Indigenous Worldview vs Mainstream Worldview - Let's Talk About It!

Indian time versus clock worship, relationships versus Job, individual versus family, wisdom versus wealth, stories versus Instruction, and Mother Earth versus Resources. Many of you have requested that I discuss the difference between an Indigenous worldview and. And a mainstream worldview. Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Bouget. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And today, I want to give you some examples of the difference between an Indigenous worldview and a mainstream worldview. Now, of course, those are two very general terms. There are so many different Indigenous nations, and I'm not even talking globally here on this channel. We focus on Canadian first nations, but there's also so many different groups in mainstream, but there's commonalities. And that's what I've definitely noticed in my 30 plus years of doing this work. So the first one I wanted to talk about, we might as well go after the big one is Indian time versus clock worship. So first we're going to talk about Indian time because as I mentioned in a previous video, that is actually a sacred teaching that has been so morphed by colonialism that even Indigenous people are using it basically as an excuse to be disrespectful and show up whenever you want. And that's not the teaching at all. The sacred teaching is the belief that everything happens for a reason and that what is happening in this moment has to be honored and cherished because this is meant to happen on your life journey. The journey, my life journey. Whatever is happening in that moment, you're meant to be watching this video right now. I meant to have uploaded this video and recorded it for you to see it when you were ready to see it. Now, unfortunately, like I said, the teaching has been morped and morphed. Morped. I made a new word. Morped. It's been morphed. And people are using it as an excuse to be lazy or show up whenever they want to be disrespectful. Respect is one of the seven grandfather teachings that we will be discussing in a future video. It is not Indian time. Indian time is that winter will arrive when it's meant to arrive. That your child will do whatever, walk, talk, when they are meant to walk and talk. It'll be done in Indian time versus clock worship. And I got now, this is an indigenous centered YouTube channel. It's indigenous centered space. And I come at my work from an Indigenous lens. I can honestly tell you I love the looks of clocks by the way. So you're going to find them in my office and in my home. I don't listen to them or I. I use them as an information source. They definitely don't rule my life. To the extent I have not used an alarm clock in more than a decade. I refuse to let a clock tell me when I have to get up. I religiously go to bed. When I'm tired, I wake up seven hours later. Always I get up between 4:30 and 5am I'm good. When I have an event to do, I always make sure I am. I go to bed early enough that I'm going to wake up three hours before I have to leave and I give myself extra time to get there. It is not an excuse to be disrespectful. But if there's an amazing conversation going on in the meeting, nothing blows my mind more than how someone will literally get cut off or another person will be not allowed to speak because the big hand just touched the 12 on the clock. It's suddenly an excuse to be disrespectful of someone that might have something very important to say. When I schedule my meetings, I never schedule meetings back to back. For that reason, if we're in the middle of a very important discovery, an important point is being made. I'm not walking out because the clock says it's time. 12 o' clock, or whatever the case may be. In fact, what I'll do is get my videographer to insert the sign that appears in my boardroom. So just take a second to check this out. Maybe pause the video so you can read it. Now. Isn't that awesome? That is the difference between Indian time and clock worship. So you do you boo, but I'm going to do me. And that's what building a bridge and reconciliation is all about. It's not about us being forced to do it your way anymore, and it's not about you being forced to do it our way. But it's understanding. We've got to figure out a way to meet in the middle of the bridge. There's always a way to meet in the middle of the bridge. The next one is closely related to Indian time. So it's the fact that we value relationships over a paycheck or. Or the clock a job. If I'm on my way to a meeting with you and I run into my son, daughter, a friend I haven't seen ages, a friend I saw yesterday, whoever the case may be on the street and they stop to say hi to me, I'm stopping to talk to them again. What's meant to happen in this moment is meant to happen. I don't want to live with. I didn't have time to say hi to them because I don't know if either of us are getting tomorrow. So you value the moment you were given. And if that means I'm going to be two or three minutes for my meeting, I'm going to be two or three minutes from my meeting. Now, keep in mind, I always leave way earlier than I have to to allow for these things to happen. But on the off chance that that person's really upset and it takes extra time and I end up being late, I'm going to be late. And if that's a huge issue for you, then we're not ready to build the bridge together. And I'm totally