Under the baobab: Thankful for the many contributions of indigenous people

“I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn’t; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it.” — “Grace” by Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate

Happy Indigenous People Month.

There are many who prefer to think of this season as Thanksgiving, when Pilgrim and Wampanoag people gathered around a celebratory feast. As we will do, hopefully. This year those of us still here certainly have more to be grateful for than we did last year. The Pilgrims with Squanto’s assistance had survived for a year.

At its genesis, Thanksgiving was a contradiction. The Wampanoag people and their ancestors had been surviving for 15,000 years. They had learned how to live with the land not just on the land. The Pilgrims demonstrated their gratitude by annihilating their saviors. Today less than a third of one percent of the population of Massachusetts identifies as natives of any tribe.

Indigenous peoples’ contribution to our nation goes beyond Thanksgiving. There are indigenous peoples’ origins to many fundamental ideas that are embedded in the U.S. Constitution, such as: sovereignty resting in the people instead of the king, separation of powers and federalist organization. These principles were first articulated by the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Established by the Great Peacemaker around 1142, it is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth.

The country has attempted to correct its past mistakes. Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo People, is the first indigenous American to run the Department of the Interior, the federal agency that governs U.S. policy with regard to native tribes and nations. Commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day, President Joe Biden said:

“Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures — safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations. On Indigenous Peoples Day, our nation celebrates the invaluable contributions and resilience of indigenous peoples, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations.

Our country was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people — a promise that, despite the extraordinary progress we have made through the years, we have never fully lived up to. That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began. ... We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon native communities and tribal nations throughout our country. Today, we acknowledge the significant sacrifices made by native peoples to this country — and recognize their many ongoing contributions to our nation.”

Penn State was built on lands originally occupied by indigenous peoples. The university acknowledges this in many of its official documents:

“The Pennsylvania State University campuses are located on the original homelands of the Erie, Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora), Lenape (Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe, Stockbridge-Munsee), Shawnee (Absentee, Eastern, and Oklahoma), Susquehannock, and Wahzhazhe (Osage) Nations. As a land grant institution, we acknowledge and honor the traditional caretakers of these lands and strive to understand and model their responsible stewardship. We also acknowledge the longer history of these lands and our place in that history.”

Since 2003, professor John Sanchez, a member of the Apache people, and his wife Victoria have organized New Faces of an Ancient People, an annual Pow-Wow, which exposes authentic indigenous cultures to the community. As we walk into the new spring thaw, we hope we will see a larger and more just society.