QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 2002, VOL. 15, NO. 4, 447 – 459

protocol for passengers

ama sqit nilhsten skwatsits tsexox

welcome to the sound of running water ideo morphic ortho graphies

welcome to conversations of stone river earth sky

this canoe tsexox missing a few glottal stops welcomes you

first a caution even to the best swimmers treaders floaters logholders

it would be advisable that while we are in motion

that you not stand up as we journey

to lake stream river ocean sky stars language spirit world

“please spare us’’ I can hear an academic geyser spouting up right down centre

everywhere in particular this oraclic source infected with ratio caucus iuris

this mesoscopic cog(noscento) of how it [education] is supposed to be                                            

shaped and shaping

this disease which is its own vector this malady which is its own cause

is known to cause short-sightedness tunnel vision and intolerance

to diffracted white light

“please’’ speaks the voice from the plume “channel your romantic piffle elsewhere

in this country we use scientific principles social science methods

including scholarly referencing’’

which appeared to a succession of mostly white mostly expired mostly men

of mediated merit du club des vieux garçons

or perhaps ex nihilo like manna banana panna

coyote is feeling a bit put off by the tone she is picking up

but she puts it down to human beings being human beings of an occidental kind

uncontaminated by this accelerating discovering she transforms herself

into a fourlegged and trots along the river bank

raven skycams overhead now alloyed to the bird nation

with respect to this canoe journey there will be extremes of weather and climate

there will be portages rapids waterfalls riptides swells crests gales typhoons tsunami

forest and grass fires droughts sandstorms blizzards toxic sludge customs agents

so bring waterproof windproof heatproof coldproof insulated breathable comfortable

light wash `n wear bedding clothing attitudes and a thick skin

you might want to bring a tent some bushsmarts and navigating knowhow

but please no cellphones beepers laptops palmtops modems

satellite communication devices radios tvs cd recorders dats recorders

the default position here is “unencumbered’ ’

by the “conveniences’’ of modern life wireless transistorless chipless

some ports of call require a passport and visa

some require oaths or affidavits of allegiance

some sovereign indigenous nations require that you apply in advance

to enter their domain using the correct protocol

I know you will be respectful to the shapes and textures

scents resiliences resonances zoning bylaws stones

native flora “driftwood’’ mores ethics of the places we visit

I know that you know how to act in someone else’s home

where you are an invited guest not a tourist

so grab a paddle or rudder or line and keep time  i t  indian time

my experience is that a vertical attitude in turbulence

tends toward horizontal or oblique compromise

so for your own safety and that of your cotravellers

please sit be comfortable and strap yourself in

to a personal floatation device or parachute relax have fun

and don’t worry too much if there aren’t suffcient references

to published materials or any at least in the first few bends

in time the earth and sky will denecessitate the need for biblio graphics

replacing them with sound vision texture scent taste

as jake thomas cayuga elder said at a conference

at the six nations reserve in 1998 “thank you for inviting me

to come up here and waste my breath again’’

a silence followed by laughter

shaping the canoe

the means of transportation I have chosen for this article

as well as my doctoral dissertation

first peoples’ knowings as legitimate discourse in education: coming home to the village

besides language is a canoe

constructed not from the forest nations but from words

and the gesturings of those words and the spaces around those words

the idea of chapter is anathema to who I am as an indigenous person

it implies western order and format as “the’’ legitimate shapers of discourse

the universe being ordered into rationally constructed geometries

precluding enthalpy to be the prescribed means of navigating

rather than say entropy devalidating our own symbolic sense of ourselves

perceptions of our perceptions making us take up the tools of the settlers

hoe hoe hoe rake shovel ratiocination for the nation

the idea of paragraph is meaningless to my sense

of oral contiguousness with the land with community with acting in the world

it is a denunciation of the geography of my relationship with place

where are the plateaux the escarpments the end moraines the ridges and slopes

the practice of academically certified punctuation distances me

from my sense of space time and natural speech patterns including translated ones

separating me from my connection with the earth and its natural rhythms

the a priori presumption being that the written word is of paramount worth

the assumption being that the mechanisms of codification

and transliteration of our rhythms periods commas semicolons

have anything (whatsoever) to do with our paralinguistic choreographies

to thus delegate the orality of my nation and its transcription to a place removed

