Lessons from the Land and Water Songs to Heal
Recently, I was fortunate to be selected as an HJ Andrews Visiting Scholar, and was able to complete an HJ Andrews Scholar Writing residency, where I had the incredible opportunity to view the forest area through a Traditional Ecological Knowledge lens.
I had scheduled the residency specifically so that I could take my child along, teaching Traditional Knowledge as it has been taught to me, passing along generations of information and skills in areas that had been historically traversed by ancestors. There were times when I doubted my decision, as complaints of spotty wifi access began. That quickly subsided as complaints turned to questions, and I knew I had made the correct decision. Spiritually my child felt it; there was connection again, as I’d hoped.
Photo: Samantha Chisholm Hatfield
My child and I sat at the river’s edge, watching the water roll by. We discussed the water, and the tall trees and the bushes that walked alongside the water’s path. We discussed the tiny bugs skimming around on the water, and the spiders, and the rocks. We joked about how Sasquatch must love this area because of the incredible beauty. Time stopped, and the symphony of wind and water rose around us as we watched branches and flowers dance and sway.
At one point my child broke out in traditional song. To most, this would not seem unusual, but to those who live traditionally, this is spectacular. It was song that came to him, gifted through, and from the waters, about the water and the beauty he found. The water ran clean, and the birds sang freely.
This is who we ARE. As Native People, we are living WITH the land, rather than simply ON it. We engage with the tiniest of tiny, as well as with the largest of large. This is a concept that many cannot fathom. Reciprocity with the land is at the core of where we come from, and has been a basis for our survival as well as our identity. It has been essential that we as Native people continue to nurture the land as it nurtures us. Reciprocity is in traditional information, and is an everyday integrated expectation, that fosters well-being of ourselves and our identification as Natives.
Reciprocity with the land
Photo: Samantha Chisholm Hatfield
Our identity is connected with every tiny droplet. Every tiny speck of dust. Every rock, every tree, every winged, every insect, and four-legged. We are one among many, we do not have dominion over, but rather have congruence with.
It is not vital that we share the same communication language, it is not vital that we appear in the same form. The tiny fly deserves as much respect as the bison, or the person standing next to me. Those of us who work to protect have been given orders to do so, often by our Elders, who are at the forefront of holding our wisdom. Oral histories and Traditional Knowledges hold information and instructions that direct and guide us. There is a belief that we are entrusted to care for the earth, and for the seventh generation to come, so that life, and the earth, will remain just as it is currently, if not better for our future generations.
We are borrowing the resources that we live with, caring for the investment of life that we are blessed with. We are taught to have forward-thinking vision in our actions. We work for all, even for those who are antagonists. We do so, because we have been gifted visions by our ancestors of what Seven Generations means, and what it takes to get there. Vision, of how to care of a world that is quickly losing its grip on reality of situations that are dominating, destructing, and devaluing knowledge. Vision, of what needs repaired, who needs helped, and what path needs to be walked.
Respecting how much Traditional Knowledges can teach us
Many question the validity of TEK, and are not be able to ‘connect the dots’. It is difficult to view a system in an alternative perspective if you have not have grown up in it, nor have been enculturated to it. It can seem foreign and be discounted as baseless. Western mainstream promotes the “dominion over” ideology. Controlling and manipulating that which would challenge or hinder human desires. Reciprocity and gentleness are values taught and held in high esteem in many Native communities.
There are no separations from the environment and ourselves, it is a knowing that what befalls the land, befalls The People.
There are no escape diversions, no malls to buy excuses from, no spas to run to for the weekend.
Our escapes come in the form of clear streams, and old growth towering majestically, in the form of waves crashing on shores and dirt under our feet. We are guided alongside teachings of congregations of the finned, and the winged, the hooved, and the crawlers. Our songs, our prayers, our way of life depends on these aspects, but only when they are connected, and healthy.
Half a book, half a lesson, half a river, half a tree, half a story cannot teach. It cannot sustain culture, it cannot sustain life. Anyone’s.
The integration of knowledge is often viewed as an interloper, incongruent and irrelevant to the daily lives of westernized systems of thought. This could not be further from the truth.
Dr. Samantha Chisholm Hatfield is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, from the Tututni Band, and is also Cherokee. She earned a doctorate from Oregon State University in Environmental Sciences focusing on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of Siletz Tribal Members. Dr. Chisholm Hatfield’s specializations include: Indigenous TEK, tribal adaptations due to climate change, and Native culture issues. She’s worked with Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, and successfully completed a Post-Doctoral Research position with Northwest Climate Science Center. She’s spoken on the national level such as the First Stewards Symposium, National Congress of American Indians, Northwest Climate Conference, and webinars. She’s helped coordinate tribal participation for the Northwest Climate Science Center and Oregon State’s Climate Boot Camp workshops. Her dissertation has been heralded nationally by scholars as a template for TEK research, and remains a staple conversation item for academics and at workshops. She is a Native American Longhouse Advisory Board member at Oregon State University, was selected as an H.J. Andrews Forest Visiting Scholar, is actively learning Tolowa, Korean, and continues her traditional cultural practices. In her spare time she dances traditionally at pow wows, spends time with family, and is the owner of a non-profit organization that teaches the game of lacrosse to disadvantaged youth.
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