44. SaraWidda I
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44. The Human Niche is “Tending”
Today I talk with SaraWidda. Sara is a paleoanthropologist who shares her knowledge about the origin of our species and our ancient history, freely on social media. She seems to attract every hater-racist-bigot in the area and gets into deep debates over the fossil record and what the science tells us about ourselves… and she has the receipts.
In this episode we focus on Indigenous learning and Landback and the rise of violence in the human species. Sara ends on the cliff hanger of epigenetic trauma - so if you want to know more, please click the Part II below.
SaraWidda and her receipts can be found around the internet.
Transcript
Lezley (00:00):
I'm going to make this distinction, not just reserve land, all land.
SaraWidda (00:03):
Oh yeah. No, no, no. All
Lezley (00:05):
Land. All the land. All of it.
Lezley (00:21):
Hi folks. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I speak with Sarah. That's how I think of her always. Sarah Widda. Sarah Widda is focused on paleo anthropology. She is sharing her teachings from a scientific perspective about our ancient history and the beginnings of violence, and the end of animism, which never really ended because you can't end animism. But we talked about a lot of really interesting stuff. This is the first of at least two. There's going to be at least one more episode, maybe two. But we talked about humans, cultural niche, land back, and relationship with land and indigeneity and all kinds of stuff. It was a really interesting conversation. Thank you, Sarah. And just a little note, the very first beginning of this, the first 30 seconds I put in, because we had mic problems and audio problems, and my face, I don't have an inside face, and it made me laugh, so I included, it kind of sucks for you in the audio portion of this. Yeah, it sucks for you because you can't see anything. So sorry about that. If you want to see, check out the video on YouTube or actually at the bottom of the show page. You can see it there. Anyway, thanks for coming to chat. If you'd like to speak to me about Spirit and land together and your experience of spirit in the world of form, I would love to speak with you. It's my most favorite thing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Just going my website. Just copy the back on, I dunno.
Lezley (02:25):
Oh yeah. I had to bring up the technology Gods in the beginning and I angered them. So no have to give homage.
SaraWidda (02:36):
I always think of it as the fact that I grew up so off grid and backwoods that me and technology just don't blend. I'm grounded. I'm too earthy. And the funny thing is I'm really not earthy at all. I'm very much a water sign, which means there's no stability in earth. So maybe I take electricity and I shock it. I guess
Lezley (02:57):
That's what it You're electrocuting. I'm electrocuting. So I'm just going to ask, because I don't know how to start this. I would like to start in ceremony with you if possible, but I don't know how to approach that. I'm learning about ceremony, and I understand and accept that that is an Indigenous based practice on Turtle Island, and I don't know how to go forward coming into ceremony with others in spaces like this. So I'm asking for your guidance.
SaraWidda (03:35):
So I don't think none of my ceremony would be Turtle Island Indigenous anyways, because I am so intersectional that there's maybe two things on my altar that I can tell you come from my Turtle Island indigeneity. I have an abalone shell on my altar, and I have, she's on TikTok. She's one of the most badass warriors I know. Khoska made this for me and gave this to me when we were protesting together downtown in 2020. And this is 100%, it's like many communities believe that being a warrior is more about defensive community out of love. So this is kind of that warrior aspect, that defensive community out of love. And that's something that I keep post, but everything else on my altar wouldn't be Turtle Island Indigenous. I have Celtic stuff on there. My ceremony for me is about the way that I live. So for me, mine is really intersectional. If you look at my altar, there's shit from everywhere. I have a mortier and pestle that I got the mortar with. I got that. It's marble. I got it when I was in Iraq, and then a mortar and a pestle. I mean, that's one of those things that is really everywhere. Everybody grinds something. And then I've got an iron cauldron and a bell that's glass. It's painted, and a couple of stones that my daughter has, is that
Lezley (05:23):
How you pronounce it? A triskel?
SaraWidda (05:25):
That's how I pronounce it. That doesn't necessarily mean that's, some people say tri skull, but to me, tri skull kind of how many things out there do? I mean, that just doesn't make sense to me in my brain. Try skull. Yes, it's try. But how many things that are try do we say? Try, try.
Lezley (05:45):
Yeah, it's true.
SaraWidda (05:47):
So distinctly and then it's skull.
