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book: What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?
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What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?

  • Edited by: , , and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2021

About this book

As we face an ever-more-fragmented world, What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? demands a return to the force of lineage—to spiritual, social, and ecological connections across time. It sparks a myriad of ageless-yet-urgent questions: How will I be remembered? What traditions do I want to continue? What cycles do I want to break? What new systems do I want to initiate for those yet-to-be-born? How do we endure? Published in association with the Center for Humans and Nature and interweaving essays, interviews, and poetry, this book brings together a thoughtful community of Indigenous and other voices—including Linda Hogan, Wendell Berry, Winona LaDuke, Vandana Shiva, Robin Kimmerer, and Wes Jackson—to explore what we want to give to our descendants. It is an offering to teachers who have come before and to those who will follow, a tool for healing our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with our most powerful ancestors—the lands and waters that give and sustain all life.

Author / Editor information

John Hausdoerffer is dean of the School of Environment & Sustainability at Western Colorado University. Most recently, he is coeditor of Wildness: Relations of People and Place. For more information, visit www.jhausdoerffer.com. He lives in living in Gunnison, CO. Brooke Parry Hecht is president of the Center for Humans and Nature at www.humansandnature.org. Melissa K. Nelson (Anishinaabe/Métis [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]) is professor of Indigenous sustainability at Arizona State University and president of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native-led Indigenous rights organization. Most recently, she is coeditor of Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. Katherine Kassouf Cummings serves as managing editor at the Center for Humans and Nature and leads Questions for a Resilient Future.

Reviews

“What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? captures the deep dialogue, continuity, and resonance Indigenous peoples feel and espouse for ancestors, ourselves, our children—with a view for the now and for our very uncertain future. And yet, its audience is at once Indigenous and Universal. Weaving poetry, narrative, interview, essay, and spirit, it is a unique, landmark tapestry. Utterly timely and profoundly urgent.”
— Gregory Cajete, author of "Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence"

“The questions this book raises are of such staggering importance and relevance today. I cried. I laughed. I smiled. Many reading moments, beautiful or tragic or just deeply human, are difficult to forget.”
— Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of "The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge"

"Consisting of a stunning array of essays, poems, and interviews, this collection makes the case that the actions and perspectives of a single person can have a ripple effect across generations of people and nature. . . . Recommended for readers interested in environmentalism, anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, and Indigenous peoples in the United States."
— Library Journal

"A wonderfully unclassifiable book, What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? challenges us to live not just for tomorrow, or for our children, but for many generations in the future. Featuring interviews with and essays by thinkers from across social disciplines—anthropologists, environmental activists, Indigenous leaders, sociologists, and more."
— Book Culture Blog

“What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? explores the challenge of climate disruption and ecological disaster through poems, essays and interviews. By offering diverse responses from a worldly selection of multicultural voices, the book provokes examination and inspiration. At the same time, the collection delivers no easy answers. Instead, the responses are personal and detailed, thick with values and reflection."
— Gunnison Country Times

"This compendium of poems, essays, and dialogues contains the voices of a range of writers and speakers from widely disparate cultures, traditions, and ethnicities, speaking out as they grapple with this question. The question itself causes one to pause, containing, as it does, an implicit instruction to consider one’s own ancestors and their/our relationship with the future. Who were they and what has their impact been upon ourselves and the world? How should or might we, ourselves, carry their influence into the future, while adding the work of our own lives to that stream?"
— Resilience.org

"This volume edited by Hausdoerffer, Hecht, Nelson, and Cummings incorporates the work of 47 contributors addressing the urgent and central concern of establishing spiritual, social, and ecological continuity in this uncertain age. Employing diverse textual strategies and genres, including essays, ethnographic interviews, and poems, these authors are intent on communicating the understanding and reactions of indigenous people to the problem of providing guidance to future generations. Arguing that the world is currently in the throes of an ecological, economic, and political crisis, this study invites readers to seek essential new wisdom by exploring the traditional wisdom of indigenous ancestors, so as to embrace the role of "ancestor" in the present. . . .Highly recommended."
— Choice

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    v
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    Introduction

    1
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    Poem: Unsigned Letter to a Human in the 21st Century

    6
    Jamaal May
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  • I . Embedded. Our ancestral responsibility is deeply rooted in a multigenerational relationship to place
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    A. Poem: Great Granddaddy

    13
    Taiyon Coleman
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  • B. Essays
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    Essay Ancestor of Fire

    16
    Aaron A. Abeyta
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    Essay Grounded

    20
    Aubrey Streit Krug
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    Essay My Home / It’s Called the Darkest Wild

    25
    Sean Prentiss
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    C. Interview: Wendell Berry

    33
    Leah Bayens
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    D. Poem: To the Children of the 21st Century

    44
    Frances H. Kakugawa
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  • II. Reckoning. Reckoning with ancestors causing and ancestors enduring historical trauma
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    A. Poem: Forgiveness?

