🌚 REQUESTED 🌚

Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine. Photo: Bill Roorbach

Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.

This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.

Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.

That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England. 

Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.

Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first. 

Sources:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire#Role_of_fire_by_natives

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_000385.pdf

http://www.sidalc.net/repdoc/A11604i/A11604i.pdf

For those curious I recommend reading Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. https://books.google.com/books/about/Changes_in_the_Land.html?id=AHclmuykdBQC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

O’ho. Our tribe used to do regular controlled burns in the brush in CA to prevent- guess what? Uncontrollable wildfires. (also it keeps the poison oak down and helps some plants propagate) And before yall panic these methods worked because they were sustainable. You can’t survive if you destroy your resources; tribes knew how to make sure they could come back to a harvest ground next year and harvest again. There was still plenty of wilderness and it was often healthier for a touch of human help here and there.  people used to be all over this continent. 

Just in case you guys didn’t know.

Me irl

J U A N is the almighty one

It happens every time

Wake up the next day for 2020 to resume

Holy fuck 💀

Ho appena appreso che al TG1 hanno chiamato il ragazzo “Cira” invece che “Ciro”, ok allora non c’è nemmeno il “dubbio dell’ignoranza”, è proprio transfobia voluta. Che bella l’Italia wow.

Non avevo visto il TG1, quindi credevo che si fossero limitati a riportare la notizia come hanno fatto altre testate, ovvero “omicidio nel napoletano, ragazza morta per colpa della sua relazione omosessuale”, che è sbagliatissimo, ma in cuor mio speravo davvero che fosse un errore di negligenza dovuto al “fare in fretta” e copiare quel che dicono altre testate (cosa che spessissimo succede, e non dovrebbe, ma a prescindere, non solo in questo caso).

Poi grazie a twitter ho visto il servizio, e non si sono limitati a “riportare una notizia”, ma hanno dedicato un paio di minuti alla vicenda. Sono rimasta scioccata, soprattutto quando ho sentito “Cira”, perché se si sono premurati addirittura di cambiare nome al ragazzo vuol dire che era transfobia voluta e premeditata, non transfobia dovuta alla negligenza e all’ignoranza. E che schifo, che schifo tutto, una ragazza è morta per colpa della transfobia di suo fratello, quindi questo non è solo un mancare di rispetto a Ciro, ma anche alla vittima.

Dear non-Jewish friends, The Jewish High Holy Days are coming up.  Please do not schedule meetings, parties, and events on the following dates:

Between Friday September 18th at sundown and Sunday September 20th at sundown in observance of Rosh Hashanah.

Between Sunday September 27th at sundown to Monday September 28th at sundown. in observance of Yom Kippur.

Between Friday, October 2nd at sundown and Sunday, October 4th at Sundown in honor of the first days of the Festival of Sukkot.

Between Friday, October 9th at sundown and October 11th at sundown in observance of the end of Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah.

Curious how to greet your Jewish loved ones throughout these holidays and festival?  (This is ESPECIALLY important this year because so many of us feel alone– wish your friends a happy holiday!)  Hebrew and English variations are all appropriate.

“Shana Tova!” (”Happy New Year!”) – especially appropriate on Rosh Hashanah, but appropriate throughout the High Holy Day season.

“l’Shana Tova u’metuka!” (”Have a sweet and happy new year!”)  Similar to the above, especially appropriate on Rosh Hashanah, but appropriate throughout the High Holy Day season.

“Chag Sameach” (“Happy Holiday”) – appropriate on Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah

“Have a Meaningful Day”  – appropriate for Yom Kippur

“Have an easy/meaningful fast”  – appropriate for Yom Kippur, but only if you know that the person is choosing to fast this year.  O

You know I love how so many people are like “respect boundaries respect consent” until it’s time to respect people w OCD who can’t shake hands or be touched or when an autistic person tells their family member they can’t give hugs or when a chronically ill person tells you “no I can’t do this thing” and you think “maybe if I just make them do it anyway it’ll make them stronger” or when a mentally ill person or someone who has been abused is like “I don’t want to be around this person/thing it’s triggering” and you get people guilting them to “just get over it”

If you’re about consent and boundaries, good, you should be, but remember to keep that energy when moms of autistic kids are like “I still hug my child even tho it makes them have panic attacks” or when someone’s like “yeah they said they don’t want to be around this person cause it’s “triggering” but I’m their friend so they should do it for me” or when a disabled person says they can’t go up the stairs and you’re begging them to “try anyway”

Don’t lose that mindset, or that energy when it’s time to respect the boundaries or consent of mentally ill and disabled people.

reminder that corporations don't care about you and they never will

The entirety of the Simpsons is literally on your shitty streaming service you fucking cunts

Anakin murdering toddlers is also on their piece of shit service