Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society

Vol. 3, No. 3, 2014, pp. 1-25

Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg

intelligence and rebellious
transformation1

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Abstract
A resurgence of Indigenous political cultures, governances and nation-building requires
generations of Indigenous peoples to grow up intimately and strongly connected to our
homelands, immersed in our languages and spiritualities, and embodying our traditions of
agency, leadership, decision-making and diplomacy. This requires a radical break from state
education systems systems that are primarily designed to produce communities of individuals
willing to uphold settler colonialism. This paper uses Nishnaabeg stories to advocate for a
reclamation of land as pedagogy, both as process and context for Nishnaabeg intelligence, in
order to nurture a generation of Indigenous peoples that have the skills, knowledge and values to
rebuild our nation according to the word views and values of Nishnaabeg culture.

Keywords: Nishnaabeg pedagogy; land based education; Indigenous Knowledge; resurgence

The thinking within this paper was generated inside a community of intellectuals, artists, Elders and cultural
producers to whom I am both influenced by and accountable to. Previous drafts were peer-reviewed outside of the
standard academic peer-review process and within a community of practitioners and Nishnaabeg thinkers including
Doug Williams, John Borrows, Tara Williamson, and Niigaanwewidam Sinclair. Mahsi/Mahalo to Glen Coulthard,
Erin Freeland Ballantyne and Manulani Meyer for on-going discussions and comments on earlier drafts, and
miigwech to Toby Rollo, Matthew Wildcat and the editorial team for their helpful comments.

2014 L. Simpson This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), permitting all non-commercial use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

2 L. Simpson

Kwezens makes a lovely discovery2

Kwezens3 is out walking in the bush one day
It is Ziigwan4
the lake is opening up
the goon was finally melting
shes feeling that first warmth of spring on her cheeks
Nigitchi nendam, she is thinking, Im happy.
Then that Kwezens who is out walking
collecting firewood for her Doodoom5
decides to sit under Ninaatigoog
maybe just stretch out
maybe just have a little rest
maybe gather fire wood a little later
Owah, Ngitchi nendam nongom.
Im feeling happy today, says that Kwezens.
And while that Kwezens
is lying down, and looking up
she sees Ajidamoo6 up in the tree
Bozhoo Ajidamoo! I hope you had a good winter
I hope you had enough food cached.
But Ajidamoo doesnt look up because shes already busy.
Shes not collecting nuts.
Gawiin7.

2

It is a traditional practice to begin by talking about how I learned this story and how I relate to it. This is a
traditional Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg story that I learned from Washkigaamagki (Curve Lake First Nation) Elder
Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams). This is my own re-telling of it, and it is one of the ways I tell it in March, when
my family and I are in the sugar bush, making maple syrup. I have chosen to gender the main character as a girl
because I identify as a women, but the story can be and should be told using all genders. Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg
refers to Mississauga Ojibwe people, and our territory is the north shore of Lake Huron in what is now known as
Ontario, Canada. We are part of the larger Anishinaabeg nation.
3

Kwezens literally means little woman and is used to mean girl.

Ziigwan is the first part of spring when the ice is breaking up and the snow is melting.

Doodoom is an older Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg word that children use to for their mothers. It means my
breastfeeder. I learned this word from Doug Williams.
6

Ajidamoo is a red squirrel.

Land as pedagogy 3
Shes not building her nest
Gawiin, not yet.
Shes not looking after any young.
Gawiin, too early.
Shes just nibbling on the bark, and then doing some sucking.
Nibble, nibble suck.
Nibble, nibble suck.
Nibble, nibble, suck.
Nibble, nibble, suck.
Kwezens is feeling a little curious.
So she does it too, on one of the low branches.
Nibble, nibble suck.
Nibble, nibble suck.
Nibble, nibble, suck.
Nibble, nibble, suck.
MMMMMMMMmmmmmm.
This stuff tastes good.
Its real, sweet water.
MMMMmmmmmmmmmm.
Then Kwezens gets thinking
and she makes a hole in that tree
and she makes a little slide for
that sweet water to run down
she makes a quick little container
out of birch bark, and
she collects that sweet water
and she takes that sweet water home
to show his mama.
That doodoom is excited and she has three hundred questions:
Ah Kwezens, what is this?
Where did you find it?

7

Gaawiin means no.

4 L. Simpson
Which tree
Who taught you how to make it?
Did you put semaa8?
Did you say miigwech9?
How fast is it dripping?
Does it happen all day?
Does it happen all night?
Wheres the fire wood?
Kwezens tells her doodoom the story,
She believes every word
because she is her Kwezens
and they love each other very much.
Lets cook the meat in it tonight,
it will be lovely sweet
Nahow.
Nahow.
So they cooked that meat in that sweet water
it was lovely sweet
it was extra lovely sweet
it was even sweeter than just that sweet water.
The next day, Kwezens takes her mama
to that tree and her mama brings Nokomis
and Nokomis brings all the Aunties, and
there is a very big crowd of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabekwewag10
and there is a very big lot of pressure
Kwezens tells about Ajidamoo
Kwezens does the nibble nibble suck part.
At first there are technical difficulties
and none of it works.
but Mama rubs Kwezens back
she tells Kwezens that she believes her anyway

8

Semaa is tobacco.

Miigwech means thanks.

10

Nishnaabekwewag means Ojibwe women.

Land as pedagogy 5
they talk about lots of variable like heat and temperature and time
then Giizis comes out and warms everything up
and soon its drip
drip
drip
drip

those Aunties go crazy

Saasaakwe!11
dancing around
hugging a bit too tight
high kicking
and high fiving
until they take it back home
boil it up
boil it down
into sweet, sweet sugar.
Ever since, every Ziigwan
those Michi Saagiig Nishnaabekwewag
collect that sweet water
and boil it up
and boil it down
into that sweet, sweet sugar
all thanks to Kwezens and her lovely discovery,
and to Ajidamoo and her precious teaching
and to Ninaatigoog12 and their boundless sharing (Simpson, 2013).13

11

A saasaakwe is a loud shout or vocalization of approval used to call in or acknowledge the spirits.

12

Ninaatigoog are maple trees.

13

A similar version of this story is published in (Simpson, 2013). A different version of this story is told by a nonNative author (Cook, 1999). There are several other maple sugar origin stories, see the title story from The Gift Is in
the Making (Simpson, 2013) and Corbiere (2011).

