Days of Shades

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Mom and I went to a talk about NW Native Food Culture. I'm really interested in native plants and habitat restoration, and mom's really interested in eating native plants, so we were looking forward to it. The talk was less about specifics than I expected and more about the principles behind it and how the speaker was working to incorporate them with her tribe, but that was still interesting. There're a lot of cool things going on locally, and the tribes are very quietly at the heart of a lot of them -- most of the big environmental restoration projects have significant tribal involvement, if not leadership. She talked about Food Sovereignty, which term was coined by farmers seeking dignity and right-to-live, but resonates with tribes (who deal with issues of sovereignty all the time) and nerds (who translate it into 'ability to live where you live after the zombies come).

One of the things she talked about was decolonialising food. Food colonialisation happens both indirectly and as a method of control (in much of the US, (she explained for her non north american readers) native tribes were forced onto reduced lands too small to subsist on, and the federal government graciously gave them copious 'supplies' -- of white flour and sugar. That gave rise to 'fry bread' and generations worth of health problems. That's control. The more indirect factor is pure availability -- she quoted an elder saying his 'hunting grounds were Albertson's.'

One of the things I really liked was when she brought that around to the Local Food movement. She was all in favor of the local food movement, but wanted to know why it was always about locally produced EUROPEAN foods. Good point! That's actually bothered me awhile, particularly because of where we live. The Pacific Northwest is extraoridinarily special in being one of the few environments on the planet where indigenous peoples could survive without relying on either nomadism, agriculture, or animal husbandry. The coast salish peoples were some of the only sedentary hunter gatherers going, because it was just so damn easy to eat here*. Obviously there's no way you could support the current huge population on the greatly decreased natural resources, but native foods should be an element of that type of thinking (and the more they are, the more people pay attention to restoration, etc etc).

ANYWAY.

Themes of decolonization and 'hey, pay attention to the tribes, we've lived here longer.'

The talk is finished. Questions are taken.

Now, one of my pet peeves is people who use Q&A periods to tell their own tangential all-about-them sharing-time stories. I try to tell myself they just don't have enough opportunity to share in their day-to-day lives, but I still generally wish they'd be tackled by ushers and hauled away.

One of the (supposed) question-takers, who'd already butted in once to talk about the Sustainable Thurston group** starts her totally-not-a-question with "Actually, you were right about controlled burns!"

Um.

"Actually, you're right" has to be about the rudest way of addressing a speaker short of being intentionally abrasive. Of course she's right! If she hadn't thought she was right, she wouldn't have said it. The native nutrition expert with the degree and the job history working with restorers AND the experiential wisdom of her elders doesn't need your validation, random white lady in the back row!

My normal desire to have such people tackled by ushers became a desire to throttle her, personally. And then her not-a-question took a left turn into how her mother had totally saved herself from permanent disability through alternative medecine, and how we should all grow comfrey and ignore doctors.

The speaker said salmon represented generosity of spirit for her tribe. I'm telling you, 'not throttling random white lady in the back row' was actually using a LOT of generosity of spirit. I was salmoning like mad. I may die tomorrow and have my eyes eaten by seagulls mmm yum.

But other than that, it was a good talk, and it made me more eager to plant Indian Plum. I've always liked it, but I didn't know you could eat the leaves! And I need to check on my huckleberries, too. I have five plants of two different species, and they're struggling to get established. I sooo cannot wait to be able to pick huckleberries in my yard. I also have starts for a fern -- don't remember the species off hand -- that is the kind you eat as fiddlehead ferns. Have to plant that, too!

*While I was researching this talk (it was at the library, and I was making the poster for it), I found out that one of the Coast Salish tribes has a somewhat derogatory word meaning 'beach food' -- food you can gather just by walking along the beach -- and there was a saying to the effect that only idiots and the very poor ate only beach food, just because it was so easy to get. It reminded me of my mother ranting about how Lewis and Clark almost starved during the winter they spent at the mouth of the Columbia. "HOW DO YOU STARVE AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA?!"

**In a grossly misleading fashion, incidentally. Non-Profit Orgs formed to create community plans are not 'deciding the food fate of the county in 2035.' They're painting a pretty picture, and then trying very hard to get anyone, anyone at all, to pay attention to it. There's a rather big difference, and the difference is called 'elected government,' 'private citizens', and 'who the fuck are you people and why do you think you can tell anyone what to do.'