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Margeaux abeyta

@reclamation.project

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This is a large scale geopolitical installation, where I will be collecting land from tribes across the US. If you can assist please reach out.
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This piece of land represents a home, a platform for the new generations of Indigenous makers to explore and connect, to reestablish themselves, not being defined by old histories that have plagued us for so many generations. A nest built with a clay of the land stained red not with blood but with the heated passion of progression. by @reclamation.project
1
2 years ago
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The Nest project was the site that I visited for the Drycreek tribe. The project was made to built as a community arts center, so that indigenous makers to find sanctuary. It is a communal lot that offers spaces for a variety of artists to come and live or work away from the city. It was here that I met Ras and he took me through the space he had helped to create. Outside the from door is a sign that states “Where you stand right now is Native land. Spanish colonizers arrived on these shores in the 1,800s, they encountered a fully realized, complex society with people living. Working the land and practicing traditions that go beyond memory. As indigenous people we must acknowledge the history and legacy of the slavery of people who were forcibly brought here, upon whose backs our great economy was built. “Not everyone in America is an immigrant.” We are decedents of people who either imposed or suffered genocide, war, and persecution. But our history does not have to be that of the past, we have the ability to create the future. There are people doing incredible work to restore language and culture and rights of the indigenous, a people who are still here, living and thriving.” by @reclamation.project
2
2 years ago
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📷 PC: courtesy of “snag magazine” I met with Ras K’Dee, a Drycreek Pomo community educator, natural builder, and renowned lyricist, producer, and lead singer and keyboardist for the San Francisco based hip hop ensemble, “Audiopharmacy.” Alongside his music and performance career he co-founded SNAG magazine alongside the SNAG anthology. A indigenous organization that works to promote the artistic cultural expressions throughout the country. Over the past 18 years they have recognized and documented over 450 indigenous artists. With the published works they provide a community platform that provides Native American youth the opportunity to express and explore themselves creatively. They work to host numerous traditional workshops and travel with Indigenous youth to allow a greater exposure to tribes across the world. by @reclamation.project
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2 years ago
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As we drove through the Jemez Mountains, acres of scorched earth fell along the horizon, a memory of blazing fires that dried up lakes and ceremonial sites. It is a sadness only we know, the inability to protect our own lands as we are faces with the inevitable consequences of nature not within our reach. The people of Santa Clara pueblo have always been stewards of the land, as they poured water throughout the plains, filling dry lands with agricultural riches, and throughout Bandalier they would carve their very existence into the walls of the valley. With their hands they reach deep into the Earth and pulled clay to be molded into some of the most significant vessels of creation, as they shared stories of the stars and the way the world was to be seen from high above. by @reclamation.project
0
2 years ago
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The highest peak shone every poket of land. Where valleys merged with cities,
Histories carved into the hillsides, and birds flew no higher than I, This is how my people saw the world, he said. Pointing to every town canyon and patch of grass Chimayo, Dulce, Socorro.
not stopping to forget a single name.
