Considering Ultimate Questions from an Indigenous Perspective
One of my readings before a weekend workshop in 2016 with Steff Armstrong
Conference presentation by Hannah Rachel Bell
http://www.hannahrachelbell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ultimate_questions_dialogue.pdf
Excerpt - Creatures of the Littoral Zone - "The Chosen Ones"
"I said earlier that when there is a tough question I look to Nature. In seeking to answer this question about Absolute Truth, I went for a walk around the base of some cliffs, sat on a dry rock and took in the pounding sea.
Distracted from my ultimate question, I started to notice that once the wave hit, it ran up over the rocks to replenish the myriad of rock pools. As the tide retreated, these were left high and dry. On closer inspection into these pools I discovered so many life forms whose very existence depended on the tidal cycle of dry, wet, dry, wet. They could not survive if they were higher up the cliff on permanently dry land, and neither could they survive in the deep ocean.
They were creatures of the littoral zone, the inter-tidal of both land and sea – sometimes land, sometimes sea – but not actually, fully belonging to either.
Their belonging place is wholly and discretely this littoral that has its own distinct character ("The Chosen Ones")
The coastal littoral made me think of Aboriginal friends who, for various historical reasons, no longer live traditional, tribal lifestyles. Yet neither do they live traditional European or Settler lifestyles. Generally they are expected to live or learn to live fully in Western society, and to develop the necessary beliefs, values and competencies to do so.
It’s as if they must leave their culture and their spirits at the school gate to become anonymously quasi-whites. But it doesn’t work. They can’t un-be what and who they are and survive. Like the creatures in the coastal rock pools, the barnacles, star fish, limpets, hermit crabs, mussels, periwinkles, snails, or the turtles, frogs, ducks, snails and beetles of the freshwater lake littoral, my friends are of at least two cultural ancestries, histories and societies from which they draw different elements to survive and thrive. I now call this inter-cultural space, the ‘cultural littoral’.
Nature delivered a different, creative, fertile alternative to having to settle for black or white, this or that, right or left. After discussing the concept of a cultural littoral with academic Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, he quipped, “Maybe we should be teaching ‘littoracy’ as well as literacy!"
Conference presentation by Hannah Rachel Bell
http://www.hannahrachelbell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ultimate_questions_dialogue.pdf
Excerpt - Creatures of the Littoral Zone - "The Chosen Ones"
"I said earlier that when there is a tough question I look to Nature. In seeking to answer this question about Absolute Truth, I went for a walk around the base of some cliffs, sat on a dry rock and took in the pounding sea.
Distracted from my ultimate question, I started to notice that once the wave hit, it ran up over the rocks to replenish the myriad of rock pools. As the tide retreated, these were left high and dry. On closer inspection into these pools I discovered so many life forms whose very existence depended on the tidal cycle of dry, wet, dry, wet. They could not survive if they were higher up the cliff on permanently dry land, and neither could they survive in the deep ocean.
They were creatures of the littoral zone, the inter-tidal of both land and sea – sometimes land, sometimes sea – but not actually, fully belonging to either.
Their belonging place is wholly and discretely this littoral that has its own distinct character ("The Chosen Ones")
The coastal littoral made me think of Aboriginal friends who, for various historical reasons, no longer live traditional, tribal lifestyles. Yet neither do they live traditional European or Settler lifestyles. Generally they are expected to live or learn to live fully in Western society, and to develop the necessary beliefs, values and competencies to do so.
It’s as if they must leave their culture and their spirits at the school gate to become anonymously quasi-whites. But it doesn’t work. They can’t un-be what and who they are and survive. Like the creatures in the coastal rock pools, the barnacles, star fish, limpets, hermit crabs, mussels, periwinkles, snails, or the turtles, frogs, ducks, snails and beetles of the freshwater lake littoral, my friends are of at least two cultural ancestries, histories and societies from which they draw different elements to survive and thrive. I now call this inter-cultural space, the ‘cultural littoral’.
Nature delivered a different, creative, fertile alternative to having to settle for black or white, this or that, right or left. After discussing the concept of a cultural littoral with academic Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, he quipped, “Maybe we should be teaching ‘littoracy’ as well as literacy!"
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