Since seeing this call for submission, the word ‘freedom’ and the question ‘what is freedom?’ have been floating through my mind as I ponder how would a pre-contact mind and heart describe freedom? Would it even be a concept? I ask myself, what is freedom and how did it become so all-important as a perceived value/concept within the language of America? How was it a perceived value for my people, the Ojibwe, pre-contact? Was it even a concept? A thought? An idea?
European colonial settlers left Europe seeking to escape the Monarch and authoritarianism that kept them in servitude. They were forced to live under threat, with only enough resource to stay alive to continue to produce for the rulers. Afraid to practice the religion of their choice. Unable to own land. And what land they did farm, the produce given to the Ruler. Conditioned to want ‘more than,’ conditioned to want to accumulate wealth and to have more than others, their search for ‘freedom’ is what I think led to the individualism that permeates the US psyche. Independent individualism. Fueled by the accumulation syndrome embedded in capitalism. And somewhere in there is the idea that victimhood opens the door to entitlement. The ‘I have suffered therefore I deserve’ syndrome. And somehow all of that gets wrapped up in their rally cry for freedom.
What does freedom mean if you were never ruled? What if in your generational history, people thrived, lived communally, shared resource, honored agreements that meant there were no jails, no police forces, no orphanages, no old people’s homes, no one went hungry if there was food to be had? What if you had community where women were never considered less than? Where children were never sired to be considered property? What if you lived among a people who had no concept of ownership? What if you lived among people who placed the highest value on sharing? With maybe not even the concept of sharing needing to be discussed because it was just known that the world worked best when balance was honored? Can we remember when the earth was treated as a living being to be considered in all actions and choices? Where no one hoarded wealth but practiced distribution of resource with elders getting first, then children, then women and last men?
Before colonists arrived on Turtle Island, did I, as an Ojibwe woman, have a need for ‘freedom?’ For a hyped-up value of independence? Did I feel a need for a word to express the value of ‘let me do what I want or else’ kind of freedom?
Lakota activist Mark Kenneth Tilsen said, “The closest we use is to ‘like roam.’ Oyuskeya. But it’s only one of those words that exist because of the opposite signifier. Freedom wasn’t a big thing for us. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet. [Freedom] is the natural state of being so it wasn’t really a concept pre-contact. Much like sovereignty.”
Ojibwe elders, who are first language speakers, have not yet answered the question, “is there a word for freedom in our language?” They are deep thinkers. Interested in not just preserving the language but the culture and concepts that are embedded in the living language, because even our language is living and needs to be recognized and included. I imagine them pondering, thinking, consulting, translating among themselves between their Ojibwe world view and this US American world view. One elder, Mike Swan, from White Earth says, “Debendisiwin, which translates to ‘my heart is free.’ That’s the only thing I can find.”
Another indigenous person, Ollin Xochimeh, postulated that the word freedom did not exist in many pre-contact indigenous languages because “…there wasn’t disconnection as a concept.”
Is freedom a necessary concept? To truly regain my pre-contact mind and heart I ask myself, “Am I living in a way that supports balance and harmony with Earth? Is what I am doing self-serving or community serving? Tribal serving? Earth serving?”
I have been doing a deep dive into Ojibwe author Gerald Vizenor’s work about survivance. Survivance seems to require that I, in my actions and being, consider not just myself but the people, the land, the living beings that I interact with and impact, who impact me, every day. That I hold them in my heart and mind.
Is it possible that there is a higher order of existence than the current use of ‘freedom’ which seems to require climbing on top of, or destroying others, to achieve individualistic ‘do what I want’ gains?
