Anishinabeg (Algonquins)
Translation: France Mowatt, Pikogan
Narration: France Mowatt, Pikogan
Anishinabeg (Algonquins)
IT'S ABOUT TIME
We do not believe that we possess time; we do not divide it into units called seconds, minutes and hours. Longer cycles govern our lives, passages from days to nights, the seasons, cycles of life and death. In the past, we did not have watches and took the necessary time for each activity. Traveling with young children took longer; we would set up camp wherever we stopped. This is what many call Indian Time.
This notion of time seen as a continuous movement, long and slow, sometimes creates a difficult convergence between our respective cultures. While modern life seeks to control through addition and subtraction, we are time, we drift with it. All of our myths express a vision of a world to be shared where everything is connected and basks in universal time where the past, present and future are intertwined, since everything that happens, even the smallest elements of this world has an impact on the others: from the explosion of a nuclear reactor in Japan, so far, to the local mining operations, so near, the impacts will affect several generations, seven according to our philosophies.
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