Two Sacred Songs Before the Tech: An Indigenous Reset

Vancouver AI Meetup #32 opened with Squamish Nation presence before anyone talked about technology. Kris Krüg welcomed chiyakselut (Vanessa Gonzales), whom he first met on Tribal Journeys in 2014, and she shared two songs with her partner.

The first is the Unity Song. She explains that it brings people together, because "there's nothing stronger than the power of togetherness," and that the drum is medicine for the people. The second is a family song, a deer song the women sing while the men dance. It is how women in the village chose a partner for life, and she explains how the dancers have to keep up as it speeds up and slows down.

Near the end, Vanessa talks about the company she is building, which pairs traffic control with cultural awareness and cultural safety training for offices, construction sites, and schools.

This is the opening of the full Meetup #32 recording, where it starts at 01:24. See the Meetup #32 archive for Michelle Diamond's photographs and the rest of the night, or find the next gathering.