The Wampanoag Peoples have lived in the region of what is now southeastern Massachusetts for more than 12,000 years. The year 2020 represents 400 years since colonizers voyaged on the Mayflower and founded Plymouth Colony as settlers on Native land. This anniversary is a time of reckoning with that history of violence, dispossession, removal. The story of Plymouth Colony cannot be told without the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples who were here as that ship arrived and who still remain.
Clayton Shirt is a counsellor and Traditional native healer at University of Toronto, Canada. He is a pipe carrier, sweat lodge keeper and is a traditional healer since a young age. Cultural Survivals Avex Cojti sat down to interview Mr. Clayton shirt in Canada earlier in 2020, he tells us about his journey.
Music
"Burn Your Village to the Ground" by A Tribe Called Red. Used with permission.
"Lights in the forest", by Ziibiwan. Used with permission.
Ezekiel Tye Freeman is the executive director of Green-PRO, which helps Liberian communities develop sustainable livelihoods for self-reliance. Beekeeping training programs, for example, offer a lucrative and environmentally friendly economic alternative to mining or slash-and-burn farming for individuals. Freeman points to high levels of unemployment among Liberia's Indigenous population as a major problem that his organization wants to attempt to alleviate.