Sunday, December 7, 2008







These three videos are videos of the annual canoe journey that is held by the North Western American tribes. These canoe journeys are set up annually for Native Americans to come together with different tribes and share their culture with one another. Each year one North Western tribe host the event and the other tribes get in a canoe and travel up the coast to visit all the tribes until they all reach the host tribe. In relation to lococentrism, each indigenous tribe gets to visit one another and share the traditions and cultures with other indigenous tribes. Not only does this let Native Americans learn about the surrounding tribes, but it also creates an awareness to who they are and how they can share their home with others.

In the first two videos, it shows science coming together in collaboration with indigenous peoples. Throughout the canoe journey, scientist hang water probes to find out different things about the lakes and coasts. One thing that I found VERY interesting in the second video is when one of the indigenous people comments on the scientific results. Charles O'Hara,Swinomish Tribal Leader, said "If you talk to some of the elders we will tell you we know what this is, but you never ask us." This goes to prove what Prof. Pena says in his lecture about Tradition Ecological Knowledge. In these two vidoes not only do scientist learn about the surrounding waters, but they are now realizing the importance of indigenous knowledge.

Finally, these journeys serve more than just awareness of culture. These canoe journeys also serve as a buffer to historical trauma like in Karina Walters piece that we read early on in the quarter. These journeys are mostly comprised of youth and for these youth to go on these journey they must have had to stay off of drugs for a whole year. One participant commented on her journey this year.

"man jouneys helped me out a lot..
and helped me get more into my culture.
Helped my open my eyes on life..
helped me get to know more people
gives me the strength when i need it
it doesnt only help me it helps others too
it brings people together as a one big communtity
and to take a break and slow down on the outside world"- anonymous participant

-Adrian Cepeda

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