11/22/2025
There is an old teaching our people carried,
soft as a feather,
sharp as a winter star:
When you rob a person of their humanity…
you surrender your own.
In Cree we say,
wâhkôhtowin —
we are all related.
Not in poetry,
but in responsibility.
Colonization began the moment someone decided
they could look at another human being
and see something less.
And êkwa —
that same spirit is alive today,
wearing new clothes,
speaking in political tongues.
Left.
Right.
Red.
Blue.
A map of enemies
where there should have been a circle of relatives.
People shouting across screens,
argument without heart,
rage packaged and sold like medicine
to the lonely and the lost.
But the land doesn’t speak that language.
The river doesn’t divide itself into parties.
The ancestors don’t ask
if you voted left or right
before they place their hand on your shoulder.
They ask one thing:
kikiskêyihtamowin —
Do you remember who you are?
Do you remember the law of kinship?
Do you remember miyo-pimâtisiwin,
the good life,
the life where we see each other
as sacred beings,
not targets?
Not talking points?
Not monsters built by political machines
that profit from your fear?
Because when you dehumanize someone,
you carve a wound in your own spirit.
You dim your own fire.
You forget your own name.
And that’s the greatest loss.
Our old people said:
“kîya mâka nitotem.”
Even if we disagree,
you are still my relative.
So I say this now,
with the river listening,
with the sky wide open:
Let us speak like human beings again.
Let us remember tâpwêwin,
the truth that doesn’t need shouting.
Let us carry sâkihitowin,
love that doesn’t shrink from conflict.
Let us rebuild this world
not with sides
but with spirit.
Because the teaching still stands:
When we rob a person of their humanity,
we forfeit our own.
And I refuse —
êkwa, I refuse —
to surrender mine.
—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ
