Indigenous land acknowledgements in Oregon
In our September meeting of SURJ Springfield-Eugene, we were engaged as a chapter in developing Indigenous land acknowledgements. We were called to reflect individually and in community about the meaning and intent of Indigenous land acknowledgements and the importance of embodying the act by bearing witness to the truth of past, present, and future impacts of white settler colonialism. The process created discomfort — an unsettling of worry, sadness, defensiveness, and fear of making a mistake that we all need to work through in our antiracist work — that can lead to transformation and dismantling of oppressive colonialist practices.
“If we think of territorial acknowledgments as sites of potential disruption, they can be transformative acts that to some extent undo Indigenous erasure. I believe this is true as long as these acknowledgments discomfit both those speaking and hearing the words. The fact of Indigenous presence should force non-Indigenous peoples to confront their own place on these lands.” — Chelsea Vowel, Métis, Beyond Territorial Acknowledgements
White people are not native to the lands of what is now called the state of Oregon. And many White people in Oregon came and continue to come to enjoy the mountains, rivers, high deserts, valleys, and coasts of the state. It is comfortable for White people to bypass the history and presence of Indigenous people in Oregon most of the time. You can gamble at the casino without knowing the tribe who owns it. You can consume the salmon that are bred and run through the sacred rivers. In our antiracist work, we must open up to learning about and reconciling with the true history, enduring knowledge, and lives of peoples who care for this land. White people need to practice being in conversation with Indigenous knowledge that is sacred and alive today throughout Oregon.
To help in this process, there are excellent resources and guides gifted to White people by Indigenous people. The Native Governance Center’s Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement outlines a process that includes the following: self-reflection and grounding in intentionality and impact; doing our homework and research about the living history of the land including learning the correct terms and their pronunciation; using appropriate and accurate language about the history of genocide and forced removal that doesn’t minimize the past; use variation in verb tenses to welcome and speak to living and thriving Indigenous people; and finally, celebrating who and how Indigenous people are today.
There are many resources available online developed by Indigenous people and local tribes that provide education, history, and information on current activities in your area. Here are a few that may help you as you engage this process:
- Honor Native Land: A guide and call to acknowledgement (excellent youtube video)
- Territory Acknowledgement Generator and Map of Native Lands through Native Lands Digital: https://native-land.ca/resources/territory-acknowledgement/
- Map of Oregon’s Indigenous communities: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/land-acknowledgments/oregon
- What is Settler-Colonialism? by Learning for Justice
- U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s signature laureate project “Living Nations, Living Words: A Map of First Peoples Poetry,” which can be seen through the online collection in the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center.
Regarding “Living Nations, Living Words,” Joy Harjo states:
“For my signature project as the 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, I conceived the idea of mapping the U.S. with Native Nations poets and poems. I want this map to counter damaging false assumptions — that indigenous peoples of our country are often invisible or are not seen as human.”
Further description is given on the website:
“Each of the 47 Native Nations poets featured in ‘Living Nations, Living Words’ selected an original poem on the theme of place and displacement, and with four touchpoints in mind: visibility, persistence, resistance, and acknowledgment.
Each also chose where they wished to place themselves on this map.”
“In this map, you can begin anywhere.
Each location marker reveals a Native Nations poet and features an image, biography, and a link to hear the poet recite and comment on an original poem.”
We encourage you all to explore, listen to, and learn from these compelling projects.
Upon learning of the Indigenous communities local to you, you can access incredible interactive knowledge like the following that are shared by tribes where I live:
- Abundance: a digital storymap provided by the modern Tribal government of Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw
- Guidance on correct pronunciation of Coquille from the Coquille Tribe of Oregon
I moved to Oregon about a year ago, and I currently reside in the city of Coos Bay. As an offering to myself and others, a simple land acknowledgement that I will begin using when I am located in Coos Bay, Oregon is:
“I acknowledge that I am (we are) on the traditional land of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Tribes.”
My personal intention in stating this land acknowledgement is to educate myself and others about the living Indigenous local communities, to bear witness to the truth of the forced removal and reeducation that impacted Indigenous people, to let Indigenous people know that I see and honor them, and as a personal commitment to challenge and be part of dismantling the ongoing structural racism and white settler colonialism here in southwestern Oregon and throughout the world.
Tim and Carter are active members of SURJ Springfield-Eugene and also contributed Indigenous land acknowledgments.
Tim shared the following land acknowledgement with his students in a local public school on the Oregon Coast at the beginning of their school year:
“We are learning together on the homeland of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians of Oregon, consisting of Hanis Coos, Miluk Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw people of Oregon. Despite mistreatment in the form of false treaties, disease, war, forced relocation, imprisonment, and death, these tribes and their customs live on today. We honor their important legacies, and recognize their continued presence as we gather today to learn together on their homeland.”
Carter drafted the following Indigenous land acknowledgement for personal and public sharing:
I humbly acknowledge that I am a white woman occupying the traditional lands of the Kalapuya people. I humbly acknowledge that what I have called and loved as home for over 20 years, as a peaceful place to raise my two daughters, has been the traditional homeland of Native people for over 12,000 years. I am aware that I cannot know how many families the Kalapuya people raised here.
I further recognize this land was stolen from the Kalapuya and other Native people by white settlers and politicians through false treaties and violence. I acknowledge the grievous harm done to all Indigenous people of the land I call home — Oregon and North America — by attempted systemic erasure of their cultures and languages and their very lives through acts of bloodshed, war, and forced assimilation, including through the trauma and atrocities of the Indian Boarding Schools.
I acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous resilience despite and in defiance of these harms committed by the first white settlers and politicians, and by the current greed driven lobbyists and corporate executives who threaten land and water necessary to the Indigenous people, and to the survival of this Earth and all of her people. I commit myself to recognizing and supporting Indigenous resilience and leadership in defense of their rights and the rights of the land and water. I commit myself to centering the voices of the all Indigenous people, including the Kalapuya, who nurtured and cultivated this valley for thousands of years. This valley that I love is fundamentally beautiful because of them, because of the wisdom of their traditional kinship with all beings living here, and their traditional cultivation of the land.
The Kalapuya people are still here, and they will always be here. Even as I grieve the barbarity of what has been done by white people to Indigenous people, I am deeply grateful to be learning how to see and feel the truths of the history of this place. I am grateful for a chance to disrupt the assumptions of my own colonized mind, and to heal my own patterns of thinking and seeing, so that I can be grounded in solidarity with the original people of this land, for justice and for health and for meaningful community.
The #HonorNativeLand pledge is a commitment that individuals and organizations can sign onto through the US Department of Arts and Culture. The pledge reads:
As a step toward honoring the truth and achieving healing and reconciliation, our organization commits to open all public events and gatherings with a statement acknowledging the traditional Native lands on which we stand. Such statements become truly meaningful when coupled with authentic relationships and sustained commitment. We therefore commit to move beyond words into programs and actions that fully embody a commitment to Indigenous rights and cultural equity.
Indigenous land acknowledgements are a very small part of the disrupting and dismantling of colonial structures that is needed. As we acknowledge the land, we must also connect to our local Indigenous tribes and organizations to build relationships and support their work in any way we can.
-Kelli, SURJ Springfield-Eugene LTE/Messaging Committee