Lezley (05:51):
I know where, yeah, in my head I've always pronounced it triskele, but who the fuck did
SaraWidda (05:57):
That come? Yeah, Thele is, you'll see it as an LI, A and D. Oh,
Lezley (06:05):
Okay.
SaraWidda (06:05):
Okay. So it is something that is, so that is a very cross-cultural symbol as well.
Lezley (06:11):
So this is called a tri-chasag, tri-chasag in Gallic and Irish, and it means three-legged,
SaraWidda (06:23):
Right? You can see it in the Scandinavians and you can see it in the Celts, and you can see it all the way down into Spain. You can see some thoughts of it in other things. Three is a power number in so many different spaces. It's just very, so for me, the most I do for ceremony is I'll light a candle and I'll talk to my ancestors. And I don't do this very often and I don't do it in times of need. I do it in times of gratitude. I mean, I use it as a time of gratitude. And the other day when I was driving down the road after dropping my son, spending an hour with my son, my oldest son who has since he was seven, not let me hug and kiss him. He's not mama's boy, daddy's boy, and spending two hours because I was driving him back and forth to work.
SaraWidda (07:17):
There were two really positive hours. And I'm driving away and I'm having positive interactions with all my kids. My life is really good. And I'm like, thank you so much. And I just was driving down the road just talking, thank you so much for this, and I'm so blessed and so happy for this. And then if I'm cooking or if I am doing something to cleanse, I might do something a little bit more ceremonial and cooking. I don't really do ceremony. It's just like I think whatever I'm cooking, and I know that so much that I eat these days is not a healthy thing to eat the animal behind. It didn't live a healthy life. And for me, that's a hard thing because I grew up with hunting and I grew up with honouring animals. And to this day, my dad, the only times I've ever seen my dad cry is if he made a bad kill.
SaraWidda (08:06):
That's the only times. Not that I always believed that men could cry because my dad cried when I was young over a bad kill. Actually, I've always known men could cry. It's just that men's grief was about not different things, but men's grief was a different grief, or at least his maybe because I don't think has he distinguishing between male and female, but not so much to me. But for me, when I talk to my food, it's just as I'm cooking it, I'm so sorry for the life that you've had. Thank you for giving me this, and may you find some peace in the next space.
Lezley (08:43):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
SaraWidda (08:44):
And then cleansing houses, I think for starting a talking space, right? What you are doing is starting talking space. I would for you to initiate it, find some things that are with your nations and with your history and the ancestries that you're studying and that you're being a part of, and that you'd really trying to connect to find some things that are important there. And then say, Hey, I would like to do some form of a ceremony and do some form of asking for this space to be a space of peace and love. And I'm totally willing to do something like that. But I do want to say that it's going to be very cross-cultural, so it wouldn't be represented.
Lezley (09:37):
No, no, that's great. Whatever you have, whatever it is that you have and feel guided to do. I've been thinking about this as I've been doing these talks. I'm always too afraid to bring it up because it is a little bit out of my comfort zone in communication in the West. And I think it's really, really important. I'm being taught that it's very, very important. So I would like you to lead today if you'd like, but I'm definitely going to consider I was given the suggestion to find for myself a prayer that resonates with me or a song or something that I can say in these moments to create that for myself and my guests.
SaraWidda (10:23):
Can I play something for you really
Lezley (10:25):
Quick? Yeah, please. Whatever
SaraWidda (10:27):
Computer play, rising up, Laia, harmonize
Speaker 5 (10:35):
On Amazon Music.
SaraWidda (10:38):
Can you hear that? Okay. It's just background right now. I'm going to send you a link as well.
Lezley (10:47):
Okay.
SaraWidda (10:51):
This is just some music, right? Tell me. This is a song that, it's a song for lovers, but it is also a song done by Rising Appalachia is a sister pair that was in Standing Rock. And this song is about meeting together and speaking together in a space of joy in a space of harmonizing. Right? Nice.
Lezley (11:29):
Yeah.
SaraWidda (11:29):
Conversation of harmonizing. It might be something that you could maybe play in the background as you're getting started or bring some of it into it. It might be a song that really resonates with that. That's a YouTube right there of it so that you can watch it if you want. And they have a lot of beautiful music. Actually, their music is prayer for me. I'll walk through the street singing their music, having it full blast on my earphones. I can't handle being out in public. And so when the worst moments of my life are going on, they make it to where I can function because it's all about being, there's a song called Resilient actually, and it's all about being resilient. It's all about uplifting in the message. So you'll like that. That might be something that works for that for you.
