The People of Dark Waters

 

by Eric Diekhans 

The heartland of the Lumbee Tribe lies amid the pines and swamps of southeastern North Carolina. The Lumbee call themselves The People of Dark Waters. For millennia, their lives revolved around hunting, fishing, and farming along the Lumbee River and amidst lowlands and swamps that Europeans considered almost impenetrable.

When Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina in late September, Robeson County, where many Lumbee live, was mostly spared. But six years prior, Hurricane Florence struck the Lumbee hard. The hurricane’s aftermath brought environmental racism and the shortsightedness of colonialist exploitation of the land into sharp relief.

In his new book, On the Swamp, Ryan E. Emanuel, a tribal member and an associate professor of hydrology at Duke University, writes about how environmental injustice worsened Hurricane Lawrence's effects. Emanuel describes the hurricane’s aftermath:

 

“In the days that follow the deluge, rivers and streams swelled far beyond their banks and spilled across the flat, low-lying Coastal Plain. Typical quiet, stagnant swamps became roiling, frothing torrents. Sluggish rivers expanded into liquid superhighways that inundated—indiscriminately—pine forests, crop fields, industrialized livestock facilities, and neighborhoods. Streets and highways became eerily angular lakes. Occasionally, automobile roofs or antennas broke the dark surface. In the days after Hurricane Florence, water nearly swallowed the Coastal Plain whole.”

 

During the 18th and 19th centuries, as Europeans killed or displaced North Carolina’s indigenous people, settlers arrived and sought to subjugate nature. They built canals and dams to tame the Lumber River and drain wetlands. The projects opened up the area to more settlement and agriculture but destroyed indigenous hunting grounds and made the land more susceptible to flooding during catastrophic weather events.

Today, large commercial enterprises, many of them situated near low-income communities, cause irreparable damage to Lumbee lands. The county is home to enormous livestock operations, slaughterhouses, and meatpacking plants. When Hurricane Lawrence hit, the waste runoff from these operations poisoned waterways. 

As concern about climate change has risen, North Carolina has turned from coal to natural gas. But Robeson County has shouldered the burden for this changeover. Natural gas pipelines now cross Lumbee County, scarring the countryside and taking land from tribal members through eminent domain.

Global warming has caused other changes to Lumbee County. Emanuel writes, “Climate change has turned  the Coastal Plain into a place of extremes. It is becoming hotter and drier, and yet the risk of another catastrophic flood looms on the horizon. Decision-makers simultaneously face the challenges of planning for droughts and foods—frustrating and unenviable situation.”

For decades, the Lumbee Tribe has fought for environmental justice and respect for its culture and traditions. But they have often been stymied by the Lumbee Bill passed by Congress in 1956, when the government's focus was on avoiding the burden of responsibility to Native Americans. The bill recognized the Lumbee but forbade the government from entering into formal relationships with the tribe. Government agencies still cite the law as a reason not to consult with the tribe before approving harmful or polluting projects.

Great challenges remain in Robeson County. More hurricanes will come. Emmanuel writes, "Our homelands feel a little less like home, in some ways, with each passing year. Lumbee communities are shrinking safe havens. Flooding from human-caused climate change threatens communities from one side and industrialization from the other. The last vestiges of our formerly expansive homelands are caught in the squeeze of extraction and sacrifice. It is a perilous place to be, but we remain. We belong.”

 

Eric Diekhans’ fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and the forthcoming anthology Uncensored Ink. He is the recipient of a local Emmy for Children’s Television and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in screenwriting. He is a member of Lake View Presbyterian Church in Chicago. (www.ericdiekhans.com)

Appreciation for Native Wisdom

By Diane Waddell

 It is good to live on and near lands where First Nation persons have lived; to walk on those lands and by those waters which were once considered sacred; these lands and waters which indigenous persons today continue to hold sacred as they work to stay in ‘right relation’ with Mother Earth. 

 Dr. Dan Wildcat speaks of this land, air, and water in his new book, On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth. It is about the importance of learning about the sacred ‘Earth-Keeping’ that Indigenous persons can share with those who take the land for granted and under whose watch a climate crisis is occurring. 

