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Episode Description
What if the history you thought you knew was wrong? Like, actually and so very wrong...
Join us for a powerful and humbling conversation with my friend, Taylor Keen, a Cherokee Nation citizen, carrier of the name, “Bison Mane” of the Earthen Bison Clan of the Omaha Tribe, The People Who Move Against the Current.
He is the author of the book, "Rediscovering Turtle Island: A First People's Account of the Sacred Geography of America."
Taylor brings to life the ancient creation myths of his people, indigenous cosmology, and the rise of empires like Cahokia, challenging us to rethink our settler historical narratives. We also explore the seventh generation prophecy and the severe impact of smallpox on indigenous populations, marking significant historical changes with the arrival of European settlers. Taylor shares the transformative story of the white bison calves' birth, a symbol of the end of six generations of hardship and the dawn of a new era where indigenous knowledge is finally recognized and valued.
Inspired by works like Vine Deloria Jr.'s Custer Died for Your Sins and God Is Red, Taylor emphasizes the crucial role of indigenous voices in reclaiming and retelling their histories. Dive with us into the intricate web of ancient stories, the legacies of colonization, and the enduring resilience of native peoples.
Learn more about Taylor Keen HERE and buy his book HERE!
Chapters
3:58 - Uncovering Indigenous History and Prophecy
12:31 - Ancient Indigenous Stories and History
21:09 - Indigenous Reflections and Legacy
38:30 - Navigating Tensions of Land and Legacy
51:37 - Redefining Environmentalism and Indigenous Worldviews
1:06:56 - Exploring Indigenous Kinship and Wisdom
Transcript
Taylor Keen: 0:00
And we have to go back into history and to not look at the narrative that makes us feel good, but to tell them the actual truth. I remember when I was on Stephen Rinella's Meat Eater podcast a few years ago. At a certain point we were talking about Thanksgiving and I was saying I'm sorry, but none of that's true, and he pushed back and said I just want my kids to be able to enjoy a nice story. And I wanted to launch into a lot more, more, but the only thing that came to mind at the time was well, steve, the truth shall set them free, and he didn't know what to say to that but it's the truth.
Taylor Keen: 0:58
we have to go back and examine the reality of things and what actually happened here, and once we do, hopefully we don't have to experience that again. It's very important to understand where we come from and what the truth is and how we can all learn from that.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:44
Well, taylor, it's a blessing, beyond what I can well iterate, to sit with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation. I first read your book it was gifted to me, I have it here Rediscovering Turtle Island a First People's Account of the Sacred Geography of America and I read it. And then I heard you on a dear friend of mine's podcast and just I really, really was excited to speak with you and really dive into some of the concepts that you, you know, lay out in this book and the wisdom that you carry and you're willing to share with with an audience like ours. But before we dive in, I have so many questions, there's so many ways that this conversation can unfurl and I give that freedom and permission for you, just to, you know, go that direction. But before we do, I just want to mention to our readers I have read your book twice. It is absolutely an unbelievable book.
D. Firth Griffith: 2:30
I don't want to wait to the end to get people at least looking at this book online at your website, etc. The book it dives into so much the mythos of ancient creation, cosmology, the indigenous Atlantis, the idea of harmony and sacred geography, this idea of an ancient and very indigenous Paleolithic kind of using some words from Paulette Steeves, another thinker in the space, which I know you know Archaeoastronomy, I mean, the rise of indigenous empire, and Cahokia, and so much more. It is an unbelievable book. I've read it twice. I just want to provide that to the listeners, our community, here at the beginning. If this conversation, even within the first couple of minutes, is interesting, please check out Taylor's book Rediscovering Turtle Island. The link will be in the show notes. We'll be talking about it throughout the rest of this, this episode. Um, but again, thank you so much for being here.
Taylor Keen: 3:27
Thank you for having me.
D. Firth Griffith: 3:29
I want I want to start off at the beginning that there is there is such a passion and many generationally infused purpose behind you writing this book. I want to start there. Um, you've spoken in the past about, um, the idea that you are the sixth generation of a prophecy. I'm going to stop providing the details because I want you to dive into that. You tell your story. But why did you write this book? Why is it in this format here? What does it mean to rediscover Turtle Island and why does that matter today?
Taylor Keen: 3:58
Well, I first became familiar with the prophecy of the seventh generation probably just before the year 2000. And I was living in Boulder, colorado, at the time and had heard some muddlings about this prophecy. And in 2001, the first of the true albino white bison calves was born and uh kind of spread like wildfire throughout the uh moccasin, uh telegraph and um. I wasn't quite sure what it was all about at the time, but I knew that it was important and the teachings speak of six generations of suffering and I wasn't quite sure what that all meant but I began to explore further. I wasn't quite sure what that all meant, but I began to explore further. And that's when I first really began to understand the impact of smallpox on indigenous populations. I'd heard some talk in the tribe about that.
Taylor Keen: 5:17
It was a time when people were afraid of one another. I had no idea that the impact of it was so devastating. So in the heartland here in Nebraska there was probably four or five waves. The first ones were in the 1700s and not really documented well, but then 1800, 1830, 1860, it came left, came back again, but the final impact was 85% to 95% of the populations died. And that was everywhere, from the top of North America down to South America, most conservatively, probably around 50%, but in most cases 85 to 95% of the populations died from it, and it was a horrible death as well. And then I began to understand there was that which is unfathomable to try and consider, unfathomable to try and consider.
