![]() ![]() This love is what researchers now call a “protective factor,” but we call it ancestral wisdom. We reawakened our connections to ancestors of the past and future because indigenous love never misses an opportunity to connect. Each time we passed food across the table, belly laughed at Uncle’s jokes, held grandma’s hand, helped wash the dishes and packed up leftovers we were sharing the intergenerational memory of decolonized love. Indigenous love doesn’t follow colonized laws, it presents opportunities to reindigenize. Thanksgiving was an easy adaptation because it offered a place to gather, share foods, teach traditions and pass along oral histories. But by creatively incorporating the colonized rules, our leaders, my elders, were able to keep some traditions alive–hibernating until it was safe to awake them. The United States outlawed our spirituality until the passage of The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. I am a Suquamish leader and scholar, and my journey has brought me to a place where I see how Natives have been intentionally, decolonizing Thanksgiving for centuries. We are together, wherever we are.Ĭonnecting liberation, joy and Thanksgiving may seem out of character for me. This week of Thanksgiving I am reflecting on how my liberation, my joy, my health is always tied to yours. Indigenous love grows from a place of compassion, an understanding that I concern myself with others, and they concern themselves with me. The ability to say I love you in Lushootseed, brings deeper warmth and nourishment to the vastness of love. Learning more of my ancestral language during this pandemic has been a powerful gift. ![]()
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