I heard a friend ask, “aren’t indigenous people Canadian too?”

Well, if you pre-exist something, and that something was built out of your people’s bones, I’d say, not so much.

I’ll share here the powerful words of Melody Charlie, who I follow on instagram as @firstnationphotographer.

We’re not Canadians, we’re not Indians, we’re not Native, we’re not First Nations, we weren’t Aboriginals & we’re not even Indigenous, for we were born long before all those colonial blanketed terms. 

We are Ahousat, we are Kelsmaht & Yuuthluithaht. We are not Canadian & we were not born in Canada, it’s actually quite the contrary, Canada was born IN US and through genocide. 

This so called country that was born very intentionally through the deaths of so many nations, through the loss of various unique languages, through all those rich rituals ripped away & through the loss of lands that were our villages and are now your homes. 

So your country was born through murd€r, through rap€ & through those concentration ped0phil€ camps, which you call Residential Schools & we call HELL. Hell that Jesus was apparently sent to save us from through religion & those ‘schools’. Yet the only ones who were saved were those priests, nuns, rcmp + governments who were magically forgiven for their sins. Which I’m assuming that’s how one can mysteriously jump to Truth & Reconciliation without accountability (through sins that were forgiven?). 

But we weren’t the only ones that were brain washed in their school systems, you also were too, considering that you were probably taught that some white man discovered this land & these “Indians’. You can’t discover what already existed & newsflash, if you think you have nothing to do with us ‘Indians’ or our language, the word Canada derives from #kanata which is an Indigenous word meaning village. 

Before Canada decided to be known as a village, until 1982 July 1st, it was known as Dominion Day. What does dominion mean? To dominate, to control. Canada doesn’t want sovereign beings, they want control and not just of Indians, right now they are on the fast track to remove access to Natural Health Products. (Bill C-47, that’s a whole other post). 

So hold onto your natural medicines, pick your battles, for their system has always been smoke & mirrors intended to blind you, but when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change & wouldn’t you agree that this country needs continued change?

Melody Charlie, (@firstnationphotographer) via https://www.instagram.com/p/CuLs5bwLimd/