6 L. Simpson

Given lovingly to us by the spirits14

This spring, while tapping a stand of maple trees, I remembered that this is one of my favorite
stories. Its one of my favorites because nothing violent happens in it. At every turn, Kwezens is
met with very basic, core Nishnaabeg15 values - love, compassion and understanding. She centres
her day around her own freedom and joy I imagine myself at seven running through a stand of
maples with the first warmth of spring marking my cheeks with warmth. I imagine everything
good in the world. My heart, my mind and my spirit are open and engaged and I feel as if I could
accomplish anything. I imagine myself grasping at feelings I havent felt before that maybe life
is so good that it is too short; that there really isnt enough time to love everything.
In reality, I have to image myself in this situation because, as a child, I dont think I was
ever in a similar situation. My experience of education, from kindergarten to graduate school,
was one of coping with someone elses agenda, curriculum, and pedagogy, someone who was
neither interested in my well being as a kwezens, nor interested in my connection to my
homeland, my language or history, nor my Nishnaabeg intelligence. No one ever asked me what
I was interested in nor did they ask for my consent to participate in their system. My experience
of education was one of continually being measured against a set of principles that required
surrender to an assimilative colonial agenda in order to fulfill those principles. I distinctly
remember being in grade 3, at a class trip to the sugar bush, and the teacher showing us two
methods of making maple syrup the pioneer method which involved a black pot over an open
fire and clean sap, and the Indian method which involved a hollowed out log in an unlit fire,
with large rocks in the log to heat the sap up sap which had bark, insects, dirt and scum over it.
The teacher asked us which method we would use being the only native kid in the class, I was
the only one that chose the Indian method
Things are different for this Kwezens. She has already spent seven years immersed in a
nest of Nishnaabeg intelligence. She already understands the importance of observation and
learning from our animal teachers, when she watches the squirrel so carefully and then mimics
its actions. She understands embodiment and conceptual thought, when she then takes this
observation and applies it to her own situation by making a cut in the maple tree and using a
cedar shunt. She relies upon her own creativity to invent new technology. She patiently waits for
the sap to collect. She takes that sap home and shares it with her family. Her mother, in turn,
meets her daughters discovery with love and trust. Kwezens watches as her mama uses the sap
to boil the deer meat for supper. When she tastes the deer, the sweetness, she learns about
reduction, and when her mama and her go to clean the pot, she learns about how sap can be

14

This subheading comes from the work of Anishinaabe scholar Wendy Makoons Geniusz, and her translation of
the Anishinaabeg word gaa-izhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang, see p. 67 of (Geniusz, 2009). Anishinaabe (north western
dialect is the same as Nishnaabe (south eastern dialect).
15

I am using the term Nishnaabeg to refer to Ojibwe, Odawa, Bodawadami, Mississauga/Michi Saagiig, Sauteaux,
Chippewa, Nipissing, our relatives Omawinini and all the various groups of peoples that make up our nation.

Land as pedagogy 7
boiled into sugar. Kwezens then takes her Elders to the tree already trusting that she will be
believed, that her knowledge and discovery will be cherished, and that she will be heard.
Kwezens learned a tremendous amount over a two-day period self-led, driven by both
her own curiosity and her own personal desire to learn. She learned to trust herself, her family
and her community. She learned the sheer joy of discovery. She learned how to interact with the
spirit of the maple. She learned both from the land and with the land. She learned what it felt like
to be recognized, seen and appreciated by her community. She comes to know maple sugar with
the support of her family and Elders. She comes to know maple sugar in the context of love.
To me, this is what coming into wisdom within a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe epistemology
looks like it takes place in the context of family, community and relations. It lacks overt
coercion and authority, values so normalized within mainstream western pedagogy that they are
rarely ever critiqued. The land, aki, is both context and process. The process of coming to know
is learner-led and profoundly spiritual in nature.16 Coming to know is the pursuit of whole body
intelligence practiced in the context of freedom, and when realized collectively it generates
generations of loving, creative, innovative, self-determining, inter-dependent and self-regulating
community minded individuals. It creates communities of individuals with the capacity to uphold
and move forward our political traditions and systems of governance.
I am using Kwezens story here in the same way it is used within Nishnaabeg intelligence
- as a theoretical anchor whose meaning transforms over time and space within individual and
collective Nishnaabeg consciousness. A theory in its simplest form is an explanation of a
phenomenon, and Nishnaabeg stories in this way form the theoretical basis of our intelligence.
But theory also works a little differently within Nishnaabeg thought. Theory is generated and
regenerated continually through embodied practice and within each family, community and
generation of people. Theory isnt just an intellectual pursuit it is woven within kinetics,
spiritual presence and emotion, it is contextual and relational. It is intimate and personal, with
individuals themselves holding the responsibilities for finding and generating meaning within
their own lives.
Most importantly, theory isnt just for academics; its for everyone. And so, the story
of maple sugar gets told to (some of) our kids almost from birth. Theory within this context is
generated from the ground up and its power stems from its living resonance within individuals
and collectives. Younger citizens might first understand just the literal meaning. As they grow,
they can put together the conceptual meaning, and with more experience with our knowledge
system, the metaphorical meaning. Then they start to apply the processes and practices of the
story in their own lives (when I have a problem, Ill call my aunties or my grandparents), and
meaning-making becomes an inside phenomenon17. After they live each stage of life through
the story, then they can communicate their lived wisdom, understood through six or seven
decades of lived experience and shifting meaning. This is how our old people teach. They are our

16

Geniusz (2009, p. 67) calls this process of coming to known gaa-izhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang that which is given
lovingly to us by the spirits.
17

Manulani Meyers, June 3, 2014.

8 L. Simpson
geniuses because they know that wisdom is generated from the ground up, that meaning is for
everyone, and that were all better when were able to derive meaning out of our lives and be our
best selves (Simpson, 2013, pp. 3-7; Doerfler, Sinclair & Stark, 2013, pp. xv-xxvii). Stories
direct, inspire and affirm ancient code of ethics.18 If you do not know what it means to be
intelligent within Nishnaabeg realities, then you cant see the epistemology, the pedagogy, the
conceptual meaning, or the metaphor. You cant see how this story has references to other parts
of our oral tradition, or how this story is fundamentally, like all of our stories, communicating
different interpretations and realizations of a Nishnaabeg worldview.
It is critical to avoid the assumption that this story takes place in pre-colonial times
because Nishnaabeg conceptualizations of time and space present an on-going intervention to
linear thinking - this story happens in various incarnations all over our territory every year in
March when the Nishnaabeg return to the sugar bush. Kwezens presence (and the web of
kinship relations that she is composed of) is complicated by her fraught relationality to the
tenacity of settler colonialism (Martineau and Ritskes, 2014, p. II), and her very presence
simultaneously shatters the disappearance of Indigenous women and girls from settler
consciousness. She also escapes the rigidity of colonial gender binaries by having influence and
agency within her family, while physically disrupting settler colonial commodification and
ownership of the land through the implicit assumption that she is suppose to be there. Her
existence as a hub of intelligent Nishnaabeg relationality may be threatened by land theft,
environmental contamination, residential schools and state run education, and colonial gender
violence, but Kwezens is there anyway, making maple sugar as she always has done, in a loving
compassionate reality, propelling us to re-create the circumstances within which this story and
Nishnaabewin19 takes place. Propelling us to rebel against the permanence of settler colonial
reality and not just dream alternative realities but to create them, on the ground in the physical
world, in spite of being occupied. If we accept colonial permanence, then our rebellion can only
take place within settler colonial thought and reality; we become too willing to sacrifice the
context that creates and produces cultural workers like Kwezens.
What if Kwezens had accepted the permanence of settler colonialism as an unmovable
reality?
What if Kwezens had no access to the sugar bush because of land dispossession,
environmental contamination or global climate change?
What if the trauma and pain of on-going colonial gendered violence had made it
impossible for her mama to believe her or for her mama to reach out and so gently rub her lower
back at that critical point? What if that same trauma and pain prevented her aunties and elders to

18
19

Manulani Meyers, June 3, 2014.

