Learning from Indigenous Voices
Unit 1 Visual Essay | By Omar Patel
Unit 1 Visual Essay | By Omar Patel
I chose these 2 texts to represent my learning from this unit because they focus on respect between other people and communities. The Gift of Strawberries focuses on generosity and gratitude to other people and nature. The Story of the Two Row Wampum Belt explains how the Indigenous and the settlers were supposed to live together with respect. Both of these texts help me see better through Indigenous perspectives.
The most important idea I took from this text is that gifts from the land should be shared with others. The strawberries symbolize generosity and gratitude. Kimmerer shows that in a gift economy, property has a bundle of responsibilities instead of a bundle of rights like in Western thinking. The land is not a resource to be exploited, but a relationship to be maintained (Kimmerer).
"Gratitude is much more than thank you. It is a thread that fosters relationships." (Kimmerer)
What I got from this quote is that gratitude isn't just saying "thanks" and moving on, it's about actually doing something to show you care. When Kimmerer says it "fosters relationships" she means that being grateful keeps you connected to the people and the land around you. I think that ties into a lot of what we learned in this unit about how respect is a big part of Indigenous ways of living.
One thing I noticed is that Kimmerer doesn't just come out and say "be grateful." She tells you a whole story about picking strawberries and how they're basically a gift from the earth. By using the strawberries as a symbol she gets the point across without it feeling like a lecture. It stuck with me more than if she had just listed off facts, and it made me think about how we're all kind of tied to nature whether we realize it or not.
The Gift of Strawberries connects to this because the author explains how we aren't separate from the environment. The gift economy means we are connected to earth's cycle of constant giving and taking and human actions are connected to nature.
The most important teaching from this text is that Indigenous and European settlers were meant to live together in peace while respecting each other. The Two Row Wampum is a physical, historical record of a "forever treaty." The two dark rows of beads represent an Indigenous canoe and a European ship traveling down the same river, sharing the waters (Woodworth).
"Your culture is there in your ship ours in our canoe we will share it forever as long as the grass is green the trees are growing the sun comes up forever." (Woodworth)
This quote helps with my views on narrative sovereignty because it shows how Indigenous communities have their own laws and treaties. It was a good reminder of how their culture was different and strong and not meant to be changed by Western views.
Elder Woodworth uses a visual artifact, the wampum belt, to make it easier to understand. The two dark rows of beads represent the ship and canoes, while the white beads represent peace and power which makes the treaty easier to understand. This is also why I think of it as a media text because the belt itself is a visual thing that gets the message across without any written words.
The Wampum belt is a physical record of one of the first Indigenous treaties. It connects to this because it represents how they had clear agreements prior to Canadian Law.
After reading both texts I understand better how the Indigenous community had a balanced relationship with the earth, like with the strawberries, and also a balanced relationship with other cultures, like with the wampum belt. Basically we are supposed to live in a balanced way with each other and with nature and not try to control how other people live their lives.
This stuff matters outside of school too because it changed how I look at things like climate change and reconciliation in Canada. If we treated the land more like a gift instead of something to use up we would probably take way better care of it. And knowing about the Two Row Wampum helps with reconciliation because it reminds us that the whole point was always to have a respectful partnership.