 Dr. Wildcat, a Yuchi member of the Muskogee Nation of Oklahoma, is an author,  professor, and administrator at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS.  He has been a speaker at a previous PEC conference, talking about a previous book, Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge. He summarizes that book by stating that those of us who have helped create and exacerbate the climate crisis are doing everything but change our way of living to slow the crisis.

 He is passionate about the importance of learning from native people, those who consider the elements of Earth a gift rather than a resource, who see Earth as relational, and who live with mindfulness and humility.

 It is an invitation to listen, to hear, to put our ears to the ground and become aware of that sacred drumbeat, that sacred rhythm.  This is an invitation to share in gratitude Dr. Wildcat’s passion. 

 In this statement, Land Back! (Page 48) he proposes a restorative justice principle/proposal.  Hear and consider….

 Land Back!

 

Land back!

Why, where….to whom, for what?

Returned? Restored? Received? Reimagined?

Revered…Honored.

 

Land back!

Just politics, left of center,

Right of center, front and center

No, Just Centered

 

Land back!

Where we began, a specific place, a deep space,

A song, a prayer, embodied mindfulness full of grace

A grounded soaring spirit found in place

 

Land back!

Our situation brought full circle

Through prayer, song, ceremony, and direct action

A gift entailing gratitude and generosity we must share.

 

Land back!

Let’s talk, let’s pray, let’s play

Let’s forget just us and find a way to justice

In the national eco-kinship system too many have forgotten.

 

Land back!

A community restoration activity

The embodiment of right relations.

Land, air, and water — life-centered justice.

Land back!

 

                    —DRW

 Thank you, Dr. Wildcat.

Aho.

 

Diane Waddell is a leader in the JOY New Worshiping Community, Ecumenical Eco-Justice and the St. Joseph Sustainable Environment Advisory Committee.

 

Land Acknowledgements Can Act as Bridges

 

by Nancy Corson Carter

 

“The recent trend in performing land acknowledgments indicates there is interest among the wider public to understand and learn how to honor Indigenous Peoples. Land acknowledgments can be one step towards standing up and standing with Indigenous Peoples. Love Richardson [Tribal leader and enrolled member of the Nipmuc Nation and of Narragansett descent] recalls a time she witnessed a land acknowledgment in Massachusetts so powerful that onlookers shed tears, having been previously unaware of the close relationship Indigenous Peoples have with the land, ignorant to the atrocities performed by colonial settlers. At that moment, allies were created and existing allies fortified their fight. Land acknowledgments have the power to center the interconnectedness of land and people, to pay tribute to the original stewards of the land.”1      

This statement by tribal people helps us begin to understand the power of Land Acknowledgments.  When our church, The Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, NC, studied the Doctrine of Discovery in 2018, such an acknowledgment emerged. This process was led by PEC members who had participated in the national PEC conference, “Blessing the Waters of Life: Justice and Healing for Our Watersheds,” in September 2017 at Menucha Retreat and Conference Center near Portland, Oregon.  While there we had the honor of visiting with and learning from tribal peoples in the Colombia River watershed.

We now have, as a reminder of what we learned there, this statement, which is posted permanently in our narthex, signed by our minister and by the facilitator of Earth Care:

HONORING FIRST PEOPLE AND THE LAND

The Church of Reconciliation Earth Care Committee’s 2018 study of the Doctrine of Discovery prompts us to recognize the Indigenous People who came before us on the lands we now inhabit in North Carolina.

 

The Doctrine of Discovery is a philosophical and legal framework dating to 15th-century European papal decrees. This framework gave Christian governments a false moral rationale for invading and seizing indigenous land and people around the world. Its effects, including intergenerational trauma, still linger in our legal and social systems. 

 

We confess our complicity in this sinful doctrine, and we are grateful that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), by official apologies to Indigenous People harmed by colonization, has led the way to listening and to repentance. With the whole church, we intend further reconciliation through mutual relationships of loving care and respect.

 

We acknowledge that we live on land traditionally belonging to and cared for by  Indigenous People now formally recognized as:

 

                  Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation

                  Lumbee Tribe

                  Sappony

                  Eastern Band of Cherokee

                  Cohaire Intra-Tribal Council, Inc.

                  Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe

                  Meherrin Nation

                  Waccamaw-Siouan Tribe

 

They are our neighbors, those we are commanded to love as ourselves as we heed Christ’s call to the healing of people, of land, and all Creation.