from equal symbolic even orthographic consideration

is to put us in our place illiterates illegitimates iterati

the ideas of beginningmiddleend genesis exodus revelation testa corpus coda

are ways of linearly encoding a western vision of the world

ways of encrypting experience so that little by little we are all molded

into believing unthinkingly that there are beginnings middles ends

believing that experience can be diagrammed graphed morphed thus

the idea of capital versus small letters as being reflections of the world

is a way of “class’’ifying words caste-ing them

and those who use them differentially

it is a way of playing with value and with naming

some words (we are to assume) are common some proper

and because I do not see any noun as being un“common’ ’ or im“proper’’

and rather than using caste nomenclature orthographic diversion

in the practice of capital and small letters

rather than being equitable and capitalizing them all

I capitalize only the ones which ask to be capitalized

by which I mean I am writ the things which become words “write’’ me

retroactively and in so doing make the choice themselves

as to how they prefer to be and if at all on paper

the idea of only a fixed vocabulary being tolerated in scholarly endeavour

disallowing unglossaried unannounced neologistic precipitation is culturally binding

these categories are cultural prisons

within which “other’’ is castigated set adrift within a panopticon/vention

in (a) craft bound not for mutual acculturation

but unilateral assimilation genosimilitude

where are the translated places for parts of speech english doesn’t have

parts of speech indigenous languages don’t have

where is there unobstructed space for the animated in transit

I align spatially rather than use punctuation as the default place of diacritics

this english language was forced onto my nation in residential school

and other places our languages were and are not “official’’

have you ever seen a five year old girl with a pin (inserted) through her tongue

for speaking her language permission resides in me as languaged

to use this imposed english as I must otherwise it will use me at its discretion

forging me into molds of correct usage which would never do

insofar as my own agenda is concerned

english is one of the languages I was raised in

it is the language of my mother and my father knew it too

I allowed myself to be colonized by it unaware ssssss

in turn I have chosen to use it as I need to for my writing

even if it means I must write chaos chance trickster

even if it means I must bring words into existence

which thencetofore were naught

if a word does not exist I let it invent me through it

if a way of getting an idea or sound or intention across works or I think it does

I employ it paying union wages including over time

I am the written the languaged the read

and the “me’’ I speak of here at this cross-roads this node

this inter-section this confluence is one

which exists within as well as despite language

like a stone partly beneath the earth or water or sky partly above it

it is not that the stone is partly buried or submerged but that its relationship

with earth with water with air is not defined solely in terms of the preposition “above’’

as a languaged person I do not acknowledge as ultimate authority

of how I am to express myself “correctly’’ using english

dictionaries lexicons grammarabilia

and other imported colonialist paraphernalia

who owns this language to whom is it deeded chartered

who has given the university the government the viceroy intendancy

over how documents are to be languaged over what counts

as legitimate discourse within a sanctioned institution of post-knowing

when this tool of conquerage this english was forced on us

we vowed to use it so as to communicate as best we were able

I set as my task to write for meaning rather than correctness

even at the risk of being misunderstood mis-taken

which is part of what language is all about — risk

negotiating meaning agency power relations

in order to enter those realms of anointed power

those racially predestined orbs those p/reserves of academ(ent)ia

those places where I can be of immediate help for my nation

it is deemed I am to follow western epistemologies

cast like the commandments of moses [or the manifesto of andré breton]

into petrified substantiation transited like retrograde orbiting planets

with us as indigenous peoples caught in the thrall

like occulted satellites eclipsed step sibs ellipses to the indian act and treaties