okay with that. Now, some employers are absolutely adamant. Now, again, there's a difference between someone you know habitually being late every single day. That's disrespect. That's not Indian time. Give me a break. But on those times that something happened again, like I said, I was so lucky to be working for an indigenous agency when my mom passed away and to have their support for the six months I needed to get back on my feet, allowing me to take a day when I needed to take a day. Not because I was abusing the right, but because I could not be there and function. And they understood that without judgment. There's the difference. The other thing, relationship versus job. And I've mentioned this a hundred times in the natural resources realm, so ministry, Mining, Forestry, those kind of things. If you've got an employee in your camp, they're away from home. And that partner at home is struggling with the kids and running the house and the community and extended family and whatever. And they every night on the phone that partner at home is saying how much they wish their partner was home. You're going to lose as an employer, you're going to lose. Because we value relationships. We're not scared of poverty. We know poverty. Thank you very much, Canadian government for setting us up for that one. We fear broken relationships. We fear our children not having their dad or mom around. We're desperately trying to keep our families together in a country that has a history of tearing our families apart. That's what's important to us. So if you want to bring someone into your camp and take them out of the home for two weeks, get support for the person at home. I've been saying this for decades. No one's Heard me yet? Well, they've heard me. Have they acted? No. But if you want to change those indigenous retention numbers, start listening. We're telling you what you need to do so we can stay working with you. The next one. And again, it relates to employment, or I used to work in employment and training. This one. I've been saying this one for like 20 freaking years. You're not hiring or employing an individual. It involves the family. You're not training an individual. That entire family is trying to train for their new reality of what it's going to be like to have a partner away from home or what it's going to be like to have this bigger paycheck. What's it going to mean? How are they going to divide up running the house if one of them's gone? It's a training or a new experience for the entire family. And to avoid the one at home is to guarantee that your retention numbers are not changing at all. We value the family unit. It's not just what that individual can get for themselves. It's what can we do for our family? And this is another one. And you see it in the advertisements when they're advertising how big the paycheck is. For many first nations cultures, we value the gathering of wealth over the gathering or the gathering of wisdom over the gathering of wealth. Be a better person than you were yesterday. Learn from the experience. Be more. I always say I'm 59 years old now. I'm so much more than the woman I was at 29, but I know nothing compared to who I will be at 79 if I'm lucky enough to live that long. But the wisdom is what we get. We don't care the size of the paycheck. Like, if that's gonna destroy our relationship. That's not an attraction to us. Tell us we're going to learn new skills and they're going to make us a better person. That's going to appeal to us, not. We can't even imagine what it'd be like to have that paycheck. Might actually even be a detriment to our family if it blows us apart. So we want to be better people. And I really want to point out these are different worldviews. I'm not saying one's better or than the other. They're just different. But if you want to meet in the middle of the bridge, if you want to put the eagle feather back together, we got to understand this. And there's one stereotype out there that I just keep hearing or I see enacted and it's so frustrating when I see it. Indigenous people, many nations are known for telling stories. And I've met so many non indigenous people that roll their eyes the ever popular microaggression and think, here we go again. They're going off on a tangent. We're not going off on a tangent. I tell stories all the time. There's a point to the story. What it is is a difference in education style. Mainstream education. Teacher at the front of the room, students sitting in the desk. Does this remind you of anything? Like the cat and the bird? Just saying, teacher has all the knowledge. You know nothing. I'm going to tell you. You're going to memorize power imbalance. Mainstream education does not work for us. We're in a circle. Whether you're 90, whether you're 9, whether you're 2, whether you're 40. We sit in a circle together. All equally as important. If I know that you need some information, I'm sure as hell not going to stand over you and lecture you and tell you what you need know. I'm going to tell you a story. And in the story is the information you need. So two things are going to happen. One, you're going to receive the information you need. Two, I'm teaching you how to search for the information you need. That is a powerful tool. We are raising warriors. We want them to thrive, not just survive. And hunting for information is as important as hunting for food. So we can do this. So