He described boarders by shades of green and brown, Where moutains met and rivers cut. At a time this whole land was underwater,
and what we see now is the relics of the deep. The currents as sculptors forming curves to edge. Now we protect what water is left. As the land dries it takes with it what it grows, forest fires scorch the earth and rivers sink, but from ashes come life, urging us to wait Wait for the next rotation, the change of new. So watch, watch from here and see it grow
How the clouds never form the same shape twice. where every shadow dances in the light
and nothing is the same from up above. by @reclamation.project
1
2 years ago
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These are the Puey cliff dwellings, the ancestral homelands of the anasazi, the ancestral relatives of Santa Clara pueblo. The cave dwellings were sculpted from rock beds, hundreds of feet thick. Made up of “tuff,” a chemical sedimentary rock which is often found at springs and seeps in areas of limestone. They Carved Intricate living structures throughout the Canyon walls. Building walls and terraces surrounding themselves with gardens. Irrigating a well watered valley floor flourishing with agriculture. The Anasazi like many tribes did not have a written language and much of the cultural details were lost only to be interpreted through the Petroglyphs that cover the Cliffside. They depict a culture where a spirit world and the material world existed side by side and frequently interacted. There is no one story to explain what happened to the people here. Early archaeologists who explored Anasazi sites, such as Mesa Verde found dwellings from which the inhabitants appeared literally to have grabbed what they could carry and fled, often leaving behind clothing, beautiful pottery, and partially eaten meals on tables. Leaving behinds the remnants of the lives once lived. by @reclamation.project
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2 years ago
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Found in the underpass that leads into one of last Ohlone sanctuaries. Looking West the poem reads:
BYE BYE FOG SEE YOU LATER TELL THE EGRETS WAIT FOR ME GIVE MY LOVE TO SHORELINE BREEZES SO LONG OCEAN VIEW
WE’LL BE BACK BESIDE THE BAY SURE AS TIDES AND SUNSET And looking East it reads:
WELCOME BACK
HERE YOU ARE WHERE BEACH WAS WHERE ANCIENT PEDESTRIANS GATHERED OYSTERS AND ACORNS WHERE TRACKS CROSS SHELLMOUNDS WHERE HIDDEN CREEKS AND FREEWAYS FLOW -Betsy Davids by @reclamation.project
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3 years ago
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Though there are many other organizations and individuals that are working in their own way to reclaim their homelands and working through environmental efforts to regain land health. Some of the common notions of LANDBACK are not always agreed upon. As there are some opposing ideals in the extent of land reclamation. Some peoples interpretations of LANDBACK is to completely regain ownership to all of their traditional lands in a legal and physical manner. Though that view is not the full intent behind the movement. Instead ownership of land isn’t aligned with the colonial view, Which is physical ownership. The movement instead calls for recognition and allocation back to tribal member’s, although not always in the sense of a deed or title. Instead Indigenous peoples relationship of land is less possessive and has more to do with collective access and rights not just for Native Americans but rights for the land as a living entity. “The care and reciprocity Indigenous people practice with land is similar to that of a healthy, loving personal relationship. Much like a healthy relationship, the Earth should be listened to and cared for, not stifled. At times we confuse love with possession, ownership, something we’ve undoubtedly done with land. Land Back to Indigenous people means having full autonomy over and caring for the land. Living on this planet is a spiritual and reciprocal relationship, not one of ownership as colonization has led us to believe.” This movement is not to repeat the past actions of brutality that were forced upon Indigenous people. Instead it is to allow access to public lands, or lands in which tribes should have an innate right to practice ceremonial traditions. It is a movement to come together and acknowledge both Indigenous wisdom and modern advances. So that together we can see a better chance of helping the conditions of our planet. by @reclamation.project
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3 years ago
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“This land is Ohlone land” reads on stickers and posters hung through the Berkeley and Oakland hills. It is a small revolution of defiance and people throughout the city fight to regain a sense of the home they never had the chance to know. What is now Berkeley California and most of Northern California was taken up by the Ohlone Natives pre- colonization. The very structure of the hills wouldn’t be in existence if it wasn’t for the making of the shellmounds. The land was once an enormous shell deposits holding remnants of millions of meals shared in sanctuary. It was a place they would come to pay respect, for their food and share within stories. It also acted as a grave site where bodies would be buried alongside the seashells, return- ing to the waters they came from. As a result of colonization It was completely transformed from its previous state as they covered the land with cement to build theme parks, Bowling alleys, and Industrial Plant sites. Each time demolishing and discarding remnants of the shellmounds. Despite protests over the construction they continued on with the projects. Each time traditional artifacts were covered over or destroyed. Now all thats left of the indigenously owned land is a parking lot holding a memorial site, and a small plot of land located behind the wholefoods where tribal members still work to care for what is left, planting gardens and raising wild turkeys between highways, and wired fences. Though this is all that is left of land that is legally recognized as Ohlone. It has been enough to incite a revolution and hopefully to entice further demonstrations of change within the city. As activists work to gain more resources and access to places where they can reclaim their heritage. taken in Berkeley, California by @reclamation.project
0
3 years ago
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We drove as far north as New Mexico would take us. Touching boarders from red mesas to forest lands, The roads skimmed hills of lime colored grass, Where shadows harbored springs last snowfall The Medicine man and his grandson welcomed us
feeding us fry bread followed by thick bean soup.
Tea that transitioned from sundays gold to saphire.
