According to the Wendats, the Mohawks and many other aboriginal nations, the world, our North American world, is built on the shell of a large, nay, an immense turtle.
In fact, if you look at North America on a map, you can easily see the turtle taking shape: its left front leg being Alaska, its right part of Quebec and Labrador, its two hind legs, the Californian peninsula and that of Florida, its tail, Mexico, and its head, all the small islands of the Arctic.
The myth, which has been passed down from generation to generation for millennia at a time when it was impossible to know the exact shape of our continent, has it that the First Peoples came from the sky and that we have inhabited Great Turtle Island for centuries. time immemorial. Grande Tortue welcomed us there, fed, sheltered, cared for, much like a mother would. Hence the name of Mother Earth.
I know, it’s certainly not what you learned in school, that the natives would come from the sky. This view of the world is certainly different. It’s colorful, perhaps even confronting. But I believe that in 2023, we can – we must – start to see things differently. Anyway, know that the Bering Strait theory – the one you probably know as the only theory explaining the origin of the first inhabitants of America – is regularly questioned as the only theory by scientists, and this, for several decades now. The fact is that we still know very little. This may be the subject of another column, but for now, back to Big Turtle.
In the version of the myth that was told to me when I must have been 10 or 11 years old, the story ended by saying that when Big Turtle stretched, the earth shook.
I remember finding it really beautiful, this idea of living on the shell of a turtle and that it sometimes trembles, as if to let us know that it was still alive. I would go so far as to say that there is something of the order of humility in this way of seeing things. Living on the back of a living being: listening to it, taking care of it, showing respect. What barbarism!
However, for several years, Mother Earth has not been able to give us what we need. What’s more, she suffers. We ask too much. We took too much from her. All the signs are there.
Haven’t you been a little hot for the end of May? Didn’t you smell the smoke coming from Chapais? Haven’t you seen these images of floods all over Quebec? And that’s right in our backyard.
But the world is vast.
I know it, the subjects surrounding the protection of the environment leave one a little lukewarm. I always get much less interest in them than for my papers that talk about Aboriginal realities, which is quite surprising since it’s all connected, braided, inseparable.
Humans need a healthy Earth to live, to survive, and the Aboriginals were the first to see that something was wrong.
But who really cares about the fate of forests, caribou or polar bears? A bear is mean and the forests, we need them. To cut them, some would add. I try hard not to be sarcastic, but there are times when it’s hard.
A few weeks ago, in the midst of the fires that affected Alberta, I met an Alberta couple who were deeply saddened by the disaster that was happening in their home. Both worked in the oil industry.
What to do ?
More and more aboriginal people are saying enough is enough. This week, the Mashk Assi collective and its allies protested on a forest road at kilometer 216 in the Laurentides wildlife reserve. They may still be there. Their goal ? Stopping logging. During the winter, the Atikamekw did the same thing on their territory. But when they are thus holed up in the depths of the woods, where it really happens, who hears them?
Last Wednesday, 40 eminent scientists declared, through a study published in the journal Naturethat seven of the eight planetary limits favorable to the survival of the human species have already been crossed1. For the latter, social and economic systems based on the constant extraction and consumption of resources cannot last.
Haven’t I read pretty much the same thing many times already? That major systemic transformations were required to reverse course? Or is it the voice of the elders that I still hear? This voice that was brought to my ears 30 years ago…
I know that a system cannot be changed by snapping your fingers. Where to start, how to move forward, what to do…
The construction site is enormous. It makes me dizzy and anxious when I think about it. But I’m even more anxious about doing nothing. So let’s get started!
The Quebec government is due to table its caribou protection strategy in mid-June. The problem, if there is one, is that to protect the caribou, you have to protect the forest, and to protect the forest, you have to stop logging it, and to stop logging, you have to stop the industry and thus change the system. The tree is in its leaves.
But let’s start with that. So let Mother Earth regain her strength.
Spring always arrives more slowly in the woods.
Spring brings renewal, it is well known.