Two-Eyed Seeing: The Best of Both Worldviews

 

Two-Eyed Seeing developed from the teachings of Chief Charles Labrador of Acadia First Nation.  Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall (Eskasoni First Nation) was the first to apply the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing in a Western setting. According to authors C. Bartlett, M. Marshall and A. Marshall, two-eyed seeing “refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing, and to use both of these eyes together for the benefit of all.”  They go on to explain that Elder Albert Marshall stresses that Two-Eyed Seeing requires groups to weave through both ways of knowing as one might be more applicable in certain situations.

The Institute for Integrative Science and Health  had Two-Eyed Seeing or Etuaptmumk in the Mi’kmaw language as it’s Guiding Principle since Elder Albert Marshall introduced it there in 2004. In a video on the institute website, founder, Dr. Cheryl Bartlett explains that Western science pulls patterns apart to understand them and find the mechanisms by which they work.  Indigenous science, rather than picking things apart, looks at patterns within patterns and a weaving of yourself and your understanding into the world in which you live.

I have been hearing more people talk about Two-Eyed Seeing and I thought that I’d share some of those examples from my experience.  The first one comes from the land where I now live on the edge of Georgian Bay in the community of Wauabuashene.  The first reserve set up by the government in what is now known as Canada was the Coldwater Narrows Reserve. Part of this reserve was in Waubaushene.  It was created to gather the Anishinaabeg in what is now known as Simcoe County onto a reserve to allegedly keep them safe from the influx of European settlers into the area.  The Anishinaabeg who were traditionally hunters, fishers and gatherers who moved from region to region during the seasons to access the food they needed, were told by the government that they had to clear the land of trees, farm in a European way and stay on this reserve.  The Anishinaabeg learned how to do this with very little help from the government.  In fact they got so good at it that the government forced them off of the land after six years to give it to the settlers.  I recently heard a local Anishinaabeg Elder, John Rice, explain that this was an early example of Two-Eyed Seeing.  The Anishinaabeg learned how to farm in the Western way while maintaining their own Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing.

The second example comes from the CBC Ideas Massey Lectures 2022, in which Cree author and musician Tomson Highway explained that when the Cree moved off of the reserves into Western society, they had to go from a circular worldview to a linear worldview.  This would be another example of Two-Eyed Seeing that Indigenous Peoples have had to adopt in order to survive the dominant Western culture.

A third example is our Community Garden in which we are using both Indigenous and Western ways of gardening.  The garden is circular as opposed to the rectangular shape of Western garden with long straight rows. The shape is symbolic of a circular worldview.  It also allows us to use some of the principles of permaculture which has been developed by non-Indigenous people who are influenced by carefully observing nature.  In the Community Garden, we have the Three Sisters (corn, beans and squash) in the centre of the garden.  This is based on a traditional Indigenous way of growing these three vegetables together.  The corn provides a stalk to support the pole beans and the squash covers the ground with prickly leaves that keeps away predators.  Together, these three vegetables provide complete proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins and can sustain people for long periods of time.  The story of the Three Sisters can be heardhere. 

Western scientific knowledge tells us that the beans have nodules on their roots that contain a bacteria that can absorb nitrogen from the air.  In this symbiotic relationship, the beans provide the bacteria with carbohydrates and once the plant dies, the nodules open and release the nitrogen into the soil.  Corn is a high protein plant that needs lots of nitrogen to grow well.  While corn provides a stalk for beans to grow on, the beans through their relationship with the bacteria, provide the nitrogen that the corn needs.  The squash’s leafy cover, prevents evaporation of moisture from the soil, thus helping all three plants to have enough water.

Understanding from a relational point of view as well as the Western view of pulling things apart gives us a fuller understanding of the Three Sisters.  It has been found that when planted together, there is a 30% increase in yield as opposed to planting them separately.  In the Western way of knowing we call this companion planting. In the Indigenous way of knowing, we have a teaching story about sisters.  These two ways of knowing are a good example of Two-Eyed Seeing.

With Two-Eyed Seeing, a person doesn’t have to give up their own worldview. Instead, they just have to realize that there are many points of view and make space within themselves to entertain another point of view.  It is the best of both worlds kind of approach that just seems to make sense especially when we are facing so many challenges in the world today.