Lezley (12:16):
Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'll definitely check that out. I'll definitely check that out. Okay. Did you want to do anything?
SaraWidda (12:28):
Honestly,
Lezley (12:29):
Whatever you feel guided. I don't want to pressure you. I kind of dropped this on you. No,
SaraWidda (12:34):
You're fine. I mean, for me, it's always so simple. I would just say that I want to ask that my ancestors guide my words in a way that they can be heard and that my message be loving and intersectional and about community and light as in energy, community and energy and that interaction and that tending of the biome. Thank you. And then I'm very grateful always for these opportunities to be able to have a conversation with somebody, to be able to say the things that are on my mind because somebody's asking me questions about them and to be able to articulate them better. And I'm very grateful for those out there who are constantly and consistently working towards community, a broader sense of love of community. And I think that things like interviewing people and trying to spread these messages more from as many different perspectives as possible is a very powerful way to do that. This is the second time I've done one of these. I felt that the last time was extremely beautiful and powerful as well. And I think that that desire to uplift and bring knowledge to everybody on a level that isn't out there is really powerful to me, and I'm very grateful for that and made my voice just bring as much healing as it can and as much understanding as it can.
Lezley (14:24):
Thank you. Thank you. What I've got started for my song or prayer, whatever this is that I'm doing, is just basically just thank you, thank you, thank you. A million thank yous in Ojibwe, French Gallic and Irish.
SaraWidda (14:54):
Are you using this in part as a connection journey as well? Is that what the
Lezley (15:01):
Yeah,
SaraWidda (15:02):
The intersectional kind of conversations are for you as a reconnection and a,
Lezley (15:09):
Well, this is where I reached out to you is you were instrumental in leading me towards educational sources to help me along my Celtic reconnecting journey, which has been life-changing and necessary. And so that's been happening. It was the Peter Beresfor, the Druids that was beautiful. I've gone on from there and I'm still learning, obviously I'll be learning the rest of my life about this, but it's also brought me to being reconnecting kelt on Turtle Island. That's really integral for my own path that my rooting has to take place on Turtle Island. And because of my deep resonance and connection with land, through culture, through reconnecting, I'm coming to the doorway of reaching out to Indigenous knowledge keepers and people who are open to teach non-Indigenous about being here on Turtle Island and what that means in form and in spirit. So that's why bringing together the languages and because the language is so essential for Indigenous people, but also my own, speaking of Gallic and Irish, it's magic. It's a literal, it's like a rekindling or resparking of that culture here. And so the Ka are on Turtle Island. That is something that keeps repeating in my head.
SaraWidda (16:55):
That's a beautiful thought process right there that really is, oh, and I need to do it. And boost this video. There was a video done by an Irish man from Ireland right now, and he's like, Hey, if you're Irish American and you're standing by what's happening and supporting Israel and Joe Biden and everything else, and he goes over what the starvation was, what the great starvation was, because that is how so many Irish Americans make it to America. And for those who are not those who are allowing this, well, he says, as for Joe Biden who's allowing this, he's like, you're not welcome home.
Lezley (17:42):
Yeah, fair enough. Your
SaraWidda (17:44):
Family left because somebody imposed a great starvation and you're supporting a great, you're not welcome to come home. And I think that there's just this power in this understanding that we don't have the same traumas. We have similar traumas in some spaces. We colonization has been enacted in much the same way across the entirety of the globe because of the fact that colonization starts in one space and spreads out. The idea of it starts in one space and spreads out really, but colonization. And the reason that we have similar is that the racism that is inflicted upon the Sami and the genocide that's inflicted upon the Sami was led by people who were talking to and interacting with the racism committed by the people in the United States and the genocide committed by the people in the United States against the Indigenous people here interacting and going, well, this is how my racism is.
