Video: The Impact of God is Red on Religion, Land, and the Environment

Full Transcript: 

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: God is Red 50th anniversary symposium, the impact of God is Red on Studies of Religion, Land, and the Environment. October 7th, 2022.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Hello, everyone. Greetings! I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that we are meeting and gathering here upon the traditional land of the Massachusetts and to honor their heritage, their continued presence, and pray for their flourishing. My name is Kimberley Patton. I am a historian of religion. I focus on religions of the ancient Mediterranean, but I also teach in comparative religion. And it's been a joy to see this wonderful conference that Ann and colleagues have lifted up and allowed us to gather to discuss these burning and important questions in the history of our country, especially at this particular time.

The title of our session today is the Impact of God is Red on Studies of Religion, Land, and the Environment. And this is all ready. We've heard a thread and a theme that has really suffused much of our work together, many of the conversations. Part of that is-- the powerful is due in part to the powerful critique that Vine Deloria Jr. offers in the book when he considers the powerful differences between Christianity and tribal religions.

He diagnoses, "when we consider that the Genesis account places, nature, and nonhuman life systems in a polarity with us, tinged with evil and without hope of redemption except at the last judgment, the whole idea appears intolerable." And in response to that, in antidote to that, he speaks eloquently, not only in chapter 5, entitled The Problem of Creation but throughout God is Red of just to name one dimension. He lifts up the kinship between animals reptiles, birds, and human beings, other living things, which as he says eloquently, "are not regarded as insensitive species. Rather they are people in the same manner as the various tribes of human beings are people."

He cites, "Young Chief, a Cayuse, who refused to sign the Treaty of Walla Walla" because he felt citing Deloria, "the rest of creation was not represented in the transaction. And young chief said, "I wonder if the ground has anything to say? I wonder if the ground is listening to what is said. I wonder if the ground would come alive and what is on it?"

I am honored today to introduce our speaker and our respondent. Our speaker is Professor Susan Hill. She is a citizen of the Mohawk Nation, a member of the Wolf Clan, and lives with her family at Six Nations of the Grand River. She's an associate professor at the University of Toronto holding a joint appointment with the Department of History and the Center for Indigenous studies where she's also the current director.

And prior to that, she taught at Western University and at Wilfrid Laurier University. A Professor Hill's research interests include Haudenosaunee history, Indigenous research methodologies and ethics, and Indigenous territoriality with themes that benefit Indigenous communities while expanding academic understandings of Indigenous thought and philosophy.

She's particularly interested in Haudenosaunee knowledge and thought, seeking to make sense of contemporary lives through an examination of how people got to where they are now both literally and figuratively. And her 2017 book, The Clay We Are Made Of: Haudenosaunee Land Tenure on the Grand River was published by the University of Manitoba press. It addresses these themes and it won a number of awards, including Best First Book and awarded by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. As well as the Aboriginal History Group Prize and in the Canadian Historical Association. So we're just delighted and honored to have you here to offer this reflection today, Professor Hill.

Responding is Dr. Zoe Todd, who is Red River Métis. She's a practice-led artist-researcher who studies the relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish futures in Canada. As a métis anthropologist and researcher-artist, Dr. Todd combines dynamic social science and humanities research and research-creation approaches including ethnography, archival research, oral testimony, and experimental artistic research practices within a framework of Indigenous philosophy to elucidate new ways to study and to support the complex relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish well-being in Canada today.

They are a co-founder of the Institute for Freshwater Fish Futures which is a collaborative Indigenous-led initiative that is restor(y)ing fish futures together across three continents. They're also a co-founder of the Indigenous Environmental Knowledge Institute at Carleton University. Dr. Todd was a 2018 Yale presidential visiting fellow. And in 2020, they were elected to the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars.

Currently, Dr. Todd is associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. We're delighted to have both professors Hill and Professor Todd joining us today in our important discussion on religion, land, and the environment. And the impact of the still productive and still powerfully consequential God is Red. Thank you so much, Professor Hill.

[APPLAUSE]

SUSAN HILL: [SPEAKS IN CAYUGA]

I'm really honored to have this opportunity to share the stage today and to have the chance to talk with so many amazing thinkers. It's been a while. I think lots of us have been pretty isolated. And we get to have conversations but only through Zoom. I'm grateful though for the Zoom because we are still able to have people join us who can't physically be with us. So I'm very grateful for that. I appreciate the really kind introduction.

I do want to say that when I greeted you-- and the language I was using was the Cayuga language and I am a Mohawk but my community of Grand River is the only place left in the world where the Cayuga language is spoken, so I am not a good language learner. But I continue to try. Yeah, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to learn. And my daughter is in Cayuga immersion school. So I'm hopeful that our future generations will be able to perpetuate that language.

COVID's been hard in regards to Cayuga in particular. We lost 20% of our first language speakers in a month and a half actually. It was just before or just as the vaccines were rolling out. Yes, it's been tough. But we have our directions. And last night for folks who were here, I asked for marching orders. Because that's what we always get, right? And it was really great to get some of those marching orders from Suzanne, to be reminded of those things, right? And it's all those things that we've inherited.

And whoever the current old people are, they have that right and that responsibility to direct. So I still have a while before I'm there, but-- although I fully admit, I do give lots of marching orders to others. And in our jobs in the academy, we get that privilege as well. So yeah, I wanted to give that background. I actually did a title for my remarks that I called the Timelessness of Vine Deloria Jr. Through the lens of God is Red.

I will tell you that God is Red is not my favorite Vine Deloria Jr. text. Partly because I don't understand all of the religion conversation, particularly the Christian conversation. I was raised as a Christian in idea but not in function and certainly not in the philosophy of it. I think most people who grew up in the States and Canada are certainly raised in a sort of Christian-- it's their Christian states, right? Regardless of how active one's family might be, you know, we go to school Monday to Friday. We don't go to school on Sundays and we all know why.

The winter holiday is Christmas. We get Good Friday and Easter off. Yeah, that's not-- we live in Christian states regardless of what those states might want to tell you about their secularism. But because of my lack of knowledge of biblical philosophy, I've always struggled with the text. To be honest, though, I make my grad students read it.

[LAUGHTER]

Because to me, one of the greatest things it offers us is that questioning and that push to think more. And my own academic training has come from people who had that idea that it was their job to encourage, particularly graduate students but undergrads as well, to become thinkers. Not to tell you what to think but to teach you how to think. And to push you to do that thinking. And even the how, right? Isn't necessarily-- there's no standard for that. But it's that encouragement to think. So yes, with that, there's that sort of my own tensions with the text as a layout.