Another example of Two-Eyed Seeing from the Community Garden is how we share the food.  In a traditional Western community garden, each person has their own little plot.  They can grow whatever they want and the food is all theirs.  I know that people in these kinds of gardens do share what they don’t need with each other and sometimes help each other with watering.  In a traditional Indigenous way of knowing, all the food is shared with everyone in the community. And so, at our Community Garden, we decided to take that approach and share the food with whoever wanted it or needed it.  People were encouraged to stop by and pick something for their supper. At times we took ripe produce to various people in the community and it was shared through the library as well.  Some was used for food at community events.  Visitors to the park were invited to come and pick something for their lunch.  Kids were really excited to do that.  This worldview took some people by surprise but almost everyone was happy to take part.

I have been studying Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) for the past four years.  It is challenging to learn but also intriguing as the culture is embedded in the language.  Speaking the language requires using my mouth and throat in a different way and so I am embodying the culture as I do so. It is a softer language than English and does not use inflection to add meaning.  It is also highly descriptive and based on observation.  From an Indigenous way of knowing, this is the language that emerged from the land where I live.  When I speak it, I feel an added closeness to the land, water and other life forms that I share this space with.

If Indigenous Peoples who moved from reserves into cities had to go from a circular worldview, to a linear one, then perhaps I can learn to understand a circular one.  I have been experimenting with this for a number of years and it is challenging.  The old “time-line” in which birth is at one end and death at the other, is firmly embedded and embodied in me.  However, I keep on trying.  One way to do this is to think of the seasons as going around a circle so that there is no beginning and no end.  That is fairly easy.  What about the life-line of events from birth to death?  In this case, the past can seem very far away and impossible to access and heal traumas from that time.  If I think of time in a circular or cyclical way, then, the past is never too far away.  In fact, I may bump into the traumas from that past from time to time.  I can access them more easily and perhaps digest and heal from them as well.

My parents were immigrants to Canada from England and although they spoke the same language as Canadians, they had a different accent, used different words and phrases and had different customs and foods.  As a child, I was sent out to discover what Canadians did for certain holidays, to understand customs.  So, from an early age, I knew that there was more than one way of doing things.  I wove between English and Canadian culture quite easily.  Working in health care in the cosmopolitan city of Toronto, I met people from many countries and cultures.  I learned how to weave there as well.  And so, I suppose, for me, Two-Eyed Seeing seems natural and obvious.  I just can’t believe that other non-Indigenous Peoples aren’t up for the task of learning to weave these two knowledges as well. In fact, I believe that we can do what it takes to solve all the problems we are facing through collaboration.

My vision of Canada in the future is one in which Two-Eyed Seeing is applied in schools, in medicine, in government, in land management and in communities. I believe that seeing through the lens of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing can open up a wealth of sustainable practices and ways of renewing our relationship with the land, waters, animals, insects, fish, birds, rocks, trees and plants.

  References

Bartlett C, Marshall M, Marshall A. Two-Eyed Seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together Indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing. J Environ Stud Sci 2012;2:331-340.

 

Of Crows and Men: A Spring Story

 

The crows had already gathered on the disintegrating lake ice of early April.  There must have been at least two dozen of them all together.  Enough to be called a murder. They seemed to just be standing around.  Occasionally, one would dip its beak down to the ice, maybe having a drink of cool refreshing water – a kind of crow water cooler event perhaps – sharing news, telling stories.

 We could see them from our perch on the hill above the beach sitting on a sun-warmed park bench, our legs outstretched on an ottoman of hard drift-packed snow.  In Anishinaabemowin, a crow is called aandeg.  Aan refers to a change that has occurred and dekaa refers to the cold.  According to Joseph Pitawanakwat, when crows play together in springtime, it is a sign that the season has changed. 

In English, the crows are plotting a murder while in Anishinaabemowin, they are enjoying the joys of spring. The presence of the crows gathered out on the early spring ice could have been understood either way if one was paying attention. As we watched the crows, it occurred to me that their presence would provide a wonderful foreshadowing image for the start of a story.

There was little wind and the early evening sun still cast some rays of warmth that our dark clothes soaked up.  From our vantage point we could see some open water close to the mouth of Duck Bay where there was a current going into the larger body of water called Sturgeon Bay.  My partner commented on how peaceful it was sitting there with none of the machines that are frequently heard here in Waubaushene.  Machines such as snowmobiles, snowblowers, leafblowers, chainsaws, wood chippers, lawnmowers, dirt bikes and motorized boats to say nothing of the sound from the major highway that passes by the edge of the village on its way to Toronto.

