Indigenous scholars reflect on 'sacredness' of water during virtual UWindsor symposium

Indigenous scholars spoke of the need for water to be better protected and appreciated in an online symposium about the natural resource Friday. 

During a three-hour virtual discussion, hosted by the University of Windsor's Indigenous Legal Orders Institute and Windsor Law, Indigenous community members shared their relationship with water and the ongoing fight to keep it clean. 

 In Anishnaabe tradition, women have held the primary caretaking role in looking after water and protecting it.

"From an Indigenous perspective, the water is living, water isn't simply life," said Tasha Beeds, an Indigenous scholar of nêhiyaw, Scottish-Métis, and Bajan ancestry from the Treaty 6 territories of Saskatchewan.

"She's a living entity, independent and worthy of respect and worthy of protection."

Beeds, a visiting scholar at the University of Windsor, also spoke about how she grew up living with family members who didn't have easy access to water. 

WATCH: Scholars speak about the meaning of water and impact of human neglect

As a result, she said she was always "conscious" — but at one point in her life, that perspective changed. 

"I quickly, moving into university and moving into this kind of capitalistic, colonial world, I kind of forgot about the need to protect the water and the need to preserve the water," she said. 

She said it wasn't until she later moved to Ontario and began to do water walks with others in the Indigenous community, like Elizabeth Osawamick, that she entered into a relationship with the water.  

Osawamick, who is an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper and professor of Indigenous studies at Trent University, said she has been "walking for water" for about 12 years. 

These water walks, called Nibi Emosaawdamajig (Those Who Walk for the Water), take place around the Kawartha region of Ontario. 

"Every day is Earth day, not only today," Osawamick said.

"We continue to work for the land, we continue to advocate for the water."