 am

Asking people to apply a moral code as they learn from other cultures is far from being exclusionary and elitist. Further, if one is truly interested in IK - they need to begin at home. This is the best way for all.

Heather
6/21/2012 05:53:45 am

I am unclear why you consider someone asking for spiritual boundaries, mutual respect, and defined alliance problematic. I am questioning your personal attacks on the blogger. They don't feel very Dalai Lama to me.

Greg
8/18/2012 03:44:17 pm

hi Lynn, good points, thanks for sharing

I am confused though by one sentence you wrote:
"In any one of the IK traditions a White woman's dream or vision does not represent IK, the ultimate truth, nor for that matter what is sacred."

Are you saying that in a White women's own IK, it would not hold her dreams and vision to be sacred?
Are not everyone's dreams and visions sacred?

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lynn gehl
8/19/2012 04:42:19 am

Kwey Greg.

In the Anishinaabe tradition dreams are a valid source of knowledge - this knowledge, though, is mediated by a cultural tradition. Knowledge is not an ultimate truth merely because it came in a dream.

What is more important here is that what 'her' culture has to say about 'her' dream is work 'she' would needs to uncover. And while her dream may be her truth - a dream that uncritically empowers sexism is quesitonable to many Anishinaabe women and of course many Anishinaabe men rooted in the Anishinaabe cultural tradition. Alternatively stated, she needs to stop interering based solely on the argument of what her dream brought her.

Thank you for you comment - I hope this is clear - text always has limitations.

Lynn

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Chris Miller
11/5/2012 12:06:19 pm

Comment deleted

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lynn gehl
11/7/2012 02:43:11 am

Comment deleted

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A.
12/16/2013 09:56:47 am

Hello:

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the clarity of your writing and the patience and care you take with both your essays and your responses to people.

Regarding IK - you really broke that down marvellously, Doctor. People with questions should probably just read it again... :)

Thank you.

lynn gehl
11/7/2012 10:05:45 pm

Comment deleted

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Gillian Schutte link
5/10/2013 04:31:19 am


Thank you for this liberating article. It liberates me in ways you cannot imagine. I have been waiting to write about this and now I just will. Two years ago I wrote my first novel. I went into my deep unconscious when I began to write what I accessed are my deepest soul archetypes. They were Celtic, wild, tribal, pict, Scottish, pagan. In short I found my own Indigenous Knowledge - the spirit of my ancestors, the witches of Europe, the herbal women and men, the warriors in blue paint that lived on the outskirts of the agricultural clans of Scotland - and the ones in armor - I also found the Vikings and conquerors. I found the people of the Church who wreaked havoc on the world. I found the court jesters, the peasants, the writers, the castle owners and landlords. I found that, no matter that our family are the first settlers in South Africa and now have spread out and proliferated the Afrikaans Culture and thus consider themselves the 'chosen tribe' sent to rule over the indigenous folk, that I am pure and simple a European from a history that was once tribal and pagan and egalitarian and subject to the worse abuses of patriarchy and church and capitalism. And that is when I knew that we have lost our way as a people - we know nothing of our pagan roots and we clutch at others to fulfill this emptiness that Western patriarchy has killed in our conscious and unconscious lives. Indeed, white people have even built a huge money spinning empire on the appropriation of other IK in the New Age industry that became owned and profited from... and worst of all, used as a way to further oppress the oppressed. We have grabbed hold of Eastern philosophies to blame the poor for their 'karma', upset the balance by loving Shamanistic men of other cultures etc ... and in all of this self-serving seeking for spirituality have further oppressed indigenous women, women of colour, the balance.

That I found my soul mate who is not white, who is a black man and that we found a communality in justice and love, has always been a question mark in my mind. Why did we choose each other and not one of our own? In the current system it turns out that white women who are unruly in terms of whiteness, and black men, have been relegated a certain equality on the Capitalist ladder, which places white men at the supremacist level and triple oppresses black women, is stark in my consciousness. But he has always remained black, narrative so - and I have never denied my whiteness nor the structural pathology that this presents. But it was when I accessed my European Indigenous Knowledge that I could truly become an activist against the phallocentric patriarchy that is our common enemy.

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outlookproblemshelp.com link
7/4/2013 09:31:01 pm

I hate discriminating people based on their color. I do believe that black and white men or women should be treated with same respect. Everyone should be equal among the law. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic and keep blogging with more updates.

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D'Arcy link
11/26/2013 10:58:09 pm

Kwey Lynne -- thanks for this, it has prompted lots of fascinating thoughts!

One point I'm hearing from your words and the comment section is a distinction between a spiritual aspect to IK and the human cost of our actions. Some believe that the Creator does not see race (which may or may not be true, I have no idea). An entirely separate issue is that there is an immediate human cost to Indigenous people from outsiders pursuing a community's IK. Why would ignoring the human cost of one's actions bring a person any closer to healing? I don't wish to generalize but I'm going to anyway: ;) I wonder if it is because Canada is a deeply Christian-influenced culture which sees spirituality as an 'every man for himself' kind of pursuit.

Also interesting the appeals to authority (the Creator, a particular elder) that come up when people are alerted to the cost of their actions. I think perhaps lots of white folks feel they need permission to use another people's IK, and they look for that from outside themselves. I think that really listening to one's own inner voice can give a person the best answer -- how many of us would, if we were really honest with ourselves, pursue our own healing and growth through practices that negatively impact others?

Also, a really great and loaded question for myself and lots of us white folks is -- why don't you pursue your own IK? What is stopping you?

Miigwetch for your thoughtfulness in addressing this.

D'Arcy

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Kathleen Yearwood link
11/27/2013 02:33:26 am

I am familiar with the hungry, consuming gaze of the lost people who come to feed on anyone they consider has some spirituality. I automatically distance myself from the white people at gatherings because I don't share their lostness and hunger and voraciousness and their collecting of artifacts.
I understand that if I want to approach an elder for help, I need to bring something, not just tobacco, but something for their life too, in trade, like any human interaction. I am not a consumer of human energy, or of culture. I am a culture maker, and I will work with anyone I respect and trust. These hungry ghosts need to go home and search their hearts and histories for spiritual things. We all come from the land somewhere, and the truth of our own colonial history is necessary to know to move on.
I remember some people who took advantage of this naivety as well, strange interactions reminiscent of a church, like the pope or something. Unbalanced in the extreme.

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