My calendar told me today that tomorrow is “Indigenous Peoples Day”… so I looked up a definition of Indigenous Peoples. Of course I know the intention, however, I found the United Nations has no specific definition, but rather a multi-page paper to describe the apparently undefinable. I guess, as I see it, they are peoples who descended from peoples who arrived before the peoples who arrived later. And then view themselves as natives, as we then view ourselves as civil members of the society for which we claim ownership. Because we defined it as so, and those others coming after us are immigrants which most of us were at one time, and which are distinguishable, I suppose, from most recent migrants… at least for the purpose of conserving some cultural heritage which we supplanted over the top of some previous peoples and their heritage.
There does seem to be some truth to the notion that the winners of conflict and migration and supplantion write the history, and define thus the place for all of us. So tomorrow, cheers to the peoples who came before the peoples before us… and their culture which we continue to supplant… I guess they deserve a day!
Maybe those defined as migrants and refugees will get a day sometime in the future?