Gabrielle Crowe on Reclaiming Indigenous Culture

Robin Greenfield wearing his trash suit, sitting next to a woman, with
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Sometimes you meet someone and you know that your energies align.

I met Gabrielle Crowe at a river cleanup here on Tongva Lands. This is the land currently called Los Angeles that has been the homeland of the Tongva people for thousands of years and still is. Gabrielle is the vice chair of the Gabrielino-Shoshone Tribal Council of Southern California and it is her life’s work to shift the mindset of Southern Californians to be Earth Warriors and allies to the Indigenous people, the first stewards of this land.

She works with children and adults to educate on the destruction of colonialism on the land and her people. Most people living here today don’t know that up until the 1970’s it was illegal for Gabrielle’s people to practice their culture including their language, their medicine, their religion and their connection to the Earth.

Traditions were lost and stolen over 200 years of colonialism in what is currently called California. Gabrielle is one of many working to reclaim their culture, a culture of reciprocity with the land. This is challenging in a place that is overcome with consumerism, but Gabrielle is here doing the work…

One way that Gabrielle recommends being an ally is to acknowledge the land that you are living on or visiting. Native Land website is a resource that can help you do this. “Native Land Digital strives to create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, through educational resources such as our map and Territory Acknowledgement Guide. We strive to go beyond old ways of talking about Indigenous people and to develop a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms. In doing so, Native Land Digital creates spaces where non-Indigenous people can be invited and challenged to learn more about the lands they inhabit, the history of those lands, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together.”

Thank you Gabrielle for being a beacon for Earth and humanity! You have positively influenced me to acknowledge that I and we are ALL on Native Land.

“The Gabrieleno San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians (“Gabrieleno Tongva”) is the Historically Traditional Tribe within the County of Los Angeles. The Gabrieleno Tongva occupied the entire Los Angeles Basin and the islands of the Santa Catalina, San Nicholas, San Clemente and Santa Barbara, and from the mountains to the sea. The existence of these people on these ancestral lands has been unbroken since long before the first contact between the Tongva and Europeans.”

Learn more about Gabrielle Crowe.

Genga/Banning Ranch land rematriation project – Help save Genga (Banning Ranch), a sacred site for the Acjachemen and Tongva Nations.

Watch the Saging the World trailer.

Resources:
Gabrielino Tribe
Gabrieleno (Tongva) Band of Mission Indians
Ballona Wetlands Land Trust
Native Land map – “We strive to map Indigenous lands in a way that changes, challenges, and improves the way people see history and the present day. We hope to strengthen the spiritual bonds that people have with the land, its people, and its meaning.”

Teach students the truth about history of Native Californians

 

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