Women Warriors: Indigenous Women Protecting the Sacred

Overview

The video is an Indigenous-led webinar/program (“Women Warriors: Indigenous Women Protecting the Sacred”) organized through the Seeding Hope Speaker Series. It focuses on how Indigenous women lead and collaborate to protect sacred land and water, and how their movements respond to major global crises.

Program framing and purpose

• Host introduction: The host (Dr. Fufu Lupin / “Dr. … Tolu” in captions) introduces the Seeding Hope Speaker Series, created by Sakura/Seeding Hope/Security Land Trust (Oakland, CA area).
• Series origins: The series began during COVID-era shelter-in-place as a response to families needing support, and this installment is described as the third conversation.
• Methodology emphasis: The program foregrounds Indigenous methodologies of:
  • relationship
  • reciprocity
  • interdependence It also connects Indigenous homelands across Hawai‘i, Northern California, and broader Indigenous networks.

What the leaders are highlighting: protecting sacred sites through coordinated resistance

Across multiple sacred-site struggles, the panel argues that protection work must be:

• Indigenous-led (centered on spiritual/cultural authority and community knowledge)
• Collaborative (women leaders building coalitions locally and globally)
• Persistent, spanning both:
  • “frontline” actions
  • “system” work (courts, city processes, governance, paperwork)

1) Mauna Kea / Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) — Kumu (Kumu Pule / Killion Sisk) as spokesperson

• The Mauna Kea movement is described as beginning (in her telling) in 2010 against a 30-meter telescope, framed as spiritually significant and tied to creation.
• She reports that the encampment has been halted after a period because:
  • there was no imminent threat of construction at the time,
  • maintaining large encampments was resource-intensive when not urgently needed,
  • COVID risk created additional reasons not to keep people there.
• The current focus is described as shifting back “into the system”:
  • county council processes
  • legal/court and lease/renewal attempts
  • paperwork strategy
• She commemorates June 24, 2015 as a pivotal annual moment (crosswalk resistance, line-holding, and arrests), presenting it as proof the community can stop attempts and unify people across generations.
• Core message:
  • preventing the “18 stories” (the telescope’s height/scale) from being built anywhere on Mauna Kea
  • preventing further construction beyond current approvals

2) West Berkeley Shellmound — Karina Gould (Confederated villages / Ohlone-related leadership)

• She describes 25 years of work protecting sacred sites (shell mounds, burial/village sites) in the Bay Area.
• For the West Berkeley Shellmound, she frames the site as the oldest, first shoreline-related ceremonial/burial village shell mound.

• A major victory:

  • the city of Berkeley was sued
  • the tribe intervened She says they “won” the lawsuit last year.

• Complication and follow-up:

  • developers resumed activity within weeks
  • the tribe re-intervened and is preparing for additional court action
• She stresses that protection requires both:
  • public engagement and prayer/physical presence
  • continued work during “quiet” periods when labor shifts to legal and administrative processes
• Land Trust and mutual aid are positioned as connected strategies:
  • Security Land Trust is described as emerging from decades of sacred-site protection
  • supporting elders and families during crises
  • rebuilding ceremonies and language/cultural practices
  • sustaining community through food distribution and youth/elder involvement
• She notes how the pandemic changed engagement, while emphasizing that prayers continued (including with faith leaders praying at safe distances).

3) Shasta Dam / Salmon return / protection of McCloud River watershed — Chief/leader at McCloud River (Chief Kileen / “Chief Colleen Sisk” in captions)

• She explains that dam-building (Shasta Dam; described with a historical timeline of ~73 years) blocked salmon from returning to ancestral waters, framing this as an injustice rooted in water harm and ecosystem disruption.
• Her argument blends ecological and spiritual reasoning:
  • women’s responsibilities and knowledge are described as flowing through mountains, lakes, rivers, and oceans
  • “science” is contrasted with lived Indigenous knowledge expressed through songs, prayers, and attention to natural signals
• She connects a similar threat pattern across regions:
  • altering mountains affects water/aquifers and can spread toxic impacts
  • decisions made without Indigenous consultation replicate harm in different places

• She emphasizes that environmental collapse affects:

  • repopulation
  • survival
  • community wellbeing and she frames cultural survival as linked to ecological survival.

• She also broadens the critique to current U.S. politics (housing, labor, wages, and “fascism/white supremacy”) as part of the system that enables ecological harm.

How COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter shaped the movements

The panel repeatedly argues that the crises changed organizing conditions and priorities—not the underlying mission.

COVID-19 (“messenger” framing)

• Mauna Kea: COVID is described as influencing decisions about staying on the mountain versus shifting back to community and local support.
• Encampment dynamics: Masks/social distancing are described as:
  • creating focus and calm within the encampment/community
  • reducing gossiping/pressure
  • making space for ritual/prayer rather than constant mobilization
• Bay Area work: COVID affected travel and paused some public actions, while increasing the importance of food distribution and local mutual aid.

Black Lives Matter / resistance to white supremacy

• The leaders connect BLM to a historical continuum of oppression:

  • colonialism
  • land theft
  • slavery
  • state violence These are presented as interconnected.

• Solidarity practices described include:

  • sending blessings/prayers to activists before marches
  • youth/warriors applying lessons from sacred-site defense to street-front resistance
  • Indigenous spiritual practice as support for mass action and protection of vulnerable communities
• One panelist explicitly ties current events to ongoing systems (police brutality, doctrine/colonial legal foundations, and structural oppression), arguing that Indigenous communities understand these dynamics firsthand.

Closing: dreams/prayers for the next seven generations

• The closing question asks for dreams/prayers for the next seven generations.
• Themes emphasized:
  • sustaining alliances between Indigenous women worldwide
  • protecting waters, mountains, land, air, and elders/children
  • restoring ecological health (wildlife returning, salmon returning, sacred places not desecrated)
  • preventing further development that harms sacred sites
  • “walking arm-in-arm” with future generations so they are not exhausted by endless repeated struggle
• The leaders stress that spiritual practice (songs, ceremonies, prayers) is both guidance and protection—connecting present resistance to long-term survival.

Presenters / contributors (as named in the subtitles)

• Dr. Fufu Lupin (host/moderator; also referenced as co-facilitator organizer with Ennis)
• Joanie Brown (co-moderator)
• Desiree Harp / Desiree harp (song; language revitalization founder/organizer)
• Kumu Poole case (Kumu/leader; Mauna Kea/TMT-related spokesperson in panel context)
• Chief Kealoha Sisk (referred to as “Killeen/Colleen/Kealoha” in captions; Mauna Kea leader)
• Corinna Gould (panelist; Bay Area sacred site spokesperson)
• Karina Gould (referred to in subtitles; also spelled “Karina/Corinna”; West Berkeley Shellmound-related spokesperson)
• Chief Colleen Sisk (Shasta Dam / McCloud River salmon-work-related leader)
• Ennis (co-facilitator/organizer referenced by the host)
• Dolly/Donna (and other elders referenced) (grandmother/auntie figures named in ceremonial acknowledgements, but not treated as panelists)
• “Kumu … Peralta” / Kumu … (referenced as historical Bay Area leadership; not clearly a panel contributor)
• “Dr. Rupa Myra” / Dr. Rupa Myra (referenced for BLM protest context; not clearly a panelist)