Nishnaabewin means all things Nishnaabe. It is a broad term that in my mind encompasses all that is meant by the
term Nishnaabe intelligence. I learned this word from Doug Williams. I am using it here in a similar way to the
Ojibwe Cultural Foundation in their annual Anishinaabewin Conference in Sudbury, ON. Other Anishinaabe
scholars such as Geniusz use the term gikendaasowin for knowledge that is also correct, but not common in the area
where I live. Nishnaabewin includes Nishnaabemowin (Ojibwe language).

Land as pedagogy 9
gather around and support her when there were technical difficulties? What if settler-colonial
parenting strategies positioned the child as less believable than an adult?
What if Kwezens had been in a desk at a school that didnt honour at its core her potential
within Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg intelligence? Or if she had been in an educational context
where having an open heart was a liability instead of a gift? What if she had not been running
around, exploring, experimenting, and observing the squirrel - completely engaged in a Michi
Saagiig Nishnaabeg ways of knowing? What if she hadnt been on the land at all?
What if Kwezens lived in a world where no one listened to girls? Or where she had been
missing or murdered before she ever made it out to the sugar bush?
What if the university got ahold of the sugar bush and made Kwezens get SSHRC
funding before she could go out in the field? What if she was home reading the course outline of
someone elses learning objectives? What if she never gave the sap to her doodoom but instead
went to her computer to type up her research report?
What if Kwezens motivation for learning wasnt her own curiosity and joy, but
recognition within the state-run education system? What then?

It comes through the land

For me, this story is a critical intervention into current thinking around Indigenous education,
because Indigenous education is not Indigenous or education from within our intellectual
traditions unless it comes through the land, unless it occurs in an Indigenous context using
Indigenous processes (Deloria, 2001, pp. 58-59). To re-create the world that compelled Kwezens
to learn how to make maple sugar, we should be concerned with re-creating the conditions within
which this learning occurred, not merely the content of the practice itself. Setters easily
appropriate and reproduce the content of the story every year, within the context of capitalism,
when they make commercial maple syrup; but they completely miss the wisdom that underlies
the entire process because they deterritorialize the mechanics of maple syrup production from
Nishnaabeg intelligence and from aki. They appropriate and recast the process within a hyperindividualism that negates relationality. The radical thinking and action of this story is not so
much in the mechanics of reducing maple sap to sugar, it lies in the reproduction of a loving web
of Nishnaabeg networks within which learning takes place.
For countless generations, Nishnaabeg children grew up within the milieu of
Nishnaabewin, not within the institutionalized schooling system. Many of our children still do,
thanks to parents, grandparents and communities. Like governance, leadership and every other
aspect of reciprocated life, education comes from the roots up. It comes from being enveloped by
land. An individuals intimate relationship with the spiritual and physical elements of creation is
at the centre of a learning journey that is life-long (Deloria, 2001, p. 60). You cant graduate
from Nishnaabewin; it is a gift to be practiced and reproduced. And while each individual must
have the skills and knowledge to ensure their own safety, survival and prosperity in both the
physical and spiritual realm, their existence is ultimately dependent upon intimate relationships

10 L. Simpson
of reciprocity, humility, honesty and respect with all elements of creation, including plants and
animals.
Nishnaabeg-Gikendaasowin, or Nishnaabeg knowledge,20 originates in the spiritual
realm, coming to individuals through dreams, visions, ceremony and through the process of gaaizhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang that which is given lovingly to us by the spirits (Geniusz, 2009, p.
67). This makes sense because this is the place where our ancestors reside, where spiritual beings
exist, and where the spirits of living plants, animals and humans interact. In order to gain access
to this knowledge, one has to align themselves within and with the forces of the implicate order21
through ceremony, ritual and the embodiment of the teachings one already carries (Henderson
2000).
Within this system there is no standard curriculum because it is impossible to generate a
curriculum for that which is giving to us lovingly from the spirits, and because it doesnt make
sense for everyone to master the same body of factual information. Nishnaabeg society, in its
fullest realization, requires a diversity of excellence to continue to produce an abundance of
supportive relationships. Within the context of humility and agency, decisions around learning
are in essence an agreement between individuals and the spirit world. Nishnaabewin fosters and
cherishes individuals with particular gifts and skills as a mechanism for growing diversity, and
childhood is an excellent time for individuals to focus in on those particular gifts and hone them
into excellence. Just as it is unthinkable within a Nishnaabeg worldview for a leader to impose
their will on their people, it is unthinkable to impose an agenda onto another living thing in
essence, the context is the curriculum and land, aki, is the context (Cajete, 1994).
In addition to the land (including the spiritual world), the context for Nishnaabewin is
profoundly intimate. Gaa-izhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang requires long-term, stable, balanced warm
relationships within the family, extended family, the community and all living aspects of
creation. Intelligence flows through relationships between living entities. Gaa-izhizhaawendaagoziyaang requires love, the word zhaawen, a part of the word Gaa-izhizhaawendaagoziyaang, means to have complete compassion for another in ones thoughts and
mind. It has a connotation of bestowing kindness, mercy, and aid. It includes ideas of pity,
empathy and deep unconditional love (Borrows, 2014).22 Anishinaabe scholar John Borrows
(2014) explains:
For instance, my friend Kekek notes that zhawenjige is another derivation of
zhawenim. It means to hunt. We hear the word used in hunting and harvesting

20

Geniusz (2009, p.11) defines anishinaabe-gikendaasowin as knowledge, information and the synthesis of our
personal teachings; anishinaabe-inaadisiwin as anishinaabe psychology, way of being, and anishinaabe-izhitwaawin
as anishinaabe culture, teachings, customs, history; aadizookaanan as traditional legends and ceremonies, and
dibajimowinan as personal stories and history. I include all of these components in the term Nishnaabewin.
21

This is a term used to refer to the spiritual world by Skj Youngblood Henderson (2006) in First Nations
Jurisprudence and Aboriginal Rights: Defining a just society, Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan, Native Law
Centre.
22

Also see pp. 37-41 (Simpson 2011).