Now I'll also tell you, I am not a scholar of religion, which I think you've already figured out. And I'm not technically a scholar of land or environment either. But I deal with those topics extensively as an Indigenous studies scholar. Because honestly, I don't believe you can be an effective Indigenous studies scholar without taking up those topics in some form. We all have our own particular specialties within that broader category but you've got to know something about all of them.

In particular, you have to know something about all of them in terms of how they affect Indigenous people's past, present, and future. If you're going to be good at what you do. I'll also tell you that as a Haudenosaunee woman, these topics are part of my everyday life, whether I call it that or not. And they're part of my responsibilities to the future generations. And while I've done very well in my career, let's face it, in the end of my days, it's not going to be about what I did at whatever university I worked at. It's going to be about particularly what my kids are able to do because of how I enacted my responsibilities.

So with that, I wanted to start with some general ideas about God is Red as an Indigenous studies text and about Indigenous studies in general. So obviously, it's, in my mind, a critical text of Indigenous studies, both in the United States and Canada. I'm not so sure what it has to say about Indigenous studies in Australia yet. I'm sure there's some good stuff though because they're still dealing with the settler state realities but it's going to be a bit different. But it gives us the tools to critique those fields of religion, land, and environment, both from inside and outside traditional academic realms including those studies.

It's important, however, that we don't lose sight of Vine Deloria Jr.'s primary goal, improving the lives of Native people. This should also be the goal of Indigenous studies today and in the future. Because again in the end, it doesn't matter what we do, how many awards we might win how many prizes we might have, even how many grants we might get. In the end, if we haven't benefited the people, it doesn't matter.

So it also gives us the tools to better understand important aspects of contemporary Native existence. And it helps to illuminate path towards a healthier future for our nations. My own intellectual genealogy connecting to Vine particularly came through the folks who were involved with the Native American studies program in the American Studies department at the University at Buffalo. And I did my master's there in the early '90s.

And I was talking to someone earlier about the fact that it was still probably pretty radical in comparison to other similar departments but it wasn't as radical as it had once been. I got to hear stories about how folks used to go into Attica and work with Native inmates in Attica. And as a 22-year-old sitting there thinking, oh, that it was definitely not something on my radar. That it was definitely not something I was ready to do. But hearing how they had done it, it wasn't really that long before that, right? That they had been doing that.

And then later finding out that actually some of the folks who were fellow students were former inmates. And so understanding the value of prison programs that different institutions have run. And then also, of course, those institutional relationships and thinking about, in that particular context, the relationship to the state of New York. And how it's often a much finer line than we think in terms of the institutions of higher learning and penal institutions, for example, particularly when it comes to Native people.

And actually thinking back, particularly to stories that John Mohawk used to tell in our classes that often started with-- so there was this one time we were in, and it might have been Pine Ridge. It might have been Onondaga. But it always was, we were surrounded by the cops and then he'd laugh. And then he'd go on to tell us the story. But that's sort of that importance of stories but also that importance of grounding things, understanding what it meant to be an engaged scholar and to be integrated in the issues of the day.

Now, that didn't mean that the only good work you could do if you were someplace and surrounded by cops, but it talked about understanding what was happening in our communities. And playing a role in trying to make sure those matters didn't get out of hand to the extent where life was lost. And he always had a humor about it which always kind of would blow us away a bit but it also helped because that's also how we are in our communities. It's having that use of humor as a tool to deal with the heaviness of issues that arise.

One of the things that happened while I was a master's student is Vine actually sent some of his master's graduates to come do their PhDs at the University of Buffalo. And so I got introduced a bit more to his scholarship through the sort of just sharing of information from Edward Valandra and Ronnie Francisco who had done their masters out of Boulder. And Vine had sent them for a reason to Buffalo.

Ronnie never finished her PhD but she reconnected with a lot of folks. She was from [INAUDIBLE], so that was really great. And she and I continue to be friends. And Ed went on to be one of the small number of Native American PhD graduates of that program. And from time to time, I still hear from him. The last I knew, he was in Winnipeg, so he still continues to get around. But also had just really great questions that he would ask his fellow students about, particularly things about environmental history.

He brought in his chemistry background, which-- we didn't encounter a lot of chemistry graduates in our American studies classes. I can tell you that. But also that idea of how do you take the knowledge that you've learned wherever it is and make it relevant and useful. And that was a really important lesson to me.

And then recently, I got to participate in the 50th anniversary of Native American Studies at the University of Buffalo. And having that chance to reconnect and hear those stories was really valuable. And I can tell you that while God is Red didn't come up, Vine Deloria Jr.'s name came up a lot in those conversations.

Slipping back just a moment to John Mohawk as well, he used to lead the capstone seminar in American studies for the PhD program. And you read at least a book a week, usually, it was three books a week but people got to pick. Everybody read one book. And then everybody read from a list of like 20 other books to then come in and talk about. And I remember watching John-- and at the time, I was just like, OK, you just do what you're told. But he actually choreographed the whole thing. And he would encourage you to pick the books that he wanted to make sure you knew about in that process.

And to me, that's very akin to the thinking that I've seen in Vine Deloria's work in terms of, what do you think about this? What do you know about this? And they might seem like wildly unrelated. But reading them together, you learn how they weren't unrelated. Or you might even know there must be a relationship but then to actually have that opportunity to sit with them at the same time. And to me, God is Red actually is a really good example of that.

In one book, he pulls together all of these different ideas, right? And makes you think about things that just seem really weird together. But actually work your mind in a way that causes it to move in ways that I think many other similar texts wouldn't. And so to me, that's again something that's super valuable there.

One of the key messages and I think really it's the key messages of his scholarship in general, was that call to accountability for academics and the academy. And particularly, around areas of research ethics, institutional ethics, and ultimately everyone's responsibility to the natural world. I'm not going to give tons of examples, because I think you all know them. But those reminders. And to me, those are also the ongoing marching orders that academics have today is about how do we continue to mobilize these calls to action in ways that will continue to make our institutions better places and more effective places.

And in the cases of places like tribal colleges, how it is that we actually help them to grow in ways that they can be more effective. In ways that where, they're going to be seen as at par and, often in many cases, exceeding the accomplishments of mainstream institutions.

Obviously, the text is about a critique of Christianity. And for me, as a student of history or historical studies, it always came up in my own research into Haudenosaunee history where there's questions raised about the duplicitous actions of missionaries. It's sort of that dichotomy of being a historian of the early colonial period and the fact that the vast majority of those records are written by missionaries. But then also being able to sort through and find meaning in those without carrying that continuous burden of the message and as well as the labels that get attached in that.