Later my mother explained that this had always been the way. That we must eat to be nourished, Then the healing could take place. A home decorated with baskets and pictures of distant realtives It reminded me of feast days in the pueblo,
Where we would soak our bread in chili and eat fast,
taking care not to linger because there was work to be done. He spoke of sasquatch, a native to their mountains. How his kind was not bound to these lands, Instead they could tear through this world opening onto endless others. Tracks that would stop in midst of fields, disapearing into spirit worlds and places we must not find. He warned of shape shifters that hid in the shadows, taking form of ones we may have once known. As puppets their movement was easily seen as spectral. That the mind makes real what spirits hide After stories were shared and welcomings had earned their home, we all gathered into two cars. Stopping along the way picking up sisters, brothers, cousins in all. We followed along a dirt road that kicked up enough dust to make the ground become sky. At last stopping near a river I was shown the ways of their medicine. Unravelling the rolled up tabacoo I made gesture
to all directs then to myself, finally landing into the earth I would be taking. Given graditude to the land, people, and the journey ahead. by @reclamation.project
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3 years ago
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All tribes use medicines for ceremonial, health practices. It has been common practice to find nurishment within nature, and within tribes you have dedicated medicine men or women. These leaders are very connected to the spirit world, and learn the practices and traditions from an early age. It is a role that not everyone can do, but is well respecticed in the community, as they carry the resposibility of not only healing the people but ensuring the health of the land and nature. The tribal memebers I met in the Jicarilla nation are medicine men. It is their responsibility to retain the knowladge that has been passed down to them and now they pass it onto the next generation. Which has recently become more of a struggle as they are facing a great loss of their language. Their enviornment is quickly changing around they explained how they’re losing acess to many of their traditional resources. “I think a lot of issue I have is that we’re losing our languages pretty fast. Once we lose our language we lose the identity of who we are. We’re losing a lot of our ceremonies due to the same things, and as for the land, you know this river goes straight into Navajo damn and they take our water whenever they want. We’re only allotted what they allow us, and really we’re not in control of our water. That our drinking water, everything here. and of course because of fracking our water isn’t as abundant, our springs are going dry, our mountains are different, our lakes are different, were lost two lakes already. We cant keep as much agriculture because of it, and we don’t have the resources to do it anymore. Our people have changed a lot because of water itself, and now because of global warming some of these plants liked that cooler weather, and now we don’t have that cool weather anymore some of them don’t grow, they need that winter to sleep, and if they don’t get it they don’t grew the next year.” taken in Dulce, New Mexico by @reclamation.project
0
3 years ago
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The Jicarilla Apache tribe is apart of the larger apache nation, comprising of six smaller tribes; the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Western Apache, and Kiowa.1 All of which have slightly different customs and practices. The Jicarilla resides in northern New Mexico and they share a lot of religious and cultural ceremonies to neighboring tribes such as the Taos Pueblo Indians. Juanito, one of the tribal memebers told me “We have our boarders which are the four sacred mountains, The Guadalupe mountains, Hesperus mountains, White Mountain, and the San fransisco peaks.(fig1-4) Those define our homelands. We kinda share a common ground with Taos Pueblo, that’s why our people have the same race as you guys. When the government used to ban ceremonies, when it was against the law, the Taos people and Jicarillla used to meet up in Abiquiu, and they got smart. They took a feast and they cut it in half, and told the Apaches that you practice this half and we practice the other. That way if it ever becomes outlawed or it dies out, at least one of us will have half.” Juanito went on to tell me how The Jicarilla were originally plains people, “what happen at that time, the government wanted to get rid of us, the problem was that we kept escaping from Mescalero, and they couldn’t contain us. So they put us on trains and send us up north, believing that we as plains and desert people wouldn’t be able to survive in the snow. Thinking we would freeze to death and die out, but that didnt happen. Instead the spanish communities up here felt sorry and bad for us, so they started traded resources for our small baskets, which gave us the name Jicarilla meaning little basket” This relocation forced the tribe to adapt and make allies with different pueblos and communities in northern new mexico, they would also become stronger for it becoming known as one of the greater worrior tribes across the southwest. taken in Dulce, New Mexico by @reclamation.project
0
3 years ago
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