Foisting this foreign and uniquely-European idea of land ownership on societies that never had such a concept to begin with seems so utterly colonialist to me.

As told by the history and traditions orally passed down from generation to generation, from elders to the young, we know that our ancestors did not consider themselves to "own" land. And they certainly did not have treaties amongst themselves and others before colonizers arrived.

Land is something that all spirited creatures, from humans through to the deer through to the tiniest of insects and fungus, share. We never "own" it, but merely coexist with it for a limited period of time.

The land is as much, or as little, ours as it is the bison's, or the elk's, or the snapping turtle's.

We may drive away the bear, or he may drive away us, but in the end the land is where it will be and how it will be.

None of us "own" it. It isn't "native land". It is just land.