Land as pedagogy 11
songs. When we sing zhawenim izhichige it means you will be pitied, or have
mercy placed upon you in your actions and what you are doing. The idea behind
this word is that when we acknowledge our relations with the world, and our
responsibilities to each other, then we will all be blessed or find love and
compassion. We will be nourished, sustained and taken care of. The idea of
zhawenjige is said to be part of an old treaty the Anishinaabe made with the
animals. As long as we love them they will provide for us, and teach us about love
and how to live well in the world (p. 11).
Meaning then is derived not through content or data, or even theory in a western context,
which by nature is decontextualized knowledge, but through a compassionate web of
interdependent relationships that are different and valuable because of that difference.
Individuals carry the responsibility for generating meaning within their own lives they carry
the responsibility for engaging their minds, bodies and spirits in a practice of generating
meaning. Within Nishnaabewin, I am responsible for my thoughts and ideas. I am responsible for
my own interpretations and that is why youll always hear from our Elders what appears to be
them qualifying their teachings with statements that position them as learners, that position
their ideas as their own understandings, and place their teachings within the context of their own
lived experience. This is deliberate, ethical and profoundly careful within Nishnaabewin because
to do otherwise is considered arrogant and intrusive with the potential to interfere with other
beings life pathways.23 Although individuals have the responsibility to self-actualize within this
system, intelligence in this context is not an individuals property to own; once an individual has
carried a particular teaching around to the point where they can easily embody that teaching,
they, then, also become responsible for sharing it according to the ethics and protocols of the
system. This is primarily done by modeling the teaching or, as Elder Edna Manitowabi says,
wearing your teachings.24
Continually generating meaning is often, but not exclusively, done in ceremony and
involves ongoing ethical systems of accountability and responsibility, particularly around
emotional trauma and healing.25 Individual generated meaning is an authentic and grounded
power. These meanings, in all of their diversity, then become the foundation of generated
collective meanings and a plurality of truths (Simpson, 2011, p. 58). This collective process,
operationalized within Nishnaabeg political traditions, for example, generates a series of

23

Doug Williams taught me this concept through the word dnaagaaaa (my phonetic spelling) in the context of
hunting. It means dont hurt anything if you dont need to, because you are stopping their path in life, have total
compassion for other living beings.
24

I have heard Nishnaabe Elder Edna Manitowabi explain this countless times, and following Nishnaabeg protocols
would like to acknowledge this here.
25

To me this is actually a critical part of the system. Being accountable and self aware of ones own flaws and now
in the context of settler colonialism, ones experience with trauma and violence becomes critical to operationalizing
Nishnaabeg intelligence.

12 L. Simpson
collective meanings, including dissention, that make sense within broad and multiple
interpretations of Nishnaabeg values and philosophies.26

Nishnaabeg intelligence is diversity27

There are unseen forces or spiritual elements that hold power and influence in the story of maple
sugar that are only alluded to within the narrative, at least in part because older Nishnaabeg
teachers culturally talk about these things as if they are sitting beside us in a room rather then
coming directly at it. There is an implicit assumption in this story that Kwezens offered tobacco
to the maple tree before she cut the bark to collect the sap. She does this as a mechanism to set
up a relationship with the maple tree that is based on mutual respect, reciprocity, and caring. By
placing the tobacco down, she is speaking directly to the spirit of the maple tree. I understand it
as her spirit speaking directly to the spirit of the maple tree, entering into a balanced relationship
of mutuality. The maple tree does not have to produce sap for Kwezens, the tree has agency over
this act. Kwezens also has agency she has chosen to act in a way that aligns herself with the
actions and beliefs her people know promote more life and interconnection within Kina Gchi
Nishnaabeg-ogamig.28 There are also several other spiritual interactions involved in this story of
lovingly coming to know the spirit of the squirrel, the spirits of her family that supported her,
and the spirits of her ancestors. Within a Nishnaabeg epistemology, spiritual knowledge is a
tremendous, ubiquitous source of wisdom that is the core of every system in the physical world.
The implicate order provides the stories that answer all of our questions. The way we are taught
to access that knowledge is by being open to that kind of knowledge and by being engaged in a
way of living that generates a close, personal relationship with our ancestors and relations in the
spirit world through ceremony, dreams, visions and stories. The implicate order does not
discriminate by gender, by age, by ability, or any of those things. The implicate order only cares
if you believe; if youre living your life in an engaged way. If we are open to this, then
knowledge will flow through us based on our own actions, our name, clan, and helpers and our
own self-actualization, as long as we uphold these responsibilities.
Kwezens already lives in a reality where the spiritual world has tremendous presence in
each moment. Kwezens is a vessel of resurgence. She is a leader. She embodies the core

26

It is my understanding that there is a high degree of non-interference into the intimate truths of individuals, and
also a collective high degree of non-interference for groups of people to hold different truths. There is respect for
this diversity. This is balanced with collective processes ceremony and political processes (in governance, the
generation of consensus for example) that move for instance seven collective truths into an eighth understanding,
while still acknowledging and validating dissenting views. See Simpson (2011, p. 58) for a more detailed
explanation.
27

I started to think about Nishnaabeg intelligence after several discussions with Hawaiian thinker Manulani Meyer
between 2012 and 2014 Peterborough, Ontario and Vancouver, BC. See Meyer (2014).
28

This is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg name for our territory or nation that means the place where we all live and
work together, and conceptually emphasizes the relational aspect of our conceptualization of nationhood. It refers to
the north shore of Lake Ontario. See Simpson (2011, p.14) for a more detailed explanation.

Land as pedagogy 13
teachings and philosophies of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg culture. She paid attention to our
creation story the one that says Nishnaabewin is both intellectual knowledge and heart
knowledge, the one that says you have to be fully present in all aspects of your physical and
spiritual body to access the gift of knowledge from the spiritual world (Simpson, 2011).
Kwezens very clearly represents the kind of citizen capable of upholding the tenets of our nation,
in spite of settler colonialism. She is in essence the goal of community, the re-creation of beings
that continually live lives promoting the continuous rebirth of life itself (LaDuke, 1994).
Kwezens represents Nishnaabeg resurgence the rebuilding of Indigenous nations according to
our own political, intellectual and cultural traditions. We need to re-establish the context for
creating a society of Kwezens because we need to recreate a society of individuals that can think
and live inside the multiplicity of our culture and our intelligence.
This presents Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg people with a critical task if we do not create a
generation of people attached to the land and committed to living out our culturally inherent
ways of coming to know, we risk losing what it means to be Nishnaabeg within our own thought
systems (Alfred, 1999; 2005). We simply cannot bring about the resurgence of our nations if we
have no one that can think within the emergent networks of Nishnaabeg intelligence. We cannot
bring about the kind of radical transformation we seek if we are solely reliant upon state
sanctioned and state run education systems. We cannot carry out the kind of decolonization our
ancestors set in motion if we dont create a generation of land based, community based
intellectuals and cultural producers who are accountable to our nations and whose life work is
concerned with the regeneration of these systems, rather than meeting the overwhelming needs
of the western academic industrial complex or attempting to Indigenize the academy29 by
bringing Indigenous Knowledges into the academy on the terms of the academy itself. Our
ancestors primary concern in educating our young people was to nurture a new generation of
Elders of land based intellectuals, philosophers, theorists, medicine people, and historians who
embodied Nishnaabeg intelligence in whatever time they were living in because they had lived
their lives through Nishnaabeg intelligence.
They embodied Nishnaabeg intelligence because they were practitioners of Nishnaabeg
intelligence.
Nishnaabeg intelligence has been violently under attack since the beginning days of
colonialism through processes that remove Indigenous peoples from our homelands, whether
those processes are residential and other forms of state run schools, outright dispossession, the
destruction of land through resource extraction and environmental contamination, imposed
poverty, or heteropatriarchal and colonial gendered violence. Our peoples have always resisted
this destruction by engaging in Nishnaabewin, whenever and wherever they could. I would not

29

While Indigenous scholars, students and leaders have made substantial in roads in some disciplines of the
academy in terms of curriculum and programing, we have been much less successful in gaining the academys
recognition of Indigenous Knowledge systems and intelligence on their own merits, and far less successful in
dismantling systems of domination and oppression, dispossession and erasure advanced by the academy. While
there are sites of decolonization within academic institutions, they still remain a colonizing force upholding the
values of heteropatriarchy, settler colonialism and capitalism.

