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After reading Dave Pollard's response to Chris Corrigan's and Meg Wheatley's question of "Big Question", I thought about it myself.

From Meg: How do you call yourself? How do you identify yourself? And have you chosen a name for yourself that is big enough to hold your life's work? I have a colleague who first suggested this to me. And he said, "So many of us choose names that are too small for a whole life." So, we call ourselves, 'cancer survivors;' that seems to be a very bold name, but is it big enough to hold a life? Or, 'children of abuse.' Or, we call ourselves 'orphans,' or 'widows,' or 'martyrs'.... are these names big enough to hold your life?

From Chris: What is the name that is big enough to hold your life? This is a name beyond who we are and who we have been - it is a name that we tremble to live into.

From what I understand, Coast Salish language's are built with less of an emphasis on nouns, but more verb-based. Very few things have "terms" for when you compare it to European languages such as English, or even comparing it to northern language's like Kwak'wala. The vocabulary has more terms and words for actions, and few things exist that have "names for things". This also includes place names (village site, resource sites, historical sites, spiritual sites, etc). The names of people, called ancestrials names are the same.

Some names mean "She Wears Two Mountain Goat Wool Blankets", or "Weaver of Mountain Goat Blankets", or "First Man to Appear", or "Travels Across the Inlet by Canoe to Gather Medicines". The ancestral or kweshamin are given to decedents of those who previously carried the name. That is what it is, to carry the name, but not own it. For one day, that name will be passed on. This inter-passing of time is a reoccurring theme amongst my peoples history and culture. The names themselves are passed on for distinct reasons. In some cases, elders of the village will note the similarities of the child and their ancestors that they remembered from when they were younger. It's from this connection it would be decided where the name would carry forth. In some cases, the names came with positions of prestige and responsibilities, and the person best suited to fulfill those would carry on the name of their ancestor. Then it could also be that the characteristics of an individual best suited the meaning of the name held by one of their ancestors.

In one re-told case I know of, one Sḵwxwú7mesh was given a name by the community. He was a warrior who completed an difficult task for his peoples well being, as well as attained supernatural gifts from the Creator. This earned him the admiration and respect of his people, and they gave him a name to show this in honoring him, and his work. This could be how ancestral names are Created. Not by the will of a few, but by the members of a community.

Imagine this. You are gifted a family heirloom stretching back thousands of years (yes, thousands!) to hold, to carry, and to cherish with respect. You have the strength of dozens of pas ancestors who once carried the name, and their legacy and achievements flow through you now too. It comes with a responsibility, to uphold the value of this, for your ancestors, for your family, and for future generations that will carry the name on too. Is this a name big enough to hold your life?


Titles and positions are tricky things. In some cases, they are used ferociously to create a front denoting power, superiority, and self-induced prestige. In other cases, they contain power of liberation and freedom from pre-determined definitions. In indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest though, titles and positions carry with them the implicit actions that apart of the title. It is simply not enought to "hold" that position, using it as a letterhead for life, but that it is a way of life. That what that position or title is, carries with it the way in which you inter-act with the natural world, with human systems like community, and with the circumstances that dictate your own existance. This ain't the same in Settler/Colonizer society. Unfortunately, many of our people don't realize this and either unknowingly or ignorantly adopt Euro-Canadian titles and positions, and use them in the same way as our colonizers forgeting from memory the nature of our ancestors roles in their community.

So that's how I define myself, if I am to define myself. For proposals I write or events I am asked to speak at, what do I put for "titles" next to my name. Dustin Rivers - Amazing son, or perhaps, Dustin Rivers - Shitdistuber!. Both very true, but information you need to know for different contexts. What titles or positions do people assume on me? Up and coming leader? Role model? So twho am I? Activist. Artist. Community organizer. Cultural teacher. Traditional singer. Who knows!

Naming things is a strength. In naming things, you can identify it, and then people can identify with it. It's a way to connect around something simple and complex at the same time. We name things to bring people together.

My life purpose is big enough to hold my life. To bad it isn't a single word, and that could be my name. Perhaps one day I will be given an ancestral name, and that will be big enough to hold my life, and the lives of many before me, and many to come. In any case, we are defined by others and ourselves. It's just a matter of which is defines us more, and which one we let define us more then the other.

My life purpose is:

Hey people,

Just wanted to send out a quick message. Traditional Singing Practices are back on. Here is the deets:

Monday's @ SN Youth Centre (older building)
**NEW TIME**
5:30PM

Open to all our Skwxwu7mesh people, families, children, and people interested in learning our songs. Also encouraging our traditional singers to come join in the fun. We have a lot of fun and just jam out with drums for an hour an bit. Play slahal (bonegame) sometimes too.

