00:00.36 archpodnet Alborela. 00:02.35 connor Welcome back to the latest episode of us mispronouncing people's names. This is a life and ruins podcast we are with Kay Mattina and we wanted to start off that we wanted to chat about and this segment we wanted to talk about experimental archeology. Um, so could you explain to us what your first experience with experimental archeology was. 00:26.12 Kay Mattena Yeah, so in my undergrad I had the honor of working with a twine textile that was from the island of geteodina which is near the upper peninsula of Michigan um, and in the nishna bay traditional homeland. And with that textile I had the honor of rehydrating it. It was trusted to rehydrate it as an undergrad. Um, which meant a lot because we had no idea how old it was at that point in time. Um, and so it turned from looking like a little miniweat. Actually looking like a textile. It was preserved by copper and we don't get many textiles out of Michigan because of its climate and so it was preserved in situ or in association with copper and copper for those who don't know is a natural antibacterial. Um. And so it prevented bacteria from growing and eating away at the perishable artifact. Um, and rehydrated it with isopropyl alcohol and got it to flatten out all the way it was about the size of my index finger and each individual individual thread. It was made out of a Flax fiber. Was about zero point three millimeters in diameter incredibly fine. Um, and absolutely beautiful handwovven um fingerw woven specifically fingertwined ah band or strap and I got to replicate it. After I did that um so replication is a part of experimental archeology. There are a bunch of different types. But the 2 main are reconstruction and replication. So reconstruction is where you reconstruct the entire artifact. Um. Building off of like where there's broken edges you sort of extrapolate and continue building that and reconstruction is where you build the artifact based off of what you have in front of you so you're creating a replica um, and that's what I got to do and through that process I really learned to love experimentation. Because for me, it was a way for me to learn from my ancestors without sitting next to them I was able to trace the ways that they twined the artifact without listening to them or being guided by them I was guided by what they had made. Ah, and that was beautiful and healing for me and it really got me interested in being indigenous and started exploring what it meant to me to be an indigenous scholar and researching archeology this historically colonial field and so. 03:16.89 Kay Mattena Within my ph d I'm turning and revisiting experimental archeology but also ethno archeology which ethno archeology is another aspect of experimental archeology that started long before binford um, and. Really started in like the late 18 hundreds. Um, and it's more so comparing other groups that are similar to some degree to each other and pulling from contemporary peoples. And the items that they're producing in the present to better inform the past and better inform. Our interpretations of the items we get to interact with in the past. Um and both of these fields have been sort of related to pretty colonial figures. Um, that have done a lot of harm like people like Lewis Vineyard been Benford Louis biford who started his work excavating burial mounds in the backyard of his home in Virginia pretty close to where Jefferson started um Thomas Jefferson started also excavating burial mountains in Virginia um, and here Thomas Jefferson was not a great guy. Ah this is true. This is true point of clarification. No. 04:34.44 David What was it him. 04:39.83 archpodnet No his slaves excavated him. He watched height point clarification. He he did not move any dirt in that analysis. 04:41.29 David So. 04:47.70 David I Just day I don't know how much he done with shovely that. 04:50.40 Kay Mattena Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, pretty problematic stuff and I guess like they trying to reinvestigate this terminology and these methods that have been used and really. Problematic ways. Um and have harmed a lot of people tangibly. But how these ideas can be indigenized and I've been sort of exploring the utility in indigenizing them. Um. And if it's possible or if we need to develop as indigenous people and allies a different form of ethno archeology and experimental archaeology that better meshes with T Ek or traditional ecological knowledge practices. And indigenous knowledge and science. Um, because experimentation is key to indigenous science just as much as it is to any other and science. Um, and so that's been just a question. And an inquiry of my own that I would really love to hear what other people have to say. 06:06.18 archpodnet And I got 2 things 1 1 of the coolest diraas ever saw was that um the repository at Fort Fort Lewis college where they had like this whole diarama diorama of plants used to make. Um. Thread textiles. That's the word I was looking for so they actually could see what the plant was and then they had the yarn they made out of it and that was like really cool to actually see. It's like oh that's dope and the second part like going back to that whole process of. Like learning from your ancestors without them teaching you and you're you're kind of following their steps with the material culture like