Settler colonialism disrupts indigenous-animal relations: Sarah Deer, Liz Murphy, ‘”Animals May Take Pity on Us”: Using Traditional Tribal Beliefs to Address Animal Abuse and Family Violence Within Tribal Nations’, Mitchell Hamline Law Review, 43, 4 , 2017 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism disrupts indigenous-animal relations: Sarah Deer, Liz Murphy, ‘”Animals May Take Pity on Us”: Using Traditional Tribal Beliefs to Address Animal Abuse and Family Violence Within Tribal Nations’, Mitchell Hamline Law Review, 43, 4 , 2017

18Feb18

Excerpt: The relationship between Native people and animals has a rich, complex history. For tens of thousands of years, Native people have cultivated their symbiotic relationship with the animal world, and these relationships demonstrate a unique centralized status that animals have for many tribal cultures. Beginning with early contact with Europeans, however, the relationship between Native people and animals began to deteriorate. Europeans and Native people had fundamentally different perspectives on the relationship between humans and animals. In some cases, the cosmologies of Europeans and Natives toward animals were mutually exclusive; either animals were seen as equal to humans or were subject to the complete dominion of man. This clash of worldviews parallels many other areas of colonial power, including the treatment of women and children. Whereas many tribal cultures do not view animals and humans as occupying a hierarchy, European belief systems have historically put men in complete dominion over their property—namely women, children, and animals.

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