So for example, if anyone spent any quality time with the Jesuit relations, you already know what I mean. But being able to actually find useful things in there, outside of the demonic and devil terms that land in there. And I had the opportunity to visit London, England last summer. And I was constantly thinking about the messages that were carried forward by these four leaders. They call them the four kings of the new world who went to see Queen Anne in 1710.

And their requests were for really ways for the queen to get her people in line so that we would have less problems with the settlers who were in our territories, particularly around along the Mohawk River. So three of the four were Mohawk leaders. The fourth was a Lenape leader.

And so they were all there though saying, can you get your people in line? And so they were explaining to the queen that you have people who've come here and they brought alcohol with them. And our people drink that and it causes great trouble in our communities. And then they said, you need to get your people in line around deals they're making about our land because they're getting some of our individual people to sign agreements that are different from what they're telling us they are.

So what we really need from you is a school teacher who can teach some of our young people how to read and write. So that we're not being taken for granted and taken advantage of in these land deals that are happening. And they were specifically talking about these patents from the 1693 in the Mohawk Valley, the [INAUDIBLE] patents. And so I-- it's actually, to me, our first land claim. We're still waiting on that actually.

[LAUGHS]

And then, another thing they were asking about was about witchcraft that the settlers had brought with them because some of our people were starting to learn some of those things. And it was causing a lot of harm in our communities. So what the leaders were saying is, please get your people in line. And I know that that's a real tension, right? When we think about the way that witchcraft has been labeled in the early history of America. Salem's just up the road.

But what they're really saying is, we want your people to stop encouraging our people to do things that are going to cause disharmony amongst us. So Queen Anne's response was not to send a teacher and not to send directions to the local government to keep your people in line about land patents. She said I'm going to send you a church. I'll send you a church and I'll send you a minister to run that church. Because when your people go to church, the minister is also going to be the teacher so they can teach your kids how to read and write. And everything will be OK. And so that was the original Mohawk Chapel that was built in 1711 in Fort [INAUDIBLE].

After the American Revolution, because it got burned during the war, it was rebuilt on the Grand River in the Mohawk village. And it still stands today. But understanding that legacy-- but also understanding what are people were asking for and what the monarch decided we really needed. Because it's been in the news because we have a new monarch in power over there. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if Charles maybe gets to a point where he can hear what his ancestor didn't. I'm not too hopeful about that, to be honest. But understanding that legacy and understanding those questions that are people were asking over 300 years ago and the fact that those tensions still exist.

And so, yeah, there's a lot to unpack about, particularly the history of our relationship with Western religions through the settler states. Yeah, I won't go into tons more about that. But that did bring me, oddly enough, to a story, I guess, John's training taught me more than I think sometimes. I had the opportunity to visit with [? Pamela ?] [? Clausen ?] yesterday and we were talking a bit about Wounded Knee. And the various stories that we hear about the different folks who came in to help negotiate around the dispersal of folks from the Wounded Knee encampment. And, of course, going to the University of Buffalo, I got to hear a lot of stories about the Haudenosaunee delegation. That was part of those peace talks, right?

But even there in Buffalo, we didn't hear about as much was a story I had heard a few years prior from a former graduate of the program at UB, who's a very skilled Seneca linguist, Phyllis Eileen Bardeau Williams. We invited her to come speak at the University of Michigan one time. And people were asking her about what kinds of community activities she did as a master's student at the University of Buffalo in the 1970s. And she says, "well, we didn't really call them community activities because we just were the community."

But she told us about this time in 1973 when there was a little article that appeared in the Buffalo News that talked about, that there had been an agreement reached that the women and children at Wounded Knee were going to leave for their safety. And it was Eileen and several other young Seneca moms, who were students in the program at the time, who read that and they were like, no. Because if the women and kids leave, that there will be nothing to stop the police from coming in and killing everyone.

So they figured out whose station wagon they were going to take and who had provisions. And they set out that night. They let their men know you've got the kids. We'll be back when we can be but we've got to go. And they did. And she told stories about learning like Dennis Banks used to do these little training talks with the folks who were there. Because, of course, people came from all over the place with varying levels of survival skills. He was trying to teach them about hand-to-hand combat with a fork.

And then she tells a story about somebody who brought-- who went and harvested a cow from a local farm, but they picked an old cow. And so Dennis and some of the others had to teach the young guys, OK, this is what you look for if you're going to go harvest and some of those skills. And it's funny because those are the stories we don't hear about as much. They're not the ones that made it into the published accounts. But I'm sure there's tons of them, which also made me think about the fact that a text like God is Red gives us opportunity to encourage our students to go find some of those stories.

And particularly, thinking about what kinds of stories didn't make it in the publications. And I think in many regards, often it's the stories of women who took up the call or actually nobody was calling for them to come help. They just read that the women and kids were leaving, so they're like, oh, no. So they made that call themselves. And often, those are the stories that we don't hear. And so to me, those are really great opportunities for students to take that up. And particularly, to go take it up in terms of asking their own family members.

Years later, I found out that friends of mine who I used to stay with when it was time for ceremony at home when I was living in Buffalo had also gone to Pine Ridge in the '70s to help. And they were like teenagers from Tuscarora who just took a motorcycle out to Wounded Knee.

And again, those aren't the things that were published about. And so those opportunities to get those stories and you know-- it's a little scary because the teenagers of the 1970s are now like the grand great, in some cases, great grandparents. And because it feels like it wasn't that long ago, but it's-- and particularly let's face it. In Native life, it was a long time ago. Our life expectancy is not that long in many cases. So yes, anyway I digress, but I think it's important to think about those stories that aren't documented. But also how things like God is Red encourages us to go look for those stories too.

Obviously, God is Red is about a critique of American society. And I always tell my students, those critiques continue to be relevant and valid. And I also try to remind them that those critiques, while he's really talking heavily about America, he's talking about settler states. And so many of those critiques are completely matched on the Canadian side of the border. I will say that that's an area that I wish Vine had the opportunity to explore more extensively.

I understand why he focused so heavily on the American state because that was his target audience. But again, there's real opportunities to encourage students to try to uncover those stories. You know, Richard Oakes was from Akwesasne, so he lived a very different life than lots of folks who aren't from border communities. Leonard Peltier, I don't think he's a member in Wiikwemkoong, but he's eligible for membership in Wiikwemkoong, for example.

And so understanding how did policy and reactions from North of the border play out in activism South of the border and vise versa. Like lots of folks on this side of the border don't know about the encampment at Anicinabe Park in Kenora in 1970. That's in response to the white paper. And it really-- the white paper, even though it was really, really bad did help to inspire a level of activism that hadn't been seen. But it also was informed by earlier forms of activism that just weren't understood to be in that same way.