SaraWidda (18:59):
Well, this is how great my racism is. This is what head I am. This is how much I've misunderstood the thought process of love. And so there's similarities because they're all interacting and going, well, this is how I'm doing it. So understanding that racism and the structure of othering that has been kind of cross global and kind of brought out in this need to suppress and this need to keep down is committed everywhere in this genocidal action of trying to just stomp out entire groups and what's happening in Palestine. It's definitely that at this point, right? Yeah, a hundred percent. Seeing the, if you can go back far enough, you can see within the Celts how the colonization there happened and how the genocide there happened. And you don't even have to go back that far sometimes, if you can take the understanding of the earth connection, anim mystic connection, biome connection that the kelps have prior to colonization and prior to Christianization, and translate those roots into a new land.
SaraWidda (20:32):
You can, and I've often had people actually state this. I've heard elders state this before, you can indigenize yourself to space because many of the epigenetics that you're going through are the same epigenetics or similar epigenetics, right? Trauma doesn't affect anybody the same. And not all the traumas are the same, but similar epigenetics and similar understandings. So I think that that's, for me, it went the other way because I was raised with an Indigenous culture, and my first memories are like elders speaking. And my first understandings of how the world worked was an animistic understanding of it from a Turtle Island Indigenous perspective. It wasn't until I was 12 that I shifted communities, shifted Indigenous communities from the one that I was not biologically born into, but literally born into and a part into a new Indigenous community that I was told for the first time that I wasn't Indigenous.
SaraWidda (21:35):
Because up until that point, I was Indigenous. That was the only thing I knew I myself was. And when they started calling me a Cherokee princess and telling me I was a pretending at 12, my first inclination was, I can't cause harm. I knew what a pretending was, so I can't cause harm. I can't do harm. And I'd always looked for all of my ancestry, how I've been raised. So I dove into the Celtic ancestry and I dove into the Celtic ancestry from that Indigenous thought process, like knowing what the Turtle Island Indigenous thought process was. I had grown up in it. When I looked at the Celts and their preco colonized life, it was a look at it through the eyes of being Indigenous. So I could only, honestly, I really only saw the indigeneity. It doesn't mean I've been very careful, especially later in my life, to make sure that I'm distinguishing what is Turtle Island Indigenous versus what is Celtic Indigenous? So I'm not crossing those and making everything pan Indigenous, but looking at it first through Indigenous eyes, it's like I remember reading about, well, I remember watching the Craft. I'm a child of the eighties and
Lezley (22:50):
S oh am I remember that too,
SaraWidda (22:53):
And hating it every step, hating it, every step, because all I could see was that's not right. That's not how we interact. That's nothing ket about that. And people having the witches Bible. And that for me is just over the top weird. I've actually had people who were satanists and heard that I was, I used to say Wiccan, and I would say I'm kind of Wiccan, but really I'm kind of before that. It's deeper for me always. And I've always had to clarify, yeah, I'm Wiccan, but it'ss more connected than ceremonial. It's more like dug in than I call the Four Corners.
Lezley (23:43):
That's exactly how I about that calling the Four Corners thing. Yeah, there's an experienced lived connection with land that happens through this. Yeah.
SaraWidda (23:55):
Well, and for me, and I think that it's an important and integral distinction that I would want people to know and understand is we look at it as a land connection, but it's not just the earth beneath us. It's the entirety of the biome. And that's why I've started trying to make sure that I include the word biome within most of it, because the trees and the animals and the bugs and the birds and the everything. If I was going to plug anything, that would actually be what I plug. So I wrote a book, and that's why I was like, I can plug the website, but I wrote a children's book that goes over this.
Lezley (24:37):
Oh, we are we. Yeah. Nice.
SaraWidda (24:40):
And what it is is it talks about being the connection to the biome. The last couple pages, my space in the Biome realized and the care I provide, knowing each spark of energy, nutrient song that goes missing is felt to the depth of me for I am us and us as me, and we are we. Right? Beautiful. It's about not just, it talks about growing your roots down into the soil beneath you from the base of your spine. It's basically grounding and centering for smalls.
Lezley (25:12):
Nice.
