CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PATHWAYS FOR INTERGENERATIONAL WELLNESS
CHO-GE XO-ŁA BE’ in our language means the medicine to heal ourselves is in our hands. Native Health in Native Hands (NHNH) promotes culturally responsive pathways for intergenerational wellness.
NHNH pathways reconnect our youth and community to our roles and responsibilities to Mother Earth, all our relations and one another.
Join us around the fire - together we can make a difference. Even a small action is a great start. Help power change.
INDIGENOUS WAYS RESPECT THAT EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED
We emphasize cultural connections with community, Indigenous lifeways, language, land and water stewardship, plants, medicines, foods and self care.
Reconnecting with our traditional knowledge and spiritual roles and responsibilities. Whether it be through ecological management, Indigenous foods, nutrition & medicine, ancestral languages and traditional activities and arts. Connection to traditional lifeways strengthen the circle of prevention, healing, recovery and balance.
LIFE WAYS
Indigenous ways of knowing and being respect the interconnectedness of all things. Reconnecting with our traditional knowledge and spiritual roles and responsibilities. Whether it be through ecological management, Indigenous foods, nutrition & medicine, ancestral languages and traditional activities and arts, etc., Connection to traditional lifeways strengthen the circle of prevention, healing, recovery and balance.
Xo-kenesh (WAILAKI LANGUAGE)
Language is a blueprint of the way we see the world, the interconnection of all things and our roles and responsibilities to Mother Earth, all our relations and one another.
Xo-kenesh reconnects our people to the land, one another and traditional ways of knowing and being.
LAND ACCESS
We have been with working with state park, Six Rivers National Forest, Bureau of Land Management, non-profits, private landowners and allies - stewarding the land with native traditional land practices along with modern land use practices. ŁEE-NA-KUL-DUŁAI ~ Coming Back Together Again.
N-shong konk' (“GOOD FIRE”~ CULTURAL FIRE)
N-shong konk’ (“good fire’) promotes traditional knowledge, lifeways and spiritual values as well as biocultural diversity and resilience to wildfire, drought, flooding & erosion. Indigenous Peoples of California have practiced cultural fire management since time immemorial. Millennia of Indigenous traditional fire regimes are thanksgiving for the forest, her foods, medicines and materials; this long history of Indigenous fire management produced and sustained many fire-dependent species, such as giant sequoias. Good fire is food for the forest - nourishment - feeds the hand that feeds us.
PLANTS THAT NOURISH US
Plants that Nourish US gatherings and initiatives promote Indigenous access to traditional lands and land management, traditional food stewardship, mentorship and research to strengthen our sustainable relationship with our home lands and waters and traditional foods.
Hai kinest'e ku-nus (The People's Canoe)
Carving redwood canoes and paddling them on the Eel River (Xa-Cho) are Wailalki traditions undergoing an intergenerational revival after over 150 years of interruption. Hai kinest'e ku-nus connects people with the river and the life in and around it - weaving and integrating language, cultural activities, mentorship and sharing of traditional knowledge and practices. The Wailaki ka-nus project is reviving a cultural tradition that nourished the people and gave them important life skills and relationship with Mother Earth. The Wailaki relationship with Xa-cho (Eel River) has been damaged since at least the 1850s: there are no Federally owned reservation lands along Xa-cho within traditional Wailaki homelands. With help from other Tribes we are re-establishing our traditions and language hand-in-hand. This intertribal mentorship partnership and project is bringing healing to all involved. Connection is healing, we must make an effort to cultivate, nourish and strengthen our connections - for our ancestors, children, one another and generations to come.