Tiwahe

This blog focuses on my journey with Tribal allies whom I first met at the ESIIL Innovation Summit in May 2023. At that time, I joined the Maka Sitomniya Working Group, which was eventually funded as one of the ESIIL Working Groups for in-person and virtual meetings over the next few years. I thought that I could share my wisdom and offer advice as a retired faculty–Professor Emeritus no less–with decades of experience in collaboration, working with data, and coding. Yes, there is that, but … I have come to realize that I have much to learn, and that listening is better than advising. While I sort of knew this intellectually, it is hard to let go of the ego trip of being an expert. Members of our working group “family” have helped me discover that I am a beginner, tiwahe, an innocent in so many ways.

ESIIL Innovation Summit (May 2023)

Boulder, CO, 22-26 May 2023

This was my first encounter with Tribal members outside of Wisconsin, with ~40 Tribes represented. The conference was broadly scoped for environmental data science. However, a substantial interest of the NSF-funded Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESIIL) involved developing relationships with Tribes around this subject.

I found this unconference to be exciting and confusing, with ESIIL’s great cultural framing of the goals that transitioned into wide-ranging and often unfocused project emergence. I gravitated to the project that became Maka Sitomniya because I liked the energy and focus of the people gathering together. I actively listened, learning that those Tribal members present wanted to find sophisticated ways to study their land and people using resources (largely big data and big computing) that NSF and other federal agencies are trying to figure out how to share. ESIIL’s role is to facilitate that sharing process without necessarily directing it in any particular direction, hence the level of confusion.

Over four and a half days, I showed up. At one point, in a layered circle of group members outside in the patio, I became concerned that many people were talking but noone was taking notes. I expressed my concern, and Jim Sanovia (Lakota Rosebud Tribal member and ESIIL Tribal Resilience Data Scientist) laughed in a good-hearted way: “This is how we roll.” This actually set me at ease. By that time, I had gotten to know several Lakota people, who tolerated my inexperience.

After the un-conference, it took awhile for the Maka Sitomniya group to coalesce online (via zoom meetings). The 1 November 2023 working group proposal deadline, announced in September, got us rolling. Over two months of meetings every 1-2 weeks, we put together a successful proposal. I found that my notes recorded on our group google drive were a helpful to keep me informed and provide a record for the group, which was appreciated.

We learned in February 2024 that we were funded, and we met sporadically over the coming months. As I learned, Tribal members are pulled in many directions and often were in more than one remote meeting at the same time, or back to back. I continued to show up, which is much easier to do as a retired person.

ESIIL Innovation Summit (May 2024)

Boulder, CO, 13-17 May 2024

Story coming …

Maka Sitomniya (July 2024)

Boulder, CO, 8-12 July 2024

We travelled on Wednesday way up Boulder Canyon Drive to join others for a walk in the woods behind Jim Sanovia’s home, located at 9500 feet. Phil Two Eagle, leader of our Maka Sitomniya Working Group, drove me and two other senior western researchers, Bob Newman and Rob Rabin. We marvelled at the beautiful creek and debated about how to work together with data tools to study the changing climate and land of Oceti Sakawin (seven council fires) in a manner that respects inherent sovereignty of the Lakota.

This walk, and lovely meal prepared by Jim and Lilly Jones-Sanovia, offered a welcome respite from our days-long meetings at ESIIL. Our goal, I thought, was to get to work on creating the tools that would bring together data from multiple sources so that Lakota researchers could study aspects of the land, water, air, and environmental challenges including mining, pollution, and public health. These were paramount, but first we needed to come together, and not just in person, physically.

We began on Monday finding a tree outside in a grassy area and arranging ourselves in a circle. Phil offered a prayer for the work ahead. James Rattling Leaf opened a Cuban cigar box containing an abalone shell and sage, and lit the sage for Phil. Phil came to each of us in the circle to enable us to cleanse our spirit with the sage. After, we each introduced ourselves and acknowledged what we bring to this meeting. We were now ready to begin. Rather, this was our beginning, our meeting each other and connecting with a higher spiritual guidance.

