A Gathering Basket Issue 3
FROM THE I-COLLECTIVE A MULTI-MEDIA COOK BOOK
"Both the ceremonies of birth and am have been a target of erasu FIRST FOODS AND THE REBIRT
With the current infant mortality rate amongst Indigenous, Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, and Black women being the highest in the United States at 8.15, 9.39, and 10.75 respectively and being near or more than double the rate for White (4.63), Asian (3.63), and Hispanic (4.86) communities coupled with the maternal mortality rates of 17.2 deaths per 100,000 and rising, which nearly quadruples for a non-hispanic Black woman to 43.5 and 40.8 for Indigenous women in the U.S. we are beginning to see a resurgence of traditional birth working practices within Indigenous community, both Rural and Urban, as well as amongst those living in diaspora. In this issue, we will be speaking with Leslie Swan (Yakama) a doula and Birth Justice Advocate at the Ttawaxt Birth Justice Center, Sewa Yuli (Yoeme/Purapecha) a Queer birth worker and founder of the healing space that is Mi Xantico, along with Rubi Orozco Santos (Mexican) the Director of Organizational Storytelling & Development at La Semilla Food Center, a doula, and an award-winning poet about maintaining cosmological
maranth, like all Indigenous lifeways, ure through colonization..." H OF INDIGENOUS MIDWIFERY
tradition, the path of reconnection to Indigenous Midwifery and First Foods through the lens of our Amaranth Atole recipe, Yakima cosmology, and poetry. Both the ceremonies of birth and amaranth, like all Indigenous lifeways, have been a target of erasure through colonization but, as with all attacks on Indigeneity, the practice of resistance has led to a literal rebirth of these ways, all while facing new and ever-evolving attacks. The understanding of “ Woman as First Environment” shared by Haudenosaunee Midwife Katsi Cook is, as we look at the depth of colonial displacement of ancestral knowledge, a valuable reflection as we sit with the patriarchal theft of Indigenous birthing practices, and how this act resonates with the outlawing of amaranth by the Spanish colonizers, a law that if was broken was punishable by death, much like those 40.8 deaths of Indigenous women per 100,000 births in the Western field of medicine, a number that has increased steadily over the years and shows no sign of slowing down. With that in mind can you think of anything more sacred than giving birth?
Leslie Swan “Our foods and medicines come first!” are words from a grandmother to a granddaughter that transfer into lifeways. With memories of playing hide and seek in the pantry, amongst boxes of those same gathered plant relatives, Leslie also recalled for us that her grandma lived in constant motion with the land and what it provided so it’s easy to recognize her current place as doula, Birth Justice Advocate, and traditional food practitioner within her community. Having always had strong ties to women and birthwork, from providing cradleboards and moccasins to young families to a current project providing “Feast at Home Bundles”, she is creating her own legacy as she steps into a space many Indigenous Midwives and Doulas have to contend with in the loss of birthing traditions. In this knowledge it is also valuable for us to understand that those systems existed not that far in the past, in most cases only a couple generations removed, so there are elders that hold this still. Of those knowledge systems one that is written into the cosmology of the Yakama people is that of the First Foods tasting for babies. As with the Amaranth and Blue Corn Recipe provided as a First Food for tribes south of the colonial border we find here a mutual commitment between those that gave themselves for nourishment of the people and those with lineal responsibility to these relatives and their cosmology. In the order that these relatives came forward they are received; first water, followed by salmon, elk, deer, roots, chokecherry and huckleberry. Looking at this through the lens of ceremonies being on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic she shares that, “families are lonesome for ceremony” and takes us back to the “Feast at Home Bundles” that we mentioned earlier. Working with the Ttawaxt Birth Justice Center, a 501c3 founded by Jessica Houseman-Whitehawk to address the historical warfare against Matriarcal ways and Indigenous birthing practices, and alongside the Canoe Journey Herbalists that supported in the creation of a garden to support traditional foods bundles, they are looking to create traditional food kits for 60+ families to maintain their ceremonial food relationships and with dreams of building a facility to house their collective we’re betting NDN Country will be hearing more about these warrior women in the near future.