Taylor Keen: 6:25
I always ask people to think about. Pick your 100 closest family and friends and then leave only five. And what's left after that? On top of that, then you have encroachment of european settlers coming in, decimating settlers coming in, decimating bison, elk, almost wolves, the natural landscape, introduction of new trees, new farming methods, eradication of prairie landscapes, introduction of cattle, trade capitalism all these major changes, trade capitalism all these major changes from just about probably 1700 till 1900, and this entire continent changed. And that is the beginning and middle of the six generations of suffering. 2007 is when the fourth white bison calf was born, and that was to mark that timeframe, that the age of suffering was going to end, and that would mark the beginning of the seventh generation.
Taylor Keen: 7:37
And for indigenous peoples that means that that generation is going to lead our nations to stand tall again and for the non-Indigenous populations that meant that they were the ones who were going to finally be ready for Indigenous wisdom, and it was shared with me that I was very well versed in Western education but that I did not know all of my stories, and I took that to heart and this told to me that I was meant to be a teacher and at that point I was just doing the standard corporate business thing and I began to look back into all of our old stories and I started at the beginning and looked into our creation stories and everything began to unfold from there. So this book is my interpretation of what it means to become a teacher and to try to rediscover all of our old stories, answer some very basic human questions who am I and where do I come from and what's my purpose here? And so all of that turned into the book.
D. Firth Griffith: 8:58
I'm sure you've long frequented Vandaloria Jr's work, very much so. I have this little worn copy of his book Custer Died for your Sins, which I always tell people. If you're somebody like me, of European descent and you pick up this book, just prepare, I don't know, to meet yourself and to be angry, but also be so welcomed. I don't know how else to describe this one, but there's this unbelievable line. I just wanted to read it to you real quick.
D. Firth Griffith: 9:24
And this doesn't have to be directed only to missionaries although obviously Mr Deloria did so here but he says, it has been said of missionaries that when they arrived they had the book and we had the land. Now we have the book European mythos that has formed the very problematic vesicle of pain and genocide and, like you're saying, the smallpox and the dismemberment of people from land and indigenous sovereignty and all these things that I want to unpack with you, that you so well treat in your book here, rediscovering Turtle Island. But to some degree it seems that something that you're really trying to focus on is not the retelling of a story, as if it's like a new story we need, because we see that all over the place we need a new story, we need to have new values in order to save the world, et cetera, but rather that this story is yet here, it is yet living, but the right tellers must be the ones carrying it.
Taylor Keen: 10:43
It is terribly important that so much of Native American history is being told by others and I see it all the time. When I started doing all the research on the book, I go back to the age of the 1970s and see this plethora of romantic savage type idolization and this belief that we're some sort of mythical children of the wild. And going back further in time, you've got the nomadic savage and the barbarian and this mythos of cowboys and Indians, which never really happened. Pioneers and Indians, yes, but to look at all of that and to realize that there were so few indigenous peoples that were voicing on all of this, I realized that there were so few indigenous peoples that were voicing on all of this. And as I began to look backwards into time and antiquity, I just realized that I had to start all over for myself and that I needed to rediscover indigenous histories and mythos. And I began to start with our creation stories and I had been told different versions of this and I'm from two different tribes, so I'm Omaha and Cherokee and within both tribes I had heard different variations of the earth.
Taylor Keen: 12:31
Diver myth, as it's known in folklore, and it tells our story of coming from the stars, from the Seven Sisters constellation traveling through the dark rift of the Milky Way, also known as the Journey of the Souls or the Path of Souls, and that we came to this planet and our souls transmuted into animals. And the story that I was told had four of those souls and came here and, depending upon the tribe and the story, those animals vary except for turtle, and eventually one of those animals dives down into the waters, into the deep, and brings up the clay of earth, because when we landed here it was just a watery planet, and sometimes it's crawdad, sometimes it's otter, sometimes it's a waterfowl. Ultimately, that animal brings the clay up and gives it to Turtle, who sacrifices itself and puts the clay on its back, and it becomes Turtle Island. And as I was thinking about this story and talking about it with other tribal peoples, I would always get this line of yeah, you've almost got it right, taylor, but it's a different animal or there's a slight variation to the story, it's the woman who fell from the sky, etc. And there's all these different variations.
Taylor Keen: 14:13
And it was only then that I began to realize that this must be a very old story because there's so many different variations. And that only happens with time, because indigenous peoples put story first. Stories are everything. And it was only at the point that I began to research and I found a Russian scholar who specialized in this, and it was only then that I began to realize that the story about Turtle Island is not from here, it's from Siberia. And from there I began to piece some things together and thinking about if that story is from Siberia, so how long have we been here?
Taylor Keen: 15:06
And Bering Strait theory anthropology puts that back between 12 and 15,000 years, so that story is at least that old. And as we began to look more into the antiquity of indigenous peoples into the Americas, the antiquity of indigenous peoples into the Americas, now we have footprints in white sands in Mexico dating back to 23 and a half thousand years, so maybe that story is almost 25,000 years old. And that's just mind boggling to me, because when we look at the changing of this continent and the landscape here, the United States is not even 250 years old. We walk around the urban landscapes and think that it's always been here, but it has not. So we're taking that 250, multiplying it by so many times that it's beyond our comprehension. And I began to uncover what is the true history of America, and I'm still learning.
