National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

Wild rice – manoomin in the Anishinaabe language- is considered by the Anishinaabe people to be a sacred gift from the Creator, central to the Anishinaabe way of life. Manoomin carries spiritual, economic, nutritional, epistemological value that connects and commits the Anishinaabe to the land and water. Wild rice supports an entire ecosystem, and this ecosystem is honoured in many ways. For example, when rice is traditionally harvested, some of the rice is spread across areas of the water where growth is needed, some of the rice is left on the stalk for birds to eat, and some of the rice is brought in the canoes and back to shore to be prepared.

Each year, there is a manoomin gathering at Curve Lake First Nation Reserve #35, to celebrate, learn, and feast together the manoomin harvest. This year, Winona Laduke and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson provided teachings and inspiration. For both of these brilliant teachers, truth telling is used to inspire action, to inspire change, to demand sovereignty, land back, water back, culture back, governance back, everything back – to demand autonomy and equity and justice back from colonial harms then and now.

Today, we are reminded to consider colonial harms then and now. Colonial harms that have scarred communities with attacks on all that connect Indigenous peoples to one another and to land as home, spirit, culture, and wellbeing. Winona finished her brilliant teaching with these words about the expansive power of refusal to be displaced: “Bringing back the rice is bringing back the ecosystem. Bringing back the buffalo is bringing back the ecosystem”. And finally, she finished with  Zapatista words: “They buried us. They forgot we are seeds”. 

Leanne spoke about the back of the turtle, with patterns of 13 and 28 scutes, offering up a calendar that fortifies our connection to the Moon. Colonization has disrupted that connection. Leanne, with her description of the turtle’s back, reminded us that we can also think about time in a decolonized way. So, today, the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, let us participate meaningfully in this cyclical honouring, while also coming together, every day of each year, in a commitment to nurture the seeds of wellbeing, of resistance, of refusal, of truth, so that we can move steadily and with strength toward reconciliation.