SaraWidda (25:13):
So that integral, integral connection with the entirety of it, we have to get back to, I think for me is where we really, because so many people don't see it as existing on its own level of existence, right? Yeah,
Lezley (25:43):
Yeah. Value in its own beingness as opposed to how it can benefit or profit humankind. I absolutely agree. For me personally, I think that one of the biggest problems is the cutoff. When Kes immigrated to Turtle Island, there was enormous cutoff, and it didn't just start here, but by God it really got finished off here. They thought, woo, we can come here and we can be Canadian or white or whatever identity they put on, and we don't have to deal with all of that stuff that happened. It fucking wasn't, it wasn't ever dealt with the Irish. And I mean, the Republic of Irish have probably done the best work, at least keeping alive the understanding of what happened, or maybe not. I don't know. There's this song by Schine O'Connor called Famine, which was my first introduction to the oppression of my ancestors and paying people to not speak your language and paying people to disconnect from culture. And when you disconnect from that memory, then you're traumatized, but you don't know why. Do you know what I mean? So anyway, I went on a big tangent there, but
SaraWidda (27:14):
No, you're fine, you're fine. It didn't tangent to me. It was just a question. Alright. Yeah. My brain farted.
Lezley (27:30):
That's cool. Anyway, it started with the cutoff.
SaraWidda (27:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's huge. I think that when we look at, we can really see that that cutoff really happens for a couple of different people. So you can see one thing that those in Turtle Island who were Indigenous in here before 1492 are Indigenous, and we're here before 1492, have is the fact that well many are displaced from where they're at. They're still in their land. Same thing with the Sami, where many are displaced from where they're at. They're still in their land. I knew they're still in their land, right? The Irish are actually still in their land. Those that are in Irish, same thing with those that are in Wales and those who in RI and those who are in Scotland. And then you have groups that were literally picked up and transported, like those who are black within the United States and Canada or the Western Hemisphere, black within the Western Hemisphere, and those who like the transporters, like the Irish and sometimes English who were brought here against their will, like the Jamestown prisoners and stuff like that, the exiles.
SaraWidda (28:49):
And then you even have this sense of cutoff in those who are brought over here or not brought over here, but come over here free will trying to escape different things or just for a sense of better. Even when you look at the second sons who would come over here to try and get huge swaths of land, they didn't have it. In England, you get people who are cutting off their history, they're leaving their history behind, and they're leaving it behind in a hope for something new and better. And so in that hope for new and better for many people, there is that, or for anyone who came over here in a willingness there is that hope for new and better that gives them the ability for those who were transported but not stolen, that was able to exist a little bit as well. For those who are stolen, of course there is no hope for anything at that point.
SaraWidda (29:45):
All of those cuts, all of those sings of ancestral ties are as much about the ancestors of your close knit right here as they are about the roots of the land and the interaction with the entirety. And that understanding that comes from living in a space for thousands of years. That knowledge of what this world and this biome is, I think that we can all find new connection with new lands. I wouldn't speak to other people's ancestors, I would only speak to mine. We have to understand that connection to the land as, I don't want to say invasive species because well, we are an invasive species as a whole. Those who are seeking to reconnect or not that invasive species, there are those who are seeking to figure this out in a new rooting system, but as outside species that need to grow in and around with the understanding of not becoming invasive, that's probably, I'm not sure if that came across in a way that's quite understandable because my brain sometimes, but
Lezley (31:09):
Well, carrying along the weed analogy, invasive species comes in and disregards everything that was there and takes it over and crushes it into oblivion. Like rooting with respect and care and compassion would make yourself a benefit to the ecosystem and not an oppressive thing. That's just the visual I was getting as you're
SaraWidda (31:41):
Perfect. That's the visual I was hoping for because
Lezley (31:44):
That's exactly what it
SaraWidda (31:45):
Was. And I think for me, that's it. When I talk about land back and when I talk about returning governing and tendance, a big part of that is,
Lezley (31:57):
Wait, what does that mean? I've never heard that before. Governing intendance,
SaraWidda (32:01):
Tending. Sorry, tending so tend as intending the land.
Lezley (32:06):
Oh, okay. So to
SaraWidda (32:07):
Me, land back is about returning the governance of the land itself. What happens in these borders, for lack of a better term, is governed by the people who are Indigenous to these lands. And then tending meaning like tending and honourable harvest, tending. For me, I believe that our species is here to tend that is because every species is created to fulfill a niche within the biome. And as every species is created to fulfill a niche in the biome, our niche in the is the niche of tending.