D. Firth Griffith: 16:18
I mean, even in Paulette Steve's book, which I'm sure you're familiar, I think it's called the Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere. Does that feel right? That's correct. I mean, she talks a lot about even older sites that science is not yet ready to accept, but she lays out pretty convincing evidence in a much more story-esque way which I think infuriates a lot of anthropologists, which also oh, I'm sure infuriates a lot of anthropologists, which also, I'm sure Vine, mr Vine Deloria Jr, talks quite a bit.
D. Firth Griffith: 16:48
He's just just to bring it up for those who hasn't read it. I was just reading this the other day and that's why it's it's new. But in in, in one chapter about anthropology, he writes that, uh, you know, a lot of people have a lot of like suckers on them, people who pull them down, and you know horoscopes and other things, and he says but Indians have been cursed above all other people in history. Indians have anthropologists, but, like again, but Steve's Dr Steve, she talks quite a bit about uh, uh, I'm sure you've looked into the uh excavations and findings. I think it's outside of San Diego, california.
Taylor Keen: 17:20
I have. I mean, I've studied her work and I've chatted with her a little bit. And not too far from Omaha is the La Sena site, which is somewhere between 18 and 25,000 years ago. She infers that 100,000 years is not out of the question and pushes things at the end to go back to 140,000 years ago. Right, Homo sapiens have been what we are for 300,000 years. Who's to say that they didn't start to wander at some point and come here Either way, whatever that date is, you have indigenous peoples coming here, probably by the Kelp Highway, across Alaska and down.
Taylor Keen: 18:16
But whatever that time period is, it's during the Pleistocene and arguably much of North America was covered by an ice sheet. And to think that all of my ancestors made that journey and survived during those times and what they saw megafauna it's just mind-blowing. Those footprints at White's hands were of a young woman carrying her daughter probably, and they can infer all of this from the size and the angle of the footprints. And they were following a giant sloth. And a lot of those sites that Dr Steeves refers to involves mammoths and mastodons, and it's just mind-boggling.
D. Firth Griffith: 19:09
Something that I find interesting in the book. This chapter drew me in. I was a history minor in college and have well-studied American history and looking back, I feel like my study of American history was so entirely lacking, a spend of time that was interesting but not influential. And when I pick up this book, one of your chapters, the Founder's Dilemma of America you use the term. This is the politics of dispossession, and what I want to bring up is this strange edict that you write about in 1455, the Romanus Pontifex, when Pope Nicholas V, I believe, basically allowed the colonization of non-Christian nations and the enslavement of the non-Christians in those non-Christian areas of the world for Christianity, for national empire, for all of these things, and to some degree, while that was obviously in Western Africa. Very soon after 1455, we have Columbus and another edict in 1493, I believe, that you wrote about, which I don't recall the name for, but it's just what I want to get to.
D. Firth Griffith: 20:15
Is this central point, the central question that you can unpack for us when, in order to rationalize or make rational or make even possible this idea of colonizing, of conquering, of what we would later call what John O'Sullivan in the 1840s, obviously manifest destiny that we had to to some degree prove or substantiate, even to ourselves, that the people who were living there were not Christian, ie not stewards of the land, that they didn't have tenure over this place and kinship with it From a very Genesis creation story-esque idea of. I believe the word used in the Genesis account in the Torah is kibosh, which is like a kingly rule. That's what we translate as stewardship. Do you mind unpacking that for us? What is this idea of the politics of dispossession? What is the dilemma of American history? And we can go from there.
Taylor Keen: 21:09
Well, I think you got the heart of it there. I think a lot of this is about psychology and guilt. Perhaps the taking of this land from indigenous peoples was not honorable, and I think everyone at the time knew it. But they justified it by, you know, saying this is, uh, our divine right, because we are more godly than they are and they are less than human and we can take it. But even half after having done that, one still has a guilty conscious, and so you have to go back and to justify everything, and therefore we have these narratives of the lionization of pioneers and settlers and you create myths, such as Thanksgiving, to say that somehow we didn't really do that. As a matter of fact, they gave us all of this land because we're better than they are.
Taylor Keen: 22:20
And it's so hard to look back on this stuff and I've constantly struggled with it spiritually, trying to understand one question of why did this happen to us? And at that point I go back to Vine's writings and teachings, and he was explaining indigenous thought versus European thought, and that European thought is very linear, don't know the difference. Then you can go back and change things in history and tell it in the narrative that both you and I were taught as history majors and minors in college and at a certain point now, with perfect information, you can't hide those things anymore and it's all out there. You can ask your phone and it will tell you things anymore, and it's all out there. You can ask your phone and it will tell you. But indigenous timeframes were in epics and ages and time is circular and things repeat themselves, and it was only then that I began to. I realized that the question is not why did this happen to us? But how did all these things weave into our stories and our narrative? Because at some point I have to think it's so terrible what happened to indigenous peoples in a short amount of time that we must be very special because we're still here and to survive a genocide and ecocide and assimilation, a different language forced upon you, different religions. But we're still here and somehow, through all of that trauma, someone like myself can still go backwards and piece all those things together and try to understand it and to teach it to others. And whenever I do get a chance to share some of this work with young indigenous peoples, I emphasize to them that you were so special that you're still here and the bloodlines, and these inherent memories and knowledge are within you. Memories and knowledge are within you, and the whole point of the book for me was to document things so that the seventh generation can learn from it and that they can take what I put into the book whether it's history or archaeoastronomy or archaeology or thoughts on thinking red, living red that they can take those things and build upon them, just as I learned from Vine Deloria and Dr AC Ross, and that someday they're going to write something like this too or they're going to share these stories.