Like people who had been pushing-- land claims pushing treaty rights, and all those things that then boil up. In response to-- in that case, the white paper but also, obviously, very much in response to the Civil Rights movement. And really, I think there's a lot of work to be done in unpacking the relationships across the border around that kind of activism. I'm going to jump ahead because I know I'm talking a lot.

One of the things that I wanted to talk about when I reread God is Red this summer, one of the things that just kept to me in the mind was this quote that I've heard a lot in my life. And actually, it was related by Norbert Heil Jr., where he used to talk about the importance of abstinence from alcohol in [? ASIS. ?] He was the executive director of [? ASIS ?] when I was a young person and used to love going to their conferences.

And he used to talk about when white men came, we had the land. They had the bottle. And then once we took up the bottle, then they ended up with land. But of course, that's derived from a statement that was made in Africa, probably in the 1950s definitely taken up heavily by Desmond Tutu. In the '70s about, we had the land and you had the Bible. Now we have the Bible and you have the land.

But thinking about how religion has been used as a tool of dispossession. And then thinking about, then how does that-- what does that encourage us to do about our thoughts about land? And not like-- lots of people take that as a very direct message and we have to get rid of Christianity. But really, it's a message about, what's your relationship to the land. And regardless of what philosophies might interest you or intrigue you or might even inform how you want to live or raise your kids, what are those older philosophies tell you about how it is that you ought to be as Native people?

And so that's the thing that just kept coming to mind over and over as I was rereading the text. And of course as well, those questions about, how do we deal with the role of Christianity within Indigenous communities. And to me, that's one of the key challenges of Indigenous studies even though it's not comfortable sometimes to have those conversations. Sometimes it's particularly tricky. I think probably, I'm going to say, it's trickier now than I think it was 50 years ago in a lot of places because people are so-- they want to be nice to each other. And I get that. And we could definitely do to have a bit more niceness amongst us in our community sometimes. But yeah, how do we deal with that tension that is so inherent?

And I know that some nations are a lot more effective at that than others. I will definitely tell you what I'm seeing amongst my friends who are involved in some of the land back activities, for example, in my community and related communities, is that just a huge disavowal of Christianity without really that thought about how we navigate that in our relationship with our families. But then also, there are some who are very heavily involved particularly with 1492 Land Back Lane which is an action taken in my territory who come from these longtime Christian families.

We've had a number of churches burned, for example, in our community. And in the tensions that's created and you may have seen some of the press about churches that have been burned, particularly in Alberta. Some really old churches. Much of it is in response to residential school information that's come forward. But yeah, thinking through how do we navigate this? But then also thinking through what levels of Christian thought and philosophy permeate us even if we don't consider ourselves to be Christian? And thinking through all those levels. And I know I'm-- for lack of a better analogy preaching to the choir here, but again to me, that's an opportunity that we have to encourage those around us to take up these questions.

I believe that one of the most amazing things I've seen in Native studies in my almost 30 years since I was an undergrad is that the shift towards language learning that I've seen that-- when I was starting my master's in 1993, language did not seem like it was something that was even really an option to me and definitely to my peers. I don't think any of us saw that reclaiming of language as something that we'd be able to do, certainly not, something we'd be able to do as academics.

Today, it's kind of a given. At least in a lot of Native studies programs. Or at the very least, there's lots of acceptance and movement to try to support students who want to do that. It's sometimes a bit slower at places like here and even at the University of Toronto, particularly in some of the graduate programs. Because there's still those ideas about Indigenous languages as not being-- that they're not going to be able to be something you can be critical within, shall we say. I think that's been the pushback I've heard.

Yeah, and so, how is it that with an Indigenous studies scholarship we can actually move that needle? And in lots of places, it's not even a question anymore but there's still lots of places where there's help that's needed in that. And to me, that's one of those pieces that-- well, Vine doesn't talk about that so much specifically, but he has a lot to say about it in between the lines. Because he's talking about that importance of getting at Indigenous thought and Indigenous philosophy. I mean, he's calling it Indigenous religion or he's using lots of different-- I don't think he uses religion specifically but he's encouraging it to be like Indigenous ceremonial thought. That's language.

Because in the end, yeah, there's places who will-- there's people who will put through ceremonies using English. But generally, the understanding is that it needs to be done in the original language. And that ideally, it's not just going to be ritualized in the sense that there's a few people who understand what's being said but there's that encouragement that everyone who participates needs to work at increasing their own understanding of those languages in order to be full participants. That witnessing is not the same as actually participating.

And so while he's not calling for immersion programs in the text, he gives us the basis that actually then allows us to push for immersion programs. To push for the validity of Indigenous languages in academic intellectual discussion. And that to me is a key responsibility going forward for Indigenous studies scholars, in particular, is making sure that those that there's space and a recognition of Indigenous languages as relevant. And not just in traditional Indigenous studies fields, it needs to actually be brought into chemistry, it needs to be brought into physics.

And that's also going to challenge the language experts too because most of them haven't thought about physics in the way that Western physics thinks about physics, right? If you have an interest in that, I really encourage you to talk to or seek out some of the teachings from Leroy Little Bear about that because he will blow your mind. And I believe he's a Harvard grad, right? Didn't Leroy come here? I figured he worked here, maybe.

And then also Leroy can talk to you about quantum physics. But he also was one of the crafters in the 1982 Constitution in Canada, the Section 35. And that's one of those things too. I really enjoyed hearing some of the stories last night about things that Vine wrote that people didn't know Vine wrote, maybe. There's a lot of folks who did that. Well, not a lot. But there's several folks who wrote all kinds of things that didn't necessarily have their name on it. But that actually continue to impact, in most cases, for the benefit of Native peoples today.

Within that too, I see a certain level of humility. And Suzanne was telling us that last night as well that it didn't matter if your name was on it. What mattered is that the message got out there and that people did something with it. And to me, that in the Academy and particularly in places like Harvard or the University of Toronto-- because sometimes promotion and tenure depend on it, we get caught up in making sure we get our credit. But in the end, is the credit any good if it actually doesn't stand for something, right? So yeah, I know I'm rambling here.

And speaking of Leroy when thinking about vine's messages about the importance of being rooted in place. And, of course, in Indigenous studies, there's a strong push for Indigenous studies to be rooted in place rather than being universal per se. We see that as well in some of the theories that came forward around ecological contexts forwarded by folks like Sakej Henderson and Leroy Little Bear as really base tenants.