As soon as he finished speaking, as if by way of foreshadowing, we heard the distant whine of an engine from the shoreline to the south.  The engine sound got louder and we both realized that it was the sound of a snowmobile – on the ice.  Every year, snowmobilers go through the ice around this time of the year and so it is hard to understand why people would continue this practice.  Alcohol may have had something to do with these decisions or so it is said.

Two snowmobiles came into view from the south as they headed straight for the beach along the shoreline. I held my breath even though the ice seemed to be holding up the two machines.  Once they got to the beach, one of the men made a ninety degree turn away from the shore so that he was heading towards the deeper part of the bay.  He gunned the engine repeatedly and travelled about a hundred feet.  Once again, I held my breath and searched for my phone.

“He’s in,” said my partner as we watched the snowmobile break through the thin ice and sink into the water.  I got my phone out, prepared to call for help but the driver stood up and the water was only to his chest.  The snowmobile was vertical and sticking out of the ice.  The other driver stopped his machine and walked over to the hole as the downed driver, soaking wet by now, clambered onto the ice.  The two men talked for a bit and then tried to pull the vertical snowmobile onto the ice.  Predictably, they both broke through and ended up in the frigid lake water once again.  I still had my phone in my hand but other people had gathered at the top of the hill at that point and one woman called 911 for help.  A pair of crows flew overhead surveying the scene.

Then the two men got on the still functioning snowmobile and drove away back down the shoreline in the direction from which they had come.  The people who had gathered on the land, left as well.  We could see the crows still out on the ice safely enjoying their gathering.  If the men on the snowmobiles had understood that the crows’ behaviour was signalling a change of season, they could have avoided this unfortunate event.  No need for the crows to plot a murder with humans acting in ways that could result in disaster.

Once again, we were alone at the beach.  We waited for the rescuers so that they would know that there was no one in the water.  Two firetrucks with six volunteer firefighters, two police officers in separate cars, a rescue truck with two divers in dry suits and a drone operator plus one ambulance filled the parking lot with flashing lights and sirens.  I’ll bet that got the attention of the crows who like such shiny things.  Perhaps they thought we were having a spring celebration as they were.

We spoke to the first firefighter and told him the story.  We walked him along the long concrete pier so that he could see where the snowmobile had broken through the ice.  The rescuers were happy that no one had lost their life and they good naturedly went along with the business of having two divers verify that there was no body and that there was indeed a snowmobile under the water.

After a while, one of the snowmobilers came back.  He spoke rudely to the rescuers and when asked to speak to the police officer, he sped back down the bay.  The rescuers didn’t seem bothered by this.  Instead, they sent a drone up to follow his tracks and make sure that he hadn’t broken through the ice anywhere else.  This was not their first experience of drunken snowmobilers getting into trouble or so they said.

More villagers gathered at the pier, telling stories of near misses on the lake on snowmobiles, of calling for an ambulance and only getting a cop because the dispatcher thought it was a prank call.  It was spring after all and many of us hadn’t seen each other in months.  We heard the news of a neighbour in a care facility, of a trip to Florida, and of a new baby in the village whose father coincidentally was one of the volunteer firefighters at the scene.  Every now and then a big laugh would erupt from the group of rescuers at the end of the pier.  “What would a group of rescuers be called?” I wondered.  A relief of rescuers, a response of rescuers?

Eventually, one of the police officers came and took our details as we were witnesses to the event.  We told our story one more time. Some of the villagers made sure to thank the rescuers for their service.  And then, the rescuers walked back to their respective rescue vehicles and made their way back up the hill and out of town.  A few villagers lingered on the park benches and we told the story one more time.

The crows were still out on the ice doing whatever it was that they were doing.  Did they wonder what all the flashing lights, people in funny gear and laughter was about.  Perhaps we are as much a mystery to them as they are to us.  Being a light bird who can fly makes standing on the early spring ice quite safe.  They know what they are doing.  Driving a heavy machine onto the same ice while probably under the influence of some substance is not safe.  Those men did not know what they were doing. 

But as one police officer said, “No one died,” despite the murder of crows and the choices of the men.  The machine will get pulled out of the lake by more rescuers.  People got something to watch and so did the crows.  Relationships were renewed and the feeling of spring buoyed everyone’s spirits. Perhaps some lessons were learned by the men on the snowmobiles, perhaps not. It was not a new story for the village but a seasonal one that was nevertheless told and retold for days to come. Perhaps even the crows told one another about the excitement out on the spring ice.