This paper presents my critical reflections on what it means to be a Taíno Indigenous person. It is part of an ongoing research project that started in 2013 and is based on oral histories, ancestral knowledges, collective memories of family, community narratives, and other historical accounts, including the voices of 10 people from two rural communities in Southern Jamaica. This research uses an Indigenous research methodology to honour ancestral knowledge systems. Historically, stories about Taíno people have been from the perspectives of the dominant culture and have used a language of the Taíno people's nonexistence. This article demonstrates that Taíno Indigenous people are a central part of identity in the Caribbean world, that the Taíno culture currently exists and that the silencing of Indigenous identity and history is being disrupted. The Taíno people are rejecting the foreign notions of what it means to be Taíno. Today, we Taíno people are taking a decolonization approach as we reclaim and reconstruct Taíno nationhood and identity as expressions of spiritual wellness and self-determination.
Indigenous knowledge systems and spiritual traditions are intricately interwoven. They sustained First Nations peoples for centuries, are part of the everyday lives of Indigenous peoples and are at the core of Indigenous epistemologies. This paper argues that, despite the adverse impacts of Canada's colonial policies on Indigenous peoples, their ancestral knowledge systems and spirituality guide and nourish them as they navigate their way through contemporary educational and everyday life contexts. I specifically examine how several Indigenous women, many of whom experienced systemic discrimination, use spirituality to cope with and overcome everyday lived oppression. Their narratives form the basis of the analysis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a worldwide shift in daily life. However, Indigenous people have a long history relating to introduced pandemics. Responding to these different forms of destruction, Indigenous people have generated multiple ways to draw on their own ancestral systems. This report provides a short history of those pandemics, the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic, and the ways in which Indigenous people have responded by drawing on their ancestral Land and practices, and through the guidance and knowledge of Elders.
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