Taylor Keen: 25:47
I was I was certainly torn as an indigenous person. Our entire narrative of life is told from one person to another, and a book seemed very sort of European. But Vine did it and others did it, and I cherish those things. And if I'm going to be criticized by some of the indigenous community for writing things down, I was very careful to not put anything that I felt was not to be shared in there, but I still feel that it's very important to write these things down, because once you write something down in a book, it was told to me that it's no longer yours and it belongs to everyone and it becomes its own thing. And as I'm having all these different conversations, I realize that's true, and it's so flattering, on the one hand, and sometimes a bit embarrassing, to hear thoughtful people like yourselves quoting from my book, quoting from my book, and it's just been a very humbling experience to put something out there and to share it.
D. Firth Griffith: 27:13
Yeah, that's. That's an interesting point about Vine's work. I had no anticipation of of bringing him up so much, but I'm glad he's here. Yeah, I'm glad he's here.
Taylor Keen: 27:23
I got to meet him. It was it was wonderful, did you really?
D. Firth Griffith: 27:26
I did yeah.
Taylor Keen: 27:27
Oh here.
D. Firth Griffith: 27:30
I got to meet him. It was wonderful. Did you really? I did. Yeah, that would be one thing. It's a very strange thing to say, but if I was given an ability to go back and meet a couple people in history, it's a very strange thing because he's so recent. I don't think many people would guess that. But I would want to go back and just shake his hand, Just say thank you for startling me, Thank you for being honest, he was a very humble man despite all of that intellect.
Taylor Keen: 27:57
He loved old cars and sports and the Denver Broncos.
D. Firth Griffith: 28:02
Yeah, it's interesting. I believe it's in his book Red Earth, white Lies. It could be in Custer Died for your Sins. I don't recollect too finely on it, but he's talking about universities and researchers. No, it's in Custer Died for your Sins. There it is wife recently and uh, and she was like man, he. He really disliked the universities and education and stuff and I was like that's the interesting thing, like he was higher education and universities and stuff. He was right and so it is interesting the way he was able to, um, speak truth, live truth but also influence from the inside out. But he's just he talks about.
D. Firth Griffith: 28:50
He says that is when the invaders of the North American continent will finally discover that for this land God is red and I remember the first time I ever read that quote like I got chills down my spine and I want to relate this back to you and your work and I think the same thing is true for your book. I got the same feeling and I want to relate this back to you and your work and I think the same thing is true for your book. I got the same feeling. This is not to some degree about a recasting of a story for popularity or celebrity or dominance or rule or kingship over the molding of how the story is told, but rather that the story that we currently hold is not the story of this land. You know, as Vine would say, the God of this land is red, and until we understand that, we will never understand the land. We will never meet her. And then I felt that same inspiration, that same energy and vision in your book Rediscovering Turtle Island.
Taylor Keen: 29:43
Writing a book has got to be one of the most difficult things that I've ever done, but probably one of the best ones. How I really sort of stumbled upon this was after Vine passed away posthumously. His very last work was published Probably not going to get it right the World in which we Used to Live and he's documenting all of these medicine powers of indigenous people and it's just. It's so cool and so different from this world and he just documents all these spiritual powers of indigenous peoples and it was um published posthumously. But his son, uh, phil Deloria, who I can count as a friend, um wrote in the afterward uh, and I'm going to paraphrase, and I paraphrase both of them a lot because I can't do it as eloquently as they could. But he said we lost my father in the autumn of his life and I wish it would have been winter, meaning he wish he would have lived longer. But I don't need my father here to share what he would have said in this afterward. My father always had a call to arms for indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. And he says I know what it would have been. And he leaves us with the question of when are we going to listen to the plants and the animals. And it's just one of those things that just struck me so hard that I put the book down and went for a long run and made a prayer and asked Creator that may I be a strong enough vessel if the plants and the animals need me to. And I had no idea the impact of that kind of prayer. I talk about what happens after that in Mother Earth, mother Corn, where I came across one of our sacred corn bundles for the Omaha people, and what an impact that had on me. But it was at that point that I realized that Vine was gone and that was the end of the books and I was very sad because I had read all of them and it took me several times to read and to understand his work.
Taylor Keen: 32:24
I read most of it while I was in college and I just didn't get it. I thought it was sort of a celebration of protesting, especially Custer Died for your Sins. And I went back and read them all again in my 30s and began to scratch my head and said I didn't get that right, I'm not getting something here. And it was only in my 40s that I went back and pieced it all together. Um, from God is red to custard dive for your sins, um, all of those different pieces. I put things together and realized that what he was referring to because I didn't make the connection between God is red and myself and what I finally realized is that all those protests that he was referring to in Custer Died for your Sins were not just protests, but they were indigenous peoples defending sacred geography, sacred geography. And from God is Red I learned that indigenous people's relationship with the land is our religion and that was really hard for me to figure out because I where was God in that? God is the land. God is living through us as indigenous peoples and we should have a reverence for the mother. We should love her as we love our own mother, and to not take from her but to enjoy the beauty of her bounty. And it was only then that I was like okay, I think I finally got it.