Lezley (32:41):
Hello to those of you in audio on the podcast audio only, I've included an etymology of attend on the video because I care about words and where they come from and what they mean. So tend is actually a shortened version of attend. That's where we get tending from is to attend to an obsolete version, is to be subject to which I love because we belong to the land. And that is in our role as to tend to the land, as we belong to the land and we are subject to the land. It also means to take care of, to put our attention and focus towards it is from the root we're to towards and stretch. So it means turning our attention, energy, and efforts towards and stretching to meat with the land. And I love that
SaraWidda (33:52):
Our niche in the biome, that's why we're the only species that adapts is adaptations. Other species have adaptations. Fox has a den. Beaver has his dam. You see that Crows, crows, corvids, try to say two words at once, can make their own tools. There are other species that can make their own tools. We're the only species that takes the tool that we've made and adapts it further, getting us from Homo Erectus first usage of fire to the computer that we're on. So our niche in the biome to me is the niche of tending. And so if we return tending and governance to Indigenous people, that tending of the biome and listening to that tending of the biome, it's not like somebody who's white gets out or it's not like somebody who's from England has to leave. So this is the way that the land's tended and the person goes, oh shit, we can do that. That makes sense to me. Let me listen. Let me give honour to your knowledge of this space. Let me, it is all about learning how to plant your roots within the biome to build up the biome to increase the health of the biome. And so that's exactly how, that to me is the becoming Indigenous to space. That to me is how you can take your gay league ancestors and come over here and honour the people and honour the space and honour the light and the journey there.
SaraWidda (35:35):
I think it's important. I think that we should all be seeking that no matter what space we're in, we should all be seeking learning from the Indigenous people that space, how to better tend the land.
Lezley (35:47):
A hundred percent. And sovereign, sovereign leadership, sovereign authority over land. 100%. And not just, I'm going to make this distinction, not just reserve land all land.
SaraWidda (36:01):
Oh yeah, no, no, no. All
Lezley (36:02):
Land. All the land. All of it. You didn't make the distinction. I was asking
SaraWidda (36:10):
For somebody who was running for president and they were running for president on a land back ticket, and I got asked to come in because they weren't listening. I got asked to come in and try and explain. And it was like, you do understand that when people say land back, they don't mean you could listen to this person talk and this person would talk about return, making sure that Indigenous people have control of their land, making sure of Indigenous people have control of their land. And it's like, do you not think they have control of the reservations? Indigenous people have control pretty much within the reservations. Sovereignty is, I mean, not always there and there are problems and issues and everything else. Absolutely. That's their land. That's where they have sovereignty. What no land back means. All of it. All of it. Not just you can take care of the one that I give you, but oh, it's all yours. Here you go. Let me step down as president. I'm like, how if you do realize running on a ticket that says land back, that the first thing that you have to do is step down. That's literally the first thing that you have to do as president. You have to step down.
Lezley (37:27):
I'm not sure that Indigenous nations have complete control over their land to
SaraWidda (37:34):
Make no. And there some that don't. Right? There are some that don't. I do know some that, I mean, I've talked to people who are like, I don't know if you understand that we have sovereignty over our spaces. So I do know there are some groups or some communities that absolutely do because they're adamant that they absolutely do. So I can't say that they don't because I know that some groups do. But I also know that some groups have very little to none or if they have any, it is a controlled any, right. So while I do note that there are communities who are very much adamant that they have sovereignty within their space, which is why I had to say it that way, because I don't want to discount the fact that there are communities who are very adamantly having sovereignty. I also know that there are communities who absolutely do not have sovereignty on any level, but I
Lezley (38:28):
Like that distinction that it's all land. I just think it would be, I think it's simple, sovereign nations, Indigenous and provincial, federal partnership.
SaraWidda (38:46):
Well, and we have a map that shows us where our nations were prior to colonization. There are plenty of maps out there that I have seen that shows us for every single plenty you can put in your zip code and find out what nation had control over the space. That was their not control. I don't like the use of the word control, had reciprocity with their biome
Lezley (39:12):
Had, oh, what a great
SaraWidda (39:13):
Reciprocity. Belonging. Belonging to their space presence. It's not about control and it's not about owning that space. It is about belonging to that space. So you can put in a zip code and find the Indigenous nation who belonged to that space before you came to that space. And if we can do that, and many are cross buffer zones, they overlap. So those are no man lands. Not that they don't have tending and governance, but that they don't belong to a specific, or it's not a specific nation's belonging. It's an intersectional space. Right?
