Preface
Since the beginning of creation, the people of Turtle Island (what others call North America) have always respected the land they live on, the water that flows through it and all living beings because those are the very things that sustain us. Indigenous people all over the world have always had a connection to our Earth Mother. Because she is Sacred. Because she gives us life.
The authors of this textbook want to remind everyone of the importance of commemorating Indigenous people’s principle kinship to the land that we gather, teach and reside on.
Loyalist College would like to acknowledge that the land on which they gather is the traditional territory of the Wendat, Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosaunee Peoples and directly adjacent to the Kanien’keha:ka
The Importance of Land Acknowledgements
Kimmerer (2013) “To the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, our connection to the ancestors, the home of non-human kinfolk, our pharmacy, our grocery store, our library, the source of everything that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold. (p. 17)”
The elders tell us that all four colours of man have a responsibility to take care of the land because the soil that we walk on has become the earth in which their ancestors have also been laid to rest. They have now become a part of this Sacred land. We take care of it, not for ourselves but for our future generations. For our children and their children’s children.