And I am going to wrap it up because I am over time. So what I would encourage folks to think about in terms of the ongoing timelessness of Vine Deloria Jr. through God is Red is the importance, obviously, of taking responsibility for protecting Indigenous peoples and places. Of pushing back against those challenges and particularly those challenges that come as a result of settler colonialism in the form of capitalism.

But also and again, he doesn't say this specifically, but to me, he tells us that we also need to hold ourselves accountable. And so thinking about how it is that we respectfully deal with questioning ourselves and those whom we love and who are around us about the ways in which we have become complacent in terms of allowing, particularly, capitalism to grow at the disregard of Indigenous peoples and places. So I'm going to stop there.

[APPLAUSE]

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Thank you so much, Professor Hill. That was a really thought-provoking and rich. And delighted to turn the floor over for a response today to Professor Zoe Todd whom I've already introduced. Hi, Professor Todd. It's great to see you.

ZOE TODD: Hi. Thank you. [SPEAKS IN HAWAIIAN]

And I just want to express deep gratitude to Susan. That was such an incredible presentation of your experience and the ways that Vine's work has shaped you. And I hope that I can provide comments that match--

[LAUGHS]

--the brilliance that you just shared. And also I just really appreciate how you underscored how Native and Indigenous Studies over time has refused the ways that the border state violates us. So I guess I just want to build on that idea of the marching orders that Suzanne gave us yesterday and that you have given us as well. And just to really think about how do we do exactly what you said, respectfully deal with questioning ourselves and ensure that capitalism isn't allowed to flourish at the expense of Indigenous peoples and places.

And honestly, I trained in biology and anthropology. And so I didn't come to Vine's work until very late. I was trained by white settler scholars. And it was really in my PhD where I was becoming really frustrated with how white anthropologists in Europe were talking about Indigenous issues in my PhD program. And it was-- I have to credit Alex King, who was an American linguistic anthropologist. And he said, oh, none of the stuff people are saying here, that's not what Vine Deloria had to say.

[LAUGHS]

And he really underscored for me. You don't have to spend your time or even waste your time trying to make yourself make sense to these European scholars. And so in reading God is Red to prepare for this, it really, for me, I kept thinking about the resonances between Vine's work and Frantz Fanon's work. And a quote that stood out for me that I pulled from Fanon last night when I was preparing my remarks at the end of Wretched of the Earth that all tells us, "if we want to respond to the expectations of the Europeans, we must not send them back a reflection however ideal of their society and their thought that periodically sickens even them, unquote."

And it just really for me, God is Red really is one of those examples of refusing to reflect back to Europeans what they want to see. But to actually deeply provincialize European structures and say, here's an example of how things are done differently within Native or Indigenous perspectives here in North America. And just provide us that space to really understand the vibrance and brilliance of Indigenous peoples and nations and societies through time. And to really bring us back to that understanding of caring and being in place and really understanding our responsibilities to it.

And I think also what really stands out for me is how under-acknowledged Vine's work is in shaping contemporary environmental discourses in the sciences where I work. Scientists are not generally reading Vine or critical Indigenous studies more broadly. They have a particular genealogy that they follow and it's often very anthropological. And so I see scientists today saying that they're working to integrate or reconcile Western science to Indigenous worlds. I think about comments that Vine makes throughout this text but also his other texts.

And there's a really brilliant PhD student in anthropology at Cornell named Bruno Seraphin who works with Fire Knowledge Keepers. And he describes what's happening in the sciences in the US and Canada right now as a T-E-K rush or a TEK rush. A rush towards non-Indigenous peoples trying to sometimes instrumentalize Indigenous knowledge and apply it towards contemporary problems without understanding that deep-rootedness of knowledge in place and the responsibilities that different nations have in place. And in reading through God is Red, one section really jumped out at me because Vine takes the time to cite a renowned Stoney-Nakoda leader in elder Walking Buffalo and an excerpt from his book, his 1973 text.

And in that section, Walking Buffalo is talking about trees talking and how different elements of the world talk. And he kind of concludes by saying the problem is white people don't listen.

[LAUGHS]

And I just find it-- it was just really-- I found it so ironic because the people who have been credited with discovering that trees talk to one another through mycorrhizal networks and other things are in fact white scientists. And so here 50 years ago, two very renowned Indigenous thinkers were clearly telling settler US and Canadian people, you don't listen. And imagine the amount of time they would have saved if they were just actually reading critical Indigenous texts at that time.

And so that also underscores a line that the Vine wrote in Red Earth, White Lies where he said, quote, "the bottom line about information possessed by non-western peoples is that the information becomes valid only when offered by a white scholar recognized by the academic establishment. In effect, the color of the skin guarantees scientific objectivity."

And I think what's so powerful-- Dr. Hill, you are one of the people that has helped to build critical Indigenous studies in Canada into this amazing discipline that so many of us are lucky to work within and teach within. And I just really love how this event has been pulled together because it really is an opportunity to remember all of those genealogies both literal and ideological that draw Indigenous studies together as the community that it is. And just how powerful it is to be reminded that it grew out of marching orders at that time. And that people had really specific tangible material responsibilities to relatives, to place, to other communities. And just, it's so exciting to get to be part of this discipline today. But also to get to see scholars of every generation sharing their relationships and remembrances and visions for the Future together in this space all at once.

So I don't want to take up too much time because I really hope that there will be amazing questions for Dr. Hill. But I just wanted to like overstate maybe just how amazing it is to get to revisit texts like God is Red and just remember what Indigenous scholars across the US, Canada, and elsewhere have come up against in building the discipline into what it is today. And ensuring that subsequent generations have that space to think critically, to learn how to think like Dr. Hill described, and also to remember that really tangible material set of responsibilities we have and not to become complacent within institutions. My own institution, proudly proclaims that it's Indigenous but they quietly sort of finally admitted that they're holding on to 300 acres of unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin lands.

And they said it's OK. It's OK. We're going to put some temporary seasonal sweat lodge is on those lands. And I understand that might be one step towards a reconciliation of sorts, but I think that in reading texts like God is Red, it reminds us as Suzanne said yesterday like, why would we start with half the loaf when we can have the whole loaf? And I hope that there's a way for our discipline to continue to push institutions not to do performative sort of forms of reconciliation and restitution but to actually commit themselves.

And one of my dear friends and colleagues reminds me that her job, she works within a very well-funded elite University, and she said, her responsibility is to continue to liberate the ill-gotten funds of the institution. And I try-- that's a marching order I took very seriously and enthusiastically when she shared it with me casually one day. And so I think everyone who's spoken today really demonstrates that commitment to that kind of material return and that material justice. And also that careful solidarity work across Indigenous nations but also across various displaced and dispossessed communities around the globe. And really thinking about what does it mean to turn our backs on universal European religion, universal white supremacist, and European ways of doing things.