Taylor Keen: 34:09
And as I began this writing of the book and edged into my fifties, um, I just realized that I had so much, so much more to learn about all of this. And a dear friend, um, as I was lamenting the fact that there were no more books by vine, she, in a straightforward fashion was like well, why don't you pick up where he left off? I said that's ludicrous, we're talking about vine Deloria here. And she said well, taylor, you are a professor, right, and you've got a little bit of time on your hands to do such things. And I said, yeah, I guess I do. I've written papers and whatnot, but nothing like this. And so that's what began. The journey was trying to pick up where Vine left off began. The journey was trying to pick up where vine left off, and I don't think I'll ever be able to do that proper justice, but I can do my best when I read him, I feel like an inadequate writer he could back so much into half a page.
Taylor Keen: 35:23
Yeah, he could summarize all of an indigenous history and just mind-boggling with all the details. And he was also a fine leader as well um, executive director for the national congress of american indians in a very important time. And I think everyone uh forgets that he was a legal scholar because he just did so much other stuff. But such a fine man and I just hope that my work can actually continue what he was thinking about. On a side note, I did have a chance when I got to meet Phil and hang out with him.
Taylor Keen: 36:06
When I got to meet Phil and hang out with him, I had read somewhere in the notes about what Vine was wanting to do next and he was very interested in going further with our stories and he was very interested in writing about little people and the giants and Sasquatch and sky people.
Taylor Keen: 36:33
And when I asked Phil about that, he lit up and was like yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what my dad wanted to do and I said, well, maybe that's book number two, but I'm going to try to give that justice and it's going to be a lot of research and work, because people hear me talk about sky people or Sasquatch, and it's so sensationalized and disassociated with indigenous peoples that it's going to take a lot of work to get there.
Taylor Keen: 37:06
But I look forward to sharing those stories I've I've found, um a good amount about giants and little people and I talk about some of, about some of those things in the book, but there's so much more there. Um, as I began to visit with indigenous peoples about Sasquatch because all the tribes have them there's stories in my families about interactions with them and I recently got to meet an indigenous friend from the Pacific Northwest and she got very serious when I asked her about it West, and she got very serious when I asked her about it and she said that they are the other. Just, it just touches me very deeply to think about some of these mysteries and they must be important for every tribal people to have them in their lore and somewhere within all those mysteries are some things that can teach us today how to be better human beings. I hope yeah.
D. Firth Griffith: 38:30
Well, there seems to be this tension and it's a tension placed from the dominant worldview, the settler, colonial dominant worldview. It is not a tension shared by both sides, but there seems to be a tension between the science and story that is present in that dominant worldview, which is linear and rigid, and obviously Vine wrote at length about that in Custer Died for your Sins. And when you read your book and it seems to contrast that very linear worldview of story and science which you said is like it's linear, you can go back, you can change it, as long as you tell the story, you can own it. Like there's strange things there, both with story and science.
D. Firth Griffith: 39:09
But on the indigenous side, like what is so interesting with what you're getting at in your book and obviously the others that I've mentioned, is to some degree like the creation story isn't a rigid, linear framework that tells you exactly what happened, when and why, but it's rather a conversation relative between creator or spirit and that people. And it's that wonderfully vertical relationship that saturates the horizontal relationship, the kinship that that community has with themselves, with the land, as a tribe, as a nation, as a clan, as a people. And so it's highly relativistic as a nation, as a clan, as a people, and so it's highly relativistic. But it has universal principles, universal natural laws, that knowledge is experience, that you live the knowledge in a very fluid way.
Taylor Keen: 39:56
It's hard to explain for me sometimes, but experience is how we live things. One of the notions that I keep coming back to with all of this is a notion of blood memory, that somewhere within our DNA are all these things. It's what gives us goosebumps and chills whenever we hear something, and I was always taught that the ancestors live through us and they're just kind of waiting on our souls to wake up and see things. And as I began to go backwards in time with this journey, eventually I had to ask myself the question about food and agricultural life ways, and that resulted in the non-profit that I have sacred seed, which is basically a celebration of indigenous agricultural life ways, and and culture and corn bean and squash the three sisters uh goes back thousands of years, probably, um, from what we would now call the Mayans in Mesoamerica, and other crops come from South America soil and started paying attention to the teachings and when we're supposed to plant and getting in rhythm with the cycles of the moon and the sun and the seasons. It touched something within me and it awoke something that was very old and powerful and sacred, and that's the blood memory. And so writing the book and sharing those things is what I want to do with other indigenous young people that we can go back to our older ways. Um, I had always heard bits and pieces from older generations that were, um, somewhat defeated, like we can't go back to those ways, we have to move forward into something else. And I vehemently disagreed and that was the serious part of the book was we can go back and rediscover our roots and where we come from to better inform us how we're supposed to be living in the future. So through that experience has been a reawakening and it can only be done by taking that kind of journey to go back and make oneself uncomfortable and challenged.
Taylor Keen: 43:04
And there's so much research that goes into a book like this. It took me a total of 10 years to get it through and the research part was wonderful. And I don't know. I think there's 85 different works that I cited in the book, but I've been going back through and organizing all of the articles that I read and it's just there's so many I can't even count them all and how many books. I've got two rows on the bookshelf behind me of all the things that I cited and they're full of sticky notes and tabs and highlights and ink all over them and they're all beat up and worn, but that's what it takes to re-experience, to rediscover one's own past, and I truly hope that other indigenous peoples will take this kind of journey and take the work further.
