Why do this?

When I lived in the Crown Province of Ostgardr, in 2019-ish, there was some debate on Facebook about which parts of the Middle Ages we were trying to recreate, and what it meant for people who are descended from the oppressed people in conflicts such as the Crusades to recreate those eras. This got me thinking about what behaviors we could bring into our game to more accurately honor marginalized groups from pre-17th century to the present day. One way that I identified that I thought would be a relatively easy thing to introduce would be to honor indigenous people in North America by doing a land acknowledgement when we hold events on their land. I had seen this acknowledgement process introduced mundanely at tech conferences I’d attended from 2015 onward, and it seemed well received there.

I am making this post today, Indigenous People’s Day 2021, to collect this knowledge and share it for future event planners.

What was done?

As the Webminister, I started a mailing list locally for discussion. I collected suggestions and wrote up a draft proposal which I shared first in the mailing list, then more widely, for feedback. The local Viceroy and Vicereine (baron/baroness) forwarded me to the EK Seneschal (we chatted briefly at EK 12th Night 2020), and it was also recommended that I talk to the Society level officer for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion before implementing - I set up a meeting with her and with the East Kingdom DEI officer, where we got feedback on the initial proposal. I won’t share the initial proposal but below is the feedback we got and the draft proposal that was updated as a result of this. We then implemented it by adding the acknowledgement as an opening slide and in the introduction in an online event we held in November 2020.

Feedback, excerpted from a summary email I sent in early March 2020

Our next steps are:

  • Anne and the committee will: write a new draft of the native land proposal, containing one sentence to be read in court and one paragraph destined for event booklets, a sign at gate, and the website. We want the focus of the new paragraph to be on where we want to be inclusion-wise as we feel the current draft’s explanation of “why” is both slightly too long and focuses too much on the negative/what we don’t want to be like. (We want to be broadly inclusive and start people being mindful about who is included in SCA depictions of the middle ages; we don’t want to start arguments or make people feel like politics or religion is being imposed upon them.)
  • Once the new proposal is approved by the viceregents and other relevant parties, we’ll start adding the one sentence acknowledgement to heraldic announcements at the beginning of viceregal courts, including the new “why” paragraph in event booklets and gate signs, and we’ll put up a post with the paragraph of context on our website (and any event-specific websites as relevant).
  • We’ll re-evaluate based on feedback from the populace whether we’re having the kinds of conversations we want to be having, and whether we should be more or less or differently prominent, after a few months and a few events. I’m hoping to discuss again after we’ve done this at a few events, maybe towards the end of the summer, to decide on next steps and hopefully wider rollout!

Draft 2 content, rewritten per that first feedback bullet point, approx October 2020

Native Land Acknowledgement

What?

At the opening of viceregal court, we ask the heralds to include an acknowledgement of the people who inhabited the area around the event site prior to 1600. For events taking place in the territory of Østgarðr, the most basic form of this would consist of a mention of the Lenape (or Lenni Lenape) people, the name used by members of an extended group that included most of New Jersey and our corner of New York State. Depending on the event location, it may be possible to include additional details, such as the name of a local sub-group (such as the Wappinger people, a sub-group of the Lenape that lived in the area east of the Hudson and north of Manhattan) or the indigenous name for the adjacent area; search https://native-land.ca/ or similar resources for the location of the specific event, especially in Westchester/Putnam, on Long Island, or in the outer boroughs.

The announcement should be brief, and it should be clear that the land acknowledgement is coming from a mindful place of respect for the pre-17th century occupants of the land.

Suggested wording:

Examples, as a standalone sentence:

  • We are gathered today in the ancestral homeland of the indigenous Lenni Lenape people.
  • We acknowledge that we are on the land that the Lenape people traditionally call Canarsie.

As part of a longer announcement of location:

  • Herein opens the court of the Viceregents of the Crown Province of Østgarðr, on the traditional Matinecock land of the Lenape people, [A.S. date, etc]

Paragraph for gate, site booklet, website, etc. Suggested wording, with details of the initial sentence adjusted based on the event. A few examples of initial sentence follow:

  • We would like to acknowledge the Lenni Lenape people, who lived in this area during the SCA’s period of study.
  • Today’s event takes place on the land that the Lenape people traditionally called Matinecock, or “hill country.”
  • During the medieval period, the land around this site was inhabited by the Wappinger people.

After the initial sentence, the following paragraphs are available for reuse as a brief description:

When we host events in order to share knowledge of pre-17th century ways of life, we want to acknowledge and honor the specific Native cultures that exist where we are now, from our period of study through the present day; support the expansion of the Society’s focus beyond Western Europe; and promote mindful inclusion within the SCA of people from all backgrounds.

This is just a starting point: find out more about land acknowledgement generally at https://usdac.us/nativeland and contact native-land@ostgardr.eastkingdom.org with questions.

Content of land acknowledgement slide, November 2020, “Feast of Three Princes”

Land Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge the Lenni Lenape peoples, who lived in the area that the S.C.A. calls the Crown Province of Østgarðr during our period of study.

To learn about where you’re calling in from visit: https://native-land.ca/ These groups are all too often unacknowledged, and their histories and cultures are not well taught. As such, we recognize our own knowledge is incomplete, and invite anyone to let us know if there are groups that we have failed to mention here.

My thoughts on the process (super quick bullets)

  • Doing anything with Society-level oversight is a longer process than one might expect! I am not entirely sure the oversight was necessary but it was what our local group leaders wanted. Society DEI was great to work with when we did finally meet!
  • There was a concern that doing an “in game” acknowledgement would trivialize the real out-of-game indigenous people. I personally feel that we need an acknowledgement that people actually hear read aloud, and court is where that happens in our game - who reads event booklets in detail without being pointed to them? This is a personal preference though and I am open to feedback.
  • I am glad that this happened. I am not sure if it will continue in Ostgardr now that I am no longer there. I hope that it is a useful example regardless!