U. Southern Maine Funds Mural That Suggests the ‘University Sits on Stolen Land’
“No treaty ever gave this territory to European settlers.”
If this is true, why doesn’t the school just give the land back? Virtue signaling does nothing.
Bangor Daily News reports:
New mural acknowledges a Maine university sits on stolen land
The city sits on unceded Wabanaki land. No treaty ever gave this territory to European settlers.
That fact was recently acknowledged in a preamble passage added to Portland’s city charter in 2022.
Now, the University of Southern Maine is giving a small nod to the same truth, funding a wall-sized mural created by Maine Mi’kmaq artist and alumna Marissa Joly.
The vibrant design is in an upstairs atrium inside USM’s gleaming, new McGoldrick Center for Career & Student Success. Joly is finishing the mural this week. The building will officially open in September.
Joly, 25, grew up in Auburn and earned an art degree from USM in 2021. She is a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, whose tribal land sits on the Restigouche River in Quebec. She won the roughly $10,000 commission to create the mural in the spring after submitting a proposal in response to a call for art ideas.
Joly’s design features a large, purple turtle swimming through stylized, azure waves dotted with lighter blue bubbles. On the animal’s back is a circular medicine wheel, decorated with looping symbols.
The graceful curlicues represent secret designs invented by Native American children sent away to abusive boarding schools in Maine and all across North America.
“The turtle represents the land. In traditional creation stories, North America is considered Turtle Island — the Dawn Land,” Joly said, taking a break from painting on Monday.
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Comments
We, the faculty of Oxford University, acknowledge that we teach on land the the Normans stole from the Danes, who stole it from the Mercians, who stole it from the Celts, who had been under Roman rule but the Romans bugged out because their empire was being invaded by Goths, who were pressed out of their lands by the Huns, and we think somewhere the Mongols were probably involved.
And the Celts stole the land from the Bell Beaker culture, who may have stolen it from Cro-Magnon people.
ALL land is stolen. I am sure that whatever native american group is filing a claim with simply see it as a case of them settling on top of the then current occupants a few hundred years earlier.
I think Irish legend is a great thing to use here…
The Irish acknowledge multiple waves of “ancient peoples” who were driven off Ireland over the centuries. The wikipedia entry states:
A variety of tribal groups and dynasties have inhabited the island, including the Airgialla, Fir Ol nEchmacht, Delbhna, the mythical Fir Bolg, Érainn, Eóganachta, Mairtine, Conmaicne, Soghain, and Ulaid.
(I would only question calling the Fir Bolg “mythical.”) I would swear at least one is missing from that list, but it’s probably in some alternate name.
Bothers you? Just give it back, you humongous hypocrites.
That’s all you need do, and the one thing you won’t.
Because the performance art of the indulgence is much easier than actual repentance and penance.
(Yes, lots of references to indulgences; but Progressivism is a religion, so it’s appropriate.)
It’s performance art. Much like climbing the steps at St Peter’s on your knees to claim your indulgence. With the mural, they have their indulgences for another year or so – all their sins during this time are forgiven.