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Indigenous Archaeology and Decolonization with Kay Mattena - Ep 102
503 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, we are joined by Kay Mattena, a Ph.D. student in Archaeology and Indigenous Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a Descendent of the Citizen Band of Potawatomi, and first appeared on Episode 54: SAA 86th Annual Conference, and Indigneous Response. We talk about her earliest encounters with science, nature, and archaeology and delve into her undergraduate career. We then take a deep dive into Indigenous archaeology and how museum collections can be decolonized. We finish out by talking about ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology.
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
For rough transcripts of this episode go to www.archpodnet.com/archaeotech/102
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to episode 102 of a Life in Ruins podcast, re-investigate the careers of those living life in ruins. I'm your host, Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-host, Connor Johnen and David Howe.
Kay Matina's Background and Early Influences
00:00:25
Speaker
In this episode, we are joined by Kay Matina, a PhD student in archaeology and indigenous science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a descendant of the Citizen Band of Potawatomi.
00:00:36
Speaker
and she first appeared on episode 54 SA 86 annual conference and Indigenous response. Kay, thank you so much for coming back on the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. How are y'all? You know.
00:00:50
Speaker
yeah i don't know i guess we should say what day this we're recording this is february 28th we might be dead tomorrow we don't know but if you're hearing it now you know we made it yeah we made it is that too heavy i think it'll be okay everyone's thinking it timely yeah
00:01:07
Speaker
I got my PewDiePie lights all blue and yellow with my Ukrainian flag hanging up. It's a mood. The mood we are in for today, though, is to actually have Kay back on the show to talk about her research. I started off this show Kay in a total 180. What were your first experiences in anthropology growing up? We've asked previous guests, were you a dinosaur kid history buff or nature nerve? What first drove you to anthropology?
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, so as a 90s kid, I grew up with the Discovery Channel and History Channel actually being the Discovery Channel and History Channel. And so alongside, you know, Billy and Mandy encouraged the Cowardly dog. I watched those sorts of things and that really got me interested in science. But then on top of that, I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. And although I no longer support collecting, my family was a family of collectors.
00:01:56
Speaker
And we're really interested in archaeology and especially like ancestry and things like that within our own family history. And from a very young age, I was told all about my family history on both sides of my family. So especially on my dad's side of the family, we are mainly white settlers. One side of my family, my dad's grandfather is all Italian immigrants.
00:02:20
Speaker
that immigrated somewhat mysteriously. My grandpa says that it is potentially mafia or mob related, which is interesting. It also could just be a story, we don't know. And on my grandmother's side, that side of the family came over on the Mayflower.
00:02:38
Speaker
and walked to Utah with Brigham Young and were some of the first settlers in the Salt Lake City Valley. Well, actually more towards the Uinta Mountains if you know anything about Utah geography. And then on that same side of the family, I'm related to Bill Hickman, who was the hitman for Brigham Young that was tasked with eradicating the indigenous people in the Salt Lake City Valley.
00:03:01
Speaker
And so on the other side, with my mother's family, we are French, Scottish, and related to both Pontiac and Chifobonsie of the Potawatomi nations. And so sort of a complicated history of people that never should have ended up together, but did, and reconciled, and found love.
Transition from Zoology to Anthropology
00:03:18
Speaker
And so that sort of
00:03:20
Speaker
guided me on my interest in science and history, but most of all people and what makes us us. And that's really what got me excited about history. And then I also sort of started in zoology actually. So starting with Steve Irwin and Animal Planet, I actually at the age of eight emailed Steve Irwin and he responded.
00:03:46
Speaker
and started sending, right? Crikey. And was sending me like gift packages and email correspondences and things like that up until his death. And his death really devastated me. But prior to his death, I really wanted to be a zoologist and was planning totally on traveling to Australia and learning zoology. But after his death, I was devastated, hit my pre-teens and pre-teen
00:04:12
Speaker
depression set in and dealt with a lot of trauma and sexual violence and things like that that totally changed my course. And later in my teens, I decided I wanted to be a CSI person working in criminal justice and things like that. And then, yeah, that kind of goes further along into my undergraduate degree where it all started. Just want to say really quick that that story, you might be the most American person I know.
00:04:43
Speaker
And you're an Italian immigrant because America, America, you got a lot going on there. And the other thing I would say before I let everyone else talk would be that I also was like devastated when Steve Irwin died. I didn't go to school the next day because it was just like a bummer. And I was watching all like the stuff on TV and whatnot. And yeah, that's, I think that's something common. Like a lot of scientists, kids share.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, my aunt actually called to check on me and that's how I found out. And we were out fishing and I was totally devastated. Did you punch your facial stingray? No, I just cried a lot. Can I ask you a question about your communication with him? How was writing letters to Steve Irwin? Like how were those conversations? It was very unexpected. It was like I
00:05:32
Speaker
Like for me, this sounds kind of weird, but Steve Irwin was like my Santa Claus and like my one wish was to be a zoologist. So I was talking to my mom about it and she was like, just send an email. We'll draft an email together and send him an email. And if he responds, awesome. But if he doesn't, you at least got to send your your letter to Santa, so to speak. So and he responded really quickly and was incredibly kind and supportive and.
