The land we come from: My people are my motherland | Environment

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In the series “The Land We Come From”, we ask writers to reflect on the environment in which they grew up and how it shaped their lives. Here, writer Terese Marie Mailhot reviews the land of Seabird Island in British Columbia and the people who brought it home.

The white man dug up what my grandmother planted. I think my family betrayed this matter. How can they rent land to those Yé xwelítem (white) farmers? But I love my people. My God-they are my home like my land. How can I blame them for using blueberry bushes for food? Does an apple tree eat meat? Our snowball trees and cedars-for rent? My mother did the same when I was little. I remember being in a white cow corn in the summer, walking through the field with my brother, kicking the stems, it didn’t feel like our land, it was more like theirs. Even for my baby at the time, it seemed unfair that money could take away all sacred things.

The land is like a woman-like mine Aunt said. I believe. I also believe that this land is just like our children, tolerant and kind-being asked to bear too much to survive. Everything we did to the ground will come back-everything we did to our children will be avenged, the story will be taken back, every one. Everything that is buried, everything that is hidden, will be uncovered. The white people took our children and buried them without rituals. A tomb or a large number of tombs will be found every few years. I don’t know what to do with our loss, but if Yé xwelítem or even our own people can easily degrade a mountain or a child, what will happen to the Nlaka’pamux women who speak loudly, those who play slot machines and tell dirty jokes, those People who say “keep six” in the bar, those who need to take a car to the store, those who post one or two selfies every day and say: “I’m still here, mom *****, come and catch me.” These women ——As noble as a mountain, I have never been favored by some men in concentration camps, pipe-makers, people living in white towns, or our professors, our bosses, our mentors and bartenders…

Photo of the author’s grandmother Marion Bobb with her husband William Bobb (left) and cousin (middle) [Photo courtesy of Terese Marie Mailhot]

I mourned for my mother yesterday. I think she has never been to a local stylist, and in her life, she has never let the hairdresser touch her hair like she likes. When I combed my horsehair, I thought of my mother’s horsehair. This is why I am very gentle with myself, and why I tell other indigenous women to be their best friends, their aunts and cousins, and their elders, because they are too afraid to tell others how to treat them. Because we fight for our women, blood, teeth and nails.

I always tell this story, but when I used to feel uncertain about my anger and will, my cousin or aunt said: “When our women are born, they will receive a stick and a bowl. One offer , A protection.” This is the feeling of where I come from. If you are insecure, you have a story about your power, your community—your existence 1,000 years ago.

As white farmers run out of land with pesticides and they leave the soil with nothing, we will have each other. We will have more than they can hold.

The writer’s mother Karen Joyce Bob (Wahzinak) [Photo courtesy of Terese Marie Mailhot]

I have been away for a long time, got a degree, and became a professor of creative writing: these things are a bit useless for my people. But the last time I went back, I was welcomed and praised. That is also my homeland.

We have this teaching about humility because we praise you for being the work of your elders, your mother, and your cousins. If you are too arrogant, then you have no one. “I love that girl! She just got her degree! Look at her,” my grandmother would say if she hadn’t died of cancer. “Look at you alive, girl!” My friend Candice would say if she hadn’t died of cancer. “Keep your head,” Mom would say, if she didn’t die like I just became. I sometimes brag about myself to express the grief of losing them. Most of the women who love me the most have left, and the land is rented out.

I don’t want to think that the place I used to play when I was a child will one day become completely unrecognizable, but I will still put down the offerings and express my gratitude, because there must be life under the foundation, or some ancient things are still connected with my people, My grandmother. My elders always say that we must let go of the pain. Let me try. I can try to respect the new development or self-determination of my people, but I cannot respect it like the mint and willow trees I grow there. When I was a kid, I thought those things were singing to me.

“One day everyone will get a song,” Mom said.

I thought mine was coming soon, but the house was always chaotic, and there were many things weighing on us: mold on the wall, recent pests, work coming and going-my mother could have spent her whole life On a mountain, if no formula is needed, let us go to school and “do better”, which usually means whiter and farther from the land. Sometimes, I wonder how long she would live if she always had some cash. These struggling lives in my family are no exception, this is what makes me sad.

On the left is the writer’s grandmother Marion Bobb (middle) at St. George’s Boarding School in Canada; on the right: Marion Bobb with her husband and children [Photo courtesy of Terese Marie Mailhot]

The story of my birth is connected with things that have been violently uprooted. When I am in a good mood, my mother will tell me how to get off the school bus and go straight to the strawberry field, under the crabapple tree. When I think about the life cycle of strawberries, I am still a little girl in the sun. It starts with a crown—just like we get a club and a bowl. My children may never know such a day or their home country. I pulled them into a “better life”.

Green plum trees, raspberry shrubs, vines near the sweat hut built by my mother—the wild dogs that ran over 40 acres (16 hectares) of my house disappeared and were culled. Moreover, when I go home, I will not mourn like a smile, because my sister is still there, my niece is still there, the aunt and cousin who laughed and outraged are still there, and those women are still there, that’s enough. celebrate.

We may not have the land our grandmother wants: a utopia beyond colonization, but we have laughter—we have our jokes and stories. We will enjoy appetizers on the upscale land that was once India, and we will enjoy cocktails. The day after tomorrow we will go to the mountain, remember the women’s ceremonies we once participated in, touch the old tree where our mother prayed, we will cry, as far as I know, our women must be joking or offensive. The reason I love, the reason I understand the world, the woman in my hometown-because, for us, we all dream of this land and dream of having enough cash so that we can build a beautiful home. , And back to our grandmother’s place, where we can plant trees like hope-our babies can dream about strawberry crowns in the sun.

Seabird Island, the hometown of writers [Photo courtesy of Guyweeyo Mason]