And instead, think about all the multiplicity of ways that people have lived respectfully in place and storied our lives and tended to one another and to place. And so I'm just immensely grateful for this opportunity to listen to everyone who's been speaking at the symposium because it's truly just such an amazing gathering of brilliant, brilliant, brilliant people.

[LAUGHS]

So [SPEAKS IN HAWAIIAN] I'm so grateful. Thank you.

Thank you both for your time.

[APPLAUSE]

KIMBERLEY PATTON: And a heartfelt Thanks both to Professor Hill and Professor Todd for your wonderful and stimulating remarks. And I want to open the floor now both to our community here to offer responses and questions and comments and also to those who are listening online. And I'll let those monitoring in the back, I think, [? Anca ?] we'll be monitoring and let me know if anyone has any questions. OK?

And I also want to ask. When you do ask your question, could you just identify yourself? Just so that our names are known to each other. Thank you.

Yes. [? Dan ?] [? Wildcat. ?] Susan, thank you so much for that marvelous presentation. And your point about elders and all those stories. And have you made this or is your program made this issue of the real urgency of collecting oral histories? At this point in time, this is something we talk a lot about at [? Haskell. ?] Of course, we serve nations from all over the United States and some of your relatives. And this is something that I think is very much on people's minds right now because we're losing. In many cases, we just lost-- I just lost both my maternal aunts who were our last paternal aunts who were the last mother tongue speakers of the Yuchi language.

Now we have some young people that are working really hard to restore the language, bring them back to life. But I think of the stories they had. And I know my cousins have some stories but it seems like there's some urgency to that now. And that would be a great contribution because all of these stories about things that they witnessed that they saw in their lifetime that are very different, I think, than maybe the histories you might get out kind of a documentarian history.

ZOE TODD: Right. So to be honest with you at the University of Toronto, we don't have tons of students who are community-based or community tied. Like they've got connections but most of them probably aren't tightly tied to their communities. And so there's certainly folks who are training any students they can, both those who are like have ties to a community who are Indigenous as well as non-indigenous students to work on creating healthy relationships. Of course, you can't just show up with a tape recorder, right? You have to actually build that community.

And there's a growing number of folks at the University of Toronto who are getting to that place where they can then help students to get to those places. But because of the urgency, a number of folks both at the University in Toronto and other institutions where there are other Haudenosaunee scholars in particular, we're trying hard to support institutions that actually are more capable of doing that. Partly because they already have relationships built. And particularly, there's a group of us who work at mostly nearby institutions who try to support Six Nations Polytechnic because that's an institution based in our community at Grand River with ties to other Haudenosaunee communities. That it's been around for 30 years.

But also people who help create it we're from the community. So there's that trust there. And I know you see that a lot obviously at Haskell but in other tribal institutions, right? And so we're working at how we can support Polytech to be more effective in that work. And not just Polytech, there's also a First Nations Technical Institute which is based on a Tyendinaga trying to help give them support. Because they lack infrastructure in most cases. So it means writing the shirt grant and trying to use that as leverage. It's tricky though, right? Because in the end, we chase-- it's like the tails wag in the dog, right? Which you know well, but the dog finally caught the tail with your NSF project. But yeah, that doesn't just happen overnight.

So currently, I'm working with a colleague who's in Pamela's department who comes from Akwesasne on trying to track some shirt money down to help infuse efforts that are already happening, particularly at Polytech around oral histories. We're lucky in that we do have some organizations that have existed in the community under the guise of other programs who've collected some of that. Particularly like the Woodland Cultural Center with their language department.

So since the Mohawk Institute Residential School shut down in 1969. I think officially in 1970. In 1972, they are resurrected as a cultural center. And they started working on cultural things in 1972. So they have this wealth of language material that they've collected in the last 50 years and trying to support their efforts. Interestingly enough, literally, they worked for decades just to get enough money to run programs and to try to keep their buildings from being condemned.

When the Kamloops grave discovery was announced last year, they now don't have enough time to collect the money that people are trying to give them. So it's a different kind of challenge that they're facing. But then also, in terms of trying to identify folks who have the skill and talent to do that kind of work, right? So that it's not-- even though you might be asking your grandma these stories and she's OK with you having the tape recorder, you still need some training.

And so those kinds of things. And working with the people who are situated to do that, but giving them the support they need to be able to do that work. Yeah, we're trying. But there's a lot of work to do there. But yes, I appreciate that question. And to me, that's one of those key things that-- and that we also then need to try to support our related communities in doing that as well.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Thank you so much [? Anka ?] from online community or was it [? Era? ?]

SPEAKER 3: Yes Ann Braude is joining us online who has worked so tirelessly to prepare this conference, so she's going to ask a question.

[APPLAUSE]

ANN BRAUDE: Hi. I just wanted to--

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Welcome to the conference, Ann. We miss you.

ANN BRAUDE: I just really wanted to greet everybody to let you know I'm still alive and taking in every rich gem that is coming out of this conversation and enjoying it so much. This is really a dream come true to sit in my rocking chair and listen to these incredible conversations. I want to ask a question that hearkens back to the last panel a bit about Indigenous studies. But I'd love to hear these panelists respond to it also. And it's a question about, how Deloria's call to think about religion spatially might affect both our pedagogical choices and our decisions about the spaces in which we teach, learn, and study in the spaces of the University.

And I'm acutely aware of our privilege here at Harvard and we just renovated this gorgeous building that I wish I was sitting in with you now. The room you're sitting in the James room was designed to connect intellectual activity to the natural world. And I would love to-- I don't know if it's working or not. If that was a good idea or how that might have an impact. But I also wanted to call attention to the presence outside the James room of a ceramic artwork, earthbound that was created for this new building. And that Anthony Trujillo has helped me to understand is actually bringing the Earth inside the building and inside into the pedagogical space.

Well, I would just love to hear you talk about-- Zoe, I know that you work in alternative media. And to hear you're thinking about whether recourse to non-literary media like pottery, to have it in our presence, that these things may not have some of the deeply embedded colonial genealogies that the printed texts have that are our go-to sources in academics. And I'd just love to hear you think about this question.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Thank you so much, Ann. And that was the question for Dr. Todd, for Zoe, either one.

ZOE TODD: Susan, you can go first if you want. All right, yeah.

