This document was created in July 2022 by Healing Roots elders and apprentices after discussion on how to develop a land acknowledgment. We realized that this topic brings up the life-long developmental work that is needed to better understand our history, connect with the land we are living on, develop relationships with indigenous people, and participate in actions that will lead to healing and a healthy society and earth.
Questions for Reflection in Order to Be in a Position to Write a Land Acknowledgment
You may want to consider both questions that will help you to prepare for the work of land acknowledgement, and questions you might actually address in a land acknowledgement. Think about land acknowledgement as a step in an on-going process of reparation.
How do you live with/walk with these questions? How do you sit with not-knowing? What emotions are evoked as you work with these questions?
Understanding history/seeing the past in our present
- What is the history of the land I am on before colonization?
- What is the history of the interaction between settlers and Native communities in my area?
- What is the treaty history of my area? What are the treaty obligations? In what ways have they not been upheld? How were the treaties put into place (e.g., manipulation)? What were assumptions implicit in the treaties? How do I continue to perpetuate these assumptions?
- What is the history of relocation?
- What is the history (and current experience) of other atrocities, like the boarding school system?
- What was the history of the reservation system?
- What is the history of Western laws and concepts concerning land and human’s relationship to land? How has this history interfaced with the cultural understandings of indigenous peoples?
- What original place names am I aware of? How many names of roads, parks, rivers, towns in my area are Native in origin?
- What do I/we know about international law and how it supports or does not support these treaties? What does sovereignty mean in this legal context?
- If I am representing an organization: What is my organization’s relationship to this history and community?
Reparations/Action
- What do sovereignty and reparation movements look like in my area? What are the priorities for change in Native communities?
- What are the efforts to make reparations in your area or region? Visit makoceikikcupi
- In what ways could I or my organization contribute?
- Have I considered paying land tax to the Native community in my area?
- What do we know about how land return has been implemented and envisioned by tribal communities in my/our area?
- Our modern idea of land ownership is relatively recent. What structures need to change in order to create a broader understanding of common land as a way to shift our understanding of land ownership?
- What skills and tools do we need in this transition?
- Are there place names that should be changed?
- What are the next steps I’m/we’re taking? How does a land acknowledgement fit into the action we’re taking as an institution?
Personal
- What is my purpose/intention in doing a land acknowledgement (e.g., as a truth-telling to increase awareness, challenging policy, taking action)?
- How do I or my family come to be in this place? What is my family’s origin story?
- What is my personal relationship with the land I am on? For instance, do I know the native plants and animals?
- Do I know or have I made an effort to know any of the Native peoples in my area and what their priorities are? What are ways I can learn about this?
- What does sovereignty mean to me? In my own cultural history, what were the understandings of sovereignty and our relationship to land?
- In our modern society, the idea of ownership influences our relationship to the land. How does “ownership” interfere with understanding other ways of being in relationship (including extra-sensory and spiritual)?
- What do I want to do differently in my day as a result? What difference does it make if I wonder? If I know?
- What resources (including those from my own cultural roots) support me in this?
- How does a land acknowledgement acknowledge the spiritual beliefs of the Native peoples of my area (e.g., spirits of the land and ancestors)? How does it connect with my own spiritual beliefs?
- How will my/our next land acknowledgement be different, based on what I/we have learned?