14 L. Simpson
exist, writing this paper today, if it were not for the physical survival of several generations of
Nishnaabeg women in my family and the heart breaking sacrifices of my Elders who resisted
colonial educational practices and live out their commitment to teaching others, the vast majority
of the time in the absence of compensation or deep reciprocity, and outside of the provincial
education and the post-secondary education system. Not one time has an Elder ever told me to go
to school to learn Indigenous Knowledge. Not one time has an Elder told me to go and get a
degree so that I can pass Indigenous Knowledge down to my children. Yet, we place tremendous
pressure on our youth to gain western academic credentials. This seems highly problematic to
me; we desperately need a new generation of thinkers who are articulate and brilliant from
within Nishnaabewin, a generation that can think within our philosophies and enact those
philosophies as a living and breathing imposition to colonialism as every generation has done in
some capacity before us. Otherwise, we risk losing being Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg. To create a
nation of Kwezens to survive as Nishnaabeg we shouldnt be just striving for land-based
pedagogies. The land must once again become the pedagogy.

Intelligence as consensual engagement

Kwezens very clearly embodies the idea of land as pedagogy as she went about her day learning
with and from maple trees, among many other beings. Kwezens had already grown up in a
community where the adult practitioners of Nishnaabeg intelligence were teaching her through
modeling how to interact with all elements of creation. So, on one hand, Kwezens was just doing
what she had seen the adults in her life do everyday over and over again in a variety of different
activities. On a deeper level, Kwezens was also teaching us by modeling; her story aligns itself
with our embodied theory, our Creation stories.
Gzhwe Manidoo30 in the very beginning of the cosmos and in the continual creation of
Nishnaabeg ontology, axiology, and epistemology, set up the context for Nishnaabeg reality
(Henderson, 2000; Little Bear, 2000). The context was the earth that Gzhwe Manidoo created
and Nishnaabeg conceptualizations of aki are at their core profoundly relational. Borrows (2014)
explains it this way:
The Anishinaabe have long taken direction about how we should live through our
interactions and observations with the environment. People regulate their behavior
and resolve their disputes by drawing guidance from what they see in the behavior
of the sun, moon, stars, winds, waves, trees, birds, animals, and other natural
phenomenon. The Anishinaabe word for this concept is gikinawaabiwin. We can
also use the word akinoomaage, which is formed from two roots: aki: noomaage.
Aki means earth and noomaage means to point towards and take direction
from. As we draw analogies from our surroundings, and appropriately apply or

30

The Creator, the one who loves us unconditionally, according to Doug Williams. See endnote 60 in Simpson
(2011, p. 46).

Land as pedagogy 15
distinguish what we see, we learn about how love, and how we should live in our
lands. (p.10)
Aki includes all aspects of creation: land forms, elements, plants, animals, spirits, sounds,
thoughts, feelings, energies and all of the emergent systems, ecologies and networks that connect
these elements. Knowledge in akinoomaage flows through the layered spirit world above the
earth, the place where spiritual beings reside and the place where our ancestors sit (Geniusz,
2009).
In the Nishnaabeg creation stories told and discussed in Dancing on our turtles back:
Stories of re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence, the process in which Gzhwe Manidoo
created the world is the process by which Nishnaabeg people come to know. Coming to know is
a mirroring or a re-enactment process where we understand Nishnaabeg epistemology to be
concerned with embodied knowledge animated, collectively, and lived out in a way in which our
reality, nationhood and existence is continually reborn through both time and space. This
requires a union of both emotional knowledge and intellectual knowledge in a profoundly
personal and intimate spiritual context. Coming to know is an intimate process, the unfolding of
relationship with the spiritual world.
Coming to know also requires complex, committed, consensual engagement.
Relationships within Nishnaabewin are based upon the consent the informed (honest) consent
of all beings involved. The word consensual here is key because if children learn to normalize
dominance and non-consent within the context of education, then non-consent becomes a
normalized part of the tool kit of those who have and wield power. Within the context of settler
colonialism, Indigenous peoples are not seen as worthy recipients of consent, informed or
otherwise, and part of being colonized is having to engage in all kinds of processes on a daily
basis that, given a choice, we likely wouldnt consent to. In my experiences with the state-run
education system, my informed consent was never required learning was forced on me using
the threat of emotional and physical violence. In post-secondary education, consent was coercive
if you want these credentials, this is what you have to do and this is what you have to endure.31
This is unthinkable within Nishnaabeg intelligence. In fact, if there isnt a considerable amount
of demonstrated interest and commitment on the part of the learner, learning doesnt occur at all.
Raising Indigenous children in a context where their consent, physically and intellectually, is not
just required but valued, goes a long way to undoing the replication of colonial gender violence.
In the context of resurgence, which is an emergent process mitigated by spiritual forces,
physical and intellectual engagement with the struggle of nation-building within specific cultural
contexts is the only way to generate new knowledge. True engagement requires consent. Being
engaged in the physical, real-world work of resurgence, movement-building and nation-building

31

I would add that this context was one of real and symbolic normalized violence for many Indigenous women and
queer scholars coming through the system between 1960s and the 1990s. Indigenizing the academy at this stage
meant individual sacrifice for Indigenous women in order to obtain the credentials necessary to make the academy
less violent towards the next group of Indigenous people coming through this system. It saddens me that these
individual sacrifices so often go unrecognized.

16 L. Simpson
is the only way to generate new knowledge on how to resurge from within Nishnaabeg
intellectual systems - deep, consensual engagement with Nishnaabeg processes. We cannot just
think, write or imagine our way to a decolonized future. Answers on how to re-build and how to
resurge are therefore derived from a web of consensual relationships that is infused with
movement (kinetic) through lived experience and embodiment. Intellectual knowledge is not
enough on its own. Neither is spiritual knowledge or emotional knowledge. All kinds of
knowledge are important and necessary in a communal and emergent balance.
This creation story also emphasizes that Nishnaabeg people embody all the necessary
knowledge for resurgence. We are enough because if we are living our lives out in a Nishnaabeg
way (and there are many of these ways) we can access all the knowledge that went into creating
the universe. In the face of ongoing settler-colonialism, my experience as an Nishnaabeg person
engaging with centuries of gendered violence and the ongoing occupation of my homeland, part
of my knowledge base is both a critical attunement to settler colonialism and generated theories
of resistance, as well as resurgence and liberation, both from within my own knowledge system
and through the sharing of the liberatory politics of Indigenous peoples and other communities of
struggle who have also been forced to live through oppression. Aki is also liberation and freedom
- my freedom to establish and maintain relationships of deep reciprocity within a pristine
homeland that my ancestors handed down to me. Aki is encompassed by freedom, a freedom that
is protected by sovereignty and actualized by self-determination.
Once this context is re-established, even if it begins as only a dream or a vision, even if it
just by a few individuals, the fetishization of theoretical approaches32 to realize that context
becomes counter-productive. If bell hooks or Franz Fanon speaks to my heart as an
Nishnaabekwe, as both do, then Nishnaabeg intelligence compels me to learn, share and embody
everything I can from every teacher that presents themselves to me. Nishnaabeg intelligence is
diversity - Nishnaabeg intelligence as diversity.33