SUSAN HILL: I'll try to keep it brief. One of the things that I've tried to do wherever I've been working with whatever university is asking the university about sourcing. Because to me, that's yeah, this room is gorgeous and I enjoyed getting to watch the turkeys last night who were outside hanging out while-- that was really cool. So I would say yes, it's done a good job of at least letting you have a good view of what's happening outside and kind of in the real world, so to speak. As real as Cambridge probably gets because yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

It reminds me a lot of Ann Arbor which I love dearly. But yeah, it's not the real world, right? But yes. But to me and again, this is like one of those things that I think we have real power within the institution, or at least we can convince ourselves there's power in it, is asking about how it is that the University is actually building their buildings. How it is that they're taking up their responsibilities to be sustainable in those works? And who's doing the work?

I was part of the Indigenous consultation about this new-- really, it's a parking structure but they're calling it something much grander than that at the University of Toronto. And yeah, they were not expecting the pushback that they got from those of us that they brought together for this consultation. And the question I kept asking them because they were talking about these different kinds of marble and stuff that they were going to use. I'm like, oh, that's great. I'm like, where are you sourcing it from? And how are you doing that? And what kind of relationship are you planning to build with the places where you're getting that stone from? And they did not anticipate those questions.

But those are the questions we all need to be asking as we're building these beautiful buildings and doing these great things about-- even encouraging environmental design, it's still that how is it getting done. And how does that impact Indigenous peoples in particular, but also impacting the natural world on a grand scale? And just holding them accountable at every opportunity. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear what Professor Todd has to say.

ZOE TODD: Oh, no. I am nervous. But I think building on what Professor Hill said like the sourcing is so important. And I didn't understand the religious underpinnings of Western universities until I went to the University of Aberdeen which was established in 1495. And it was a religious institution to train the firstborn sons of the wealthy elite in that area to become priests. And the old college on campus has this one of those Bishop crowns and it's very overtly religious.

[LAUGHS]

And I think we have to source things. And we also have to think about why we're trying, at times, trying to emulate the European or British University model that we're initially very, very tied to the church. And so that sourcing and then also how we're conceiving of what a learning space is. Those are such crucial conversations and the work that people like Professor Hill and other Indigenous leaders are doing across campuses to really hold institutions accountable is amazing. And spaces are being designed that are so much more expansive. And also welcoming other displaced and dispossessed communities. So refugee communities, African diasporic communities, and just creating a much different learning space.

And then I guess to your question about alternate media, I don't want to put my auntie on the spot. But she is in the audience online. My auntie Loretta is my mentor, my inspiration, the first intellectual that I sort of think of when I think about-- my dad and my auntie are both really foundational in how I think about Meiti worlds. And my auntie Loretta is this incredible [? meaty ?] filmmaker who studied at Simon Fraser University and has gone on to make film, you know, her own medium through her relationships both to our community and our nation. But also other foundational important Indigenous artists and filmmakers and thinkers across the country.

And so I really can't say that I do alternate media work without recognizing that I come from a family that does that already.

[LAUGHS]

But that also have shown me that you can take technology and media and really make them our own within our own worlds, our own languages, our own stories, our own philosophies. And so the work she's doing with the Indigenous Matrix for media, Emily Carr University, and there are free trainings for Indigenous people to learn how to create augmented and virtual reality is just amazing. And there's so many amazing folks doing that. So I get to walk in the footsteps of giants every day and I feel really thankful. Yeah, those are just some quick thoughts.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Yes, Professor Gone.

JOSEPH GONE: Thanks. I noted in Vine's work the helpful classification for conditions under which from an Indigenous set of perspectives, lands become sacred or marked in this way. And you just made reference to the Kamloops grave recovery. When I've been to Wounded Knee, I feel like that's sacred territory. This Kamloops area could become such.

You also made reference to church burnings but you didn't exactly link those. And the thing that strikes me now-- this is information I've gotten. And you don't really get the whole background stuff that I'm hearing in the mainstream media so maybe I'm misinformed and maybe you can set me straight here. But what I've heard is, what I've come to understand is, the allegations about the Kamloops gravesites have been allegations that they actually haven't been able to go and disinter bodies or find concrete evidence yet.

But that it's been promoted in the media and carried by the media in ways that completely obscured the fact that even the people who did the radar acknowledge that this could just be other kinds of things, not necessarily graves. It's not proof of graves yet. However, in the wake of that and related kinds of outrage, which if it should be a sacred place because in fact Indian children were neglected and abused and even murdered and placed in secret ways in that territory. That sounds like conditions under which we might want to consider that sacred. Territory

But without evidence, yet people have expressed that outrage and burnt churches. I'm told, even Indian churches where Indian people worship. And I'm just wondering in the absence of the evidence yet, if unless it's come out in the past month since I looked into this more deeply, are there any Indian people and especially Indian academics in Canada who are standing up to say on behalf of Indian Christians that their churches shouldn't be burned from outrage on claims that have not been sourced with evidence yet?

SUSAN HILL: So to my knowledge, I don't know of anybody saying that specifically, Joe. I do know of a number of community leaders who are encouraging their people to be compassionate to their neighbors. And I'm talking about within communities so these are to our Christian neighbors within our communities. So there's definitely been that.

In our own community, we had a rather historic church burned. I guess it was probably a year and a half ago. What we're told-- but it's interesting because it's not a church. Honestly, the Mohawk Chapel is probably at the greatest risk because it's just down the street from the mush hole of the Mohawk Institute. And I think they might have security there, to be honest with you. But I think they've had that there for a while. Because actually, somebody tried to burn it down like 20 years ago because of the legacies. because

We've had those stories like everybody sort of hangs the TRC up as this beacon of truth. And it is, but it's not the first beacon that came forward with truths about residential schools. But it's the one that's gotten the most traction. So people really hold that up as if, oh, this is the first time we've heard about this.

Ultimately, for those of us from communities and those of us who work in Indigenous studies, we know that when a church gets burned, it might be said that it's in response to something like unmarked graves being discovered. But it's really about decades of feeling oppressed and that becomes the target of a release of that oppression. We know that.

But the reality, of course, is that in some cases there are actually material cultural things that get lost in those expressions of outrage and grief. And yeah, navigating that is not simple. I don't, maybe Zoe might know, but I don't think I've heard any Indigenous scholar in Canada who's talking about it in that sense of we need to wait to have this conversation. There are folks who are not ground-penetrating radar specialists, who are now engaged a bit. Because I think it's probably happening in a lot of institutions. You're probably getting it on this side of the border as well. Folks who work in that technology reaching out to Native folks asking, do you want to be a part of my project?

