Hale of Dr. Paula Noel Macdhubhsidhe (ancient) ~ Macfie (modern)
Important Terms
Decolonization
Defined as “to free from dependent status”. Decolonization is the process of healing a western mind by remembering or recovering the traditions, language, genealogy, story and ancient knowledge specific the genealogical lineage each person carries. It is also the process through which the shadow, genocide, racism, assimilation, appropriation are grieved, healed and brought into balance. It is personally and psychologically dismantling superiority in one's thinking and ways of knowing.
Indigenous
Having originated in or living naturally in a particular region or environment. Indigenous is also means native or tribal, also called traditional. This defines those who come from and are raised in tribal communities from various countries around the world.
Indigenous Mind
The indigenous mind is the tribal mind and the feminine mind; it is the mind that has been suppressed, oppressed, colonized, shamed, and killed out of our framework of thinking and knowing as western people. The indigenous mind is of the land, nature, and the feminine aspects of who we are; it is the mind of our ancestors and it is the mind that knows and lives the connection among other people, animals, plants, minerals, the moon, the sun, the stars, and all living things. The indigenous mind knows the relationship between who we are, the land we live on, and the lands from which we spring.
Remembrance Process (Recovery of Indigenous Mind)
The ability to remember – to bring to mind or to think again – the period which one’s memory extends. This is a psychological process that includes in its definition, decolonization and recovering indigenous mind. This is a navigation for those of who have been raised in non-native, western communities. Researching and pursuing connection to ancestry specific to one's own genetic and tribal lineage. This is also the name of the process by which the western mind connects with and remembers its relationship to tribal identity, culture and association with the natural world. It works on physical, emotional, psychological, and historical levels – personally and culturally. It is a cleansing, healing and balancing process.
Western Mind
Characteristic of the mind and thinking stemming from Greco-Roman traditions, relating to attitudes, beliefs, language and values of the countries of Europe and America, also considered native or resident of the United States. In this context, it is a mind steeped in the internalized effects of colonial thinking. It is the mind that perpetuates genocide, assimilation, colonization, physical, psychological and emotional abuse. It is also a mind gifted in its ability to create structure and establish context.
Colonize
The western mind establishing itself as superior and dominant as a way of knowing on an already existing natural or native mind.
Colonized Mind
A way of thinking and knowing that acts and behaves within the confines of thinking it is superior and dominant in its thoughts, language, action and behavior. Belief that one ethnic race has traits and capacities of superiority over another race. This is expressed through language, thought and behavior.
Dissociation
This is the act of separating association with or union with, in the context of psychological memory by putting an event or memory “on the back-burner” or blocking our negative events or psychological behavior that have hurt or damaged the conscious mind. This leads to Dissociative Scismogenesis, which is the amnesia (fortified by drugs, and bad habits) that keeps the mind from remembering the losses specific to one’s indigenous culture. The answer is to accept the grief and pain of the losses.
Shadow
Aspect of each person, tribe or culture that stores the memory of abuse, genocide, assimilation, appropriation, racism, which is part of each person that has been in obscurity from the conscious mind. The place where negative memory is stored that is personally experienced or passed down from generation to generation.
Assimilation
A policy of absorbing a cultural, tribal or ethnic group into popular culture or western society by eliminating language, ceremony and tradition.
Appropriation
The act of taking possession something from an individual, tribe, culture or group without authority or right, including words, language, ceremonies, traditions, cultural knowledge, sacred artifacts, offerings, etc.
Genocide
This is a deliberate destruction and/or killing of a racial, political, or cultural group. Also included is personal and internalized genocide, whereas an individual is internalizing colonization and genocide of themselves through inter-generational trauma and destruction of the physical body, psychological mind or emotions.