12/10/2025
Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives…
I want to speak to this in a good way — not to fight, not to shame, but to bring clarity where the world prefers noise.
I see many strong words being shared about “pretendians.”
Some of it is true.
Some of it is medicine.
And some of it… carries a sharpness that can wound the very people we are trying to protect.
In our old laws — wâhkôhtowin, miyo-wîcêhtowin — identity was never proven through aggression, nor through public spectacle.
Identity was lived.
It was relational.
It was known through the footsteps a person left on the land, and the way their relatives spoke their name.
Asking someone, “Who are your people?” is our governance.
We have always done that.
But the moment we begin speaking from anger, from ego, or from performance, we stop protecting the circle and start feeding the very colonial wounds we say we are fighting.
I have lived long enough to see many kinds of voices rise — some loud, some soft, some carrying truth, some carrying pain disguised as authority.
Relatives…
Be careful when someone builds their platform on calling people out, on shaming, on stirring fires they never learned to tend in ceremony.
That is its own kind of identity politics — one that can hurt as deeply as the harm it claims to expose.
We must hold two truths at the same time:
1. Yes — Pretendians cause real harm.
They take resources, positions, trust, and space meant for our people.
Communities have the right — and the responsibility — to verify who belongs.
But also:
2. We must not become colonial in how we protect ourselves.
If our defense becomes dehumanization, humiliation, or cruelty, then we are walking the same road we warn others about.
Our ancestors taught us to be firm…
but they never taught us to be vicious.
They taught us to protect the lodge…
not to turn it into an arena.
Identity is sacred.
Identity is relational.
Identity is lived.
If someone is a fraud, communities will know.
They always have.
Our aunties, our Elders, our Nations — we have been vetting people long before Facebook, long before hashtags.
We don’t need to imitate the colonial courts of public opinion.
We have our own systems.
We have our own ways.
And I will say this gently:
When someone speaks with such aggression, such contempt, such eagerness to tear down — whether they are Indigenous, famous, or unknown — we must discern whether their words come from spirit or from ego.
Because true Indigenous leadership, real Nationhood, does not need to degrade anyone to protect itself.
It stands on truth, not hostility.
It stands on kinship, not spectacle.
êkwa — that is all I will say.
May we speak with the sharpness of clarity,
but also with the softness of responsibility.
May we walk the line between truth and compassion,
holding both like two sacred medicines in one hand.
That is the old way.
—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ
