Brandon Running Bear Harrell: Reclaiming indigenous land relations through ancestral skills (ep294)
Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne is a podcast exploring our paths to holistic healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Subscribe to our show in any podcast app!
Brandon Running Bear Harrell joins us in this episode to discuss:
what it means to decolonize our food system and de-center settler colonial narratives;
how hunting allows him to tap into a deeper relationship with himself and the land;
the exploitative roots of various forms of societal “advancements”; and more.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Raye Zaragoza (IG: @rayezaragoza, Spotify: Raye Zaragoza)
“As a Black Indigenous person, we’ve been hunting here and living in relationship with this land for thousands of generations. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anything here to conserve. The reason that Yosemite, Bears Ears, and some of these places are such natural wonders is because the humans lived there were connected with those spaces.”
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Here’s Brandon on reclaiming Indigenous relationships with land through the decolonized hunt:
“As a Black Indigenous person, we’ve been hunting here and living in relationship with this land for thousands of generations. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anything here to conserve. The reason that Yosemite and Bears Ears and some of these places are such natural wonders is that the humans that lived there were connected with those spaces.
Not only do I bring that perspective to this space, but I’m also not looking to extract meat or anything—I’m more so in these spaces ‘hunting’ to reconnect with the land. It’s also about sharpening skills—I’m learning skills to bring back to my family and other Black and Indigenous folks.”
And here’s Brandon on the decolonized hunt as a form of rebellion:
“I haven’t necessarily considered hunting as an overtly rebellious act, but anytime Indigenous peoples or Black folks act “Black” or act “Indigenous”, it’s vilified. There’s a clear connection to the laws that made it basically illegal to be Black and Indigenous—from the laws that prevented us from being able to dance and hold ceremonies to the laws that prevented black folks from being able to hang out in groups or “loiter” (like some of the Black codes or Jim Crow laws).
So in many ways, [decolonized hunting] is rebellious because I’m just doing what we’ve done for thousands of years. But in settler colonialism, it isn't allowed because it's a threat to the dominant, white supremacist narrative that this country was founded on.”
About Brandon Running Bear Harrell:
Running Bear “B” Harrell (IG: @decolonizedmeateater) is a climate resiliency planner, permaculturalist, archery instructor, and youth conservation leader of Afro-Indigenous ancestry. Though deeply rooted in what is now referred to as California and New Mexico, his expertise in community and environmental planning has enabled him to consult on major habitat restoration and climate adaptation projects as far as Taiwan, Portugal, Nicaragua, Cuba, Turkey, and Kenya.
Running Bear is also known as the Decolonized Meateater on Instagram where he shares his commitment to decolonize the Western hunt and reconnect Black and Indigenous communities with their traditional food pathways.
