“All my relations…”
I was so pleasantly surprised to find a link to “relations” in Cultural Sustainability 601′s reading this week, Diversity is Transforming Leadership by Juana Bordas. This was a very familiar term for me since I have been taught by my elders to always be concerned as to how my actions affect “all my relations,” or “wami skitôpak” in Mohegan, and this is a very broad term in “Indian Country” as Bordas explained a little. In Mohegan, and perhaps in many indigenous languages, a word has many convoluted hidden meanings, or “adjectives” built in — unlike in English where the adjectives are added to describe the subject, the word itself describes the situation. Like “aquai” or “hello” — it really means “greetings” but it really means “I wish you well, I am happy to see you…” much like the Hawaiian “aloha” meaning not only “hello,” but also, “breath of life.”
So, who is Fidelia Fielding? (http://www.mohegan.nsn.us/heritage/FideliaFielding.aspx)
There is an entirely different word for “snow that is on the ground acting as a pure white blanket that will bring cleansing and new life to Nonok Ahki as it melts in the spring” — all this in just one word: konak. Then snow that is falling from the sky — konaku, this is kind of a verb, adverb and subject all in one word. The convoluted and complex meanings were often lost in translation or misunderstood. Anthropologists referred to Fidelia Fielding as a poor speller of the Mohegan language, which, one had no known spelling as it was never written; and two, they misunderstood that falling snow was entirely a different word from snow on the ground. To come full circle to Bordas’ discussion about “all my relations,” in Mohegan, “wami skitôpak” means far more than “everyone here” or “all of you” — it means all of you, all four colors of people, all of your ancestors and all of your future generations — that is a great BIG “everyone” all connected in this great big web. So the connectedness to here and then and the future is understood and expected in Indian Country. The older something is the more value it inherently has – it was here on Nonak Ahki first – like the rocks. Something “old” or “obsolete” or “nostalgia” is the most valuable of the residual of mankind…This reminds me of a story about an elderly chief and his loving obedient grandson. I will save that for story time!
There are many indigenous beliefs and methods that are being “discovered” and implemented across many fields… One such field is medicine. We have touched upon the “new discovery” of animals and our connections to animals and how modern man has just discovered what is simply “universal truths” to many an Indian. Of course animals make people better, normalize their vital signs, and can sometimes cure them! Animals regularly visit our nursing homes now-a-days. Of course “heat” especially moist heat, cleanses your body and removes the toxins by allowing you to sweat them out. Of course crying cleanses the system emotionally and much as a sweat lodge ceremony does physically.
Another field of indigenous expertise is farming. “Companion gardening” is not a new concept. The Indians have been doing it for thousands of years. The three sisters, corn, beans and squash, support each other physically, chemically and in feeding us. Keeping our so called “heritage” seeds has been harder. Luckily our great grandparents saw this day coming, when the people would realize the value of the old ways and the “old” seeds, and saved things like our pink beans and our flint corn from extinction into hybrids. A farm in RI, called Harry Here Farm, saved Mohegan Flint Corn through a connection with Whit Davis’ family in Pawcutuk Connecticut. Whit Davis is an elderly man who comes to share Johnny Cakes with us every year at our August Cultural Week. Chief Uncas used to visit the Davis farm in the 1600′s, so the connection to Mohegan has been cultivated since then. When Mohegan was ready sometime around 2002, Whit Davis brought back our seeds just as his grandfather had asked. Whit protected the family farm a few years ago and established the “Stanton-Davis Homestead Museum.” This farm has been an active farm since 1654, when Uncas walked my homeland, and this farm was a place of peace between Native Americans and the Stanton-Davis family, between African ‘freemen’ who visited and found shelter with the Davis-Stanton family, and between all of us today. Perhaps the preserved connection is the “peace” that has been threaded through all of those generations since 1654 — sustain the peace that has lived on this land for so many centuries. See the link under my Connecticut Museums links to the Stanton-Davis Homestead Museum…
I think the importance is that we do not necessarily know the value of something that we have learned to take for granted. On one hand, we need to clean out the closets of the clutter that is not making us happy anyway (McGibbon, Deep Economy), but on the other hand, we must reflect upon what does make us happy and whole. We cannot save every piece of paper that comes home from school in a scrapbook, but we must hold onto that precious piece with our child’s tiny handprints… Saving our languages, saving our ways of life, remembering and replicating our ancestor’s ways and knowledge – if we don’t do it, if we do not lead it, who will?
Wami skitôpak,
Susan M, Golden Wolf