00:06:00
Speaker
essentially like sort of expressed the desire to see me grow into a zoologist. Yeah. So hopefully I'm not letting him down, even though I'm not a zoologist. I think he'd be proud to know that you pursued higher education in the sciences in general though. Yeah. Steve taught us well. He did. He did. So that kind of like circling back to your passion for CSI. So did you originally go into undergrad for like forensic anthropology?
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I contacted a friend of mine, or actually more of a mentor. She was, I believe, the fifth female supervisor of a crime lab, and she was actually the supervisor for the Las Vegas crime lab.
00:06:43
Speaker
And I contacted her just for advice because I was that weird kid looking at colleges when I was like 12. And so I reached her out to her when I was that age. And she had said that if I had gone to Mercyhurst University, which is in Erie, Pennsylvania, for their forensic anthropology, that she would hire me without a test.
00:07:02
Speaker
And that's based entirely on Mercyhurst. Forensic anthropology program is incredibly rigorous, but they also require a lot of hands-on experience. So they have their own forensics lab and team that goes out and does forensic investigations that undergrads get to be a part of. And so it provides really practical and tangible hands-on experience rather than just book experience.
Educational Journey and Influences
00:07:24
Speaker
And so I started
00:07:25
Speaker
So, going into that, especially after dealing with and moving past my trauma, I wanted to be able to help others who no longer had a voice themselves. Gotcha. Were you there when Adavazia was still faculty at Mercyhurst? I sure was for a hot second. Did you do the field school with him?
00:07:44
Speaker
I did not. So he was only there for maybe three months of my freshman year. And then he was removed from the faculty. And so we did our field school actually in Pennsylvania in Kustaloga town. Gotcha. So Kay, did you stick with the forensic anthropology degree the entire time at Mercyhurst? Or did you change concentrations towards the end of your tenure there? Yeah. So I actually changed three times. So I started in forensic anthropology, right?
00:08:14
Speaker
Part of the things that changed me was I was told I had to take calculus and physics and I was like, no, I'm good. Don't want to do that. But also, after experiencing and interacting with some of the graduate students, I did not
00:08:32
Speaker
like the way that the graduate students as well as the professors sort of looked at people after they had passed, viewing them as objects and not respecting them as being people, especially as forensics, because you're dealing with particularly violent crimes. And the lack of respect that I was seeing for human remains was
00:08:57
Speaker
devastating, especially coming from a household that was I was raised both sort of Catholic with like the Italian Catholic side, but also with my indigenous side. The approach to death was very different. Like I was never scared of death. I knew it was just part of a journey. And to see people that coped with death in really problematic ways, I didn't like it. And I knew that I would not
00:09:24
Speaker
mesh well with working with people who had to deal with death in those sorts of ways. I understand having everyone has their coping mechanisms, but I do think that that was particularly problematic.
Research Focus and Field Experiences
00:09:36
Speaker
That sort of pushed me away and I started studying more bioarchaeology stuff.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I really love the human anatomy and the body in particular. So I enjoyed taking a lot of those classes and then started to encounter similar things in bioarchaeology. And so I just sort of, I wanted to know more about people and our spirits and our hearts and our culture and what makes us have relationships with others. And I was interested in,
00:10:07
Speaker
in more of a holistic understanding of people and that's what archaeology I felt could bring me and so I think it was halfway through my junior year I transferred and I was just an archaeology student but I was also minoring in art and so I spent a lot of my time doing art making practices that was also part of like my own self-care and art has always been integral to archaeology for me as well like I don't
00:10:32
Speaker
see necessarily a blur between them, or a distinction between them. There's a lot of similarities, and so I definitely
00:10:41
Speaker
kind of made a pretty big shift to focus on people and art making and things and materiality. It was like a step by step away from death specifically kind of thing, which I totally get. I think that is something really difficult to study. At least it would, for me, something to study objectively at any sort of point. You know, I think I watched like Bones growing up and you know, those those stories were really
00:11:09
Speaker
compelling and interesting and also very sad at the same point. I can totally understand that slowly stepping away from something so heavy and intense. I'm glad you found something that is a little different and a little more exciting and more people-based. Yeah, me too. Me too. I feel a lot better doing this, although it's still a struggle from time to time.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So what did you do as part of your field school? So I did four years of field school at Kustaloga Town, which is actually located, it's a Boy Scout camp in Pennsylvania. And sort of where I started with the first year was we were working with an archaeologist that was also removed from the faculty that following year.
00:12:00
Speaker
And we didn't do a whole lot or learn a whole lot. We did a lot of STPs and we found a lot of slag and that was pretty much it. And that was pretty much the same for the next three years. We found a whole lot of nothing and dug a lot of holes. And then Mercyhurst hired a historical archaeologist and she brought in metal detectors
00:12:22
Speaker
from her experience working with same period sites. So this particular site was and is a Delaware site, and we were working collaboratively with the Seneca Nation of Indians in Salamanca, who, although the Delaware were absorbed into the Seneca Nation, they were sort of wanting to do the right thing by the Delaware people.
00:12:47
Speaker
and Gaiusuto was the chief of that particular village and he was the guide for George Washington, which made the site incredibly interesting because once we brought in the historical archaeologist and we started doing metal detecting, we found a copper gun butt and a copper kettle and a French trade bell. The copper gun butt was also likely French.
00:13:15
Speaker
And both the copper gun butt and the copper kettle were being cut and turned into tinkler cones. If you don't know what tinkler cones are, they are the cones or jewelry that's often affixed to jingle dresses, which are medicine dresses that are worn by indigenous women. And the dance is incredibly sacred and is used to dance away or pray away.
