Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs

10/10/2024

https://chng.it/cwWWjN296b

Replace the Racist Imagery in Nashville/Davidson County's Seal

10/07/2024

https://chng.it/Gp4s7kRYf5

05/28/2024

04/12/2024

A quest to find living descendants of 36 enslaved people has transformed into a project that gives Black residents new clues to their ancestry, wherever it may lead.

03/16/2024

https://www.yahoo.com/news/urban-development-uncovering-disrupting-ancient-151500120.html

"With the push of development and construction...there is constant finding and constant destruction," said Tom Kunesh, president of the Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy.

02/01/2024

James Arthur Baldwin was an American writer and civil rights activist. He garnered acclaim for his work across several forms, including essays, novels, plays, and poems.

01/21/2024

Words matter. Indigenous sites are not 'archaeological' anything.

While discussing the importance of re-naming places to center the culture of origin, we need to also loudly proclaim that ancient indigenous towns & mounds are not “archaeological”. Describing an ancient indigenous town & mound site an ‘archaeological park’ implies that its modern purpose is euroamerican academic study, education, & play. “Archaeological Area/District” also completely disappears the original tribal context of the site's origins. To most people, ‘archaeology’ is digging up old old stuff to study and to put in museums to teach ignorant people what used to be here or there. But the purpose of indigenous sites should never be to provide euro-american study material, and they were never meant to be dug, stripped, plundered & displayed in private & public museums. In fact, no tribe condones the digging of its ancient sites. While the artifacts are indeed very interesting and educational, they also motivate the capitalizing of other peoples’ cultures for euro-american fun and profit. It is a moral imperative of archaeology to respect, save and protect the cultural sites of other peoples, and when necessary, remove the artifacts to be returned to the earth by their indigenous descendants somewhere else safer where they’ll never be disturbed again. Words matter. Let us stop advertising ancient native places as playgrounds for digging up other peoples’ history and, better, simply call these ‘historical indigenous sites’.

01/21/2024

Words matter.

While it is very good to mark ancient historical sites around the state, i disagree with the practice of naming Turtle-Island indigenous sites (a) after european americans, and (b) as “archaeological sites”.

Naming indigenous sites after european americans, like ‘Pinson Mounds’, ’Sellars Farm’, or businesses, like ‘Roxbury Mound’, center european surnames & european-american settler history of Turtle Island. Through our continued use of european names for indigenous sites, we drill the Historical Fact of euro-american conquest & ownership of indigenous land into our heads and our children’s heads, generation after generation. This requirement of us to repeat european settlers’ names sets euroamerican legal control and land ownership into stone, and into the metal of historical markers. We should be more proactive like Friends of Aaittafama’ who sought out Chickasaw tribal advice for a new name to replace the old ‘Kellytown’. Renaming indigenous sites to names like Many Big Mounds, Tvpvsvnv’/Dragonfly Mound, & Chickamauga Mound is a better way of centering TurtleIsland indigenous origin of these sacred places, and affirms our knowledge that these are indigenous, not euroamerican, sites. Words matter. We should advocate for this indigenous naming correction — native names for native places, the way the American Ornithological Society will change the english names of bird species named after people.

10/12/2023

Nestled in the trees between Westhaven Golf Club and Highway 96 hides a significant piece of ancient history: the remains of two 1,800-year-old Indigenous mound formations.

09/07/2021

shut it down

09/06/2021

a major problem in Tennessee: race-shifters.
Decolonized Buffalo Podcast ~ Episode 83: The (Recent) Settler Turn to Indigeneity: Indigenous Self-Determination and the Challenge of 'Race Shifting'
youtube.com/watch?v=XWnJayQDudw

Episode 83: The (Recent) Settler Turn to Indigeneity: Indigenous Self-Determination and the Challenge of “Race Shifting”Guests:Dr. Darryl Leroux (Saint Mary’...