my canoe is a place of cultural understanding

it transports it connects me to the forest and the water and to my spirit

it conveys it acts as a place of gestation of birthing

in transit and final worldly threshold for generations

millenia of my relations if ever there was home for our migrations

it is this form this vessel this tree relation

this part of my article is an introduction but not to a beginning

to a continuation a continuing

with the transfer of these words from computer screen pencil pen

thought feeling spirit sound to paper

the canoe comes from the forest and from place of mind spirit

thanks here are given for the sister/brother cedar’s life medicines are burned

whereafter planks so carefully are eased from the snag’s trunk

with such delicate surgery you’d think it were an operation

on a butterfly’s broken wing

though it might seem the canoe and tree are from a conceptual space

they are from spirit and heart

and it is in those places I give thanks kukwstumlhkacw

paper has long been the form whereon the academy has held the forest hostage

for its wildness its untamed savagery its plantness

in the end itself returning to pulp and dissipated print

so many documents are created or photocopied ongoingly

you’d think universities were themselves forest industries

so great their tonnage of this stuff

yet here too is a forest though not called so yet is

pulped pressed flat between covers printed on in aisles and paginated

even so it is just that yet not just that even is it more

this canoe’s medium will be air though most of us are aware

there is customarily in air a plenitude of water called humidity

the power needed to make and power computer engineering arises

in the turbines of dams for which forests are felled submerged

paper thus is even where it is not since its absence is only that

a presence of not having been processed from tree dimension

into eight and a half by eleven a-4  plus or minus and its direct declensions

the sentience of trees named by the sound of wind in branches

when elder brother is reddest indeed this relation of the tree nation

is all that brother can be when manifest in trans form

a home for my nation

in creating a framework

our educational frameworks are not imported from conceptual spaces

or other western domains

they are not semiotic xenotransplants tip-layered epistemes adventitious suckers

this would be the usual site for parentheses encasing a published reference

title punctuation year perhaps a superscript numeral

alas I offer only experience upon which to draw

in this instance it is my only referee

I the unanointed paleo-subjectivity am not unaware

that persons high on the plateau of western knowing

the in alto cognoscenti would call this practice unscholarly or “polemical’’

if in fact this article became becomes published

alack we pre/preter/extra/alter/literate autochthones with our transgressive praxes

have only our experiences and stories to which we might allude

—though we could beg to intone invoke evince

the anthropologists linguists historians indian expert educators

who have made careers out of studying us

and we could fulfill the mandate of referencing

by quoting them quoting us —but I will refrain

)and please this “we’’ I employ is inclusive only as a rhetorical device(

and since I am not practiced at referencing nature in a scholarly manner

I will let the paren)theses( remain outside of the visible

and get on with building a framework with a purpose

as we paddle together portage make and break camp

I will take time to consider and plan and implement a framework

of some no little importance for the lives of many first peoples

in considering a sweatlodge

for a sweatlodge it is not unimportant

the journey of the parts in relation to the whole

firstoff it (the impersonable pronoun) is not taken for granted

that a sweatlodge is necessarily necessary

at such and such a time or place or circum/stance

it is not taken for granted that we are called upon

by the ancestors and the powers and spirits and beings to construct a sweatlodge

rather it is an honour an obligation to construct one

or have one constructed through oneself

once it has been determined necessary or appropriate

the framework then —is not identical from nation to nation to nation

nor the rituals involved including the means of harvesting

our relations the willow if indeed it is the willow we speak of

(some employ other members of the tree nations especially

as willow is not universally present in all geographies)

on the willow grow ofttimes our spiritual sisters and brothers

our relations the fungus nations we do not take for granted

that we can dislodge these spiritual medicines from their home

further it must be agreed on the placement of the lodge and the timing

and not just by one another and ourselves but by all that is life

everything is part of the framework and is the framework

including our relations with ]the[ creator sun moon earth sky one another

how many willows must be asked for how are the willows to be spoken with

who will speak and when and how in what language

what will be offered the willow for its life will the willow agree

are there not insect and bird nations to be consulted viruses

will the willow be in constant contact with the ground

situated so as to remember and relate in transit

and what ground where

from the time of harvesting onwards

during transportation to the place of construction of lodge

will the ground be dug into with implements or with hands or at all

will there be a pit for the rocks which will heat the water that will carry our prayers

