Nov 3, 2020
In Mojave thinking, body and land are the same. The words are separated only by letters: ’iimat for body, ’amat for land. In conversation, we often use a shortened form for each: mat-. Unless you know the context of a conversation, you might not know if we are speaking about our body or our land. You might not know which has been injured, which is remembering, which is alive, which was dreamed, which needs care, which has vanished.
If I say, My river is disappearing, do I also mean, My people are disappearing?
—Natalie Diaz, from “The First Water Is the Body,” Postcolonial Love Poem