the next time you hear an indigenous person starting to tell a story, listen to the story. What you need is inside that story. And don't be surprised if what you get from the story is totally different than the person sitting next to you. Your journeys are different. You're going to hear what you need to hear. That's the power of our stories. So we're not going off on a tangent. And we don't want people lecturing to us. We're going to share a story. The last one is the big one. And I say big one because it's the one that gets talked about a lot that's in the news. The difference between Mother Earth and resources. So let's look at resources first. There's that extraction mentality that the settlers first brought with them or the corps, the Bois before them. We're going to take what we need. We're going to take the first to send back to England, right? Take, take, take. With no concern whatsoever of what's left behind or the damage that's done. When you look at it as Mother Earth. We understand, for one, we're not better than Mother Earth. She's not here for our use. She's not here for us to discard and just use up. She's our mother. Like a loving mother, she gives us everything we need to survive. Air, water, land, the food that grows on Mother Earth. And in turn, we take care of us, or take care of her like we would our mother in her older years. We make sure to take care of her. We don't do damage to her and we protect her from people who want to. That is totally different from that extraction mentality that doesn't care if it's poisoning the air, poisoning the water. Just, we are the only creatures on this planet, excuse the expression, but dumb enough to destroy the very environment on which we need the environment, we need to live. Deer don't do that. Mice don't do that. We do that. And just to further highlight this point, I have a story for you. This is one of those conversations I'm never going to forget. And it happened on a plane. And some amazing conversations happen on a plane. And I was in my seat and this young man sat down next to me, very well dressed, I'd say mid to late 20s. And we started talking. He was in post secondary in southern Ontario, going to school. He was flying home because it was like reading week. He was excited to be going home. He asked me what I was. What I do, and I told him. And he said, do you mind if I ask you a question? No. He seemed like a nice enough man. I wasn't expecting anything problematic. So I was like, sure, go for it. What's your question? He said, explain Mother Earth to me. And I was like, what? Excuse me? And he said, well, I hear indigenous people. You said it yourself a minute ago. You refer to the planet as Mother Earth. Why do you do that? Like, I don't understand the term. I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a shot at this. How much would I have to pay you for you to allow me to take out your mama's kidneys anyway? What? I said, you heard me. How much would I have to pay you to. For you to allow me to take out your mother's kidney? Just one. He was shocked. He was like, get away from my mom. No amount of money in the world. Forget it. Not happening. I was like, exactly. And that's how many indigenous feel when mining companies rip open Mother Earth to take out what they need and then don't even care to sew her back up. They don't care the damage they inflict, they don't care the tailing ponds that are left behind. They don't care about the destruction. They just want to get what they need. That's why we get upset when something's going to harm the water, the air or the land, the food that grows on the land, because we need those. Another major difference is the idea of thinking of just today and how much money we can make in this fiscal year and seven generations from now. That is the problem I have with the nuclear waste that they want to bury up here in Northern Ontario. And we're going to put it in the Canadian Shield. It's the strongest rock on the planet. Not if you bore a bunch of holes into it. Yeah, goofy people. Like what? And then on top of that, well, the containers we're going to put it in, they're going to last 150 years. Awesome. My question is always, what happens in 151 years? Of course they don't answer me and they think it's silly and they're not going to be around in 150 years, so they don't care. Our offspring will be the generations, the descendants that come next will be. Personally, I want those things if they're going to be stored up here, I want it above ground in some kind of weather protected structure. I want to know immediately if it's leaking so it can be fixed. Because if you're going to put it down somewhere where it can't get to, guess whose water table will be destroyed first. Northern Ontario. And if it's really remote, NIA can pretty much guess it's indigenous kids that are going to be poisoned first. And we know it's going to take many, many, many of them dying before that makes the six o' clock news. And that is Red Thunderbolt. Honest. So there's the difference between a few examples of the difference between indigenous worldview and mainstream worldview. And do I know I'm going to get crucified? Absolutely. But you asked. Now you know. I don't want to debate it. I'm not saying yours is worse, I'm saying it's different. And we got to find a way to meet in the middle of the bridge. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye Bye.