Nanabush. Period.
Nanabush is widely regarded within Nishnaabeg thought as Spiritual Being and an important
teacher because Nanabush mirrors human behavior and models how (and how not to) to come to
know. I think its important to point out that Nanabush does not teach at a university, nor is
Nanabush a teacher within the state school system. Nanabush also doesnt read academic papers
or write for Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education & Society. Nanabush is fun, entertaining,
sexy, and playful. Youre more likely to find Nanabush dancing on a table at a bar than at an
academic conference. If Nanabush had gone to teachers college, Nanabush would have been

32

I began to think about this more clearly after a discussion with activist Jaggi Singh around tactics in social
movements, in St. Johns, NL, May 14, 2014.
33

This is another idea that I learned from Manulani Meyer between 2012 and 2014 in Peterborough, Ontario and
Vancouver, BC.

Land as pedagogy 17
fired in the first three months of his first teaching gig.34 This is precisely why Nanabush is an
outstanding teacher Nanabush not only teaches me self compassion for the part of me that may
dance on bars in celebration of life and love and all things good, but Nanabush comes with
inevitable contradictions held within the lives of the occupied. Nanabush also continually shows
us what happens when we are not responsible for our own baggage or trauma or emotional
responses. The brilliance of Nanabush is that Nanabush stories the land with a sharp criticality
necessary for moving through the realm of the colonized into the dreamed reality of the
decolonized, and for navigating the lived reality of having to engage with both at the same time.
In the spirit of Nanabush, part of me is being facetious with that last paragraph and part
of me is not. The academic industrial complex does not and cannot provide the proper context
for Nishnaabeg intelligence without the full, valued recognition of the context within which
Nishnaabeg intelligence manifests itself the practice of aki - freedom, sovereignty and selfdetermination over bodies, minds and land. The academy does not and cannot provide the proper
context for Nishnaabeg intelligence without taking a principled stand on the forces that are
currently attacking Nishnaabeg intelligence: colonial gendered violence, dispossession, erasure
and imposed poverty. The academy does not and cannot provide the proper context for
Nishnaabeg intelligence without the full recognition of the system that generates this intelligence
and the people that have dedicated their lives to growing, nurturing and living that system our
Elders and knowledge holders. The academy does not and cannot provide the proper context for
Nishnaabeg intelligence without fully funding the re-generation of Indigenous thinkers as a
matter of restitution for the on-going damage it has caused and continues to cause Indigenous
Knowledge system through centuries of out right attack (Smith, 2012).
If I imagine myself talking post-secondary education with Nanabush right now, it begins
with him immediately asking me why I think spending 60 hours a week indoors in a classroom
or on a computer is Indigenous education at all. Point taken. Ive just spent several hours writing
all of this down when my ancestors have always understood this and, in fact, I think my kids
understand most of it. Several Nishnaabeg Elders are embodying all of these teachings right now,
and any Indigenous person with motivation to learn to think inside the land should be interacting
with their own Elders and experts in their own homelands instead of reading me. So while I
could ask Nanabush what Nishnaabeg education is, Id have to be ready for him to flip the table.
Hes not known for his patience for one thing, and for another hes spent eternity trying to
demonstrating how to teach, and more often how not to teach, within the context of his own life.
Its not Nanabushs fault we arent paying attention.
One person who is paying attention is Kwezens, because in going back to the sugar bush
Kwezens models her day on an important Nanabush story. Shortly after the creation of the world
and the birth of Nanabush, Nanabush took a trip around the world as a way of learning about the
world. Thats the first lesson. If you want to learn about something, you need to take your body

34

See John Borrows conceptualization of Nanabush (Nanaboozhoo) in his story Maajitaadaa: Nanaboozhoo and
the Flood, Part 2 (Borrows, 2013); and Neal McLeods discussion in Cree Narrative Memory (2007, p. 99).

18 L. Simpson
onto the land and do it. Get a practice.35 If you want to learn about movement building, get
yourself outside involved with people that are building movements. That doesnt mean dont
read books, or dont talk to people with all kinds of intelligences. It doesnt mean dont find
mentors. It does mean, get out, get involved and get invested. After Nanabush had completed his
first journey around the world, he embarked on a second journey around the world, this time with
wolf as a companion. At this point, we should all recognize pretty clearly that the learning
changes when the relational context changes. Nanabush did a tremendous amount of visiting on
both of his trips he visited with Nokomis, he visited with the West Wind, he visited with plants
and animals, mountains, and bodies of water. Visiting within Nishnaabeg intelligence means
sharing oneself through story, through principled and respectful consensual reciprocity with
another living being. Visiting is lateral sharing in the absence of coercion and hierarchy, and in
the presence of compassion. Visiting is fun, enjoyable, nurturing of intimate connections and
relationship building. Visiting is the core of our political system (leaders visiting with all the
members of the community), our mobilization (Tkamse36 and Pontiac visited within and outside
of their own nations for several years before they expected mobilization), and our intelligence
(people visiting Elders, sharing food, taking care). Kwezens knew this. This is why she was
visiting the maple tree in the first place.
At several points in Nanabushs journey, Nanabush sought spiritual guidance through
dreams, visions and ceremonies. At one point he had to learn to build a canoe to cross a large
body of water he experimented until he figured it out. This was both time consuming and
frustrating. When he finally got a structure that would float, he had no way to propel it. This was
also time consuming and frustrating. Eventually, by calming down and watching a beaver, he
was able to fashion a paddle inspired by the beavers tail and continue across the body of water.
In this story, Nanabush models how to come to know for Kwezens. He shows us land as
pedagogy, without yelling LAND AS PEDAGOGY, or typing land as pedagogy into a
computer 50 times. Sometimes when I am teaching PhD students, I say that in this story
Nanabush is teaching us how to be students, teachers, and researchers he is giving us theory
and methodology, but its really much bigger then that. Nanabush is teaching us how to be full
human beings within the context of Nishnaabeg intelligence. Nishnaabeg intelligence is for
everyone, not just students, teachers and researchers. Its not just pedagogy; its how to live life.

35

Manulani Meyer came to a PhD class in Indigenous Studies at Trent University in 2012 that I was teaching on
methodology and theory. She began by asking students not what their dissertation was about, or their theoretical
framework, or their methodological approach, but she instead asked what their practice was in the context of
Indigenous Knowledge. This is critical distinction.
36

Tkamse and Taagaamose are Anishinaabeg names meaning Tecumseh. Taagaamose comes from Dr.
Tobasanakwet Kinew and is used with the permission of his son, Wab Kinew. I learned the word Tkamse and its
meaning from Anishinaabe scholar Brock Pitawanakwat. Both Taagaamose and Tkamse have the same meaning as
the Shawnee Tecumseh, but are different dialects of the Nishnaabe language.

