It has been an adventure thinking how to collectively name this group and given its very diverse backgrounds and activities. With advice from knowledge keepers and community leaders, we continue to think of this project’s “journey” as a series of parallel and occasionally intersecting paths with different names and different purposes. We asked community members to share words for TRAIL, PATH or JOURNEY that might highlight these different paths. Here are some we were gifted, or been connected with.
ANISHINAABE: “Biskaabiiyaang (sometimes spelled biskaabiiyang) describes the experience of having been on a long journey, then reaching the point of returning home. It is an Anishinaabe word for cultural resurgence, for resisting colonial violence, and for reclaiming our ways of being Anishinaabe through contemporary practices.”(Chacaby 2022) Biskaabiiyaang is the name of our partnered project, led by Maya Chacaby.
We are also inspired by our partner, Carolyn King’s words, calling for a trail of (moccasin) markers, so that we can see and understand the land we are on.
K’ICHE: B, or B’e. A road, a path, a way. (Gifted by circle member Nancy Louit -Gonzalez)
INUKIKUT: Immiriaq, describing a day’s journey away. (Gifted by friend and Inuit artist Cassondra Murray)
CREE: Pimâcihowin. A travel, a way of life, culture, survival. (Gifted by Treaty 4 knowledge-keeper Lorna Standingready)
ENGLISH: Listening Paths, a concept that hopes to enact the idea of multiple pathways that listen across and between and which have different names and purposes. An English phrase being tested by Rebecca Caines. emerging from the work of this group, and serving as a temporary collective term for multiple projects, each with their own name and different identity.