who will do the digging what will this person say when

will the leaves of the willow be removed or not

will there be purifications at all stages

is respect to be shown generally specifically latently

in the consensus of this enterprise will “nature’’ be part of consensus

who will speak for “nature’’ who can hear her

is interpretation necessary in order to understand

the voice the language of “nature’’ are we not nature

how deep will the holes be for each willow how many

which hole will be dug first what direction who will dig it which second

who will tie the willows together once they are bent together

what will they be tied with what knot what colour what time of day

in what moon how are all of our relations to be honoured

when the intercultural conversation is from many nations and languages

and traditions are there hardandfast rules are there protocols

known through living respectful lives on and with the land and sky

where does authenticity reside legitimacy whose whose not

what will cover the bent willows

the skins of our relations the fourleggeds

or tarps plastic whatever is available

where will the fire be what direction how many stones will be used

how many logs for fuel what kind how will they be collected and by whom

how will the logs and the stones be set down

who will keep the fire how will our relations the stones be treated

after they have helped us in our healing there is so much more

and much of it is not for sharing on paper for academic reasons

why the instrumental of who is not one of the adverbs conjunctions or nouns which

our elders employ in interrogative discourse

because to use why it is said seems to be questioning the creator’s motives

seems to be calling onto the mat of reason what lies beyond

(or other/wise thither from) reason

a framework

is not just an architect/ural or /tectonic manifestation of a blueprint/ing

it is the enactment of a respectful relationship

with the rest of creation which shares this earth with us

a framework is never a noun never simply a metaphor

it cannot be captured thus as a part of speech a figuration

it is more than any words which attempt to denotate it

a framework is a journey/ing with

domicilic frameworks

we constructed our homes from earth from our relations the tree nations

according to the seasons our number and available sustenance

the placement of salmon people in a comparatively accessible degree

you could argue (if you were of such a mind to) that we had theories

of nomadism and seasonal variation migration initiation

the practice was we inhumed ourselves in and with the white blanket of winter

but this was not an academically strategized model

it was practice it was survival it did not rise or otherwise spread

from rationalist scientist occidental epistemologies even retroactively

even by onside “indians’’ colonized elite collaborators ambitious apples

red on the outside white on the in or variations on these

our pit-home walls kept a considerable r-value between us

and the weather and the geography which was also inside

we slept and cooked and attended indoor chores in reasonable comfort

there was a hole for smoke and the breath of our ancestors

and the plant nations to mingle with ours

and at least one alternate means of egress in case of emergency

which of course was always just around the bend

we didn’t have corners in our language

we wove mats spread grasses hung our salmon engendered regenerated expired

in this domicilic framework enfolding us this home

within an elaborate performative epistemology of survivance

thank you professor vizenor for that netted gem

precluding or at least gesturing toward our continuance

on the great interior plateau our home land and native oka nada

(which for those outside of the canadian context relates to a major military standoff

near montreal quebec canada between a handfull of aboriginal people

and a division of the canadian army

over replacing a sacred “indian’’ burial site (alias dictus cemetery) with a golf course

oka being the reserve nada being by inference never   the less

each person had comprehensive expertise we were communal individuals

with broad as well as specific survival strategies

sleeves up our tricks ravenpockets coyotedreams

in those days before the whiteman our individuality

was not the focus and resolve it is today

ex/clusivizing self from selves selves from self

life spindled spun and wove us together

more aboriginal/ized epistemologies and methodologies

weaving and knitting our clothes and furniture from trees grasses wool hair roots

provided protective domestic frameworks with which to cover ourselves

in those long winter nights when we had time to theorize

about indigenous weaving metaphors and textual interpenetration

linguistic multifurcation and the strategics of risk venturing

but for the most part we huddled together in collective warmth and caring

our looms were are technological studies in simplicity denoting demarc/at/ing us

as primitive disingenuous naïve stoneage gullible trusting

our simplicity made us fertile grounds for evangelical hubris

for the lies and genocides acted out on us present tense included

by the ruling soldierly and settlerly classes from europe [sic]

trans/planted imports choking out native species

of course it is the greatest genius which is simple s/implicit

anyone with less than half a mind can dumbfound an audience

with complications obfuscative dithrambic clarifications appropriately

gesticulated graphed and overhead projected lubyrasered chartflipped

oh yes we had our frameworks and they were mostly temporary

like us  except in the long run we returned to the earth we never left

our frameworks the grammar of our actions declensioning us

subjecting us to nominal activity deverbifying “acting’’ into action

even now the english language is the time machine that takes us back

wards to a truth that was never part of any story

we ever heard or imagined in our primitive e/state

especially as we have (at least had) no past or future tense

until our ideas became translated into english and back

and suddenly even our present became on hold mise en scène  iris shot

aboriginal technological frameworks

frameworks yes we used what the newcomers called frameworks

to gather our relations the salmon nations

these were our installations and properties and sets

molding us to the places of the river which named us

through our naming of them the land languaged us

with the breath it gave us we spoke to identify (actually to relate) our connecting