Sewa Yuli I learned at a young age that the kitchen was a place where knowledge was passed down, where love was given and nurtured families. Both my paternal and maternal grandmothers were wise and strong women who cooked amazing and delicious traditional foods. I learned about natural plant medicine and ways of living off the land from my Nana Adelina. She was known for her wisdom, bravery and ways of survival in a small ranch life in the Sierra Sonorense of Mexico. My Nana was called upon by her community when there was a medical emergency, or people who had suffered poisoning as well as supporting animals and people in labor. Both of my grandmas passed away before I became a parent and affected me greatly. The birth of my son Sol was the start of a big awakening for me. I suffered from obstetric violence and not having the proper care for me during my cuarentena (40 day postpartum period). I had already attended a few births by the time I was 19 and I knew just enough to know how I wanted my birth and care to be. I was a young single parent and felt left out from all the traditional birth and postpartum support that was commonly practiced for birthing people in our communities. My friends did what they could to support me and I will always be grateful because that love is what kept me together. It took a while to recover my spirit and become focused and embodied but we made it through my Sunny boy and I. The journey into healing opened many doors for me and made my path clear.
Cooking was the most natural gift I had since I was a kid. I learned by observing my mother and grandmas and staying close to the fire, it soon became my passion and life path as an adult. While learning more about food the plant medicines became natural allies and soon after I dove deep into the healing arts of traditional curanderismo of Mexico. After many years of offering traditional bodywork/massage, cooking indigenous foods and farming I found myself learning and connecting more profoundly to the land and our cosmology. It was my experience of growing corn and understanding our symbiotic relationship to nature that gave me the push I needed to step into protecting, preserving and providing traditional birth practices and postpartum care. Through my own self care and introspective healing I knew that the birthing ceremony was the first of all ceremonies that needed priority in reclamation. Working the land, tending the seeds, and preparing food has all been part of the journey of making my way to Indigenous Midwifery care. The seeds carry sacred instructions, we put our hands in the soil, we cultivate and harvest the gifts of our first life-giver and consume its fruits. These foods and waters have a spirit and carry genetic memory, they help us remember who we are and the rituals of cycles within cycles. Honoring those cycles means protecting the land and our traditional ways of birthing, it means giving a cup of warm atolli made with corn and amaranth to a postpartum person and baby’s first food. Indigenous Midwifery is how we will protect our communities, the land and birth a new future.
Ato
TIPS You can always add more water or milk if the consistency is too thick and if not thick enough you can add a half cup of more cornmeal. My favorite way to make Atole is in a olla de barro the material of your pots and pans make a very significant difference in how your Atole comes out. Barro, porcelain, and stainless steel are my recommendations.
o t n a r a m A e ole d
Ready in 30 minutes Serves 8 people
1 cup Amaranth flour 1⁄2 cup of blue corn meal 2 cinnamon sticks Teaspoon of vanilla extract Sweetener of liking amount as desired 4 cups of milk (almond, coconut or dairy) 5 cups of water 1 tbsp of coconut oil or butter
PREPARATION 1
In a medium saucepan add 5 cups of water and cinnamon to a boil then let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes allowing the cinnamon tea to reach its full flavor then turn off.
2
In a separate bowl add the amaranth flour, cornmeal and vanilla extract as well as the 4 cups of milk and stir with a whisk till liquified.
3
Add the mix, butter and sweetener to the saucepan , turn to a medium heat and stir constantly with whisk or molinillo for about 20 minutes till nice and thick.
4
Pour in a mug garnish with some cinnamon powder.
Rekindling You are sovereign over your being fully human, steward of your Self.
You are also not alone You belong, are claimed, Somewhere in the spiral of time however near or far in both directions candles flicker for you. It is possible that you did not know this. That the severing jumbled or interrupted reminders, messages of love that had been destined for you. A web of luminous threads exists, ancestral tributaries that cannot be fully severed by colonial swords or bullets. Their currents welcome reconnection, lead you to living guides and latent inner wisdom. Sometimes the river is rage coiled grief released - gushing, pulsating from your right lung’s inferior lobe for the brilliant legacies you were denied from knowing sooner. Often the river is gentle holding you from all directions as you relax into old familiar words, tastes, relatives on old familiar trading routes as you release colonial conditioning towards perfectionism, control, scarcity as you relearn how to relate to yourself and the soil We float alongside each other, each listening to the trickle in our own language Once, when I listened, the river told me we are unrelenting like amaranth our seeds abundant raining down from flamboyant flowers joyfully ground atole for pregnant bodies earthy, kind grain for baby’s palate our greens what blood is made of.
- RUBI OROZCO-SANTOS
GRATITUDES: CONTRIBUTORS Leslie Swan Sewa Yuli
Nipinet Landsem Rubi Orozco-Santos
A GATHERING BASKET STAFF M. Karlos Baca Britt Reed Trennie Collins Quentin Glabus Kristina Stanley
Written Content Curator Image Curator Creative Director Video Curator Program Manager
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