00:13:38
Speaker
bad energy, bad spirits, and issues, often relating to colonialism or in reaction to products of colonialism. And so to see, one, a village that was related to George Washington, so a guide for George Washington,
00:13:57
Speaker
also trading with the French, but not using the materials being traded with the French in ways that would have been expected. They were indigenizing their materials in incredibly unique ways. That was an absolutely amazing experience to be a part of.
00:14:16
Speaker
more of a tangible archaeological methodology sort of perspective. It also taught me that systematic testing does not always work because we were doing the grid method where every five meters we would put an STP in and we missed everything. Every single site was in between our STPs. And we actually found that there was one feature that we did find with an STP that was a fire feature.
00:14:45
Speaker
And after we brought in the metal detector, we found that the tinkler cones were being made around the fire. So we had just missed all of those artifacts.
00:14:58
Speaker
So yeah, I learned a lot from that field school. Cool. And for our listeners, STP is Shovel Test Probe, stands for Shovel Test Probe. It's what we do on a lot of archaeological sites and the way we obviously miss a lot of stuff as well.
Graduate School Decision and Mentorship
00:15:12
Speaker
But I think on that note, we're going to probe Kay further and ask her more questions in the next segment of episode one or two of a Life in Ruins podcast.
00:15:22
Speaker
Welcome back to segment two of episode 102 of the Life and Ruins podcast. We're here with Kay Matina and we're gonna talk about grad school. So what was that experience like and why did you decide to go where you went? Yeah, so after I graduated with my BA from Mercyhurst, I sort of didn't know what I wanted to do.
00:15:41
Speaker
My advisor, Dr. Ed Jolie, Mercyhurst, who's also an Indigenous archaeologist who's Lakota, had put me in touch and connected me to some of Dr. Sonya Atelier's work at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. And I absolutely loved what she was doing.
00:16:01
Speaker
But I, again, didn't know if I wanted to do grad school and commit to potentially 10 years of my life, or if I wanted to just start working. So I applied for two things at the same time. The Pokingan Band of the Potawatomi, we're looking for a Tippo, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. So I applied for that position. And I also applied for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with Sonya Atole for an MA PhD. And UMass got back to me.
00:16:30
Speaker
And so I sort of led with that as like that's where I needed to be, like that's where I was being pushed to go to do. So I did that and I'm incredibly grateful I did. And so I started that in 2019 and got my master's this last year. And I did a course based master's and that was incredibly helpful because it gave me a good grounding and an education that Mercyhurst didn't have.
00:16:59
Speaker
for specifically collaborative archaeology and contemporary archaeology, and exposed me to a lot of really new ideas that I hadn't been exposed to. Carlton and I have talked about theory before, like not being exposed to things past post-processualism.
00:17:14
Speaker
And so for the first time I was being exposed to other ideas and other ways of thinking about archaeology. And it got me really excited. And so studying under Dr. Sonya Atelier especially was an incredible honor. And she has taught me so much and has guided me and has been such a great advisor.
00:17:36
Speaker
in sticking with me. She's also Ojibwa. So the Ojibwa and the Potawatomi are cousins. So we speak the same language. We practice a lot of the same practices. And so to be able to have an advisor that's both within the same academic field as myself, but also within the same culture as myself, really made me feel welcome. And I feel truly blessed and honored to have that.
00:17:58
Speaker
That's awesome. Was the intention always to get a PhD or was there ever a moment of hesitation in between that? Yeah. So after I got my master's, I had an experience with a mentor of mine that I really looked up to where I was sort of pushed to question whether or not the PhD was for me. And from what I've heard, everyone sort of goes through that phase. Correct me if I'm wrong and the comments are here.
00:18:26
Speaker
So after I finished my master's, okay, after I finished my master's, I camped for a week and a half by myself in the woods, primitive camping. I just needed to listen. And part of what I did during that was just learning to listen. And I did a lot of soul searching and heart centering. And like I said, just listening.
00:18:52
Speaker
After that sort of introspective moment, I realized that what's mine to do, what I need to do is get this PhD.
Cultural Responsibilities and Personal Growth
00:19:01
Speaker
And sometimes what you need to do is not always what you want to do. I still want to quit all the time, but it's what I need to do. The PhD
00:19:11
Speaker
There's a lot of power, sadly. In my opinion, with the PhD behind getting cited, being heard, especially as a woman and an Indigenous woman, the PhD means a lot. And it's more so because my ancestors and those who came before me lost so much. My grandmother, Kesh Nikwe, walked the trail of death for the Potawatomi and died on that trail.
00:19:37
Speaker
And being able to be here in these spaces, in these colonial spaces where she would have never been allowed to be in is incredibly important. And it's important to those who will come after me. So a lot of the reason why I'm doing this PhD is for thinking towards future generations and like who and what our children will have access to in the future. And that's really what's important to me and why I'm here.
00:20:06
Speaker
I really can't stress how much I respect, I guess, the walkabout, for lack of a better word, that you went on. Yeah, I think a lot of us just need to step outside and take some time outside, especially alone, just to let in. Like you said, listen. Not to get all woo woo, but hear the streams and the birds and stuff like that just disconnected. And it definitely clears your head
00:20:33
Speaker
And the fact that like you did that and then we're like, I want to do my PhD. I respect the hell out of, cause I would have been like, yeah, I'm gonna go build a shelter and hit rocks in the woods. Yeah. I spent a lot of time learning from.