Land as pedagogy 19

Nishnaabeg intelligence as resurgence

Being engaged in land as pedagogy as a life practice inevitably means coming face-to-face with
settler colonial authority, surveillance and violence because, in practice, it places Indigenous
bodies between settlers and their money (Coulthard, 2, p.36). The practices of hunting, fishing
and living off the land within my territory are a direct challenge to settler colonialism since 1923
and the imposition of the Williams Treaty (Blair, 2008). Being a practitioner of land as pedagogy
and learning in my community also means learning how to resist this imposition, its a process of
learning how to be on the land anyway.
There are countless stories that I could tell here about settler surveillance, criminalization,
and violence that occurs on the land while Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg are engaged as
practitioners in Nishnaabewin,37 but the story I want to leave you with is one that comes from
someone who has invested a large amount of time in my intelligence as an Nishnaabekwe.38
Over the past fifteen years or so, I have spent a large amount of time on the land learning
from Curve Lake Elder Doug Williams. Doug and I have hunted, fished, trapped, picked
medicines, conducted ceremonies, harvested birch bark, made maple syrup, canoed ancient
routes and harvested wild rice throughout our territory. This represents the most profound
educational experience of my life and I hope that it is far from over. During our extensive time
on our land, Doug has taught me the history of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, an oral tradition
passed down to him from his uncles, who would have learned it from their parents and
grandparents. He has taught me the political traditions of our people, and the ceremonies,
philosophies and values that they carried with them. He has taken me to every sacred sight in our
territory and shared songs, seamlessly moving between the roles of best friend, father and Elder.
He has patiently listened to me. He has patiently answered every question Ive brought to him.
He has told me hundreds of stories cataloguing the fierce resistance of our ancestors to our way
of life. He has healed me.
It is this relationship, more than any other, which has created in me the same fierce
resistance my ancestors carried with them, that has fostered in me a responsibility to our
territory. It is this relationship, more than any other, that has made me Michi Saagiig
Nishnaabeg. Doug has invested more time in my spiritual, emotional and intellectual education
than anyone else in my life. Yet it is completely unrecognized, unsupported and disregarded by
academic institutions.
Being out on the land with Doug, living our Michi Saagiig Nishnaabewin, means we run
up against colonial authorities on a regular basis, whether that is the police, game wardens or
settlers providing their own home grown surveillance for the settler colonial authorities. To be
honest, most of this is fairly normalized and unless there is a particular aggression or violence to

37

For one example see http://decolonization.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/aambe-maajaadaa-what-idlenomore-meansto-me/

38

Ojibwe woman

20 L. Simpson
the incident, I often dont even notice. But Doug reminds me continually through story that being
tied to land also means being tied to an unwritten, unseen history of resistance:
The 1923 Williams Treaty was devastating to my people. I witnessed the trauma
and the fear that was put on my people that were trying to live on the land. They
lived daily watching over their backs and trying to maintain their lifestyle as Michi
Saagiig Nishnaabeg. The government with the implementation of the basket
clause39 was a sneaky way to get rid of us as people who enjoyed this part of our
great land. These old men I hung around with such as Madden and Jimkoons
Taylor lived a life where they had to live by sneaking around and feeling like they
were poachers. They resorted to catching other animals and harvesting those
things that the government did not feel were part of the things they need to
protect from us. These things included small animals, such as the ground hog
and the porcupine, the muskrat for meat and other things were also eaten because
we were forbidden from hunting deer (which was our staple). Michi Saagiig
Nishnaabeg were also prohibited from fishing from October 15 to July 1 every
year under provincial statues. These colonial restrictions were devastating to
people that lived on the land. They posted Game Wardens in the tri-lakes area
Buckhorn, Chemong and Pigeon to enforce these restrictions. We faced starvation.
It was particularly difficult to obtain food in the winter-time and since fishing was
prohibited it became a time of great suffering. People had to run up an account at
the Whetung General Store to tie them over until the muskrat season opened in
April. So it was November to April that was quite difficult. Some people still had to
fish and would do it at odd hours and would have to sneak around and not be seen.
This is a very difficult thing to do in the winter. Anyone standing on the ice can be
seen for miles and this is what the Game Warden would look out for and go out
and chase my people. There were many stories told of how my people escaped the
Game Warden. There were many stories of our people being caught, and going to
court in Peterborough to be given fines for fishing out of season. Imagine the
indignity on our people when they came in front of the Canadian courts for being
Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg in our own territory!
Our people were incredibly strong and resilient. We were able to survive even
though we were forced to live in an undignified way of living off the land. There is
a story told of one of the young men Shkiin, short for Shkiininini meaning young
man. Shkiin had the ability to escape the Game Warden by putting on these skates
you tied onto your feet. The only problem was there was the skates had no brakes,
so it was impossible to stop. One day, the Game Warden showed up with modern
tube type skates. He saw Shkiin fishing out on the ice, put on those speed skating
skates and went after Shkiin. Shkiin tied on his skates and took off. After awhile,
the Game Warden started to catch up. Shkiin thought, uh oh Im in trouble. Just
then he saw some open water. He thought he would skate as fast as he could and

39

The basket clause was a legal clause added after the treaty was negotiated that negated all other treaties Michi
Saagiig Nishnaabeg had signed with the Crown. It is our belief that this clause was added after negotiations were
complete without the knowledge of our leaders. See Blair (2008).

Land as pedagogy 21
jump over the open water because he knew the Game Warden couldnt follow. So
he skated as fast as he could, took the leap, it was about 20 feet and he made it. He
landed, looked around and the Game Warden had to put on the breaks. Shkiin
turned around, waved at him and gave him that Saasaakwe sound. The old people
used to tell about that story and how Shkiin became a legend in getting away from
Game Wardens.
I admire the resilience of my people very much. One of the ways they kept up their
spirit was with humour. Many stories are told of the clutzy Game Wardens that
were posted on the lakes to watch out for us. There are also some sad stories. Old
Sam Fawn after many years of carving axe handles, saving up money and making
other items like that. With his little bit of money he was able to afford a cedar strip
canoe from Peterborough. He went fishing on Fox Island out of provincial season.
He was seen by the Game Warden who chased him. Sam beat him and came across
form Fox Island to the mainland at Curve Lake. He put his canoe up on shore,
turned it over and walked home. Everyone did that back in those days. Everyone
knew each other canoes. The Game Warden was watching him from Fox Island,
and he sneaked over and seized that canoe. The canoe has never been seen again.
Poor Sam Fawn, worked hard his whole life, trying to live off the land. I remember
him as being one of the most gentle human beings that lived in Curve Lake. The
trauma created by the 1923 Williams Treaty will be longed lived. It lives in our
hearts. The government can never repay us for what the damage they have caused.
The damage is done. Many of the people that lived through this trauma have now
passed on. I remember them dearly and I hope that somehow there are no Game
Wardens in the Happy Hunting Grounds. (Williams, 2013)
This story serves as an important reminder: by far the largest attack on Indigenous Knowledge
systems right now is land dispossession, and the people that are actively protecting
Nishnaabewin are not those at academic conferences advocating for its use in research and
course work but those that are currently putting their bodies on the land. In many ways, the fight
for Nishnaabewin is not taking place in Parliament, on social media, or on the streets in urban
centres; rather, it lies with communities like Grassy Narrows, and those on the ground who are
active practitioners of Nishnaabewin or who are actively protecting their lands from destruction.
When I was a PhD student at the University of Manitoba in the late 1990s, there was a
considerable amount of discussion amongst academics on how to ethically and responsibly bring
Indigenous Knowledge into the academy, as a way of legitimizing the knowledge of Indigenous
peoples as an intellectual system on par with western traditions, as a mechanism to attract
Indigenous students to the academy, and as mechanism to preserve Indigenous Knowledges
(Simpson, 2008). An effort was made to produce more Indigenous scholars as a mechanism for
having a stronger presence within the colonial system. When I first held a tenure track position in
an Indigenous Studies Department, there were two Elders on faculty, both women, who had
gained tenure on the basis of their expertise in Indigenous Knowledge, not on western