Email me at dustin.rivers@gmail.com if you want more info.

I recently picked up a book on recommendation from Chris Corrigan called Theory U: Leading from the Future As It Emerges by C. Otto Scharmer. In my up and coming work on community dialogue, emerging leadership, and break down barriers of systems in creative change, I asked him for suggested reading. The opening forward from Peter Senge nailed everything I’m experiencing with my world and my “anxiety about the future, growing dissatisfaction with and distrust of virtually all social institutions”.

I am only part way through the introduction, but felt necessary to share something that sparked my thoughts, and to document my discourse throughout reading this book because I have a sense I will harvest and learn much from it. (Chris, I think it’s time I change my question I follow and harvest!)


My growing “anxiety about the future, growing dissatisfaction with and distrust of virtually all social institutions” is in nearly all things.

I’ve become mistrustful of the Band Council governance system, to it’s whole machine operations. I once said to a friend, “I’m tired of working with that government and the Squamish Nation, and think I won’t anymore right now”, and his response was, “If everyone did that, nothing would happen”. I responded to that and said, “If no one does that, the same thing will keep on happening”. It’s a viewpoint of mine that the “Squamish Nation” is an illegitimate government

I’m skeptical of the “traditional” leadership, what ever that is supposed to mean. What I believe is that the Amalgamation is more myth than fact. In the late 1800’s, the Indian Agents assigned who were the “chiefs” over the reserves, and these became the “hereditary chiefs”. Within the Canadian government, and the Indian Act, they became the controller of a government designated land base; the reserves. In 1923, someone signed an amalgamation for bring the 16 reserves under one body, the Squamish Nation. It has been done before in British Columbia where the government arbitrarily brought multiple reserves under one name to make it easy for control and oppression.

I question the legitimacy of the old ways having precedence in modern times. Violence occurred every so often among our young people. What comes afterward is more fear-based response to increase policing and monitoring, and create a Police-guided security force to do their dirty work. I’m thinking, “Where are the elders in this?”. Some will say to outsiders that our culture is still alive, but is my mind crazy to deduce that if our young people were doing something they shouldn’t be doing, the community leaders, and the elders, would sit that person down and talk to them. That this type of justice was about restoring balance to the community. Within there lies the double standard because some will go after certain individuals presuming a “cultural” privilege to “teach” some young people, and to “judge” them worthy of said “justice”. Yes, you’ll go after them because it’s easier, convenient, and less difficult.

Perhaps I’m out of line for calling on these hypocritical social institutions within our community. It may come from my need to contemplatively be critical of all of which does not make sense to me. Don’t worry, I do it to myself quite frequently. I also hold up supposed “traditions” and “teachings” the same way to see if they are true and valid, but most that they make sense. Maybe our community needs this kind of vigorous critical analyses because you “can’t change or heal what you do not acknowledge”.

I’m told that this may be the role of the young people. To keep the older ones honest, and true, for they may have lost that sense of belief in what is right and wrong some time ago. Perhaps my knowledge of our history and culture, and my experience with our current community leads me to try to see if everything around here is true and honest. I know some of you will say, “Your in your head too much, need to come from you heart”, which I could probably debate with you for hours on whether that is true (that I need to come from my heart), I think many of the people who support me would be worried if I wasn’t thinking about these things. haha.


If all social institutions are failing, crumbling, and becoming so infected on what it’s supposed to be, what do we do then?


To put things in perspective, most social institutions worldwide are failing and crumbling. They are unsustainable. The Squamish Nation Band Council governance is unsustainable. 100 years from now, will we still make decisions (as a community) the way we are now?

I have no answers here, just questions. Curious questions that I haven’t heard anyone else ask.

Liberated Yet?, a weblog that uses self-publishing technology and the internet to publish content like text, images, art, and sometimes video and sound, is a tool I began as a means to accomplish a goal. This goal was originally designed to express my indignation as well as my idea’s, for many of the time those two are interconnected for me. I also set out with the goal to communicate with other individuals, both from my people, and the world. This weblog, once published, is put onto the internet and can be accessed by anyone in the world. With other internet projects, it’s also stored in databases forever. It was birth from two previous blogs that I tried out, learned from, then decided to re-imagine to create Liberated Yet?

The name comes from a question about an idea. As an indigenous person who either out of passion and interest or circumstance learned the context for his existence. That context is he is colonized. Colonialism is not just a process, but a paradigm too. It is apart of the social fabric coming from European, and later Euro-Canadian or Euro-American dominance in the world through it’s ideologies and paradigms. It’s intend is to abolish a pre-existing set of ideologies, paradigms, and the people and land within those, indigenous people and land. Theft of land, breaking down of pre-existing local indigenous population, culture, and societies, are all hallmarks of colonization. I’ve discussed this on more detail before.