Lezley (39:52):
And it was very common and accepted for nations to share land. It was no one owned it. We share this, of course we do. Indigenous
SaraWidda (40:03):
People were constantly at war and they had slave and they killing each other. And no, that's your fantasy. A B, there are so many instances that show of Indigenous groups whose idea of war was to go out and hit each other with fucking sticks and get away. That's what counting coup is. There's no damage to the other party. The honour is how fast can you get the fuck away and do you get tapped back? Right? Interesting. And it is, I run up, I hit you and I get the fuck away. And nobody, you can't, nah, I got free clear. I got the tag in. Right? And yes, there are absolutely nations out there that had violence. Yes, there are absolutely nations out there that committed worse. Absolutely. You cannot look at any group and think that any, well, you can't look at the Indigenous nations. That Turtle Island is a singular group anyways.
Lezley (41:04):
Right? Right. Very pointed.
SaraWidda (41:07):
And even then, you can't look at any race or ethnicity and see a group that is the same across all space. So yes, there was violence, but the violence was not like the violence that came and nowhere near that. So you get a lot of that. Well, it was just as bad. And it's like, no,
Lezley (41:35):
No, it's not. And I'm currently reading Human Kindness by Bregman, and it's this whole investigation into are we unique, innately violent, and it's just our nature. And it just comes out. And he's finding again and again, the research is showing No, no, no, no. When you add land property, when you add owning land and megalomania like the kings like you talked about, that's when you get violence. That's where it happens.
SaraWidda (42:11):
The archeological, I've thinking
Lezley (42:12):
About you so much while I'm reading this, I'm like, oh,
SaraWidda (42:17):
Talks about this. Archeological evidence shows it's starting between 10 and 12,000 years ago. We see a rise in violence. We have 2%. So we have roughly 2000 fines, ancestors that we have from prior to 12,000 years ago that we found in the archeological record. And this includes homo erectus, homo neandertal, and the early homo sapiens. This is, most people don't realize just how small the archeological record is between 10,000 years ago and 2 million years ago. Well, no 5 million because Lucy is included in this. Right? So we have under 2000 skeletons, or roughly 2000 skeletons prior to 12,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. In that we see 2% of things that can be attributed possibly to violence. We see things that, one that I've seen is there's a spearhead, the tip of a spear in somebody's thigh. Now, this does not mean, I mean, it's an angle like this pretty much downward. You can't see that. Here's the thigh. It's an angle top of the thigh, lower leg angled downward like this. So this could be something that that's not how you hit somebody if you're fighting them, right? This is way more something. It looks like our eye would think that it in a hunting accident, or maybe it's a flint napping accident. I think it looks like a flint napping accident personally. I'm
Lezley (43:48):
Sorry, a flint napping accident. You can't say these things and just move on. That's common parlance.
SaraWidda (43:55):
Sorry, what? Napping is a dangerous profession. Flint napping is so when you break off anything off of obsidian or anything off of flint, it becomes just extremely sharp. Obsidian is actually so sharp that it can cut between cells. We use obsidian and micro surgeries today because of the fact that obsidian is the only thing on this planet that when it's f flaked, right, it becomes such a fine blade that it can literally cut between cells. So if you are knocking off shards and they hit you wrong, people who Flint, knp, obsidian or Flint today end up with cuts up and down their arms. Usually you want to have a leather thing over your lap to flint nap because you're holding your blade on your knee usually, right? Mean you might be getting up close, it might be up a little bit more up your thigh or something like that.
SaraWidda (44:50):
But you're holding it down on your lap and you're hitting a rock against it. Or as you're getting smaller and finer, which if something's already pretty blade, like you're going to have a antler tip and use the tip of that antler, and then you use that to go around the edge to get it really fine. So it's a sharp object skill to have. There's always a sharp object that's flying at you in this God. Okay. So it could possibly be from an accident flint napping. It could possibly be from a hunting accident, or it could possibly be because somebody threw a spear at him.
SaraWidda (45:30):
We don't know. It's not definitive violence. If somebody has what looks like a rock crush him in the back of the head, it does not tell us whether or not that rock was welded by a human hand or that rock was fallen from the top of a cave or a landslide or something like that. We can't tell. But at 10 to 12,000 years ago in the archeological record, we see the rise of violence go from 2% possible to 18 to 20% definitive. There's nothing else that these things could be. One of the first ones is a massacre in Kenya where we see eight people lined up, and one of them is a pregnant woman whose hands are bound underneath her belly, and all of them are executed from behind. And so we see our first massacre happening, and so we see this very sharp uptick of violence.
