A Native Community Preserves its Food Traditions

Members of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation are keeping #TraditionalFoodways alive in the face of #ClimateChange and human impact.

By Allie Hostler
November 21, 2017

Excerpt: "Changes in tribal food systems and lifeways began in 1853 as the #CaliforniaGoldRush brought a mass incursion of #WhiteSettlers. Making way for the newcomers and addressing the '#IndianProblem,' California paid a bounty for Indian scalps, which proved to be more lucrative than panning gold. The first session of the California State Legislature passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in 1850, which legalized removing Natives from their land and separating Native families.

"Ceremonies were ambushed and villages were burned. In 1856, the U.S. government forcibly removed 1,834 #Tolowa to coastal concentration camps. By 1910, like many California tribes, the Tolowa population had dwindled—from more than 10,000 to just 504. Despite the 14th Amendment, the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was not fully repealed until 1937.

"Relying on the knowledge held by the few families refusing to give up their traditional ways, the Tolowa persevered.

" 'My family managed to hold tight to our food, language, ceremony, songs, beliefs, and protocols,' says Jones. 'We fought to keep connected. We purposefully protected and passed along this way of being so it didn’t die.' "

Read more:
https://civileats.com/2017/11/21/a-native-community-preserves-its-food-traditions/

#SolarPunkSunday
#IndigenousFoodSovereignty
#TraditionalFoods #FoodSovereignty #Foodsecurity #IndigenousAgriculture #TolowaDeeni’ #AnimalProducts #IndigenousFoodSecurity #IndigenousFoodSystems #LandBack
#Reclaiming #Decolonize #CulturalErasure #Genocide #CulturalSurvival

From 2021:

#NativeAmerican tribe in #Maine buys back island taken 160 years ago

The #Passamaquoddy’s purchase of #PineIsland for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘#LandBack’ campaigns for #IndigenousPeoples in the US

by Alice Hutton
Fri 4 Jun 2021

"The advert painted an idyllic picture of White’s Island.

"For $449,000 you could buy 143 acres of forests with sweeping views of the rugged shoreline of Big Lake in Maine, on the east coast of the United States. “[It’s] a unique property … steeped in history … with only two owners in the last 95 years,” wrote the real estate agent from privateislandsonline.com.

"In fact, #KuwesuwiMonihq, or #PineIsland, is its original name, and it technically has just one true 'caretaker'; the Passamaquoddy: a small tribe of 3,700 Native Americans who had lived there for at least 10,000 years.

"It’s a spiritually important place for the tribe, filled with graves from devastating #smallpox, #cholera and #measles outbreaks caused by #WhiteSettlers.

"In 1794 it was officially granted to the tribe by Massachusetts for their service during the revolutionary war. But after 1820, when Maine became its own state, colonialists changed its title, voiding the treaty. In the 1851 census there were 20 Passamaquoddy living there, in 1861 there were none.

"By 2021, they had not only lost all but 130,000 acres of their original 3m. They hadn’t stepped foot on Pine Island in 160 years.

“'The land was stolen from us and it’s been every chief’s goal ever since to return it,' said chief William Nicholas, 51, leader of the tribe’s Indian township reservation for the last 11 years, who spotted the advert on a shop noticeboard on 4 July last year.

"In March, with a grant from conservation charities, the tribe raised $355,000, and finally bought the island back."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/native-american-tribe-maine-buys-back-pine-island
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/native-american-tribe-maine-buys-back-pine-island

#PassamaquoddyTribe #Wabanaki #MaineTribes #IndigenousPeople #FirstNations