Racism allowed the ancient wisdoms to be destroyed!
Indigenous Epistemology is based on Holism; Cosmology, Astronomy, Epigenetic , Environment, A finite planet, the Currents of the water, Agriculture, Medicine, Spiritual wellness, Emotional wellbeing Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Governance, Commerce and so much more.
The culture of Europe, not seeing beyond their Eurocentric perspective, thought of this knowing as garbage; they didn’t understand. The hugest book burning, without books happened. Retrieval has been long and difficult. We await science to catch up.
We laugh, we cry, we bead, we tell stories. Our stories are what make and break us, we keep showing up, we invite you to hear. Stories not told, or seen or imagined; stories buried, dismissed and unheard. Come, we will have tea and I will tell you a story.
Our ancestors would bead, touching the beads one by one and tell stories. We then had a visual representation to our existence .
When I tell stories, I bead. I pay attention to rhythm, colour, shape , form and design. This way you can hear my story and not my gut wrenching pain.
People Treated as Garbage.
Storyteller and Beader Selma Mekanak
Visual Artist and Audio. Zoee Maxwell
Video and Technical support. Steve Haigh
What devastating stories and harms, while your beading and voice are mesmerizing. Thank you for these intimate moments, it adds to the other stories here, as together they are part of building larger narratives.