Ancestral Intelligence is the first AI

 

By Mary Stamp

Jeff Ferguson, a Spokane Tribe member who creates documentaries on cultural preservation and issues facing Indian country, recently suggested that the original AI is Ancestral Intelligence.

For several years, he has learned and shared about Indigenous wisdom related to caring for the land, air and water as a solution to the climate crisis. He attended COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022; COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2023; at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and in COP30 in Belém, Brazil, in November.

He will share about COP30 in an afternoon workshop at the Eastern Washington Legislative Conference on Saturday, Jan. 31, at Spokane Valley United Methodist Church.

Since earning an associate's degree in photography from Spokane Falls Community College, a bachelor's in communications from Whitworth University and a master's in business administration with a focus on American Indian entrepreneurship from Gonzaga University, he has spent more than 15 years in historical preservation, documentary photo and video production and fine art.

In 2020, Jeff and his wife, Eastern Washington University professor Margo Hill-Ferguson, started Elk Soup, a nonprofit that promotes health and wellness, arts and culture, education and entrepreneurship. It offers art displays, networking events and workshops.

Jeff lived on the Spokane reservation until he was seven, when his adopted father, a carpenter working with Western Nuclear, died.

To assure her children a good education, his mother moved with Jeff and his sister to Spokane, where he started in third grade at St. Charles' school, and attended Gonzaga Prep, Mead and Shadle Park high schools.

"My grandmother, the youngest daughter of Baptiste Bigsmoke, the last Kalispel chief, did all she could to keep her 10 children from going to boarding school, so she did not teach them the songs, language, culture or spirituality. In turn, they could not teach me or my 41 cousins," said Jeff, adding that it was illegal to teach native religion until 1978.

His grandfather, Clarence Campbell, a Spokane Tribe member, who had Scottish Catholic roots, served on the Kalispel Tribal Council.

When there was a threat the Kalispel reservation would be terminated, Jeff's grandmother enrolled her children with the Spokane Tribe, but the Kalispel Tribe continued. Some family members stayed Spokane while some went back to the Kalispel.

"Our extended family hasn't been close over the years," he said. "Many practice Christianity, but for me it became hard to embrace both the colonizers' religion and our heritage. I struggled for years attending Catholic, Baptist, nondenominational, Four Square and Orthodox churches, trying to figure out my spirituality.

"When I started to dance six years ago, the late Francis Culluyoh, an elder in the Kalispel Tribe, gave me an eagle bustle he received in 1963," Jeff said.

"As I leaned into my cultural roots, I found an approach that connects everything for me," he said.

At COP27 in Egypt, he went to Mt. Sinai for a sunrise ceremony with Indigenous spiritual leaders.

"I found a spiritual experience that connects me with the Creator," Jeff said. "It took time to get here from questioning things that did not click. I found answers to fill the hole in Indian country. Now I understand where I come from and where I am going."

After Jeff interviewed boarding school survivors 16 years ago, he better understood the effects of colonization, the relocation and termination of tribes and the impact of divide-and-conquer.

While East Coast tribes were introduced to colonization 500 years ago, tribes in this region only began to feel the effects of colonization about 170 years ago as settlers crossed the Cascades and Rockies and moved south from Canada, Jeff pointed out.

As colonizers taught their language and religious practices, they suppressed native languages and spirituality. They burned dugout canoes, which people used for fishing and trade, he added.

Last year, Jeff visited the mass grave of children in front of the boarding school in Harbor Springs, Mich. A road construction crew had found bones in dirt before building a road over them.

In 2016, Jeff went twice to the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline construction at Standing Rock, where the construction crew bulldozed through sacred gravesites. With the resulting threat to pollute the region's waters, he asked how many could afford a $5 bottle of water.

Jeff's involvement with COP gatherings started 15 years ago when he met artist-activist Jacob Johns, who later worked with the U.S Climate Action Network. Jacob eventually received a $60,000 three-year grant to develop a Wisdom Keeper Delegation to represent Indigenous communities at COP.

At COP 27 in 2019, Jacob and Jeff met Pooven Moodley, an international human rights and environmental lawyer from South Africa and founder of Earthrise Collective. They leaned into Indigenous ceremony and the wisdom of ancestors.

"We realized that Indigenous communities have the solutions to climate change. We have lived sustainably for thousands of years," said Jeff. "The Spokane Tribe flourished here for more than 10,000 years until 150 years ago. Now the Spokane River is polluted because of capitalism, industrialism and hyper-consumerism.

"The Indigenous community strives to live spiritual reciprocity, not just take from land, water and air but also to give back," he said, pointing to the efforts to clean up and encapsulate reservation land polluted by uranium waste.

"What had worked for thousands of years was pushed aside, discarded, dismissed and devalued," he said.

Jeff believes there is hope and a better way of life if the world shifts.

"Billionaires do not care what happens in this world, but if we care what happens here, respect Mother Earth and all species, the species will keep us alive," he said. "As capitalism does away with keystone species, all are endangered, because we are all interconnected."

"PFAs pollute water. Only 50 harvests remain before topsoil worldwide is depleted. Forest fires exacerbate air pollution as average temperatures rise above 1.5° centigrade," Jeff said, asking, "When is enough enough?"

"With 2 degrees, we will watch people die in catastrophic typhoons, tidal waves and forest fires. That's how Mother Earth cleans herself. Mother Earth will come back, but we may not," he said. "We will run out of food and clean water, clean land and clean air. Leaders need to learn we are interdependent."

Jeff sees hope in learning from international ties of a global shift from buying and dumping to recycling, caring and cutting emissions.

"If we can learn social technology as a global society, we can remove PFAs, shift from genetically engineered seeds and grow organic food," he said, adding that "the Creator in the Bible says people are to love one another, just as our ancestors taught that all are brothers and sisters. No one will survive the pending climate collapse. We are all in it together. We need to do something before we can't."

At COP30, Indigenous people stormed the Blue Zone, and—unlike at previous COPs in police states where there were fewer protesters—their voices were heard.

"We know it takes hundreds of years to grow back rain forests that hold the cure to cancer and more," he said.

COP30, however, offered just a "pittance of changes to policies, rather than phasing out fossil fuels," Jeff reported, noting that many wonder how they can preserve and transport food without plastic or fossil fuels.

"Fossil fuels are detrimental to our existence. They are in our air, water and land, but did not use to be. Fossil fuels are about take, take, take to line pockets of billionaires," he said. "We are taught to consume, to want a new phone or shoes every year. We are bombarded with ads selling products as solutions, but they create new problems.

"If we care for our neighbor, we will care about what we put in the water and air, and what we dump on the land where we grow food," he said.

"It's time to realize that all we buy every day does not give us happiness," Jeff said. "Happiness comes from connections with family, friends, Mother Earth and all creatures. It comes with reciprocity and gratitude."

For information, email jfergusonphotos@yahoo.com or visit jfergusonphotos.net.