Nawendaagnag (All My Relations): Listening Carefully to Histories of Serpent, Tree, and Water Relations in Serpent River Resurgence

I am pleased to be part of this panel honouring Serpent River Resurgence (SRR) and Lianne Leddy’s work. Here I focus on the ways in which Leddy’s research and writing in SRR changes what we (in this case, I mean historians) know about Nishnaabeg histories and how we understand (epistemology) that knowledge. As Elder John Sawyer recently reminded me, “It isn’t just the facts that matter, it is how we think about them.” It is this latter point, how we understand the facts of the past, that historians not trained to think through Nishnaabeg epistemologies need to linger with in their learning from this book. Allan Downey describes scholarship like SRR as resurgent histories, pointing to the importance of Indigenous histories from the inside, which consciously value the intellectual sovereignty of Indigenous communities and employ Indigenous and decolonial research methodologies. Establishing relationships between land and story, or animating land with stories, is a critical act of decolonization. I anchor these reflections in three areas: the Nishnaabeg histories and worldview shared in SRR, the learning I have been privileged to engage in on Nbiising Nishnaabeg lands (from human and more-than-human relations), and the significant and generous scholarship of Indigenous colleagues — Kim Anderson, John Borrows, Alan Corbiere, Allan Downey, Winona LaDuke, Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Deb McGregor, Winona Wheeler, Dylan Robinson, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Zoe Todd, and Eve Tuck, among others — who have emphasized the importance of engaging Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing) and ontologies (ways of being) in the work we do as scholars. Here I focus on the imperative to respect and fulfill mutual obligations to nawendaagnag (all my relations), including the human and more-than-human world, in historical scholarship. In SRR we learn about the role of nawendaagnag in the past and present in the story of the serpent, which opens the book, in stories of (re)creation and the antics of Nanabush, as well as in the dbaajmowinan (everyday stories) throughout the book, which emphasize valuing and fighting for lands, waters, trees, and animals as kin rather than resources for exploitation or sport. Readers keen to sidestep histories they do not understand, casting them as fable or myth, must commit to listening with respect. This is how we can turn “hungry listening” and extractive historical research into responsible, resurgent, and reconciliatory learning that makes it possible to more fully understand and mobilize the histories of the Indigenous lands we live on and write about. As Leroy Little Bear, Winona LaDuke, Deb McGregor, and many Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Holders have instructed us, the resurgence of these ways of thinking about and living in the world are a path out of colonial realities for all of us, transforming our relationships to the past, present, and future. Stewards of the serpent story know that this aansokan (sacred story) documents the existence of precious metals kept in balance by the natural world and that too much disturbance of these radiant eggs (and the relationships of care that surround them) will do more harm than good. Nishnaabeg (re)creation stories remind us that humans need the natural world — healthy trees and clean water — to survive. Nanabush reminds us that if we are greedy, it will become hard to live a good life. Indeed, we all find ourselves face down in the mud sometimes, but it is what we do with these powerful moments of learning that matters the most. Here I explore the following question: what happens in our historical scholarship and teaching when we see the trees and waters as historical actors with stories to tell? To …