D. Firth Griffith: 44:08
The subtitle the First Peoples Account of the Sacred Geography of America. If you will dive into that with me. What is sacred geography? I think the journey through uncomfortability for many of our listeners is going to be held there. How is geography sacred? You mentioned it just a little bit and what does it mean for that geography to be held by First Peoples, by Indigenous peoples here of Turtle Island.
Taylor Keen: 44:41
That was kind of hard for me to understand. One of my lifelong mentors is Dr Duard Walker. He's the chair emeritus of anthropology at CU Boulder and it was through him that I got to meet Vine. And Duard was a champion for indigenous peoples throughout all of his career and now that he's been retired for 10 plus years he's still doing that wonderful work.
Taylor Keen: 45:09
And as an anthropologist, especially during my years in college, it always rubbed me the wrong way how my professors and fellow students who studied that were so pompous and thinking that they knew more about my people than I did and many of them were collectors. And it was only through the research in my book that I realized where those roots came from From the Bureau of Ethnology and the impact of John Wesley Powell and all of these theories that, like the Bering Strait theory, that began to shape how people thought about indigenous peoples, because that was the science of the time but it's a relatively young science and it was through Durer that I began to understand about his academic work for sacred geography and it was uh. I'm looking at my bookshelf and looking at that volume and when I first read it it was really hard for me to understand, um, how geography can be so sacred, but it was through Vines work that I began to understand that that relationship, that experience of indigenous peoples holding the land as a church, as it were, can be something that's so powerful and beautiful that maybe others should do that as well. The serious part that I always share with people is that until all Americans can truly love the land and we're not going to save this planet that we really need to hold the land as a church, and it's really difficult for people to comprehend that because so so much of Judeo Christian thought is about God as the other. God is above. God is the other. God is above. God is in heaven. We are distant from God through time versus a perspective of God is the land and God put all of the mysteries and the beauties into the land and that everything that we need is there, and we all feel it when we have a beautiful vista or on top of a mountain or looking at a great lake or a cavern or a beautiful stream coming out of a mountain. But it's always there.
Taylor Keen: 48:14
So many people think about the land and think about places like the heartland and say I've never. I've never been there and it sounds really boring, but that gets around the fact that all of the land is beautiful and one just has to go and experience it and then it becomes alive. My people have been here in Nebraska for only about 700 years, and I always tell that to people as they loud there. I'm a fifth generation Nebraskan or a seventh generation Nebraskan, and I've been. My family's been here since 1850 or something like that, and that's why I always tell them my family's only been here 700 years. Compared to the Pawnees who were here around 3,000 years ago, that's nothing, and so weaving this all together into a narrative that I can share with others has been a challenge.
D. Firth Griffith: 49:20
What do you think's in the way I mean, it could be a plethora of things. I hate to make it sound like there's one and so maybe it's a very long question but what do you think is in the way for people to truly loving the land? You made the comment that until we truly love it, we will never be able to save it. And then, even earlier, you were talking about loving this mother like she is your mother, and I think, at the same time, so many of the eco narratives, the green agriculture, the green energy, the green power, the green biofuels, all of these things today, so much of it is based upon loving the land that's everywhere, but I don't think many people would love the land as they love their mother, maybe like, like a metaphor, my love for the land, like my mother, but not as. What do you think's in the way for that? The truly happening.
Taylor Keen: 50:17
I mean, this is a difficult topic and I've encountered it on very serious levels. Um, it's the tension between red and green, as you alluded to, and I've spent a lot of serious time with different organizations and trying to unpack that and ultimately it sort of comes down to a perspective that is influenced by stewardship and dominion, as we talked about before, and I think so much of the Euro-American perspective is rooted still in dominion, kingship over the land, and when you have that perspective, you can never get on that sort of horizontal or vertical mother type thing. And uh, yeah, I was at a conference at one point and the work of Wendell Berry was being discussed, which is much loved by the green and a mentor of mine, dr Jane Mount Pleasant. She's an emeritus agronomist from Cornell and comes from the Tuscarora people, and there was a serious question asked of her. I'm trying to remember the name of Mr Berry's work. It's something about America as the title, but when asked about it she said no, I've not read that work, but I don't need to read it to understand what the premise is about. And what she was talking about was the fact that the Green Movement feels like they're the saviors of this planet, beginning somewhere in the 1960s, 1970s, maybe a little bit earlier than that, forever changed my life. And she said I don't need to read it to understand that I don't agree with it because in some sense Euro-Americans caused these problems and now you're the savior for trying to fix them. And she said my big problem is that ignores 15,000 years plus of indigenous environmentalism, and so that's taken me a long time to unpack.
Taylor Keen: 53:08
I was very blessed to have the foreword for my book written by Charles Mann, author of 1491 and 1493. And Charles has become a dear friend and he discusses so much of the Americas as a curated landscape and Vine and God is Red. Talked about Chief Luther Standing Bearer of the Lakotas during the 1920s and becoming angry with the sentiment of Euro-American settlers coming in. And I'm going to paraphrase again because I can't give it the eloquence that is due. But they call this land a wilderness because they do not understand the contours of the mother's spine, of her rocky spine.