00:20:46
Speaker
And again, this is sort of who I am, so I apologize if anyone thinks this is a little too deep or metaphorical or whatever. I listened a lot to the insects that were around me. I didn't get many other visitors while I was there, except for bugs. And they actually taught me a lot and have pushed me to be
00:21:09
Speaker
more attentive and looking at other beings as relatives that are just as willing and capable of teaching as someone with a PhD in the classroom to learn from
00:21:22
Speaker
the spider, how to have patience and get up in the morning to greet the sun and to listen to the patience of a frog as they sit and wait for something to pass by. There's a lot of lessons that even the smallest creature and being can teach us. And that's what that sort of adventure taught me, was just learning to listen. Because I think as students, we're often taught to talk
00:21:51
Speaker
And especially like I have ADHD and after learning about that during COVID, like I was diagnosed later in life, I talked a lot, especially with nervousness as a way of coping rather than listening and actually learning. So my Indigenous name is Kekendosso, which means always learning. And I didn't learn to embody that until I went on that camping trip and I learned from other relatives that were non-human.
Indigenous Archaeology and Museum Decolonization
00:22:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's the, uh, it's a cool story. I mean, the audience knows I have ADHD. So like, I, uh, yeah, it's tough to live with and I'm glad you figured it out. Still figuring it out. Always. Oh yeah. I'm an absolute mess. All right.
00:22:32
Speaker
So kind of following this, this same thread, like your work in indigenous archaeology and decolonizing museums, like for our audience, could you, you know, what is indigenous archaeology to you and then how, how is it prevalent in your work? Yeah. So I think that.
00:22:49
Speaker
Upon reflecting for this podcast and thinking about what I would say to you guys in response to that, it's a complicated answer, right? Carlton, you know this. If you've watched other episodes where I was previously, it's a complicated answer.
00:23:07
Speaker
There's indigenous archaeologies. It's a plural. So indigenous archaeology, pulling mainly right now from Cola Chancepone's work, and specifically the text, the premise and promising of indigenous archaeology. Indigenous archaeology is archaeology that is rooted in indigenous values, autonomy, heritage, control, politics, activism, collaboration with community and education.
00:23:33
Speaker
It's never meant to be essential or like set in stone, but it's meant to be plastic and something that's adaptable through the inclusion of the community. And it's made unique for each and every Indigenous community because every Indigenous community is going to have different values and even different communities within that broader Indigenous community will have different values.
00:23:58
Speaker
It's adaptable and fluid and ever-changing and growing. Today, people are still talking about what it means. Then going back to your second part of that question on decolonizing museums. I sort of turned towards decolonizing museums
00:24:22
Speaker
based more on my interest in Indigenous tattooing practices, specifically Anishinaabe or Anishinaabe tattooing practices in the Great Lakes region. And pulling from Aaron Detterwolf's work, who was in Episode 4, but also Christian Gate St. Pierre, who has done more recent reiterations of Aaron Detterwolf's work that has proved a little more valid and a little more
00:24:47
Speaker
tested. I guess he has a larger sample size and has a little bit more experience with experimentation, use-wear, and things like that. But upon reading Erin Dederwolf's work, I learned that the ways that institutions have and continue to
00:25:07
Speaker
type artifacts, which is what we call for naming particular types of artifacts, is contributing to erasure in a lot of ways. And that's not necessarily something that Aaron talks about or other folks are talking about that are
00:25:22
Speaker
interested in tattooing, but the ways that we call bone tools, just a broad category of bone tools, or anyone who's been in the curation facility will see the one bag or box just full of faunal remains. Those items could potentially be used for tattooing.
00:25:43
Speaker
But not many people are interested in that or investigating that. So those items sort of get lost in the shuffle and are named as bone-alls and needles, gar mandibles, porcupine pines, cactus pines, and they're sort of left within the ecological artifacts.
00:26:03
Speaker
Like if you, you know, if those things get like a manhandled for like, I guess lack of a better word, like, and you're touching the end of it where it's like the pointy end, you're going to lose the residue on it to do any kind of analysis to see if it was a tattoo implement. So that's another danger of just like filing that stuff away as a bone, all or, you know, porcupine spine or prick. I don't know what the word is, but yeah, that's a good point. It's stuff.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. And you've done like some of your own stick and poke tattoos yourself, isn't that right Kay? Yes. On myself and close family members, I have, this is also part of why I started having a mid higher education crisis. Um, after my master's was, I was debating on whether or not I wanted to just do tattooing or if I wanted to get the PhD because I love doing art.
00:26:58
Speaker
However, I did not realize the amount of actual work, and a lot of people don't realize the amount of work it takes to be a tattoo artist. It's a PhD in itself. To be a standalone tattoo artist, it's 10 years of apprenticeship, education, learning about hygiene, taking yearly classes to get certified.
