Utoo Radio with Other News Sources - May 31, 2024 - In W̱SÁNEĆ communities, it is the women who hold everything together, as Matriarch Tracy Underwood explains.
The SENĆOŦEN word for women is SȽÁNI, which means 'a knitting stitch.' Underwood is the president of the non-profit XAXE TEṈEW̱ Sacred Land Society (XTSLS), which recently launched the Rematriate Stewardship project to bring housing and land to Saltwater Salish women and their families on "Vancouver Island" so they can better steward their unceded homelands.
The Rematriate Stewardship project kicked off its first fundraising campaign at ȽÁU, WELṈEW̱ Tribal School in W̱JOȽEȽP ("Tsartlip") with the goal of raising $400,000 by August 5. The group ultimately wants to provide a 20% downpayment on an acreage on southern "Vancouver Island" as a tangible way to restore the sacred relationship between Matriarchs and their lands and their waters.
The W̱SÁNEĆ Nation itself has re-established ownership of unceded sites — ȾIKEL and SISȻENEM — in recent years after creating its own land trust. XTSLS is the latest organization working to fund the return of Saltwater Salish lands, which were never given up by their original owners.
According to the Assembly of First Nations, 56 per cent of all Indigenous women have suffered from physical assault, while 46 per cent have been sexually assaulted.
The 2019 National Inquiry into MMIWG reported that Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people experience disproportionately high rates of poverty and insurmountable barriers to obtaining secure housing, food, education, employment, transportation, and other basic needs, decreasing their safety and increasing the levels of violence they face.
Georgina Underwood, who sits on the Board of XTSLS and is a great-grandmother of 14, believes that the Rematriate Stewardship project ensures women have voices and that they will rise up to speak on their own behalf and find their identity.
The national inquiry concluded that the gendered violence "amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people."