Taylor Keen: 54:05
Their blood and bones has not been in the earth long enough for the mother to know them like she knows us. Do they not miss their mountains and lakes and rivers? And I always felt that was so profound and that led to my understanding and sort of a subchapter within the work about by virtue of blood and bone and it goes to this notion that when our temporal bodies pass, then we're put back into the earth and it's not ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but our blood and bone going into the earth. And it's important because blood and bone is our DNA and it goes back to the mother and she knows us and it's that type of relationship that has to be so fluid between mother and child, that has to be so fluid between mother and child. And until the greater populations understand that it has to be something that deep, then we're not going to have respect for the land and we're going to continue taking from her to our own detriment.
D. Firth Griffith: 55:44
There's so many parallels to me as I look at the history, the dominant colonial, settler type history, dualistic narrative of both fearing the quote savages of the new came right, we had colonial rights, we had the desire, we had the God-given ordinance right to take back a land governed, really ungoverned, by very worthless and savage people, right, that's that mythos.
D. Firth Griffith: 55:52
Well, at the same time, and I said this narrative is dualistic, on the other side of that coin, rather, you have this noble savage mythology, right?
D. Firth Griffith: 56:02
So you both have this fear of the worthless savage, but that worthless savage is also noble. And then you see this playing out all the way through social Darwinism to manifest destiny, to the Buffalo eradication narratives of the Great Plains, 1860s, through 1890s, 1900s, officially you see that same narrative playing out there, but simultaneously I don't not see that narrative in the green space, in the sense that we both look at the wild, or we look at the wild and both see when I say the wild I mean using that terminology the uncultivated human space, whatever that means, and we see it as a worthless place, not constructing production and profit and food for mankind, but we also see it as a noble space. So we see the same character of this worthless savage and noble savage being played out in the landscape of that indigenous, you know, first peoples, just in a modern sense, and we see it as simultaneously wilderness as needed and wilderness as worthless.
Taylor Keen: 57:10
Yeah, there's something about the American ethos that wants to tame the wild and we see that in pioneer and settler narratives all over the place, and I think there's something romantic about that that seems to appeal to a lot of people because, living in a place like I do here in the heartland, the pioneer and settler narrative is everywhere and celebrated, and it's my hope that through my work, that people can see a different perspective and that at some point with this type of work, that indigenous peoples can point back to their mythos and celebrate it in such a way as modern Americans do the pioneer and the settler. And that's a big challenge for me, but that's part of my goal. Goal is to put our stories up um, part of the work I'm doing now is trying to reconstruct an indigenous pantheon, um of uh mythos that is as powerful and as real and as important as Greek mythology or Sumerian or Egyptian, and I've touched on some of these stories in the book, but I'm going to try to weave that together in a way that everyone can understand indigenous mythos, especially our youth. One of the things that I've discovered is, as we get into conversations about archaeoastronomy, I hope mythos for all of humanity seems to be born out of human beings looking to the stars to explain time and concepts of the stars moving, and whether that turns into constellations which we know from the Greeks.
Taylor Keen: 59:27
Indigenous peoples had those, the movements of the stars are formed into narratives In the book.
Taylor Keen: 59:34
I talk about the tree of life and the upper and lower realms, and first father and first mother, and red horn and the thunder twins, and the more research that I do into it, in diving deeper into anthropology, I realize that all of these stories can be seen not only in the stars above but also in the flora and the fauna of Mother Earth, and that some of these stories about the old woman who never dies first woman can be found in the plant nations as well, can be found in in the plant nations as well.
Taylor Keen: 1:00:29
Um that there's constellations associated with all of these different um deities of the indigenous Pantheon, whether that's grandmother spider and the constellation uh known as Orion. Um, so many different perspectives and that's what I'm hoping to do with some of the future works is to weave our indigenous narratives into something that is um as powerful as the mythos as all other human beings have constructed, because in the end, that's what stays those old stories. I've been going back through Stephen Fry's works on mythos and heroes and realizing how profound of an impact the Greek mythos has upon our world today, and I thought very seriously about all of this and said the best thing that I could leave while on this planet would be more stories.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:01:30
As you very well know, our culture is, to some large degree, an antithesis to that, to that call. I mean, just look at the publishing world. I was trying to write one book recently and the publisher asked me to take out all of the stories. Just hand me the science. What do you want us to do? You know that's what the book should have been about All the stories. Just delete those. And she said I'll never forget her word. She said people don't want to read stories, they just want to be told what to do.
Taylor Keen: 1:02:01
I do not agree with that.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:02:05
Yeah, people don't want to read stories, they just want to be told what to do. I do not agree with that. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I have two last things in my heart that maybe we can dive into, and I don't think they'll take long, but I do want to propose them to you because to me they are the culmination of this conversation. Not that it needs culminated. I wanted to get your opinion on this conversation, not that it needs culminated. I wanted to get your opinion on this.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:02:25
There's so much money and time and attention in the dominant cultures' aggression to saving the world and in that we are being proposed very simple solutions. They're not simple in essence, but they're simple in their design, their creative design, and what I mean by that is, you know and I see the very same thing with Christianity, although that gets to a little bit deeper of a subject that maybe is not short enough to be succinct here and simple enough, but it's a narrative, you know, in this green space or a lot of other spaces, it's a narrative that allows you to affect change without deeply affecting yourself, right? So, instead of working on your understanding and dominance over the world, your lack of kinship. Just put solar panels on your house and, instead of actually loving earth as your own mother, just control cows in a different way. These are some examples of what I mean. We're able to affect change without affecting ourselves.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:03:31
In a deep sense, what you're writing about to me seems to be the opposite that what Vine Deloria is writing when he's writing that God is red and that customers die for your sins and all of these things, is that a deeper transformation actually must occur, and that transformation is well housed in the indigenous worldview, in place-based knowledge, in this ancient wisdom, in all of the things that you're writing about, and antiquity and the indigenous Paleolithic and Steve's Dr Steve's work. Do you think that's true? And if it is true, I guess the question would be right how do we as a human species move forward past the topical narratives into the narrative that you are telling or your stories within?
