1. Why is important to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with other-than-human people (as referenced in Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter) today, where capitalism is the norm?
1A: The capitalist norm in colonized regions makes reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationships all the more important. When humans commodify every piece of the earth, when we manipulate plants, animals, and the land to best fit our needs and increase production we lose an appreciation for the work that went into growing and forming those resources. We lose the connection that makes other-than-human-people people. We obtain life from the Earth and it is important to give life back to the earth. This is well exemplified in a letter “allegedly” written by Chief Seattle to President Franklin Pierce in 1855 which quotes the Chief as writing, “How can you buy or sell the sky— the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water.” Letters and speeches such as this one are controversial due to a lack of primary documentation. Even so, these words by Chief Seattle exemplify the reciprocal relationship between human and other-than-human that capitalism challenges. In the commodification of earth’s natural elements humans lose direct contact with the resources that feed us and power our homes. Therefore, the capitalist system itself
2. How does improving each of our individual relationships with two-spirit and queer peoples help to better affirm the living presence and importance of Indigenous communities?
2A: In Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Justice spoke about becoming better relatives to all people, pointing out LBGTQ+ communities in particular as an important point of acceptance. Affirming a reciprocal relationship with queer and two-spirit peoples goes hand in hand with discussions about which actions attempt to exterminate Indigenous communities/cultures, and which actions uphold Indigenous communities and cultures as being present, still evolving, and still looking to the future. In Justice's Chapter 2: How Do We Behave As Good Relatives? he takes from Billy Ray Belcourt's poem 'Sacred' to describe a Native man who would not hold the hand of an LBGTQ+ person in an unbroken circle, thereby breaking the meaning of the circle's unity. I find this to be similar to Tommy Picco's Nature Poem when Picco describes two women unintentionally degrading the existence of Indigenous communities as a whole, a point that served to emphasize that if you treat people as if they are unreal or historical it is hard to live your life for the future. The man in Belcourt's poem takes the same stance as these women, breaking the unity to tell his kin that they are not real, not worthy of being a part of the ceremony, and furthering an argument for why it is essential to break apart from the Euro-Western standards that define what makes a person real enough to exist. Every person on the Earth exists and is worthy of being a part of the whole, this knowledge is one step closer toward affirming the future of every culture.
References
Clark, Jerry L. “Thus Spoke Chief Seattle: The Story of An Undocumented Speech.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 1985, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1985/spring/chief-seattle.html#F3.
Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018.
Pico, Tommy. Nature Poem. Tin House Books, 2017.
An anonymous student contribution.