LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am here in Mohkinstsis, the original Blackfoot name of Calgary which means: “Where the Bow River and the Elbow River meet.”

It is here, that I live, grow and create.

I am from Toronto, once Tkaronto, anglicized from the Mohawk, literally translating to: “Where there are trees standing in the water.”

Over time, the etymology evolved to an adaptation from the Huron language meaning, “Meeting Place.”

It was there, where I was born, raised, lived and left.

My parents possess a typical immigrant story. They arrived in Toronto in the early 60s, from the island of Barbados, recently renamed The Republic of Barbados, located in a group of islands known as the Caribbean. For their generation and the many that preceded them, my parents grew up living a life – without.

Through the watery widths of The Middle Passage, the Transatlantic Slave Trade imported over 90% of enslaved Africans throughout the entirety of the Caribbean Islands before reaching the U.S.

Factually, roughly only 6% of Africans made it to what we know now as the Southern States or “slave states”. Let that percentage not deceive you. Number-wise, we are still working with a staggering total number of approximately 400 million lives, plucked from the West Coast of Africa – alone.

Barbados was not spared in the mass deposit of the diaspora. However, before several generations of my family began slaving, living and growing in Barbados, The Motherland was our homeland.

I have found my five roots of family origins in the countries of Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), and Ghana. I am now on a lifelong journey backwards – SANKOFA – a word in the Twi language of Ghana which means “Return and Get It.”

Get the knowledge, get the wisdom, get the ways.

I am returning to acquire the acumen, capture the customs and transport the traditions of my Ancient Ones forward, in thought, in word, in deed.

By doing so, I shall rebuild my African connection and achieve a fullness of self and identity that I sincerely sense an absence of.

Yet, I move through this world as a Poet and Spoken Word Artist.

I live in, and I am, Story.

That itself isn’t coincidental, it is destined, it is epigenetic, as MyPeople have been historically referred to as the Sublime Storytellers, The Obsidian Orators, The Great Griots. Unconsciously picking this path of Poetry, or rather, being picked by Poetry, I too, have become a Living Being in the African Tradition.

Unknowingly, I became connected to Ghana through Adinkra, one of the few known literary communications of Africa. Adinkra semiotics each represent a phrase, a philosophy, a concept, a conviction. Whenever I believe that I have lived through an experience that embodies one of these images, I tattoo it on me.

SANKOFA – Return and Get It – the next tattoo has been chosen.

I began by referring to my connection as unknowing because I began to tattoo Adinkra, before I knew I was Adinkra.

From The Motherland to Turtle Island, I am beginning to write out my life.

To connect to my past, I must embrace the present, to forge my future.

I left The Meeting Place and I live where The Two Rivers Meet.

I am not of Settler Culture, I am of the African Diaspora, of a formerly enslaved Caribbean Culture, that has settled here.

I am here as a direct result of the colonial and genocidal interruption and disruption of MyPeople’s natural progression.

Similarly, the past and modern-day ceaseless depravations and destitutions faced by all Indigenous communities and individuals since colonization, have been due to colonization and colonialism.

My kindred connections are undoubtedly mirrored in the similarities of sufferings and correspondences of culture between my African Roots and my Indigenous Relations.

The capacity for the creation and carrying on of story so strongly cemented in each of our antiquities is the vocation in which I shall uphold and serve both sides of this cultural cohabitation.

Speaking respectfully, reciprocally and reverently, I shall continue to honour and acknowledge Mohkinstsis, and the traditional Treaty 7 Territory and oral practices of the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina Nations.

I equally acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland.

I acknowledge all Nations – Indigenous and non – who live, work and play on this land, and who honour and celebrate and protect this territory.

Now is the time to use intentional nurturing narratives to alter the current numerous, negating ones in our world, in our countries, cities, communities, workplaces, schools, circles, families, and individual lives.

My intention as a Guest, Speaker, Storyteller, and Stewart of this land is to promote exactly that, a new and healing narrative through the vulnerable and exciting, visceral and engaging, vindicating and educating powers of Poetry.

Sincerely, I welcome you all into these Wondrous Worlds of Words and Wellness.