our fishing platforms and scaffolds held us over breakwaters hairpin bends

and back-eddies with our three-pronged spears and gaffs harpoons

basketry traps weirs set lines set-nets dip-nets gillnets scoopnets

and drying racks ready to enact the prayer

which adapted us to the condition/al/s the laconic geographies

a few weeks of good fishing meant survival rather than starvation

and it was rarely longer a time we were given to store for the winter

“if ’’ was not an overly used morpheme in our vocabulary

our frameworks and workings took into account the clarity (or not)

of the water its speed its dervish its placidity its negotiativity

we paid intimate attendance to geography by the default position

of being unseparated from it rather than prepositionally related ad/hered to it

we were and are not speci/fic/ally different from salmon

steelhead rainbow silver trout oolichan sturgeon dolly varden

until we all started sprouting latin nomenclature

becoming reductively subsumed into rationalist scientist discourses

I don’t know the reason canada has just a federal department of indian affairs

there is no department of white affairs salmon affairs

moose beaver deer bear not to forget the waterfowl

and how did the conversation get shifted into the western category of “rights’’

including aboriginal rights

we never had “rights’’ before contact we had relationships we had community

talking about aboriginal rights is a way of moving an aboriginal relational conversation

away into a western legal discourse

give me relationships mr prime minister and the opportunity to practice my culture

on my own land and you can keep your native rights

and the rest of your imported legislation or that passed to benefit the “majority’’

which means the 95% who are not aboriginal

don’t continue to lock us in your semiotic conceptual prisons

we’re inmate enough as it is without being immured

by the cementum of your white discourse

relating to relations: a framework of respect

catching fish is different from studying toward a phd

(though they can both be done at the same time) in that fishing can sustain life

one does not require possession of these three consonants after one’s name

in order to catch fish or even to provoke them into predatory discourse

nor to be able to create tools and implements and ideations relating to the fish nations

