Lyla is a poet, musician, community organizer, PhD student, and anthropologist. She recently ran for office in the 47th district in Santa Fe, New Mexico. N: I’d love to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. L: Yá’át’ééh shik’éí (greetings my kin) shimá ei Pat McCabe wolyé adóó shizhé’e ei Thomas Johnston wolyé. Taos, NM dę́ę́’ naashá. Akoat’éégo Diné asdzaani nishlí. That means I’m from the black charcoal street division, of the red running into water clan of the Diné nation, also known as Navajo. My mother’s Pat Mccabe. My father’s Thomas Johnston and I grew up in Taos, New Mexico. And in that manner I present myself as a Diné woman, as a human woman. N: Thank you. Let’s start at the beginning. You’ve mentioned that after your experience with addiction and abuse, you went through a moment of trying to find yourself again… L: So I was born into drugs and alcohol. That was something that was around me since day one. I spent most of my life thinking that self-medicating was normal. I went to Stanford University where I got a bachelor’s degree with honors in environmental psychology. During my time there, I got really deep into drug addiction. But there was an earthquake when I was studying abroad; I fell and broke my pelvis and spine, which actually helped me on my journey to sobriety. It literally shook me awake. I knew I had to go home and do ceremony with my mother. And that’s when I had enough mental space and clarity to pray for sobriety. And that’s when Creator came and really showed me, through various messengers, that I wasn’t a tainted woman. That my rape didn’t make me less of a person, that I wasn’t just a druggie criminal–which is what the world tried to label me as in my high school years. That I wasn’t insignificant, but that I actually was a very strong soul. N: I want to touch on the Standing Rock protests. You have organized around issues of land stewardship, and ownership. Can you tell me a little bit about what you see as your role in giving voice to those causes? L: Native American languages, worldviews, epistemologies, and ways of life are hanging by a thread all over the country. And those of us who are descendants of Native Americans are trying our best to carry on the wisdom of our ancestors. All the while we are burdened by extreme poverty, drug addiction, and destruction of our food systems, which leads to skyrocketing rates of diabetes. All the while burdened by intergenerational trauma, especially sexual abuse, where they estimate that about two out of three Native Americans were sexually abused in the boarding schools. We’re trying our best to carry forward the wisdom of our ancestors. And so things like the Black Hills Unity Concert, things like Diné Bina’nitin Dóó O’hoo’aah, or our Diné summer school. Things like the Salmon Run, which are bringing salmon back to the McCloud River. All of these things are strands of a larger tapestry that we’re trying to weave. It’s the tapestry of indigenous survival, and hopefully we can get past just surviving and step into full blown renaissance. We are the generation that will determine whether or not native people will have a land base in the future. We are the generation that will either perpetuate the insanity of indigenous subjugation and marginalization or turn it on its head and start to honor the first peoples and the first nations and act as the guests that we are in their home. N: In one of your songs, Mamwlad, you tell the story of European healers who are persecuted as witches. Why did you choose to tell this story? L: My mom is 15/16 native American and my dad is probably 15/16 European. My mom has a little bit of European and my dad has a little bit of native. So I was born as a hybrid of these two worlds. My brother came out, very light skinned and I came out very dark skinned and I saw how he got the short end of the stick because we were in native communities and he was never fully embraced. But also within myself, I was trained to ignore and disdain my European heritage because they were the naughty colonizers. One day while we’re in ceremony, I could feel my European ancestors rushing him, holding me. This was a Diné ceremony. This was a native ceremony. I don’t think in the spirit world they care about color and origin. Everything is honored. I went on several journeys to Europe, to France, to Wales, to England, to Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and I wanted to touch that land and feel that land. I didn’t know the old European ceremonies, but I brought some of my native ceremonies and just tried to pray with the land. I felt that those mountains are very much alive. And they took me in as an orphan of sorts and they held me. And they reassured me that the people I came from were beautiful people, just as beautiful as the land. And I started researching how European indigenous groups went through the same suffering that Native American groups did. Language, prohibition, disease epidemics, systematic rape, demonization of their spiritual practices. And most of all, a heavy assault on women. Only when we take the time to heal what happened in Europe, will we be able to respect and honor other people of the world. That healing is beautiful to do, not only for ourselves, not only for the land, but for people all over the world who are suffering from white supremacy, which is really just white insecurity. N: What you’ve also done, specifically with Mamwlad, is rewrite history. That’s powerful! I’m rewriting history and herstory along with many others because we need to reclaim our beauty and reclaim our dignity and we need to know that we are not butt heads. We are beautiful and we’ve been through a lot. And with Creator’s help we can get back on her horse, so to speak. And we can be the warriors that we were born to be. N: You said you’re the generation of indigenous people that will determine whether or not you’ll have a land base to call home. Can you tell me just a little bit about your PhD work in indigenous food systems and how you see that as sort of the next phase of what you’ve been doing? I’m rewriting history and herstory along with many others because we need to reclaim our beauty and reclaim our dignity and we need to know that we are not butt heads. L: I’m hoping to do some action research on indigenous food systems and indigenous languages. My plan is to revitalize indigenous foodscapes. And I use the word foodscape to help people understand that the old way of food production didn’t involve small gardens, but actually involved the management of entire landscapes. If you look at the pollen, the pollen fossil record in the east, you’ll see that about 3,000 years ago, the eastern forests transformed into a hickory, chestnut, and oak forests; and that was all anthropogenic. So the entire eastern woodlands was anthropogenic, and that’s not an exaggeration. We are a keystone species, which means we are critical to the health of the land and that our presence indicates a healthy ecosystem rather than the opposite. And so my goal is to revitalize these foodscapes , and in doing so, give the world a model of how we can feed ourselves that isn’t insane and proves the sophistication of native ancestors. N: As part of your activism but also in your art and your music, you have given a voice to the crisis that we’re seeing of youth violence and suicide. You’ve also done a lot to champion this idea of self worth and finding self worth, specifically for the native community. Can you tell me a little bit about that work and what drives that work? L: It’s really hard to discuss why this is my work without placing it in the context of the spiritual battle that we are currently ensnared in as a species. Every culture has a word for this being that creates chaos. We call it ma’ii, which means coyote. Coyote is always tricking us. If you let it, it can completely destroy your self image. And the more people it can get to hate themselves, the more control it has over the earth. The more people we liberate from shame and feelings of unworthiness, the more warriors we’re going to have on our side. And the more warriors we’re going to have on our side, the quicker we can win the spiritual battle on earth, the quicker we can alleviate poverty, the quicker we can heal racism, the quicker we can save fellow species. All of that stuff depends on humanity, remembering who and what they really are meant to be.