working with Devin Petigrew on like experimental ballistics like I get frustrated with like throwing out lads and stuff and like I remember 1 time I was like man this was stupid because I like missed the bison and that's. 06:54.98 Kay Mattena Yeah. 07:02.41 archpodnet Experiment and he goes and like Devyn's been on this podcast before and how serious is is like no Carlton you just don't appreciate how sophisticated her ancestors were to take out megafauna like you can do this and I was like you know you're right mad and he's always like Devin's just in that mode of like he values. These weapons so much and like appreciates them truly for their capabilities and the and the techniques and technologies that went in to actually like it's not just a pointy rock at the end of a stick like he's very good at explaining like really the engineering that has to go behind these things in order to get the outcomes. What you see in hunting practices here in North america so I deeply appreciate Devin for it and like every time he's helped me like make a pawniebo or an at-lal he's there. It's like really weird because it's like the ancestors almost speak through Devin because he researches the topic so heavily and like. 07:52.80 Kay Mattena Um, yeah. 07:57.42 archpodnet Gets indigenous perspectives that he's telling me well this is why they chose this wood because it grows here and this is how you can see through the artifact assemblage How why they chose it and how they interacted with it I'm just like man. 08:10.11 Kay Mattena Yeah, okay from from like the one image that I have like ingrained in my memory from me doing my undergrad is what I pulled from is an image of a Sagina Chippewa woman 08:10.14 David Ah, oh sorry you can go. 08:28.47 Kay Mattena Was taken by an ethnographer in the early nineteen hundreds of her sitting um with her bandolier bag full of materials and she's finger weaving and she's using what looks like a microphone stand to attach it to and I used. That image because it was the only one I could find from that time. Period. Um, and she is such a beautiful woman and I think like in spirit and in that image and what she's creating like that was so. Burned into me I felt such a connection to her and I could see like my grandmother who founded ribbon town which is now known as Notre Dame um or South Bend her allotment is actually where the university of Notre Dame sits on um I could imagine her weaving something like that. Um, and it really was like following the hands of a woman I could not see but I felt connected to and it the artifact itself taught me so much and I don't think that. There's a lot of people that really give enough autonomy to the artifact itself to teach themself. Um to teach and I think that was really where I saw the power in something like this. 09:59.62 David Yeah, um, I've been fli-napping a lot the past two years like trying to get good at it and like flint napping for sure gives you so much respect and appreciation for I mean from all the way back into like homo habilis of like the planning. And the thought processes that have to go on while you're making a tool and like it's not easy. So like just as you flip the stone around and you're like looking at it to see like what you doing and I'm listening to a podcast as I do it like and I have to think well what were. Like who was talking around them like were they all around a circle like telling stories or are they just like chilling you know like it it just there's endless stuff too and with like the art stuff that I've been doing recently too I'm trying to think like how why did they make the horse like elongated like this way like is it trying to run like what. You you know or they just accentuating anatomical features. And lastly I'll shut up after this but like with my dog too like any ancient society that had dogs like we have dogs because of like a language that humans and wolves share which is like food. So like at the bottom line I know my dog wants to eat something and I know I can get him to do something by providing him like you're communicating with food and like that's experimental arc to me in a way and like it kind of just gets you in that mindset of like okay how would they have done this. We got to strap a pack to it. We got to strap a trava to it like. 11:31.30 Kay Mattena Um, yeah I always joke that my dog speaks more pottawatomi than I do because she's trained in Pottawatomi. Yeah. 11:32.40 David It's just cool that was a tangent. But yeah, but. 11:38.14 David Oh yeah. I ah, um, but yeah I can't speak to the indigenous aspect of it I guess that's more on Carlton but like it's got to be cool, especially knowing you guys have descendants of or you are descendants of these people like it's it's got to be cool to think about as you mess with artifacts. 