                                         

                                         

We have found that such an acknowledgment must be validated over and over by listening and learning from our Indigenous brothers and sisters. The finest example I’ve learned of lately is being carried out by Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. In the Fall of 2024, in their quarterly, the Abbey Banner, Abbot Douglas Mullin, O.S.B. writes of Saint John’s participating in a Native Nations Task Force. Their intention is “to demonstrate a genuine commitment to rectifying past wrongs and supporting the flourishing of Indigenous communities and people.  We recognize that true reconciliation and healing require more than good intentions and nice words—they demand concrete actions, ongoing commitment, and a willingness to listen and learn from those who have been harmed.”2

We must hope that individually and collectively the Holy Spirit will help this truth to bloom for us all!

1 from CULTURAL SURVIVAL, “Land Acknowledgments Can Act as Bridges”

2”When Good Intentions Go Awry,” by Abbot Douglas Mullin, O.S.B., Saint John’s Abbey’s quarterly, Abbey Banner, Fall 2024 , p.5. 

 An extra Note : October 11, 2021 was the first time a U.S. president, Joe Biden, officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

 

Nancy Corson Carter, professor emerita of humanities at Eckerd College, has published THREE poetry books, Dragon Poems The Sourdough Dream Kit, and  A Green Bough:  Poems for Renewal (most recent) and three poetry chapbooks. Some of her poems, drawings, and photos appear in her nonfiction book, Martha, Mary, and Jesus: Weaving Action and Contemplation in Daily Life, and in her memoir, The Never-Quite-Ending War: a WWII GI Daughter's Stories. Website: nancycorsoncarter.com

A Visit to Kenya - Traditional Food Practices in Harmony with Earth Stewardship

 by Mindy Hidenfelter

Crispy chapati, fragrant mukimo, savory sauteed cabbage, grilled maize by the roadside – all of these wonderful traditional Kenyan dishes and more, created from plants cultivated in harmony with the earth.  As a vegetarian by choice for earth care reasons, I was all set to participate in a “friendship visit” to Kenya, with Presbyterians for Earth Care friends and others, and did not know how I would fare nutritionally avoiding meat during my stay.  Upon arrival, I quickly discovered that my concerns were unfounded.

Depending on the region, Kenyans have long relied upon the earth for most of their sustenance.  As stewards and managers of the land, these indigenous people have created nutritious meals from crops that dated back to before the European colonization of the African continent, as well as crops that were introduced and promoted by Europeans during times of settlement in the East African region that is now the Republic of Kenya.

Two of the native Kenyan dishes that I thoroughly enjoyed and ate just about daily during those two weeks were sakuma wiki and ugali. 

Sakuma wiki is a green known as collards in English.  As a dish, it is typically cut into thin strips and cooked with onions and tomatoes.  “Sakuma wiki” means “to stretch the week” in Swahili, named as such because the greens are readily available and affordable, helping to stretch any meal further. (Hassan, 2024) Greens are a staple in Kenyan cooking and are part of a traditional vegan meal, along with rice or ugali. 

Ugali is a stiff cornmeal porridge.  Originally made of traditional grains such as sorghum and millet, ugali is now most commonly made of maize.  British colonization promoted the cultivation of maize instead of other Kenyan grains, since maize requires less labor than sorghum or millet to grow, care for, and harvest.  While under British colonial rule (1895-1963), Kenyan workers were often paid in maize, promoting its dominance as a cooking staple. Ugali is now most frequently made with white maize (or maize flour) and water. Pieces are rolled into balls with a small thumb depression.  It is used to scoop stew instead of silverware or other eating utensils.

Many other Kenyan dishes, especially the plant-based ones, are examples of indigenous food cultivation in harmony with the earth. For indigenous people around the world, the food grown and integrated into their daily meals helps maintain an important connection with the natural environment in which they live.

Hawa, Hassan. In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean [A Cookbook]. 2024. Ten Speed Press. 282pp.

 

Mindy Hidenfelter serves as the Coordinator for Presbyterians for Earth Care.  She holds degrees in forestry/wildlife science and natural resource management and has experience in urban forestry as an ISA Certified Arborist in both state government and the non-profit world.  Mindy currently serves as an elder at Wake Forest Presbyterian Church in North Carolina, and enjoys running and exploring national parks with her family.