The name of this blog comes from a question to an idea. Liberation, as a chant of hope, as a means to work to overcome dominance and control from something, as an opportunity to say an end to the oppression, is something I call a path for myself, and others, to see our indigenous people rise up. In some context, peoples have taken up liberation movements to rise up and out of oppression and foreign control. It comes from the word liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force. It’s something, I believe, our people had before colonization, and something we do not have now, but only if we can remain our ancestral memory and not the inoculated existence our colonizers gave us. So the question is really, are you liberated yet?

Within my community, a nation of 7 villages and a population of over 3,000, communication is in a desire state. I understand it to be the focal point for any community to network and be cohesive in any sense, either as self-knowledge or to accomplish shared visions. If we look into the past, the level of community was much more cohesive because of the close quarters of living and harmonious lifestyles between branches of families, extended families, inter-tribal relations, and spiritual connection to ceremonies, traditions, and customs.

Presently, the SN puts out a weekly flyer in North Vancouver and Squamish with ads, job postings, and the odd informational flyer. Decisions at the highest level are decided upon by the Band Councilors at weekly meeting where information on the decision to be made are mostly presented at those meetings. The inner-workings of said councilors in projects, committees, and negotiations are done and information of that is kept within that section of the SN. These effect things like what happens on our land, with development, trespassing, cultural significant area’s, and homes, and other things like employees, programs working to create, restore, to accomplish something for the population. Like I said, the information, from the highest order, is mostly kept within their ranks. In some cases, the happening of said initiatives are held secret from the community.

The Squamish Nation Band Council is similar to all Band Councils in the regard of how it deals with community dialogue in issues of concern and opposition. Simply put, it doesn’t like it. Like all colonial institutions, this political system is adversarial in nature. It puts A vs. B. If something happens and information about something the community disagrees with, there is some resistance. Water-cooler talk, and gossip, and some level of indignant letter writing. I know that first-hand because I’ve taken part in this since I became interested in politics. Generally, they operate on this belief that if they wait it out, the opposition will eventually die down and they can get back to work. This tends to horribly bad for the future of the community because in some cases the guiding forces at the Band Council are foreign influences. The guiding interests in where we as a community should go does not come from the community. This create awful situations where short-term idea’s, or in some extremes, self-interested benefits, come from the politicians and many time, energy, and work is put into it.

Within my community, we have no media. Before the Vancouver City election, it came out through a leak to the media that the Vancouver City council had given $100,000,000 dollars to the developers for the Olympics village. The secrecy of this cause a stir in the public and created a wave against the reigning Non-Partisan Alliance party. To keep politics of the society aware, understood, and investigated upon, there is a media to do that. A media to share the stories, information, and beliefs from all area’s of it’s society. Some parts of the world, it’s illegal to do that, and you will most likely result in death.

In my community, there is nothing to keep the politicians honest. There is also no means to keep the public informed of the what is happening in our community, in our territory, in the rooms of the current political leaders.

I have taken a stance before, but I do not identify as Squamish Nation. The Squamish Nation is an Indian Act governance structure imposed on the Skwxwu7mesh-ulh as a tactic of colonialism to fracture the people and usurp our land. I identify as my ancestors for thousands of years have identified: Skwxwu7mesh-ulh. The amalgamation of 1923 that was the de-facto formation of the Squamish Nation is shrouded in more mystery and myth then anything known by our people. If we are to take the thought that the amalgamation was the signing of a document by the then 16 “hereditary” chiefs of 16 Indian Act reserves as truth, it was exactly that. Indian Act chiefs, originally placed into power by the church then later the government after appropriating the historical governing system of “siyam”, formation a coalition to protect the reserves from being sold out.

My land doesn’t end where the imagery line for the reserves starts. My land is thousands of hectares used and stewarded by my ancestors for thousands of years. It does not belong to me, or any one person, family, or government. It’s used for resources gathering, and carried in stewardship for future generations to have the same abilities as we presently do, and the same as our ancestors. This land was stolen from my ancestors, and remains so presently. At the moment the beneficiaries of that theft are still allowed to benefit off that criminal act. Yes, that’s you Canadian population.

I don’t recognize the Squamish Nation Band Council as “my” government. My government was destroyed by the colonizers many decades ago. I recognize that the Squamish Nation, because of colonial constructs, has been able to assert and find a significant amount of power. This is through power of will in the people believing in this false institution, and through the power to wield many resources like money, people (staff), and legal authority.