00:27:20
Speaker
and it's a time investment in and of itself. And so, because of that, I've only done stick and poke on myself and like my mom, but they're people I trust and I do everything by the hygiene books. I've taken my own hygiene classes to make sure I'm doing it correctly, but I will never do it on another person that is not closely related to me because of that, unless there comes a time in the future
00:27:48
Speaker
which I'm not counting on or predicting, but if an elder says it's my duty, then I would take that on. But I don't think that's my job. I think my job is to be an archaeologist. And so most of what I do is experimentation. And so looking at, similar to Arendetta Woolf's work,
00:28:09
Speaker
recreations of artifacts and using them to tattoo, not on myself, likely on pig skin. If I could sustainably resource other options, I would. But as of right now, pig skin really is the best option. And sort of the experimentation side of things is you recreate the artifact you're working with.
00:28:31
Speaker
and then you use it in tattooing practices. If I'm recreating all, I'd recreate that bone all to the best of my ability, tattoo with it for periods of time, and then compare the use wear. Use wear analysis is where you look at an item side-by-side to the artifact, to the item you've experimented with, and your control item, which is the item you haven't tattooed with,
00:29:01
Speaker
and compare what those look like. And so with folks like Christian Gate St. Pierre, he was actually finding within 15 minutes of tattooing, you could tell whether a bone tool was used for actually tattooing or for working with leather. And that's only 15 minutes of time. And he was able to prove that with a pretty high significance rate.
00:29:22
Speaker
And so essentially what I would like to do is take his work and Dederolf's work and indigenize it. Because there's traditional ecological knowledge there that they are not talking about. There's erasure that's not being talked about. And the fact that so many indigenous people do not have their indigenous tattooing practices and ways of reclaiming our bodies. That's really what comes down to like my research is being able to reclaim our bodies through tattoos
00:29:52
Speaker
because tattoos have so much healing behind them. They aren't just art. They are medicinal, they're spiritual, they're cultural. And they bring all of those, they braid all of those things together in such a unique way. And especially for Indigenous women, being able to reclaim our bodies when a time that's missing and murdered Indigenous women and two-spirit folks is such a crisis and an epidemic.
00:30:19
Speaker
To be able to tattoo ourselves visually and be like, I am an Indigenous woman and I'm proud of it and I feel safe enough to identify myself in this way is important and it's healing for individuals as well as like an entire community.
00:30:38
Speaker
And this is me speculating, but upon watching other Indigenous communities like Inuit and Yup'ik folks and Maori folks bring back their tattooing practices, it shows that there's power in them.
00:30:54
Speaker
That's unique. So that's sort of like took a tangent and followed a weird little path. That's really well said and like a poignant thing to say, too. Like I do see on social media, we've got to wrap up here, but like on social media, there are some indigenous women that are like retaking the, you know, like facial tattoos and body tattoos that, you know, haven't been, I wouldn't say illegal, some places they probably were, but, you know, like just frowned upon. And that's cool to see. But yeah, it's also like
00:31:24
Speaker
Like, you know, getting a tattoo for me, at least as a non-indigenous person, like I usually get it after some kind of mental breakdown or I just have like a, I don't know, I just like the feeling of getting a tattoo because it's like refreshing and it's new and you're adding something to your body. So I could see how in the past and what the current indigenous societies, it might be similar.
00:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm really interested in what your viewers have to say about some of my hypotheses. So I have a potential idea. So bear grease is a traditional medicine that's used as a natural pain reliever. And there's a lot of herbal medicines, including stinging nettle, that's used to treat things like arthritis, joint pain, nerve pain.
00:32:10
Speaker
So I have an idea, sort of based on Otzi's, who's the ice man that was, he's a tattooed man that was found in the French or Italian apps, depending on who. Austrian. Austrian, all of the above, depending on our side. It's a big political debate on who, like what side he was found on. But he has tattoos that could be potentially medicinal.
00:32:36
Speaker
And so my hypothesis is that if you mix bear grease and the ash of something like stinging nettle, it might equate to something like a cortisone shot that could be used to treat arthritis, sciatica, nerve and joint pain, and things like that. And then I also want to mention that
00:32:56
Speaker
This research of mine could potentially have impacts for NAGPRA, Native American Grey's Protection and Repatriation Act, especially with residue. If there's ancestral blood and DNA on these items, it really pushes for the necessity of collaboration about these items.
00:33:19
Speaker
Because Indigenous people want to know just as much as researchers and archaeologists and museum creators do about these items. And so I think work like this, not just by myself, but by the numerous other Indigenous people studying our tattooing practices, necessitates collaboration within museum institutions.
Experimental Archaeology and Cultural Connections
00:33:39
Speaker
And that is really what's key to decolonizing museums.
00:33:43
Speaker
Excellent. And also, Bear Grease makes the best french fry oil. And with that, we'll be right back with episode 102 of the Life and Ruins Podcast. Welcome back to the Life and Ruins Podcast. We are with Kay Matina. In this segment, we wanted to talk about experimental archaeology. So could you explain to us what your first experience with experimental archaeology was?
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, so in my undergrad, I had the honor of working with a twine textile that was from the island of Geteyodina, which is near the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in the Anishinaabe traditional homeland. And with that textile, I had the honor of rehydrating it. It was trusted to rehydrate it as an undergrad, which meant a lot because we had no idea how old it was at that point in time. And so
00:34:34
Speaker
It turned from looking like a little mini wheat to actually looking like a textile. It was preserved by copper. We don't get many textiles out of Michigan because of its climate. It was preserved in situ or in association with copper. Copper, for those who don't know, is a natural antibacterial. It prevented bacteria from growing and eating away at the perishable artifact.