it does not require a certificate or degree to understand

or be able to assess the psychology limnology piscatology related to fish

because psychology and assessment being human constructs

are of little import to fish but saying that

I do not presume to speak for fish but to share my experience of them

together with my assumptive objectifications which I try to keep to a minimum

in order to be able to predict indeed or survive in or with the weather

and attached seasons and know the relationship between the blossoming

of particular plants in the montane ultra back home

and the running of particular salmonic subspecies/subspecific salmon

does not require academic expertise

in the fashioning of tools with which to fell trees

and make of them nominations of survival

weaving together t/ropes finding respectful ways of design/at/ing our relations

the fish nations from earth from tree containers to hold salmon oil

one does not need a masterate in archaeology or socalled “hi’’ tech

to survive in the mindset/tler space of “pre’’ historic times

a rich and diverse imagination and respectful action would do and did and does

theory yes we devised ideas too frameworks

when there was time to reflect refract diffract diffuse

there was always somebody in the community

wanting to gainsay needing to theorize about the world

but mostly they were under six years of age

and mostly it was refraction and diffusion

which are about how fish see us and patterns of in/ter/ference

relating to how we see them or not

not to forget or neglect the importance of groping in darkness

tactiling feeling for the bottomfeeders with your toes your feet

not needing to rely exclusively on visual acuity

our kind of framework/ing is looked on as primitive by the larger society

because in modern western mindsetting

there are factory people to perform the preliminary work

to assemble package process thereby de-prioritize

the need for us to rub sticks or strike stones together in order to have heat

we have a thermostat and “fossil fuels’’ volatile combustibles

in the fervour and flux of modern comfort let us not forget dams

which not only destroy animals and their homes the forests meadows

but they also heat us in directly proportionate ways

to their destruction of life habitat

yes insects viruses rodents amphibians reptiles

mammals the bird and fish nations live lives real lives

they are not expendable just so that we can be more comfortable

how can methodology be separate from the living

of an ethical compassionate life together with

as first peoples of this land our responsibilities include

to take into accountability not just measurability

our relationships with the rest of creation

we follow our original instructions as orally passed on

as well as continually relearned in our ceremonies rituals daily protocols

we work to regenerate mutual relationships interpenetrating considerations

ethics for us is not an add-on or a form to fill in

it is intimate integration with the deep structure of our understanding

of creation including its ongoingness its pre- co- and post-emptiveness

our way is not to bioassay and reproduce mapped grids gradients

of the western research paradigms

accountability and respect is not just about seeking re-zoning approval

it is more than following approved bureaucratic structural codes

what about consideration for all our relations

what about love for each leaf tree stone student colleague

insect fish worm fourlegged microbe fungus moss lichen virus

what about offering tobacco water thanks awareness

prayer intoned sung danced or silently felt

prayer as conversation with all of creation

acknowledged compassion for the harming of these relations

rather than the consuming of them as the sine qua non

the rest of creation does not reside in the genitive case of human beings

as alms to our need and proprietary claim

do we dare to move a stone knowing it has is spirit

knowing it has been t/here a thousand millennia

do we dare dig into our mother the earth  our earth the mother

even with our hands even with our thoughts our metaphors

and not remember we are all related

what is it to drag our mother into those presumed prefigured conceptual spaces

of languaging of visualizing of justifying our mistreatment of her

defiling her for profit

if we knew what it meant at the level of body the place of spirit

to call life to call living things our relations “resources’’

what kind of place of violation of creation has this english language created

turning a tree into lumber timber log 2by4 sawdust paper garbage

turning a tree into a resource what kind of etymology is that

what kind of ethic epistemology methodology what does it say

of the underlying motive of capitalism consumer fraud ab origine

is this not a consideration worth considering

before outcomes and risk assessments and surface rights wrongs

is there not spirit in the air we breathe  the breath we share in the water

is it not an obligation for human beings to offer some thing

for the life we are about to take

a life which we do not own which we have no right

to assume is ours to take even to survive

is the framework of ethical consideration

and spiritual connection not the frame work we need

to consider and to act within the guidelines

the creator gives us however that might come across

be it direct intervention sign/ification interpretation or presumption

even within the translated real/m of the english language

whose geographies are alien to many of our minds and hearts

is there not sown some respect for how things might be to others

our frameworks are not frames nor are they works

they are the movement of forest and relations through mind hand and spirit

they shape our minds around themselves

bring it into organic functioning sometimes retroactively

fashioning themselves into us through our co-optation of them

yet with respect to ethics is it not just another liberal notion meant

to contain contentment validate western traditions

is ethics not a negotiated notion arising from/as the ashes

of western epistemologies at the expense of “other’’

is ethics not a cultivar rather than an adventitious shoot

meant to privilege certain kinds of knowings sowings and not others

is ethics not something which is meant to ensure

indigenous knowings and actions must fit the delineations and geometrics

of the denotation of western ethical action

who is in charge of the ethics police whose frames matter whose are expendable

who holds the reins and whip the keys to the dungeon the drawbridge

this too is the stain and cut of ethics

which does not end nor begin in white picket fences

stone mansions and marble places of white worship

it begins in the pockets of the privileged and in the pockets of those pockets

it resides too in our plank houses long houses spirit is everywhere everywhence

the land backhome being thick with bush the mountains steep and rugged

the air not a viable option most of our travel was by water craft

we did not take for granted our sister and brother tree nations

sacrificing their lives for our “needs’’

whether vertically situated or oblique horizontal whole or fragmented

driftwood snag oldgrowth deadhead diseased or burnt a tree is a relation

and as such is equivalent to any other relation stone star objet trouvé

we learned to take a canoe from a cedar without felling it

slate for tools profuse with islands

not just a way of life but life itself

hunting trails berry trails trading trails

we assemble bit by bit the canoe giving thanks

in that place europhilosophy calls “conceptual space’’ t/here

I speak with the assembled tree nations to a particular tree

asking permission to use part of its clothing its body its spirit

as a vehicle for my journey of words ideas intentions actions feeling

as a companion

paddle paddle paddle

                                     swooooooooossshhh