Nov 24, 20223 min read

National Day of Mourning: A Meditation on Maps

Updated: Feb 26, 2024

National Day of Mourning has been observed since 1970 on the day of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Important aspects of its observance include:

Acknowledging the historical and contemporary injustices, inequities, and forms of violence faced by Native American and Indigenous American peoples as European settlers took their native lands by force.
Creating space for Native American and the U.S. Indigenous peoples to not only grieve & honor millions of ancestors lost to colonial genocide, but also to mourn the destruction that colonization has caused to traditional languages, cultures, and ancestral homes.
Education efforts that build awareness about Native American and Indigenous histories while dispelling the mythology of the mainstream Thanksgiving story.

Today, we encourage you to spend some time learning more about the Native and Indigenous lands on which you live. We’ll use maps as a starting point. This can be a great activity to explore with friends and family!

Mapping is not neutral.

Maps play a large part in shaping how we understand the world, as well as in colonization. They are often embedded with stories about power, or are used by those in power to control the narrative about a place.
When the map of a given place is drawn, we should always pay attention to what and who is included or excluded, and by whom.
For many Native + Indigenous groups, mapping is a powerful decolonial tool for reclaiming their history, narrative, and land.

Indigenous and Native Peoples called this land home first.

Using the map available at https://native-land.ca/, find out more about the Indigenous lands of the place you live.
What Native and Indigenous peoples have lived where you live? What can you learn about them? What languages were spoken here?
Who is on this land now? What languages are spoken here now?

How does this map reveal colonial histories?

Look at the treaties that impacted the land you are on. How did rights transfer and when? Through what means?
How reliable is the information? Is it written by Native peoples? A historian? Scholar?
Note that Native and Indigenous peoples may not be recognized as historians or scholars, but are experts, knowledge holders, and producers of their lands.
Was it difficult to access reliable information? Why might that be the case?

What is colonization?

Colonization is the process by which the indigenous inhabitants of a given territory are not only dispossessed of their land by another non-native group through settlement and/or by force, but also systematically disadvantaged in order to privilege the dominant settler group.
Colonization can both pressurize assimilation to the dominant group's practices and displace or eradicate entire indigenous populations en masse.

What other significant Native and Indigenous spaces exist near you?

Visit Indigenous Vision's Justice Map.
Read about significant places, Native and Indigenous-owned businesses, environmental injustices, historical site corrections, and local violence against Native or Indigenous people near your home, school or workplace.

Continue to remember.

Identify more that you'd like to learn about the Indigenous and Native peoples and histories near you.
Make a commitment to both reflect on and share what you have learned, and correct misinformation when you encounter it.
We challenge you to start today as part of the ongoing collective work we need to do in order to address the struggles faced by Native and Indigenous Americans in the past and present.

Note: When referring to the peoples who inhabited a given place before the arrival of others from other parts of the world or their descendants, implement the terminology used by members of that community (some may prefer American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native), and use the specific tribal name you are referring to whenever possible (i.e. Seminole, Kanaka Maoli, Athabascan, Dinè, Cree, etc).

Sources:

#RaceAndEthnicity #InclusionAndBelonging #CrossCulturalAwareness