11:58.61 Kay Mattena Yeah, it was especially cool working with that particular textile because we were able to do some carbon dating with it. Um and dated it. So the carbon dates came back between 1650 to like 1920 um, but according to ah I can't remember the term but seiesion records and removal records. Um, we know that folks were removed from the island of geteodina in the late 1830 s and so we were able to narrow that between 1640 een forty and 1830 and from looking at the textile. It's made entirely with indigenous methods. There's no french introduction of beads or trade beads introduced to that it was entirely made of flax fiber. Um, or bast fiber and I think that is also such an incredible sign of resistance and survivance during a time period where ah, there's a sort of a stereotype of just erasure and conversion when we know that that's not the case. And this artifact shows that. 13:16.85 archpodnet And kind of like continuing on this threat of like survivance and and and like continuing on something that we've talked about before in our in our in our group chat you know is talking about how difficult it can be for indigenous students in higher ed especially at grad school. But universities that are not near home. So like how have you found a way at you know, um, Umass Amherst to find community in New England 13:48.63 Kay Mattena Yeah, so with Umass specifically there wasn't really a lot set up. Um, we have the Jw Ecc the Josephine White eagle cultural center um but that's mainly for undergrads. So. Anyone that's spend a graduate school again. Correct me if you have had a so different experience I would really love to hear if you had a different experience but where undergrads and graduate students are so incredibly siloed from each other even though we interact and we ta with each other. We're siloed and for. My community and other indigenous graduate students. That's really isolating too because our part of our job is. We're learning to be matriarchs for the first time and to not be able to have indigenous undergrads to have community with and be aunties to and sisters to. Is really a struggle and then with with umass it's ah it's a massive university every department has its own building and we're all siloed from department to department and then on top of that each department might have 1 indigenous grad student in the entire department. Maybe and so to be able to find each other when the departments themselves are so siloed is really difficult and luckily out of I think 2 faculty that are indigenous. Sonia is one of them. Um, Sonia my advisor so she's really helped to connect us because people will be like I'm an indigenous graduate student where can I find community and they immediately send her or them to Sonia um, and so we have a group right now of 3 indigenous grad students. Um. Get together and I run I work for a nonprofit organization called Gadaana and I run a braiding sweetgrass group through them and we do that way is sort of disconnected from the university because through the university we have to make it open so anyone can join us. But with braiding sweetgrass. We can make it more closed which is really important for indigenous students to be able to have just a tightknit community where we can share in confidence with each other um as well as be open what we want to be open and feel able to be open. Um and so it's really been. Entirely on the indigenous students to form community and find each other which we do um, doesn't mean it's easy and within our own classes. We never really have classes with each other so within class there's a lot of pressure. 16:32.20 Kay Mattena To be the token indian that can speak for all indigenous people which we can't do because we are one indigenous person often from one indigenous tribe or sometimes bothtipo but never representing everyone but we're sort of occasionally expected to speak for everyone. Um, or we're raced and silent. And not heard um, recently, especially after the twenty Twenty events and covid and protests and people starting to maybe open their ears a little bit and listen to other people's troubles. Um. Struggles. Um, there's been ah a little bit of a change where my classes that aren't led by indigenous people or people of color are including indigenous authors or authors about indigenous topics. Um, and. Think that that's started to change a little bit and made me feel a little bit more welcome but it's definitely a struggle and then also on top of that with the change. We're now being expected to read retraumatizing texts um, in class. So. Right now I'm rereading cowell chantappones of like chip. Um chips work on um, plundered schools and stolen spirits and every 5 pages I have to walk around and cry and then I return to it. Um, and it's really hard to like read like I need to read through that thing I know that I need to read it. But then I also am the only indigenous person in my class that has to talk about it and that makes it hard and there's a lot of pressure and I don't know that there's a lot of people that also respect that pressure you know like we're always asked to do land acknowledgements. Or asked to speak at indigenous events were asked to welcome indigenous ah like speakers and artists. Um, but there's not many of us. So the pressure is on like 5 people and umass is a big university and it's just a lot of pressure all the time and I don't think that. Enough people in administration or elsewhere really understand how much that is a struggle especially for graduate students who are trying to do their own shit and get through grad school on their own. 18:59.47 archpodnet Yeah I can vouch that sucks. Um, well before we end the show. Okay, what are a couple sources. These could be books articles or media that you'd recommend anyone interested in decolonial museums indigenous archaeology or tattooing tattooing practices in North America 19:16.37 Kay Mattena Yeah, um, so I think the big one for me