22 L. Simpson
credentials. Fifteen years later, the same university has no tenured Elders, only Indigenous and
non-Indigenous academics primarily hired on the basis of western credentials.
The problem with this approach then, and now, is that it reinforces colonial authority over
Nishnaabeg intelligence by keeping it reified and fetishized within a settler colonial approach to
education designed only to propel settler colonialism. This serves to reinforce asymmetrical
power relationships between Indigenous Knowledge and western knowledge, and Indigenous
and non-Indigenous peoples. It sets both Indigenous Knowledge Holders and Indigenous learners
up in a never-ending battle for recognition within that system, when the academys primary
intention is to use Indigenous peoples and our knowledge systems to legitimize settler colonial
authority within education as a training ground to legitimize settler colonial authority over
Indigenous peoples and our nations in Canadian society40.
Nishnaabeg must stop looking for legitimacy within the colonizers education system and
return to valuing and recognizing our individual and collective intelligence on its own merits and
on our own terms. Withdrawing our considerable collective efforts to Indigenize the academy,
in favor of a resurgence of Indigenous intellectual systems and a reclamation of the context
within which those systems operate, goes much further to propelling our nationhood and reestablishing Indigenous political systems because it places people back on the land in a context
that is conducive to resurgence and mobilization. The academy has continually proven its refusal
to recognize and support the validity, legitimacy, rigor and ethical principles of Nishnaabeg
intelligence and the system itself, so we must stop begging for recognition and do this work for
ourselves. This colonial refusal should be met with Indigenous refusal refusal to struggle
simply for better or more inclusion and recognition within the academic industrial complex.41 As
Martineau and Ritskes (2014) state in their discussion of decolonial aesthetics, This means the
task of decolonial artists, scholars and activists is not simply to offer amendments or edits to the
current world, but to display the mutual sacrifice and relationality needed to sabotage colonial
systems of thought and power for the purpose of liberatory alternatives (p. II). This is true in
politics, art, cultural and intellectual production, and education because these systems are
seamlessly woven together within our intelligence.
If the academy is concerned about not only protecting and maintaining Indigenous
intelligence, but revitalizing it on Indigenous terms as a form of restitution for its historic and
contemporary role as a colonizing force (of which I see no evidence), then the academy must
make a conscious decision to become a decolonizing force in the intellectual lives of Indigenous
peoples by joining us in dismantling settler colonialism and actively protecting the source of our
knowledge - Indigenous land.
I am not saying that Indigenous peoples should forgo learning western based skills, but
we currently have a situation where our greatest minds, our children and youth, are spending 40

40
41

For a broader discussion see (Coulthard, 2014b; Smith, 2011; and Nadasdy, 2003)

For a discussion of Native Studies in the context of the academic industrial complex see Smith (2011). For a
broader discussion on Indigenous recognition in Canadian politics see Coulthard (2014b), and for a discussion of the
politics of refusal see Audra Simpson (2014).

Land as pedagogy 23
hours a week in state run education systems, from age 4 to 22 if they complete an undergraduate
degree. Next to none of that takes place in an Nishnaabeg context and although many Indigenous
parents and families do everything that can do to ensure their children are connected to their
homelands, this should be the centre of the next generations lives, not the periphery. In order to
foster expertise within Nishinaabeg intelligence, we need people engaged with land as
curriculum and engaged in our languages for decades, not weeks. Shouldnt we, as communities,
support and nurture children that choose to only educate themselves within Nishnaabewin?
Wouldnt this create a strong generation of Elders? Dont we deserve learning spaces where we
do not have to address state learning objectives, curriculum, credentialism and careerism, where
our only concern for recognition comes from within? Is the state run education system and the
academic industrial complex really a house worth inhabiting (Mignolo, in GaztambideFernndez, 2014, p. 204)?
Nishnaabewin did not and does not prepare children for successful career paths in a hyper
capitalistic system. It is designed to create self-motivated, self-directed, community-minded,
inter-dependent, brilliant, loving citizens, who at their core uphold our ideals around family,
community and nationhood by valuing their intelligences, their diversity, their desires and gifts
and their lived experiences. It encourages children to find their joy and place it at the centre of
their lives. It encourages children to value consent. This was the key to building nations where
exploitation was unthinkable. But dont our children have to live in a hyper capitalistic system?
Well, yes; and if we are going to survive this as Nishnaabeg, we need to create generations of
people that are capable of actualizing radical decolonization, diversity, transformation and local
economic alternatives to capitalism.
The beauty of culturally inherent resurgence is that it challenges settler colonial
dissections of our territories and our bodies into reserve/city or rural/urban dichotomies. All
Canadian cities are on Indigenous lands. Indigenous presence is attacked in all geographies. In
reality, the majority of Indigenous peoples move regularly through reserves, cities, towns and
rural areas. We have found ways to connect to the land and our stories and to live our
intelligences no matter how urban or how destroyed our homelands have become. While it is
critical that we grow and nurture a generation of people that can think within the land and have
tremendous knowledge and connection to aki, this doesnt have to take away from the
contributions of urban Indigenous communities to our collective resurgence. Cities have
becomes sites of tremendous activism and resistance, and artistic, cultural and linguistic revival
and regeneration, and this too comes from the land. Whether urban or rural, city or reserve, the
shift that Indigenous systems of intelligence compel us to make is one from capitalistic consumer
to cultural producer. Kwezens reminds me that, The freedom realized through flight and refusal
is the freedom to imagine and create an elsewhere in the here; a present future beyond the
imaginative and territorial bounds of colonialism. It is a performance of other worlds, an
embodied practice of flight (Martineau and Ritskes, 2014, p. IV). For me, seeing Kwezens as
fugitive provides the fire, the compassion and the loving rebellion to do just that.

24 L. Simpson

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