Taylor Keen: 1:04:23
with the understanding, first of all, of what was the truth. We have to go back into history and to not look at the narrative that makes us feel good, but to tell them the actual truth. I remember when I was on Stephen Ranella's Meat Eater podcast a few years ago and at some point we began to discuss the Thanksgiving narrative and I love Steve Super nice guy, but he's very conservative and has this sort of perspective and at a certain point we were talking about Thanksgiving and I was saying I'm sorry, but none of that's true and he pushed back and said I just want my kids to be able to enjoy a nice story. And I wanted to launch into a lot more, but the only thing that came to mind at the time was well, steve, the truth shall set them free. And he didn't know what to say but it's the truth.
Taylor Keen: 1:05:38
We have to go and to examine the reality of things and what actually happened here, and once we do, uh, hopefully we don't have to experience that again. It's very important to understand where we come from and what the truth is and how we can all learn from that. But there's something within those conversations that makes people very uncomfortable. But you're only uncomfortable because somewhere you know it's not true what you've been told. It's not true what you've been told, and anyone who studies history, as you and I did we look at those things and feel like been lied to to some degree, and then it becomes a journey towards the truth, which only good things can come out of, and we need to talk about it.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:06:43
Yeah, that's not happening in the modern movement. I don't think it's happening right here. It's happening right here. It is a wonderfully interesting thing. A good friend of mine, a Lakota pipe carrier. He talks a lot about this idea of worldview but he calls it the pre-colonial kinship worldview that we all hold. But we don't let it out, we just keep it squashed down there, like we keep indigenous history squashed down there. And of course he makes the distinction between somebody like you, a modern wisdom holder, remembering your ancient, ancestral living wisdom, and then somebody like me who is just trying to relearn how to let it back out again, right, to remove that dominance, that stewardship, that earth distancing, as you said, the othering that we have put God into. It's an emotional process, but to me it's just what I want to get to. Is this idea of kinship Like, in order to have kinship or relearn kinship, we must experience kinship.
Taylor Keen: 1:07:46
People often ask me after talks and presentations you know what can we do?
Taylor Keen: 1:07:53
And my initial reaction was wherever one lives in America, there were indigenous peoples every square inch.
Taylor Keen: 1:08:06
Because now I understand that that timeframe is tens of thousands of years, if not a hundred, and my advice to people has always been wherever in America you're from, there are stories about the people in the land that you need to understand, and you need to find those tribal peoples and ask them about their histories and to watch the journey that people go through to find that knowledge.
Taylor Keen: 1:08:46
The serious part about my message is that it can't be told about us or for us. Only we can tell that, and within our DNA is a relationship to this land that goes way, way, way back. And until people can appreciate that, which also means not acknowledging that Europeans are not the salvation of this continent and the people, but one has to be humble and to say others can teach us about this land. And even though European settlers have dominated this land doesn't mean that they have all the answers for the long term and that indigenous peoples have something important to offer and a whole different perspective that can make us be more thoughtful and purpose-driven in our own lives today and that's why I wrote the book and that's why I come on. Podcasts like this is to try to share what that means to me and what it can mean to other people.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:10:00
Well, I thank you deeply for that. Is there anything left that you would like to share or cover?
Taylor Keen: 1:10:09
Look to the stars. I keep coming back to that because that's the basic starting point for humanity and storytelling. It's people looking to the stars and trying to explain where we come from and why we're here, and last night was a super moon and a full moon and a blue moon, and it's those types of things that to me, there's nothing more beautiful than that, and I think that's part of the indigenous perspective. Some people challenge me and criticize me when I say stuff like that, because that's the call to arms, taylor, look to the stars.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:10:57
Yes, it's your belief in the power of stories. As I understand it, it's faith, yeah Well, of stories. As I understand it, it's faith, yeah Well, taylor. I so thank you. I don't want to assume that you would like to be found, but if people were to find you in the appropriate medium, how can they do so?
Taylor Keen: 1:11:15
Not hard to find me Been blessed to do so many podcasts and visits and presentations. At least the podcasts and links for the book are on the website, wwwrediscoveringturtleislandcom. A lot of people find me on Instagram, taylorkeen7, but I'm not hard to find, Would love for your listeners to have questions and reach out and you can find my email pretty easily and contact me through any of those methods and I look forward to sharing and learning.
D. Firth Griffith: 1:11:53
Wonderful. Well, thank you again, Taylor. As I've said, and I will say continually, well beyond my power to iterate, I am thankful, thank you.
Wow I can’t wait to read Taylor’s book now!