witchcraft

i'm a white northern european witch on colonised land. i'm not sure i want to spell out the country, but i want to make it clear that i'm not indigenous myself. the culture i was born into has stolen from the indigenous cultures of the area and appropriated their traditions for hundreds of years while attempting forcible assimilation. the colonisation is still happening.

this isn't always taken into account in the pagan religious and spiritual writing of this area. a lot of the local research on the subject isn't particularly good and was made by colonialists guided by the ideologies of romantic nationalism and appropriation of the indigenous.

not only does every practitioner need to do their own research but they also have to be aware of their sources. who wrote it and when? how was the political environment at the time? how were they funded, by whom, why? was the information collected by christians? was it collected by nationalist colonisers? do you know? can you find out?

all this to say that what is written about certain traditions around this area is patchy at best and racist and stolen at worst. my main conclusion has been that while reserach and recorded tradition can support my practice my main sources have to be experience based. a lot of what i do is based on my own experience and my own relationship to the mundane and the spiritual, the nature and the ancestors i interact with.

this is out of necessity. i wish christianity had not wiped out the local pagan religions as fully as it has. i wish more living tradition had survived. i wish we had pre-christian written record. we don't. the written language of the area is too young.

above all i wish we didn't live in a coloniser reality. we can fight against it today, and it is our responsibility. if you are a non-indigenous witch on colonised land you need to step up against the colonial powers outside and within yourself and your communities, including your witchcraft practice and pagan tradition.

work against the genocide, material oppression, erasure and destruction of indigenous cultures. it goes beyond cultural appropriation, although cultural appropriation is one tool used by colonisers. read history. listen to the people outside of your own tradition. make mistakes. learn. change your behaviour.