SaraWidda (46:23):
I do not think that anything in our body says violent. I personally believe that, and I know that this is more than a personal belief. I believe that this is actually a scientific thought process fact as well. But to me, species speciate without toxicity, if you have something in you that is toxic to your species development, you don't grow. How do you grow? And as a species, if you are born with a gene that stops fertility, how do you get bigger? If you have a gene innate in your species that every time it gets cold out, y'all fucking die. Every time it gets cold out y'all fucking die. If you have a gene in your species that is toxic to your species, being able to continue to grow, if you have a gene in your species that comes from mutation later on, that's absolutely possible. But things that are innate to the species, things that are the entirety of the species and things that are a foundational part of that species can't be toxic or species can't grow.
Lezley (47:42):
It can't. Okay. So the psychopathy of leadership is not innate to the species?
SaraWidda (47:52):
I don't think so.
Lezley (47:53):
Well, I don't think so either, but I'm just like,
SaraWidda (47:57):
Right. Right.
Lezley (47:59):
That makes sense. Bregman's talking about how the archeological records shows that, and I'm not sure I just took it as face value. Of course, I believe everything he's saying, and I can't remember what his proof was, but that psychopathy and hubris and the desire to control was murdered out of more of ancient ancestors that they would get rid of that from their societies.
SaraWidda (48:34):
I can't see any, I mean, so that would have to be evidence that we see in the archeological field of, depending on how ancient we're talking. Right.
Lezley (48:43):
I'm going to have to look up where he says that, because I just went, yes, of course. But maybe that was him just musing and it wasn't actual, this is the guy
SaraWidda (48:53):
That you were talking about who was talking about the Yeah. Okay. So he believes that we took care of it by getting rid of it. He doesn't believe that it's something that came up later. He believes it's something that we had from the beginning, but we got rid of it or that we rid,
Lezley (49:10):
We
SaraWidda (49:10):
Stopped getting rid of it.
Lezley (49:13):
This was before property. His argument is that it's when we were nomadic before we settled and became agriculture driven, that that kind of hubris was not tolerated. That there was not the acceptance of a singular charismatic leader that was going to control the group, that that was not acceptable.
SaraWidda (49:50):
I don't know if it's something that was killed out in the kids. You see that uprising and you take care of it. So I don't know if I agree with that thought process just because I, I'm
Lezley (49:59):
Not sure that I'm saying it properly either. Right. Makes sense. Makes sense. These are my thoughts that I'm having while I'm listening to him talk.
SaraWidda (50:05):
There's no way we can tell from the archeological record what somebody's psychopaths were. And anything prior to the advent of documentation by us isn't going to give us a knowledge of psychopathy within an individual. We can use documentation of us to see psychopathy within an individual. We could probably see, we do know MPD has an aggressor gene associated with it or some form of a gene associated with it. So we could probably see that in somebody's DNA. But I've never seen any studies where we've took other people's DNA and there's, there's not a single skeleton that I've ever heard of that states, well, this one was a psychopath. Right. Yeah.
Lezley (50:51):
I mean that's fair. That's
SaraWidda (50:52):
Fair. So we can see that in writing, but that would be ancient. And all writing that we have that we've translated comes from the after of settling. Right, right. So that's an interesting thought process, but I'm not sure if that's something I can see in archeology. I tend to think more, and I do think that yes, we probably would get rid of those who acted like that. I mean, if you're acting antithesis two, and it might explain why Sargon was floated down the river, or maybe he as an infant was acting like a shithead and they were like, okay, this one's a psychopath. See you later. Bye God king. So maybe, maybe. But I'm not for certain, I would say that for me, I think that biologically we didn't have it until, so I think that epigenetic trauma caused it.
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Stella and I had this chat back in February and it was a treat for me to reacquaint myself with this time. For me it was a time of integration and Stella allowed me the safe space to articulate a lot of what I had allowed to go unsaid.
Stella is a Welsh Animist, Storyteller, Wordsmith and DJ. She is re-inhabiting Indigenous Land through mystical discovery of ancient ancestors and rooted being.