Fault Lines

On May 22nd, members of the Tsawout (SȾÁUTW) nation, with support from the Songhees and the other local WSÁNEĆ nations, including Tsartlip (WJOȽEȽP), Pauquachin (BOḰEĆEN), Tseycum (WSIKEM), Malahat (MÁLEXEȽ) and allied supporters from the Greater Victoria community, will lead an action to reclaim the original name of PKOLS, now known as Mount Douglas, in what is now known as Victoria, in what is now known as British Columbia.

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Reinstating Indigenous presence is not just happening in rural areas. This winter, theOgimaa Mikana Project emerged as an effort to restore Anishinaabemowin place names to the streets, avenues, roads, paths, and trails of Chi Engikiiwang/Tkaranto/Toronto. A small section of Queen Street was renamed Ogimaa Mikana (Leader’s Trail) in tribute to all the strong women leaders of the Idle No More movement. Another street sign was installed along Spadina Avenue, restoring the name Ishpadinaa, meaning a hill in Anishinaabemowin.

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The dispossession and removal of Indigenous Peoples from our homelands so that these homelands can be exploited for large-scale natural resource development is the end goal of Canadian colonialism whether it’s 1876 or 2013. Building a strong, connected Indigenous Nationhood Movement rests on reclaiming the lands and sacred sites we have been removed from. It involves using the original names of these places, not symbolically or as an act of semantics, but as a mechanism for reconnecting our peoples to the land, our histories and our cultures. At the core, our responsibilities to our homelands, whether they are urban or rural, require a substantial number of us to inhabit them, to maintain relationships with their features and to pass that presence down to our children and grandchildren.

Link.

This is happening today.