00:35:00
Speaker
and rehydrated it with isopropyl alcohol and got it to flatten out all the way. It was about the size of my index finger and each individual thread, it was made out of a flax fiber, was about 0.3 millimeters in diameter. Incredibly fine and absolutely beautiful, hand-woven, finger-woven, specifically finger-twined band or strap.
00:35:28
Speaker
And I got to replicate it after I did that. So replication is a part of experimental archaeology. There are
00:35:37
Speaker
A bunch of different types, but the two main are reconstruction and replication. So reconstruction is where you reconstruct the entire artifact, building off of where there's broken edges, you extrapolate and continue building that. And reconstruction is where you build the artifact based off of what you have in front of you. So you're creating a replica.
00:35:59
Speaker
And that's what I got to do. And through that process, I really learned to love experimentation because for me, it was a way for me to learn from my ancestors without sitting next to them. I was able to trace the ways that they twined the artifact without
00:36:21
Speaker
listening to them or being guided by them. I was guided by what they had made. And that was beautiful and healing for me. And it really got me interested in being Indigenous and started exploring what it meant to me to be an Indigenous scholar and researching archaeology, this historically colonial field.
00:36:41
Speaker
And so within my PhD, I'm turning and revisiting experimental archaeology, but also ethnoarchaeology, which ethnoarchaeology is another aspect of experimental archaeology that started long before Binford and really started in like the late 1800s. And it's more so comparing
00:37:05
Speaker
other groups that are similar to some degree to each other and pulling from contemporary peoples and the items that they're producing in the present to better inform the past and better inform our interpretations of the items we get to interact with in the past. And both of these fields have been sort of
00:37:31
Speaker
related to pretty colonial figures that have done a lot of harm. People like Louis Binford, who started his work excavating burial mounds in the backyard of his home in Virginia. Pretty close to where Jefferson started. Thomas Jefferson started also excavating burial mounds in Virginia. Was it him? Yeah.
00:37:56
Speaker
Thomas Jefferson was not a great guy. No, his slaves excavated him. He watched. This is true. Point of clarification. He did not move any dirt in that analysis. I don't know how much shovel he did. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty problematic stuff. And I guess like
00:38:18
Speaker
trying to reinvestigate this terminology and these methods that have been used in really problematic ways and have harmed a lot of people tangibly. But how these ideas can be indigenized
00:38:37
Speaker
And I've been sort of exploring the utility in indigenizing them. And if it's possible, or if we need to develop as indigenous people and allies a different form of ethno-archaeology and experimental archaeology, that better meshes with TEK or traditional ecological knowledge practices and indigenous knowledge and science. Because experimentation is
00:39:06
Speaker
key to indigenous science just as much as it is to any other science. And so that's been just a question and an inquiry of my own that I would really love to hear what other people have to say.
00:39:19
Speaker
I got two things. One, one of the coolest dioramas I ever saw was at the repository at Fort Lewis College where they had like this whole diorama of plants used to make thread textiles. That's the word I was looking for. So they actually, you could see what the plant was and then they had the yarn they made out of it. And that was like really cool to actually see. It's like, oh, that's dope. And the second part, like going back to that whole process
00:39:47
Speaker
of learning from your ancestors without them teaching you and you're following their steps to the material culture. Working with Devin Pettigrew on experimental ballistics, I get frustrated with throwing out laddles and stuff. I remember one time, I was like, man, this is stupid because I missed the bison in that experiment. Devin's been on this podcast before and how serious he is. He's like, no.
00:40:12
Speaker
Carlton, you just don't appreciate how sophisticated her ancestors were to take out Megafauna. You can do this. And I was like, you're right, man. And he's always like, Devin's just in that mode of like, he values these weapons so much and appreciates them truly for their capabilities and the techniques and technologies that went in to actually like, it's not just a pointy rock at the end of a stick.
00:40:36
Speaker
He's very good at explaining really the engineering that has to go behind these things in order to get the outcomes that we see in hunting practices here in North America, so I deeply appreciate Devin for it. Every time he's helped me make a Pawnee bow or an adlatl, he's there. It's really weird because the ancestors almost speak through Devin.
00:40:57
Speaker
because he researches the topic so heavily and gets indigenous perspectives that he's telling me, well, this is why they chose this wood because it grows here. This is how you can see through the artifact assemblage, why they chose it and how they interacted with it. I'm just like, man.
00:41:14
Speaker
The one image that I have ingrained in my memory from me doing my undergrad is what I pulled from is an image of a Saginaw Chippewa woman that was taken by an ethnographer in the early 1900s of her sitting with her bandolier bag full of materials and she was finger weaving.
00:41:37
Speaker
and she's using what looks like a microphone stand to attach it to and I used that image because it was the only one I could find from that time period and she is such a beautiful woman and I think like in spirit and in that image and what she's creating
00:42:00
Speaker
That was so burned into me. I felt such a connection to her and I could see my grandmother who founded Ribbentown, which is now known as Notre Dame, or South Bend. Her allotment is actually where the University of Notre Dame sits on. I could imagine her weaving, something like that. It really was like following the hands of a woman I could not see, but I felt connected to.
