- Spring -
Ku-ha-ah-hut! Welcome to the spring edition of - For Our Relatives - . As some of us celebrate a new year within ourselves, many enjoy the sun’s longer days, and others prepare for the planting season, we want to welcome you to our space and introduce you to some artists who will give you renewed energy, insight, critique, and story.
In the For Our Relatives space, we believe that activism can, and should, be done in many ways, on every level. The work takes place in the home, in the mind, in the spirit, in the body, in groups, in nations, against nation-states, and everywhere beyond. Those who sustain the movement, hold us accountable, and nourish our souls are artists, warriors, healers, elders, parents, organizers, birth-workers, children, strategists, revolutionaries, babies, and creators. We want to highlight artists at multiple of those intersections for this spring issue, and we hope you hear them, see them, feel them, and gain sustenance for the time that exists beyond us. Love y'all.
As always, reach out to us via email at miarw96@gmail.com and tyblkwater@gmail.com if you want to be included in this column. <3
Dioganhdih
Image description: Dioganhdih sits barefoot wearing wampum and looking to the upper left corner. Multiple smaller images bubbles highlight their jewelry, clothing, and face. Image in black and white.
Dioganhdih (they/them) is a two-spirit Haudenosaunee-Mohawk musician, educator and public speaker with a bold take and an acute narrative lens on the intersections of Indigenous sovereignty, #landback, rematriation, decolonization, and two spirit identity. Dioganhdih’s vision is reflective of their Haudenosaunee ancestors' inherent honoring of the Earth, deep commitment to intertribal relations, civic art and cultural preservation. Using oration, live presentation and critical thought, Dioganhdih provides in-depth cultural context and insight into contemporary Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) lifestyles, the ongoing importance and upholding of treaties, and the responsibility we have to the next 7 generations. Dioganhdih’s work provides tangible ways to reciprocity and accessible steps to supporting and uplifting Indigenous communities.
Image description: Dioganhdih grasps a mic and wears headphones while smiling at the camera. Surrounded by a sweat grass frame, they look joyful.
ON THEIR NEW ALBUM, REZBIEN
"...undeniably fresh: uninhibited flows, distinct sounds, and a trademark humor that makes even the most uncomfortable topics entertaining." - The FADER
Two spirit hip-hop artist and producer, Dioganhdih, releases long awaited sophomore album, Rezbien. The 14 track project does not disappoint, delivering an in-depth lyrical reflection of living in Akwesasne, a Mohawk territory and reservation geographically split between the US and Canada. Crossing through customs and border patrol to complete the album, REZBIEN captures the strength and collective pride in upholding Indigenous sovereignty while illuminating the pleasures of being unapologetically queer across Turtle Island.
REZBIEN offers a narrative of the ongoing resistance from within the matriarchal society of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. While traversing through deep trap rhythms, topical lyrical content, dynamic soundscapes and quick witted comebacks, we are immersed in the intimacy, joy and pain of the rez bubble, in the life of a REZBIEN.
Under the mastering guidance of Chicago producer, Yung Savoye, Dioganhdih’s second album highlights a full roster of Mohawk artists, including Akwesasne vocalists, Peaches, hip hop artist, Jayohcee, Akwesasne producers, Moze Beats and Rezboybeats. Rezbien also features production from Anishinaabe producer, Ziibiwan, Detroit based Sacramento Knoxx, Oakland based beto gaupoflaco, and Vancouver based vocalist, Kimmortal.
REZBIEN is currently available on Spotify, SoundCloud, BandCamp, and iTunes. For more info on the artist, Dioganhdih can be found at www.dioganhdih.com
Catherine Felize
Photo credit to Angelo Fiore. Image description: Catherine sits proudly with a painted drum amidst lush greenery.
Catherine Feliz is an interdisciplinary artist and medicine person born and raised in Lenapehoking territory [NYC] to parents from Kiskeya Ayiti [Dominican Republic]. Intersectional feminist theory, archival research, and earth-based healing inform their artist practice. They work to reclaim ancestral technologies that have been systematically erased by drawing from multiple disciplines to unearth histories and make space for decolonial futures. Their medicine path is indebted to their mother, grandmother, and ancestral spirits who have shared their wisdom intimately tied with the sacred landscape and histories of the Bahoruco mountains. Catherine is also a founding member of Abuela Taught Me, an Afro-Taino 2spirit educational space, and currently an MFA candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles department of Interdisciplinary Studio.
For almost 10 years now, I've been a student and practitioner of community herbalism and birthwork for liberation. Launching my own brand of medicines this year has been such a wild journey. It's definitely where most of my creative energy is flowing to these days. Here's more about the brand:
Photo credit to Sparda. Image description: Botánica Cimarrón tinctures lie on a pink table with a candle, shell, and branches surrounding.
Botánica Cimarrón is a love story starring a free earth stewarded by a free people. Where your medicine and ceremony essentials are made in small batches at a land-based botánica by a queer Afro-Taino healer, Catherine Feliz. The roots of this story lies in Caribbean folk healing, the DIY spirit, and decolonial land activism. And our folk heroes? Well that’s where you come into the story. We make powerful plant medicines and spiritual tools for nurturing your wild heart to revolutionize this world.
https://botanicacimarron.love/
@botanicacimarron
Chrystos
Photo credit and description: Chrystos, an elder in a blue top shirt and brown under shirt. Image taken from an upcoming talk Chrystos is in: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/a-reading-by-menominee-poet-chrystos-tickets-141641905753
Chrystos is a Menominee two-spirit activist, writer, and educator who focuses on Indigenous rights, social justice, queerness, and feminism. Her work is intersectional, focusing on how colonization, genocide, class, race, and gender affects life. Chrystos was inspired in her writing by incredible artists such as Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Woody, and Lillian Pitt. Chrystos’ work can be found in: This Bridge Called My Back (anthology) Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1981; Not Vanishing, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1988; Dream On, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1991; In Her I Am, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1993; Fugitive Colors, Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995; Fire Power, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1995.
Here we find her poem, I WALK IN THE HISTORY OF MY PEOPLE:
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: poem entitled “I WALK IN THE HISTORY OF MY PEOPLE”
There are women locked in my joints
for refusing to speak to the police
My red blood full of those
arrested, in flight, shot
My tendons stretched brittle with anger
do not look like white roots of peace
In my marrow are hungry faces who live on land that whites don’t want
In my marrow women who walk five miles every day for water
In my marrow the swollen faces of my people who are not allowed
to hunt
to move
to be
In the scars on my knee you can see children torn from their families
bludgeoned into government schools
You can see through the pins in my bones that we are prisoners
of a long war
My knee is so badly wounded no one will look at it
The pus of past oozes from every pore
The infection has gone on for at least 300 years
My sacred beliefs have been made pencils, names of cities, gas stations
My knee is wounded so badly that I limp constantly
Anger is my crutch
I hold myself upright with it
My knee is wounded
see
How I Am Still Walking
-Chrystos, from This Bridge Called My Back
Littlebear Song
Image description: digital drawing of Afro-Indigenous Thomas Builds-The-Fire with cornbread power shirt on. Thomas looks unappeased at a text they got that says “I was called [the n word] hehe :)” Text in background says, “ruh roh”.
Littlebear Song says:
“im littlebear song i made this bc antiblackness isn’t even exhausting anymore it’s just irritating, predators aren’t allowed to have nice characters so thomas builds-the-fire is public domain now and if u read the book he’s totally a black ndn”