Episode 1 - Spirit Plate
She Makes an Offering
The Spirit Plate podcast is an honoring of all the Indigenous communities across Turtle Island who are working to preserve and revitalize their ancestral foodways. In this space, we will talk about Indigenous foodways as means of resistance, resilience, and revitalization. We’ll discuss some of the social, political, and historical reasons why the Indigenous food sovereignty movement is necessary.
Episode highlights:
“My name is Shiloh Maples,
I am Turtle Clan
I am Anishinaabe –
I am a citizen of the Little River Band of Ottawa
I also belong to the Ojibwe people of Swan Creek and Black River.
I am speaking to you from my homelands, here in the Great Lakes.
Welcome to Spirit Plate.”
Introduction to Shiloh and Spirit Plate
Shiloh introduces herself in the way her elders and teachers have taught her.
Her identity inspires her work as a seed keeper and community organizer in the Indigenous food sovereignty movement, which is dedicated to fighting for Indigenous peoples’ full human rights, including the right to maintain their traditional food systems on their own terms.
In Spirit Plate, Shiloh plans to talk about some of the social, political, and historical reasons why the Indigenous food sovereignty movement is vital.
Practicing Place-based Foodways and Recipes
As part of her own story, Shiloh shares the story of her ancestors’ migration westward as a testament to the inseparability of place and ancestral territory from her Indigenous identity, history, spirituality, and tradition.
These Original stories contain instructions, or ethics, for how to live sustainability and maintain good relationships with the land. Practicing place-based foodways goes beyond basic sustenance—it affirms and renews relationships, and is a part of how Shiloh and her community uphold their responsibilities to their relatives.
The Long History of Colonization
From the beginning of colonization, food and land have been weaponized against Indigenous peoples, with debilitating impacts. For example, during the American Revolution, scorched earth policies instructed armies and settlers to burn entire fields of crops and slaughter herds of animals to starve out Indigenous peoples and to coerce them into compliance. During the treaty era, treaties were made between Indigenous nations and colonial powers so that Europeans could obtain land.
From the Indian Removal Act to the establishment of reservations, federal Indian policy has repeatedly removed Indigenous people from their ancestral homelands. This physical and spiritual displacement also meant a loss of traditional knowledge and wellness practices that were specific to a particular locale.
What Is Food Sovereignty?
For Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island, or North America, food justice and food sovereignty are not just about food access and food security, but also about eating the foods their ancestors ate, harvesting from the place they harvested, and using the methods they knew.
The Indigenous food sovereignty movement recognizes that preservation and revitalization of culture is essential to the long-term and holistic wellness of our communities.
It's also about sustainability, ensuring that the methods of food production that people are employing are going to sustain the land.
The Goal of the Podcast
In Shiloh’s own words, “This podcast is a space for Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island to tell our own history and shape the narrative of our communities—especially as it relates to land and our relationships to food.”
Finally, Shiloh shares the meaning behind the name of the podcast, “Spirit Plate.” In her tradition, a spirit plate is the practice of putting together a plate of traditional, culturally significant foods and setting it out as an offering to the spirits. Preparing a spirit plate is an act of gratitude. Likewise, this podcast is an offering and honoring of all the relations—human and more-than-human—with whom we all share this important, life-sustaining work.
Topics covered in this episode:
Min 0:32: Brief intro for Shiloh
Min 1:20: Intro to Spirited Plate and what the mission of the podcast
Min 2:13: Shiloh life’s work and explanation of intro
Min 2:34: How the introduction positions Shiloh to be a person of the Great Lakes
Min 3:00: How is history is passed down and the history of her community
Min 3:39: Migration westward and how they settled near the Great Lakes
Min 4:58: Ancestral story and how it connects them to the land and territories/ Shiloh’s role and purpose
Min 5:37: What it means to be a good human and intro of storytelling
Min 6:20: Practicing place-based foodways and recipes
Min 6:40: More than just recipes
Min 7:29: Allotment & Assimilation Eric Hemenway
Min 9:05: Effects of colonization and Treaty Era
Min 9:55 Federal Indian Policies
Min 10:23 Ownership of the land with Eric Hemenway
Min 10:50 Maintaining relationship with the land
Min 11:54 Allotment, Assimilation, and terminations and their effects
Min 12:48 Effects of Allotment, Assimilation, and terminations and why the podcast is necessary
Min 13:30 Shiloh acknowledging the past to understand how the present-day came to be
Min 14:28 Tools of colonialization and the termination of BIPOC
Min 16:50 Shiloh’s growing up and what does it mean to be a member of community
Min 17:12 Goals for the podcast
Min 19:20 Food sovereignty
Min 20:25 Effects of the loss of Food sovereignty
Min 21:20 Mission statement of the Indigenious Food Sovereignty movement
Min 22:43 Breaking down the previous falsehoods of the media
Min 23:45 Power of the resilience and reclamation of identity
Min 26:45 History of Spirit Plate and the naming of the podcast
Min 30: 27 Final words and welcoming to the podcast