Quill Box First View: Environmental View

Environmental View

The National park system was renowned as an amazing movement that promoted a love of the land and encouraged people to use pieces of land that had not been previously utilized, the very act of creating parks directly involved displacing, oppressing, and containing Indigenous people, in order to generate that sense of pristine untouched landscape appealing to Americans, but this is vastly incorrect, many different Native American and Indigenous populations had been using and occupying that land for many years before it had been designated a national park. This land was taken from these people whose rights and interests of the land were ignored and unrecognized. This is best explained by the example of Yellowstone, which can be read further about here. Park systems can inhibit access to traditional materials of creation and can therefore contribute to the loss of intergenerational knowledge, as the resources and environments required or at very least preferable to create are not accessible anymore, this can lead to a very large breakdown of cultural understanding and cultural identity as it relates to creation and the arts. More recently there have been initiatives developed to further the relationship between the National Parks Service and Native populations, where the parks service is extending liberties to Native individuals to utilize the land in a more traditional manner, allowing them to hunt and collect specific natural items from the landscape, the idea of co-management between Native governments and the parks service has allowed for the creative process based in traditional knowledge to continue, this is incredibly important to the continuing creation of Indigenous art and the survival of their culture and intergenerational knowledge transfer as it connects and references the land and natural environment around it. (2006, American Indian Liaison Office) The way in which Yvonne learned the skill of quill working was vastly dependent on the availability of natural resources, this kind of teaching and learning of new skills to keep culture alive would not be able to happen without the cooperation of National Parks. The reorganization of land rights and access to these parks is pivotal in the maintained and sustainable health and wellbeing of not only Indigenous communities but their way of cultural expression through art. (2016, THPO)