And in some cases, they're being asked by communities to come in. And they're looking to have somebody who can be a link in that process but then also trying to help our colleagues understand. But that's a difficult question, right? I'm betting that the majority of Indigenous scholars on both sides of the border are one or two generations removed from residential schools or boarding schools or it's a relative who is. Like it's not always your direct ancestor but we're all related to survivors.

And so, yeah, trying to help our non-indigenous colleagues understand that this isn't just a simple opportunity that you're presenting to us. But then also I think, most of us are trying to navigate these questions more quietly around these tensions that you're talking about in the community for sure.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Professor Hill, I want to take the chair's prerogative just for a minute to smuggle in part of your paper that you didn't get to that I was electrified by. Which is your discussion of environment toward the end just because I feel like it's such an important thing for our audience to hear your thoughts about.

In an earlier draft that you had kindly shared with us who are working on the panel. You wrote that Indigenous studies and Indigenous rights get the most traction in mainstream society around issues of the environment. Not surprisingly, it's also the area where I believe we see the greatest misappropriation of Indigenous philosophies and ethics.

Later on, you speak about the co-opting of a conservationist ethic through commodification resulting in the opposite effect to what is sought in terms of protecting the natural world in healing Mother Earth. You had some wonderfully detailed discussion about the North Ontario ring of fire extraction project for creation of lithium batteries to power electric vehicles so that the upper middle classes can theoretically reduce their carbon footprint and sleep better at night, which is a controversy I've been following. I'm thinking when I read it, I thought immediately of this room. Yes, which was built to create a connection to the natural world.

And in the process, cut down a tree that was planted at the founding of our school, a red oak, who had-- it being had a two-hour funeral with every tradition you can imagine to say goodbye. And on that tree was a hand-lettered sign from one of our students. And it said, please don't kill me. I am a living being. I cannot run. So I just want to remember her as we think about this very, very contested problematic issue that you raise. The commodification of conservation ethics. And I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about it as you say what can we take from God is Red as a means of combating this.

SUSAN HILL: I'll try. I think ultimately, it's about that requirement of ourselves to question, what we're doing, how we're doing it, and at what cost. Because there is always a cost. And it's real easy to fall into, like yeah, this is a gorgeous room. And to be asked, do you want a room like this? Oh, yes. Without then saying, oh, but wait. What has to happen for a room like this to happen?

And so that encouraging folks to actually really think deeply about the choices that they're making. And to try to actually unpack what honestly the genealogies of those choices end up being. Genealogy is a really useful way of thinking about what are all of these connections. And as a result, and in the end, yes, I'm sure it was very difficult to see that tree go. But then what are your responsibilities because of that decision?

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Right.

SUSAN HILL: I'm hoping they planted 50 more red oaks.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: They planted her daughters who couldn't grow before because-- yeah, so those 12 [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah.

SUSAN HILL: Yeah, hopefully, they'll continue to plant them.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: Right.

SUSAN HILL: And not just here. But all those other places where wood for building projects at Harvard are sourced. And then, also trying to make sure that the waters and the lakes and all of those things around those places are protected. And that there's the things that decisions are made to encourage those things to be able to thrive. So that it isn't just like that tree being replaced but then thinking about how it is can actually grow that opportunity into making things better than it was when that tree stood.

Yeah. And again, I know that's kind of like lofty in.

KIMBERLEY PATTON: No, no. I was-- could you say more about the Ring of Fire extraction project?

SUSAN HILL: Sure. Probably I think Zoe likely knows more about this than I do. But I believe that it started heavily in the '90s. And it's billed as a development project which is almost always the case in anything in northern Canada. I'm in Southern Canada too, right? But they've already developed the heck out of our territories. Yeah, the North is the development zone. And it's always sort of promoted as opportunities for Indigenous communities in those places. In the case of Ring of Fire, they're actually-- the way they got it kind of brought back and they got communities to agree to it, it's they're going to build year-round roads.

A lot of those communities are isolated and they're only accessible by road in the winter. So they're like, oh, we're going to build you a year-round road. And so a lot of folks are real interested in that because just for lots of reasons. And it's also kind of sold to the mainstream as people aren't living in that particular area. We've already done similar things and we're going to make sure that the people are well compensated. And they're going to have jobs because Native people don't have jobs. So all of those things, right? And to be honest too, and I get it, a lot of leadership in those communities are willing to agree to it because they don't have jobs.

And because even though they're in their traditional territories, those territories aren't what they were 50 years ago even, right? And they're also dealing in many cases with compounding social pressures, including a lot of issues around just-- yeah, I mean it's all the modernity stuff that you see not just in North America. What you see in lots of parts of the world. And those pressures that come with that.

So yeah, the Ring of Fire. Originally, I want to say it was other minerals that they were looking to mine there. But recently, it shifted to I think it's lithium and there's a couple others. I don't think it's cobalt because cobalt is another mineral that's heavily used in a lot of these long-lasting batteries that are the renewable stuff, right? They actually were mining cobalt a century ago in Southern Northern Ontario.

Yeah. So I know for sure it's lithium. I just don't remember some of the other specifics. But recently the provincial government in Ontario announced that they're signing on to support General Motors in their advanced expansion of electric vehicles. There's parts-- actually, I think maybe the Trudeau government, which is that's the federal government, has made some commitments around only electric vehicles being available I think by 2050. I think they put times on it, which in theory that's great. Because they're talking about trying to reduce emissions but then they're not thinking about the alternate damage that comes about in order to facilitate that.

And shifting from that but all of us. And the lovely Zoom that I am very grateful for but that comes at a cost too in understanding the impacts particularly on Indigenous communities because we bear the brunt of these things. In terms of the mining of minerals that are used in computer building and that are used in the infrastructure for the internet.

And yeah, at some point, we probably get to the point where we wouldn't do anything. But it's about understanding then, OK, what responsibilities do we inherit in order to try to reconcile the expenses that we're putting on the natural world in order to facilitate an easier lifestyle for us?

KIMBERLEY PATTON: We are at the end of our time. We're going to thank our panelists in just a moment. But just so that my words are heard because I've been given this message five times. I'm going to sing it. No, I won't. We'll break now and we'll return at 3:30 to begin the final panel of the day.

Tracy and I said it. I won't sing it, but I just want to thank our wonderful panelists, our thought-provoking panelists for their remarks, and for all of you for your questions. I'm thanking Professor Susan Hill and Professor Zoe Todd. Bless you and thank you for being with us today.

ZOE TODD: Thank you.

SPEAKER 2: Sponsors Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University Native American program, Center for the Study of World Religions, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2022. The President and Fellows of Harvard College.