We went upstairs to begin the work in earnest, or so I thought. Naturally, we started with arranging chairs and tables in a circle and addressing community care for our meeting, led by Susan Sullivan. Phil laid out a vision of building a “data cube” that would initially include tools to articulate and study treaty boundaries, mining resources, and water. I thought we would dive into the technical aspects of these three components. Yet, we still needed to get to know one another. That is, we needed to become a family and establish trust.

And we had much to learn from each other about what a “data cube” might be. Is it one thing, with multiple layers (think map apps on your phone that overlay landscape, streets, traffic, and alerts)? Is it a collection of tools? one portal or multiple? Who will have access? Where will it reside?

As discussion weaved around the circle, it became clear that we had many different ideas, and these were not always compatible. Frustration seemed to slow us down, but we kept finding ways to listen to each other. We all valued the opportunity to hear every voice. So, on one level I felt we were not making much progress–where was this mysterious data cube?–but on another level I noticed that we were beginning to find common threads, and to see each other more clearly.

I could continue to describe the meeting, but I don’t have the right to share those details here.

Phil articulated the four levels of traditional government, which are intimately woven with the four levels of kinship and relationship:

  • Tiwahe: innocent
  • Tiospaye: youth
  • Ospaye: adult
  • Oyate: elder

I found some exposition of this in Oseu 4 of Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings & Standards. Here I thought of myself as some sort of “elder”, when in fact I am an inocent, at the level of tiwahe. I found this initially embarrassing (for my presumption of senior leadership) and later humbling. Finally, I found it exciting and envigorating, as it means I am starting a new journey. I still have my templates and biases to strip away, but I felt an opening to connect more with members of this family. On the closing session, when we were each asked to say a word or phrase that encapsulated the week, I chose tiwahe and remarked on how I felt to be innocent and a beginner.

Wild12 (August 2024)

Rapid City, SD, 25-31 August 2024

Weeks later, I was a delegate to the Wild12 World Wilderness Conference, hosted by Phil Two Eagle and the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council. I saw Phil and James throughout, along with other Lakota friends, including students from Oglala Lakota College (OLC) whom I had only seen online at regular student research meetings with OLC’s Math, Science and Technology Department.

Indigenous and wilderness leaders from around the world gathered to reinterpret “wilderness … through the lens of traditional cultures, rooting Indigenous principles and lifeways at the center of the movement to keep Earth wild.” This was the first wilderness conference to welcome Indigenous leaders as a major driving force of the dialog. Important themes I heard are that Indigenous people

  • have been disrupted by ongoing wilderness conservation efforts,
  • want agency to effectively manage so-called “wilderness” areas,
  • share common values and world vision across cultures,
  • have cultural values and knowledge important to human healing,
  • struggle against lop-sided resource allocation due to colonial systems.

In other words, the world would be a better place if Indigenous people could (co-)steward ancestral lands that they have lived on for millennia. Important signs of progress in the US came from leaders of the USFS and USNPS:

Phil Two Eagle organized a major tract of the conference around shared stories of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Oyate. The opening session on Sunday night included many elders of the Sicangu Treaty Council. Arvol Looking Horse, 19th keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle and leader of the 1990 return to the site of the Wounded Knee massacre, spoke eloquently of our current world plight and the central role of the Black Hills in the balance of nature. Other elder speakers that night and through the week included Claude Two Elk, Wendell Yellow Bull, and Victor Douville (on star knowledge). These elders include descendants and relatives of Red Cloud, Black Elk and Crazy Horse, whose memories were invoked at key points. Here are some sites that I found helpful, though they only partially cover what was shared:

Saturday delegates ratified a series of Wild12 Resolutions that are well worth reading. The conference concluded with an in promptu treaty signing organized by Phil Two Eagle. This treaty was read and then signed by individuals, including myself, as an open document that could later be brought before nations for ratification. Each of us came up and said our name and a few words, signed, and then shook the hand of everyone who had signed before us. I stated, “I am Brian Yandell living in Madison, Wisconsin, on the ancestral land of the Ho Chunk Nation. I am a 13th generation American.” Right before me were Sámi and Maasai leaders, and I was followed by a person from South Africa. This left me feeling valued and included, and a part of something much bigger. It gave me hope for the future.

Updated August 23, September 6, 2024.

Written on August 31, 2024