Z E X E L A N T

Happy Control Panel Saturday, with a tiny frontal lobe control room from Roger Dean’s 1973 cover art for Gold the Man, by Joseph Green!

Jugoonaut

This weird plant can use its strong viscous stomach acid as limbs to attack its prey. After just one touch, even if the prey escapes the acidic goo will still spread and dissolve it completely. The Jugoonaut will then leisurely find the now nutrition filled goo and reabsorb it.

Okay I had this half-finished lying around so I prettied it up into something vaguely usable and added links wherever possible (most of them being totally legal...)

This is not a full treatment of Indigenous history before European contact. It was originally created to be a 15 week class, so it was not intended to cover everything but to give a taste of various regions and histories. Unfortunately, certain essays I would highly recommend are in the Oxford handbooks I listed at the end, and I have been unable to locate free-to-access versions.

Each section includes a question to consider that is intended to suggest ways that these precolonial histories have reverberations into the present. In a course I'd be able to draw them out more clearly, but keep them in mind as you read, if you like. Finally, please keep in mind that few of these sources will read like a "straightforward history" of "precolonial [xyz region/tribe/nation]." Be open-minded and critical-thinking!

Part 1: Foundations

Questions to consider:

Why didn't we learn this stuff?

Why should we learn this stuff?

Why do so many Indigenous people distrust historians / anthropologists / archaeologists?

Readings:

Michael Witgen (Red Cliff Ojibwe), "American Indians in World History" in The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History

Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), Custer Died For Your Sins, chapter 4: "Anthropologists and Other Friends"

Floyd Westerman (Sisseton Dakota), "Here Come the Anthros" (music video!!)

Juliana Barr, "There's no such thing as prehistory"

Peregrine and Lekson, "The North American Oikumene"

(Parts 2-6 under the cut)

The Arctic

Question to consider: Why is Nunavut the only province or territory in Canada where an Indigenous language is the majority language?

Max Friesen, Pan-Arctic Population Movements: The Early Paleo-Inuit and Thule Inuit Migrations

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (Inuit), 5000 Years of Inuit History and Heritage

Pacific Coast

Question to consider: What historical qualities caused the Pacific Northwest Coast to inspire Franz Boaz to develop the theory of cultural relativism?

Kenneth Ames, The Northwest Coast

^“At the bottom of the image is the segment of the flag cut for the St. Patrick’s Cathedral protest. Photograph by Mick Hicks”

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.