This year I want to think beyond “American Thanksgiving” and its usual traditions. I want to share with you my commitment to understanding, learning from, and supporting Indigenous Peoples. Many of them are seeking to care for and “reclaim stewardship of Mother Earth,” to collaborate with many liberation movements “interconnected with the struggles of all oppressed Peoples,” and to prioritize the wellness of the earth which is tied inextricably with the wellness of all people. These are principles of the landback movement and stated in the “LandBack Manifesto.”
I want to share with you not only a bit of my story, but also a giving decision I made today. My hope is for it to spark some conversation and consideration from you and your family and friends. Deeper understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ culture and setting right the false stories of my public-school education, has been among my faith commitments for several decades. But it began as it does for many white people in ignorance and misguided efforts.
Like many white children in the South, I grew up thinking and believing that some part of my own personal heritage was Native American. My own father believed looking at old photos that someone in our family tree was surely an Indigenous Person and influenced our genetics. And he saw in pictures of his aunts and uncles, facial characteristics he thought belonged to Indigenous Peoples. This trope has been used countless times with untold numbers of white southerners, and I think US Americans in other regions that I know less well. At least some of that false narrative goes to laying financial claim on land that the US government designated as “reservations.”
Childhood Wondering
It seemed both wondrous and pretty much impossible to me as a young person this tale of being part Cherokee, Creek, or Chickasaw. I heard these ideas whispered among my friends in first and second grade. On the playground or in the reading corner. I think some of the roots of the idea go back to a time when the United States government determined to admit certain people to reservations or accept them into first nations if they had a traceable amount of genetic heritage. This kind of measure of indigenous identity through blood and kinship was codified after the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.
Surely on occasion some white people used claims of “Indian blood” to gain access to indigenous land. However, in a different but related direction, the act forced some Indigenous people groups to parcel their land, making it more vulnerable to sale, especially in bleak economic times. The myths and whispered childhood claims of having “Indian blood” continue to circulate as the stuff of urban and rural legends in the American mythos.
Adult Curiosity
Fueled somewhat by these false stories (cultural and familial), and childhood wonderings, but also by my own grown-up curiosity, I set out to understand more for myself. This desire to learn was also inspired by my growing up in sight of mountains in Eastern Tennessee (home of the Cherokee peoples before removal), schooling in the Ohio Valley, then congregational ministry in Northern Georgia (Cherokee headquarters in New Echota, and locale of the Etowah Indian Mounds, visible out my window at the church I served.
Through a series of travels, retreats, and readings, post-seminary, I began to explore “Native American spirituality.” This was a spirituality of attunement to land and water, sky and fire, profound significance of animals and spirits, foundational stories like how Mother Earth came into existence, and wisdom of indigenous people and practices.
Along this pathway, I met and learned from Indigenous leaders who generously shared their traditions with me and others. I think looking back, my experiences were shaped both by a long history of a tourist economy, in which white people and other tourists from beyond the US participated in paying Indigenous people to perform their native culture (for example “chiefing”), and also by willing elders and teachers.
Wise Teachers
People I met and learned from, people I paid as retreat leaders and wise counselors, were deeply generous with their knowledge and wisdom. They were honest with me and others about the troubles inherent in my whiteness, and also in sharing multigenerational wisdom of elders from different Indigenous Peoples groups. They taught me practice and sacred ritual. I’m sure there was much more they did not teach me. My only judgment is for myself. I surely fell short in my stewardship of these mysteries. I still have so much to learn.
I’ve also been chastised on more than one occasion by other white people policing my curiosity and attention to indigenous spirituality. I have been warned about misappropriation – that is using knowledge and practice outside their intended context or without permission. I take these concerns and warnings seriously. Yet I have allowed the policing from other white people to keep me from sharing my stories. The effect has silenced me and pushed me to keep my commitments and my stories to myself. But today, I’m taking a risk. Trying to share with humility to challenge and invite white friends and colleagues to enter the conversation respectfully.
Sweat, Blood, and Tears
When people got swept up in the craze of DNA testing, I also swabbed my mouth and sent off my DNA. The results confirmed for me that I have essentially no genetic inheritance from indigenous people and only a small percentage of my genetic test showed connections to east and west African DNA. I don’t use these results to make claims on anything except my own European colonizer genetic inheritance and social legacy.
Yet it is also true that I have been invited into sweat lodges. I have learned songs and wisdom from medicine keepers and pipe bearers and drummers. Elders invited me to smoke the peace pipe. And I took upon myself a pilgrimage up a mountain that felt like the top of the world to the place of a large medicine wheel, knowing enough about indigenous values and spiritual practices at that point to refrain from taking pictures or stepping into the wheel without invitation or permission. I simply observed with respect and took the memory with me.
I’ve been to pow wows and listened to elders teach, traveled to museums and read books. I could go on with a much longer list. Some of my experiences are too important and vulnerable to share just yet. Or ever.
In graduate school and since, I’ve learned more about broken treaties, false white narratives, and the far reach of not just the vision of manifest destiny, but also the dangers in the doctrine of discovery. I’ve been learning more about the land I inhabit in my home and the watershed on which I live now in Middle Tennessee, and the history of this place, land, people, plants, and animals. So much more to learn. I remain a novice.
My Challenge and Invitation to You
This “American Thanksgiving” day celebrates settlers coming to this continent and colonizing the land in the name of manifest destiny and under the doctrine of discovery. Yet it is a day that leaves out the stories of warfare, disease, gen0cide, sexual assault, death marches, stolen children, and land theft. In response, I am taking a risk, sharing a small bit of my story, and telling you about a choice. Despite my aim to be respectful and humble, I am risking the problem of centering too much of my own story. Nevertheless, the choice I share is one of participation in remedy and repair. I choose in opposition to the white cultural emphasis on this day of Thanksgiving to focus only on blessing, celebration of merit, and worship at the altar of consumerism.
I want to honor the work of land preservation and earth care, indigenous wisdom and storytelling, and much more. There are many landback movements to choose from. I’ve considered quite a few. I settled this year on First Nations Development Institute. I made a donation today. And I challenge you to consider doing something similar. Why not?
Why not give an amount of money, akin to what you spent on groceries for your Thanksgiving meal? Or consider the amount of your travel expenses to join your family? Why not consider give as much money as you spent on a celebration of white values on efforts to reverse the evils and right the missteps of our white ancestors?
If Not Giving, then More Learning?
If you don’t yet feel ready to give money, then perhaps you will take the challenge to embrace more education?
Small resistances and meaningful practices – something more than talk – can become part of an ecology of repentance and repair. We don’t need to be white saviors. We need to be good followers of wise Indigenous Peoples and their practices and calls to action. So maybe you’re not ready yet to support a cause, but I have piqued your interest enough to learn more about what it could mean? Excellent.
We can deconstruct our privileges, break down the false assumptions, and acknowledge the limits of our whiteness in light of the ongoing damages and harm to people of color, immigrants, and Indigenous People. By opening our hearts to learning, we can be part of turning the tide like one drop of water in a collective tidal wave. When we move together in the same direction, momentum can take us farther than when we try alone.