To think critically is to think of other possibilities. To question the status-quo, goes without saying, is a strong indicator of a strong society. To debate idea’s and positions is a way that we better find the collective wisdom to ensure the best possible choice for where we move forward as a people. As our ancestors asked of themselves, we must strive to live to our highest ideals. I mean, live, to them.

It isn’t always the case to live to them always, or even that they agreed on the same values. Some think this gives them to the right to disposes others by veiled threats and attacks of betraying their cultural values, and thus betraying their ancestors. I don’t mean that by any means. I know I can be arrogant and sarcastic, but I still strive to live to my, decolonized, most important values. It’s why I question, it’s why I think critically, it’s why and how I care.

Why do I feel the need to defend myself? Partly to educate some because the feedback I’ve received. But also to be firm, confident, and strong in my position, not just on this blog but as a person who cares about his community, his culture, and where those go into the future. I intend to be a strong member of my community in a way to help and create things for the better. I hope to find others to do the same. I wish to create change through alternative means, because the status-quo disgusts my integrity to create the change that by the current way. I want to find my place a leader, like all previous strong leaders in our community have, and hopefully create more leaders, not more followers. I want to have a strong community that can face the most serious threats and crisis.

I want liberation.

Last spring I was awarded the YVR Art Foundation Scholarship. This helped me buy carving tools, research money, and take some time to focus on my Coast Salish art practice and to pick up carving again. Years ago I started carving with Jody Broomfield, a close relative of mine, but put it down, and now, am picking it back up again. This time I'm apprenticing with Aaron Nelson-Moody or Splash as everyone knows him. He is also my brother-in-law (his wife is my first cousin, which in my culture is my sister).

I'm currently writing the Coast Salish art article at wikipedia and will share a tid-bit about what Coast Salish art is:

Coast Salish art is an art is an art unique to the Pacific Northwest Coast among the Coast Salish peoples. It also differs from other Northwest Coast art in that it is more minimalist and straight forward. A believe in the overexposure of spirit images would weaken the spiritual powers of the beings portray made, and as a result very few pieces were produced. The art form is used in carving spindle whorls, house posts, welcome figures, canoes, combs, and bent wood boxes.

One of the most studied Coast Salish art form is the "Spindle Whorl". Whorls were placed on the wood shafts, the spindles, and the loose strands of wool were spun. Some of the circular spindle whorl would be plain, but others would have elaborate designs and beings depicted.

The conceptual artform has been a staple among many Coast Salish artists in their contemporary art. I felt it was an equally intriguing place to start on learning Coast Salish art and how to carve. As part of the art grant, I will be carving a replica of an old Sḵwxwú7mesh spindle whorl that may have belonged to my great-great-great grandmother ta7a Skisí7. What little information we know about the spindle whorl is that it was sold in front of the St. Paulls Church in Eslha7an for a bottle of milk and some bread.



Lately I've taken my pencil, and my paper, and been drawing like crazy. Human beings, sea-lions, thunderbirds, sea-serpents, and eagles. I'm working on the "basics" like size in shapes, the proper formline, and layering of shapes.

Flat-design art and carving art differ in what you want to achieve so it takes a different way of thinking when working with either medium, but one does come from the other. The spindle whorl I'm carving right now, measuring approx. 7.5 inch, is my own creation. As you can see in the photo, I'm carving away the wood. What my current task is to create a slant emanating from the centre and slowly extend to the outside, but keeping it balance and even all the way around.

This isn't my first spindle whorl, but it feels refreshing and fun to pick up the carving knife and the wood again. There is something meditative about slowly working your away at it in slow and precise pressure. Gradually taking away the shards of cedar until the shape you desire emerges from the block.

The soul is a open ocean and the emotions command the volatile or ease of the waves, and this becomes ever more present in the strokes you take when carving. As you think, your body becomes filled with intense emotion from stress or happiness, and your knife takes this and applies it to the wood. So a check in balance is carefully watched. It's this intuitive self-reflection I enjoy so much. Paying attention the emotions, adjusting them accordingly, and watching the results come through.

The design that will go on here has been thought up, but not sketched out yet. All I can say for now is that it's a Thunderbird and human face. There's a story about how the knowledge of how to attain the spiritual shaman power came to my people from the Thunderbird, and another story of how the Thunderbird showed us the proper way after the Flood. Either way, my knowledge of tribal history and understanding of my people spirituality guide me in my creativity, which makes it so damn easy because all I have to do is ask myself "What story and the values expressed in that story, have a lot of value for me today?".

As I progress on this piece, I'll post updates and harvest on my blog what comes from the process.