Indigenous Sovereignty
Indigenous sovereignty is: the sacred responsibility and privilege to live according to the original instructions given to your people since time immemorial..
Indigenous Sovereignty means so much more than fighting for basic human dignity. It means ordering our world in accordance to our ancestral lifeways, it means centering our food, our land, our ceremony, our language, our cosmology, our community, our history, and so much more in the sacred lifeways we have continued since time immemorial.
Indigenous sovereignty is what is referred to as a term of art. It is distinguishable from tribal sovereignty in that it is not a nation-state recognition of inherent sovereignty under nation-state dominion. It arises from indigenous traditional knowledge, belonging to each indigenous nation, tribe, first nation, community, etc. It consists of spiritual ways, culture, language, social and legal systems, political structures, and inherent relationships with lands, waters and all upon them. Indigenous sovereignty exists regardless of what the nation-state does or does not do. It continues as long as the people that are a part of it continue.
Efforts to destroy Indigenous foods is an attack of inherent Indigenous food sovereignty which is connected to respective Indigenous spiritual ways, culture, language, social and legal systems, political structures, and inherent relationships with lands, waters and all upon them.
Indigenous sovereignty links indigenous environmental justice; anti-racism; indigenous just transition; social equity and justice; opposition to the commodification and financialization of nature (and carbon specifically through carbon trading, carbon pricing, carbon taxing, polluter “pays”); the rights of mother earth; desecration of sacred sites; destruction and assaults on lands and waters; and protecting and nurturing tribal sovereignty.
Our long-term goals are focused on building true Indigenous sovereignty for our people and showing what that sovereignty looks like in action. Part of those goals include building an intentional community centering on Southeastern Indigenous and BIPOC folks where housing and food are secure, where we build a community time share model and create systems of living outside of capitalism, where we protect and bring back endangered and at-risk species, and where we bring back traditional lifeways that have long been sleeping for our people and for the land. It is important that we bring the songs, the language, and the lifeways back home to the land. It is important that we build our future in right relationship with the land and with one another – in that respect, Hummingbird Springs is committed to radical ancestral ways of being rooted in collective liberation, a world free of capitalism, colonialism, racism, antiBlackness, gendered and sexuality based oppression, and all forms of exploitation against any living beings. Our goals stop short of nothing but radical joy, freedom from all oppression, and deep healing of the natural world.
We intend for this land and project to honor the ancestors and to benefit our Indigenous communities and all future generations.