00:42:30
Speaker
The artifact itself taught me so much. And I don't think that there's a lot of people that really give enough autonomy to the artifact itself to teach, themself to teach. And I think that was really where I saw the power in something like this.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah, I've been foot napping a lot the past two years like trying to get good at it and like foot napping for sure gives you so much respect and appreciation for I mean from all the way back into like Homo habilis of like the planning and the thought processes that have to go on while you're making a tool.
00:43:14
Speaker
And it's not easy. So just as you flip the stone around and you're looking at it to see what you're doing. And I'm listening to a podcast as I do it. And I have to think, well, who was talking around them? Were they all around a circle telling stories? Or were they just chilling? There's endless stuff to end with.
00:43:37
Speaker
Like the art stuff that I've been doing recently too. I'm trying to think like how Why did they make the horse like elongated like this way? Like is it trying to run like what you know, or they're just accentuating anatomical features and lastly I'll shut up after this but like with my dog to like any ancient society that had dogs like We have dogs because of like a language that humans and wolves share which is like food so like the bottom line is
00:44:06
Speaker
I know my dog wants to eat something and I know I can get him to do something by providing him. Like you're communicating with food and like that's experimental arc to me in a way. And like it kind of just gets you in that mindset of like, okay, how would they have done this? Okay, we got to strap a pack to it. We got to strap a travois to it. Like it's just cool. That was a tangent, but yeah. I always joke that my dog speaks more Potawatomi than I do cause she's trained in Potawatomi. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:44:33
Speaker
But yeah, I can't speak to the indigenous aspect of it. I guess that's more on Carlton, but it's gotta be cool, especially knowing you guys are descendants of these people. It's gotta be cool to think about as you mess with artifacts. Yeah, it was especially cool working with that particular textile because we were able to do some carbon dating with it and dated it. So the carbon dates came back between 16,
00:44:58
Speaker
50 to like 1920. But according to, I can't remember the term, but cesium records and removal records, we know that folks were removed from the island of Geteodina in the late 1830s. And so we were able to narrow that between 1640 and 1830. And from looking at the textile, it's made entirely with indigenous methods. There's no
00:45:24
Speaker
French introduction of beads or trade beads introduced to that, it was entirely made of flax fiber or bast fiber. And I think that is also such an incredible sign of resistance and survivance during a time period where there's sort of a stereotype of just erasure and conversion when we know that that's not
Challenges and Community in Higher Education
00:45:51
Speaker
the case. And this artifact shows that.
00:45:53
Speaker
And kind of like continuing on this thread of like survivance and, and, and like continuing on something that we've talked about before in our, in our, in our group chat, you know, is talking about how difficult it can be for indigenous students in higher ed, especially grad school, grad universities that are not near home. So like, how have you found a way at, you know, UMass Amherst to find community in New England?
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, with UMass specifically, there wasn't really a lot set up. We have the JWECC, the Josephine White Eagle Cultural Center, but that's mainly for undergrads. So anyone that's been to graduate school, again, correct me if you have had a different experience. I would really love to hear if you had a different experience. But where undergrads and graduate students are so incredibly siloed from each other, even though we interact and we TA with each other, we're siloed.
00:46:50
Speaker
And for my community and other Indigenous graduate students, that's really isolating too, because part of our job is we're learning to be matriarchs for the first time. And to not be able to have Indigenous undergrads to have community with and be aunties to and sisters to is really a struggle.
00:47:13
Speaker
And then with UMass, it's a massive university. Every department has its own building, and we're all siloed from department to department. And then on top of that, each department might have one Indigenous grad student in the entire department, maybe. And so to be able to find each other,
00:47:35
Speaker
when the departments themselves are so siloed is really difficult. And luckily, out of, I think, two faculty that are Indigenous, Sonja is one of them, Sonja, my advisor, so she's really helped to connect us because people will be like, I'm an Indigenous graduate student, where can I find community? And they immediately send her or them to Sonja.
00:47:57
Speaker
So, we have a group right now of three Indigenous grad students that get together. I work for a nonprofit organization called Gedakina, and I run a braiding sweetgrass group through them. That way, it's sort of disconnected from the university because through the university, we have to
00:48:18
Speaker
make it open so anyone can join us. But with Braiding Sweetgrass, we can make it more closed, which is really important for Indigenous students to be able to have just a tight-knit community where we can share in confidence with each other, as well as be open when we want to be open and feel able to be open. And so it's really been entirely on the Indigenous students to form community and find each other, which we do. It doesn't mean it's easy.
00:48:44
Speaker
And within our own classes, we never really have classes with each other. So within class, there's a lot of pressure to be the token Indian that can speak for all Indigenous people, which we can't do because we are one Indigenous person, often from one Indigenous tribe, or sometimes multiple, but never representing everyone. But we're sort of occasionally expected to speak for everyone. Or we're erased and silenced and not heard.
00:49:13
Speaker
Recently, especially after the 2020 events and COVID and protests, people starting to maybe open their ears a little bit and listen to other people's struggles.
00:49:27
Speaker
There's been a little bit of a change where my classes that aren't led by Indigenous people or people of color are including Indigenous authors or authors about Indigenous topics. And I think that that's started to change a little bit and made me feel a little bit more welcome.
00:49:48
Speaker
But it's definitely a struggle. And then also on top of that, with the change, we're now being expected to read re-traumatizing texts in class. So right now I'm rereading Coel Chanthepones, Chip's work on plundered schools and stolen spirits. And every five pages, I have to walk around and cry, and then I return to it. And it's really hard to read. I need to read through that thing. I know that I need to read it.
