Greetings Relatives,
On behalf of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation, I have asked for this statement to be read tonight as tribal members and leadership are all at a ceremony and cannot be with you.
Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation have made this land, currently called Berkeley, our home for thousands of years before colonization. Before the thought of private land ownership was a concept in this land, this land was taken care of by our ancestors. There was an abundance here. Imagine a few hundred years ago, there was no concept of hunger or homelessness, and you could drink fresh water out of “strawberry creek”. Our way of life was disrupted because people came to this land with the thought of “lording” over the land, rather than being in relationship to it. The foreign ideology of private land ownership has caused great harm to the land, waters, animals, plants, and people. Greed of making money and covering everything in concrete and asphalt, takes away the sacredness of the land to people living in the confines of urban areas. The ability to have a small group of humans displace others in a time of worldwide pandemic, with the ever-increasing cost of living, food shortages on the brink and the continuous desensitized ability to look at homelessness goes against everything that we have been traditionally taught about being human beings.
Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation stands with Defend Peoples Park, the People’s Park Council and all who dream and seek to create a new way of life, one in which we remember what our responsibilities are to the earth, water, air and each other.
Corrina Gould
Spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of the Lisjan Nation
July 27, 2022
