Slash and Burn - FIRE

Our ancestors knew that fire did not devour, but hummed like an old song in the soil's memory. Our ancestral Firehands carried the knowledge of fire throughout time - lighting underbrush with care, calling animals, and making good ground for the seeds to drop. The new fires are machinic, hungry mouths that gnash through dense green and heavy set smoke. Turning jungle into cattle lots, carving earth into rows of profit and scaring. They call it slash and burn now, but it is far different than the methods of our pasts.

Our people were cultivators, not conquerors. The old Firehands meticulously created grasslands and managed environmental growth through the knowledge of fire. When the Spanish arrived and began conquering, their journals and letters were filled with amazement of vast “untouched” land. The colonists coveted this newly ‘found’ commons and rushed to establish their agricultural practices from Europe. 

The burning of dense trees, shrubs, and excess leaves and stems from our crops allowed nutrients to return to the land, resulting in fertile soils. We would then ask the land to yield us crops. These methods were often followed by long fallow periods, during which the land was allowed to fully recover from the growing season. 

Slash and burn agriculture or swidden production, and was practiced across the world by indigenous peoples, including all throughout our beloved Turtle Island. Earliest proof of this form of ancient agriculture takes us back 12,000 years.

There were many benefits to fallow seasons, for example - in dryer regions, it allowed the land to restore moisture for future crops. Movement of people and settlements throughout a region often was based on these seasons.

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

The introduction of European agricultural practices and animals wreaked havoc to the landscapes maintained by Indigenous peoples' hands. 

Colonists feared fires, not knowing its power gave rise to flourishing land. In the early 20th Century, The US Forest Service implemented fire suppression. These policies in combination with the establishment of National Parks further alienates us from the land. The massive land grabs and stomping out of any wildfires, are done in the principle of preservation. Preservation to these entities is to leave the land undisturbed by human hands - something that perpetuates an estranged relationship and existence with the land.

With forced colonization, dwindling Indigenous population, and the outright ban of Indian fire the Land has since been sent into a death spiral.

The ’New World’ has seen an increase in natural disasters since the right to cultivate the land as our ancestors did, was forcibly taken away from us. Wildfires, floods, depleted soil, and loss of habitat are prime examples of these disasters. 

While current Forest Management practices have implemented ‘prescribed burns’, which attempt to recreate the techniques that indigenous people have long practiced, they are not exact nor as effective. Our predecessors were land stewards and had knowledge on low intensity vs high intensity burns. For example, through low intensity burns the underbrush and thickets would be set alight, as they served as fuel for greater fires. In some cases, our ancestors would do a low intensity burn to serve as a “wall”, clearing the dry plant material and fire fuel. When followed up with a high intensity burn, the wall would contain the fire, preventing it from spreading unintentionally. This method was utilized when seeking to turn forest to grassland - promoting habitat for large game.

These practices were also effective in containing wildfires, which would naturally break, but were much less severe than what we have been seeing in the western US in modern times.

The keeper’s of the land utilized relationships to fire for many reasons. The experience and deep relationship necessary to understand when to aid the land in death, rest, and regrowth for the sake of promoting life are honorable qualities that echo the intrinsic truth; we humans are just as intricately interwoven into our natural systems as all of our other relatives. Today we can venerate the methods of our forerunners, reflecting on these relationships and techniques, as we aim to engage in cyclical nature with our landscapes surrounding.