Ndakinna
An Essay and Poem
Ndakinna. Our land. That is how that Aln8bawi word may be translated into English. To truly understand its meaning, you need to be aware of how the Indigenous people of the Northeast saw the environment, which was not just around them, but within them.
Many place names that come from our northeastern Algonkian languages can be found in common use. Connecticut and Massachusetts, for example: “Long River'' and “Many Small Mountains.” Those words describe what could be seen and still can be seen there. From the great salt water to the inland freshwater seas, hundreds of such names are on the maps, while others remain in the memories of our languages.
In no case do we find a place bearing the name of a person. Naming places, even entire countries and continents, after one individual or another—almost always a western European man—was not something that our ancestors did. Their vision did not reflect the way the European conquistadors, explorers, slavers, and corporate heads saw the world, and still do: as a commodity to be owned, dominated, and used for profit making. Even, quite frankly, to be used up.
How about that word Ndakinna and its usual translation as “Our Land.” Doesn’t that state ownership?
View from Little Ascutney, Watercolor on paper, © Amy Hook-Therrien
Not if you hear it through Indigenous ears within cultures where people saw themselves as part of the Earth, not above it or separate from nature. Instead, it should be interpreted in the opposite way—not owning, but being owned by the land. A part of the land, not apart from it.
Look, for example, at the Wabanaki Creation story. It tells of how Ktsi Nwaskw, the Great Mystery, made the first human beings out of stone. They were heavy-footed and hard-hearted, and they crushed everything beneath their feet (sound familiar?). So those first beings were broken up into smaller stones and scattered throughout the land. Then Ktsi Nwaskw made new people step out of the ash trees, women and men whose hearts were growing and green and who danced like the trees in the wind. Quite different from a story in which the first woman is shaped from a masculine spare rib.
In Wabanaki tradition, ours is a world in which you see the trees as not just living beings but as actual relatives. And you understand that if they are not doing well, neither are we human beings. The word Ndakinna, Our Land, does not limit the “Our” part to human beings.
The term “circular logic” can be seen in a very different way within a Native context. All is connected, all is interrelated. Our Land includes the lives of all beings. Every part of the circle must be respected, and if one part is broken, all the other parts will suffer.
It does not mean that the Indigenous people of this continent were or are better than any other human beings. We have these traditions, these understandings, to remind us how to properly behave. Native people did not always “instinctively” do things the right way. If you find someone who is Native trying to elevate himself or herself above all others or deny the right of others to live within the circle, they are no longer seeing or living in the traditional way. Greed and self-centeredness are diseases that may infect any human being.
“Our Land includes the lives of all beings. Every part of the circle must be respected, and if one part is broken, all the other parts will suffer.”
Our words, our traditions, and our stories—if we truly hear them and live them, whoever we are—may still help us continue as part of the living land.
Ndakkina
A poem by Joseph Bruchac
You cannot understand
our land with maps
lines drawn as if earth
were an animal’s carcass
cut into pieces, skinned,
divided, devoured—
though always less eaten
than is thrown away.
See this land instead
with the wind eagle’s eyes,
how the rivers and streams
link like sinew through a leather garment
sewed strong to hold our people,
patterns of flowers
close to the brown soil.
Do not try to know
this land by roads,
hard lines ripped
through old stones,
roads which still
call for blood
of not just those who cross,
wild eyes blinded
by twin suns startling the night,
but also those who seek to follow
the headlong flow
atop that dark frost
unthawed by the sun—
though seasons and
the insistent lift
of the smallest seeds
seek, without ceasing,
space for the old soil.
Instead, let your feet
caress this soil
in the way of the deer
whose feet follow and form
trails through the ways
of least resistance,
knowing ridges and springs,
ways of wind
through the seasons,
the taste of green twig
and tender grass,
the sweet scent of rain
urged up from moist earth.
When you feel this land
when you taste this land
when you hold this land
as your lungs hold your breath
you will be the rattlesnake
always embracing earth with her passage,
you will be the salmon, a chant
whipped through the ripple,
you will be the deermouse,
small feet stitching the night,
you will be the bear,
thunder held in soft steps,
when your songs see this land
when your ears sing this land
you will be this land
you will be this land.
First published in: Senier, Siobhan, ed. 2014. Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England (p. 305). Nebraska.
Joseph Bruchac was born and raised in the Adirondack foothills where he still makes his home in the Greenfield Center, New York house where his grandparents raised him. An enrolled member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation, he’s an award-winning author of over 180 books, a poet, traditional storyteller, and musician who often performs with his two sons, James and Jesse.
In 2023 he was named the Poet Laureate of his hometown of Saratoga Springs, New York, and was awarded a major fellowship by the Academy of American Poets. His most recent books include Voices of the People, poetic biographies of significant Native people over the last 1,000 years, illustrated by contemporary Native artists; a picture book, Gluskonba and the Maple Trees, co-authored with his sons; and the reissue of his ground-breaking novel of ancient times, Dawn Land. His ongoing blog, Generations, can be found on his website joebruchac.com.