00:50:16
Speaker
But then I also am the only Indigenous person in my class that has to talk about it. And that makes it hard. And there's a lot of pressure. And I don't know that there's a lot of people that also respect that pressure.
00:50:31
Speaker
You know, we're always asked to do land acknowledgements. We're asked to speak at Indigenous events. We're asked to welcome Indigenous speakers and artists. But there's not many of us. So the pressure is on like five people. And UMass is a big university. And it's just a lot of pressure all
Recommendations and Listener Engagement
00:50:51
Speaker
the time. And I don't think that enough people in administration or elsewhere really understand how much
00:50:59
Speaker
that is a struggle, especially for graduate students who are trying to get through grad school on their own. Yeah, I can vouch. That sucks. Well, before we end the show, Kay, what are a couple sources, just going to be close articles or media, that you'd recommend for anyone interested in decolonial museums, indigenous archaeology, or tattooing practices in North America? Yeah. So,
00:51:21
Speaker
I think the big one for me right now is my advisor, Dr. Sonja Thalay and Dr. Alexandra McCleary just published their edited volume that's the community-based PhD, Complexities and Triamps of Conducting CBPR. And all of the chapters are written by their graduate students. So it really gives you a good picture of what it means to do a community-based PhD because doing community-based PhDs is often really scary because it does take a lot of time and relationship building.
00:51:50
Speaker
But it really shows where it's worth it, but it also is really honest about where people struggled. And then the other big thing for me is at the organization I work for, gedakana.org, they have a one-shelf book project where every year we donate one shelf of Indigenous books to high schools, junior highs, and elementary schools throughout the Don land, also known as New England.
00:52:17
Speaker
that are written by Indigenous authors. And we have that book list, which is a really useful resource, especially if you are an educator. And then, of course, keep an eye out for in the years to come, the Indigenous archaeology volume that Carlton is working on. I am honored to have a chapter in that. So hopefully I will have a little bit of a reformed idea of what I'm doing with this PhD.
00:52:42
Speaker
Awesome. Spring 2023, not years to come. It's coming out next year. Okay. Next year, next year. It's coming. It's a year to come. It's just one more year. In the meantime, before that book comes out, where can our listeners find you on the socials or on the academia's?
00:52:59
Speaker
Okay, so on the socials, you can find me on Insta at OH underscore K, K-A-Y 13. And on Twitter, you can find me at Matina K. And then as far as if you want to get in contact with me, my email is K-M-A-T-T-E-N-A.
00:53:24
Speaker
at umass.edu. Feel free to reach out if you have any ideas or interested in tattooing, have any resources, because resources on this are particularly hard to find. So if you found anything incredibly interesting that you think I should know about, let me know. But yeah, thanks for having me. All that info will be on our show notes, as well as links to things like that.
00:53:45
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe we should have you on with Rebecca Lamb. We should have you guys on together and we can chat tattoos and get into some new England stuff right back to you. As we're finishing this out, because this is a life in ruins, we're going to ask you a really cheesy question that's related to the name of this podcast. So if you had the opportunity or if you were giving another chance, would you still choose to live a life in ruins?
00:54:12
Speaker
Always. Excellent. Well, everyone, we just interviewed Kay Matina. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter. We will have her handles down below as well as her email address if you want to get in contact with her. Thanks. Hey guys, this next part of the podcast is where
00:54:27
Speaker
I have to get real. And like, didn't you guys really enjoy Kay's episode today? It was so good. And it was so good that if I was listening to the podcast for the first time or was listening to the podcast and hadn't left a review, I would scroll to my Apple podcasts. I'd go right up to that review section. I would write, what an excellent episode about indigenous tattoo practices with Kay Matina.
00:54:53
Speaker
and spell it right and even say it right in your head. And look at that. You want like five stars, maybe four, give us one star. I don't care. Give us a review and Carlton will send you a little eye-prene sticker handwritten in the mail with a stamp and all. Right, Carlton? Yeah, we're still sitting at that January 25th review. So it's February 28th. We're still looking for reviews, guys. Like it's been a month since our last review. Just one review before the nuclear winter, guys. Come on.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, before World War 3, we all get drafted. Give us a review. Because once we're drafted, the show ends and then, you know. I'm on too many pills to be drafted. It's kind of awesome. All right. And then me and Emily and other Indigenous women will take it over. Go for it. You can have this train wreck.
00:55:41
Speaker
Carlton and I were talking about that the other day. You guys are like, whenever you guys want to use this platform to talk about anything, like Connor and I are good to step off. You guys can do whatever you want. So just let us know. Yeah, I see a 2022 is coming up. We'll see what happens at that train wreck. No, I'm OK. I'll sit out. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to the show. We'll catch you next time.
00:56:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. All right.
00:56:28
Speaker
For those that made it through the credits, it is time for Connor's favorite segment, his closer. That was the cat food alarm. We'll just ignore that. Uh, he's not even here right now. So Connor, what do you got for us today, bud? Oh, he will be. It's unfortunately, it's not cat related, but you know, I hope it's still pretty funny. So I've recently started telling people about the benefits of eating dried grapes. You know, it's, it's really about raising awareness.
00:56:56
Speaker
Alright, that was... that was pretty good.
00:57:13
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.