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What is Nature?
In the English language, we separate "plants" and "animals" from "humans." We also separate “nature” from "everything else." However, this distinction is not the same in every language. For example, it does not exist within many Indigenous languages.
Roo (Catawba Nation) explains how the Catawba do not have a word for differentiating plants, animals or nature from humans. This way of understanding leads to more respectful relationships with the beyond-human world.
How can thinking of humans as part of nature help us to treat the environment better?
Indigenous Land Relationships in the Carolinas
An Interactive Audio Tour created by Quinn Smith through the Equity Through Stories Program
This tour features short audio recordings of Indigenous people telling their own stories connected to their relationship with the land.
< GO TO THE PREVIOUS RECORDING
Jump to another point in the tour:
- We Are Here
- A Living Land Acknowledgement
- Common Misconceptions
- The Meherrin’s Medicines
- The Four Sacred Herbs
- Indigenous Medicinal Plants
- Pine Needle Art: Vickie’s Story
- Who Owns Seeds?
- Birdsongs
- Listen to the World Speak
- Indigenous Fire Practices
- How to Support Indigenous Peoples
- The Story of the White Corn
- Why the Leaves Change Color
- The Story of the Three Sisters
- Growing up in Hillsborough, 1940s
- Rethinking Traditional Plants
About Quinn Smith, Jr.
Quinn is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, majoring in public policy with a documentary studies certificate. As a documentarian, Quinn strives to challenge our misconceptions of Indigenous people by documenting a long-silenced, shared humanity.
What drew Quinn to the Equity through Stories Program was the ability to uplift Indigenous truths and to forge reciprocal relationships with Indigenous people throughout the Carolinas. Quinn does this by interviewing Indigenous people about their relationships with the land and weaving their stories into audio documentaries to be exhibited at the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants. He also initiates seed-sharing and other reciprocal ventures between Indigenous peoples and Blomquist Gardens. Quinn hopes that his work will help to re-educate Duke Garden’s 500,000+ annual visitors and to create a healing space for Indigenous people.