    49
    Shannon Gibney
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  • B. Essays
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    Essay. Sister’s Stories

    51
    Eryn Wise
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    Essay. Of Land and Legacy

    56
    Lindsey Lunsford
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    Essay. Cheddar Man

    61
    Brooke Williams
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    Essay. Formidable

    68
    Kathleen Dean Moore
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    C. Interview: Caleen Sisk

    73
    Brooke Parry Hecht and Christopher McLeod
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    D. Poem: Promises, Promises, Frances

    84
    Frances H. Kakugawa
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  • III. Healing Enhancing some ancestral cycles while breaking others
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    A. Poem: To Future Kin

    89
    Brian Calvert
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  • B. Essays
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    Essay. Moving with the Rhythm of Life

    90
    Katherine Kassouf Cummings
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    Essay. (A Korowai) For When You Are Lost

    95
    Manea Sweeney
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    Essay. To Hope of Becoming Ancestors

    100
    Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Julianne Lutz Warren
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    C. Interview: Camille T. Dungy and Crystal Williams

    110
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    D. Poem: Yes I Will

    117
    Frances H. Kakugawa
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  • IV. Interwoven. Our descendants will know the kind of ancestor we are by reading the lands and waters where we lived
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    A. Poem: Alive in This Century

    121
    Kristi Leora Gansworth
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  • B. Essays
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    Essays. What Is Your Rice?

    124
    John Hausdoerffer
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    Essays. Restoring Indigenous Mindfulness within the Commons of Human Consciousness

    130
    Jack Loeffler
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    Essays. Reading Records with Estella Leopold

    138
    Curt Meine
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    Essays. How to Be Better Ancestors

    142
    Winona LaDuke
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    C. Interview: Wes Jackson

    145
    John Hausdoerffer and Julianne Lutz Warren
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    D. Poem: Omoiyare

    154
    Frances H. Kakugawa
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  • V. Earthly Other-than- human beings are our ancestors, too
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    A. Poem: LEAF

    157
    Elizabeth Carothers Herron
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  • B. Essays
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    Essay. The City Bleeds Out (Reflections on Lake Michigan)

    159
    Gavin Van Horn
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    Essay. I Want the Earth to Know Me as a Friend

    166
    Enrique Salmón
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    Essay. The Apple Tree

    172
    Peter Forbes
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    Essay. Humus

    177
    Catriona Sandilands
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    Essay. Building Good Soil

    182
    Robin Wall Kimmerer
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    C. Interview: Vandana Shiva

    185
    John Hausdoerffer
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    D. Poem: Your Inheritance

    194
    Frances H. Kakugawa
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  • VI. Seventh Fire
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    A. Poem: Time Traveler

    197
    Lyla June Johnston
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  • B. Essays
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    Essay. Seeds

    200
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    Essay. Onëö (Word for Corn in Seneca)

    210
    Kaylena Bray
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    Essay. Landing

    214
    Oscar Guttierez
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    Essay. Regenerative

    219
    Melissa K. Nelson
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    Essay. Nourishing

    225
    Rowen White
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    Essay. Light

    232
    Rachel Wolfgramm and Chellie Spiller
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    C. Interview: Ilarion Merculieff

    240
    Brooke Parry Hecht
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    D. Poem: Lost in the Milky Way

    252
    Linda Hogan
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    Acknowledgments

    255
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    Notes

    257
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    About the Contributors

    263
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    Index

    273
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 24, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9780226777573
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
248
Other:
3 halftones
View content
https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226777573
eBook ISBN: 9780226777573
Keywords for this book
ecology; indigenous peoples studies; lineage; ecological connections; society; social issues; spirituality; responsibility; conservation; traditions; culture; new systems; human behavior; essays; interviews; poetry; poems; linda hogan; wendell berry; winona laduke; vandana shiva; robin kimmerer; wes jackson; descendants; relationships; healing; ancestors; indians of north america; traditional knowledge; customs
Audience(s) for this book
Professional and scholarly;
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