right now is my advisor Dr Son Athele and Dr Alexandra mccleary just published um their edited volume. That's the community-based ph d complexities and triumphs of conducting cbpr. And all of the chapters are written by their graduate students. So it really gives you a good picture of like what it means to do a community-based ph d because doing community-based ph ds is often really scary because it does take a lot of time and relationship building. Um, but it really shows like where it's worth it. But it also is really honest about where. People struggled um and then the other big thing for me is at the organization I work for http://gadacaa.orgthey have a one-shelf book project where every year we donate one shelf of indigenous books to. High schools junior highs and elementary schools throughout the domland also known as new england um, that are written by indigenous authors and we have that book list. Um, which is a really useful resource especially if you are an educator and then of course keep an eye out for. And the years to come the indigenous archeologyies volume that Carlton is working on I am honored to have a chapter in that. So hopefully I will have a little bit of a reformed idea about what I'm doing with this ph d but yeah. 20:43.35 David Um, awesome. So. 20:47.29 archpodnet Yeah, spring Twenty Twenty three Not years to come. It's coming out next year okay like not that long. It's coming. It's coming. It's just one more year 20:50.48 Kay Mattena Okay, next year next year yeah it's it. It's a year to come. 20:55.96 David In the in the meantime before that book comes out where can our listeners find you on the socials or on the academias. 21:03.86 Kay Mattena Okay, so on the socials you can find me on insta at o underscore so oh underscore k k a y 13 and on Twitter you can find me at matina k um, and then. As far as if you want to get in contact with me. My email is Kmattena at http://umass.edu feel free to reach out if you have any ideas or interested in tattooing have any resources because resources on this are particularly. Hard to find so if you found anything incredibly interesting that you think I should know about let me know. But yeah, thanks for having me. 21:45.63 connor And ah, all that info will be on our show notes as well as links to things like that. Um. 21:51.66 archpodnet Yeah, maybe we should have you on with Rebecca Lamb we should have you guys on together. We can chat tattoos and get into some new england stuff right? back to you connor. Okay. 21:57.24 Kay Mattena Yeah, yeah, that would be really cool. 22:00.74 David Data. 22:01.62 connor Yeah, yeah, um, as we're finishing this out. Um, because this is a life in ruins. We're going to ask you a really cheesy question that's related to the name of this podcast. So if you had the opportunity or if you're giving another chance. 22:10.68 Kay Mattena He right. 22:20.95 connor Would you still choose to live a life in ruins. 22:22.62 Kay Mattena Always. 22:24.35 archpodnet Excellent, well everyone we just interviewed Kay Maina you can find her on Instagram and Twitter we will have her handles down below as well as her email address if you want to get in contact with her. 22:34.37 David Hey guys. Oh sorry yeah I just cut you off, um because this next part of the podcast is where I have to get real and like didn't you guys really enjoy Kay's episode today. It was so good. 22:34.74 Kay Mattena Thanks uneven. 22:51.95 David And it was so good that if I was listening to the podcast for the first time or was listening to the podcast and hadn't left a review I would scroll to my Apple Podcasts I'd go right up to that review section I would write what an excellent episode about indigenous tattoo practices with Kay Matina and spell it right? and even say it right in your head and look at that you will have like 5 star made 4 give us one star I don't care give us a review and Carlton will send you ah a light ruin sticker handwritten in the mail with a stamp and all right carlton. 23:26.14 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, we're still sitting at that January Twenty fifth review so it's it's February Twenty Eighth we're still looking for reviews guys like it's been a month since our last review. Yeah before world war three and we all get drafted. Give us a review. 23:34.31 David Um, just one review before the nuclear winter guys come on. Yeah. 23:42.82 archpodnet Because once for drafted the show ends and then you know. 23:45.75 David I'm on too many pills to be drafted. It's kind of awesome. All right. 23:47.42 Kay Mattena And then me and Emily and other indigenous women will take it over. 23:53.67 archpodnet Go for it. You can have it. You can have this train wreck. 23:53.79 David You yeah you by the way. Yeah Carlton and I were talking about that the other day you guys are like whenever you guys want to use this platform to talk about anything like Connor and I are good to step off you guys can do whatever you want. So just let us know. 23:56.33 connor Absolutely. 24:08.82 archpodnet Yeah SA 2022 is coming up. We'll see what happens at that train wreck. 24:12.20 David The. 24:12.74 Kay Mattena And no I'm okay I'll sit out. Thanks. 24:16.18 archpodnet Ah, excellent, all right? Well everyone thank you so much for listening to the show. Well and we'll catch you next time. All right for those that made it through the credits it is time for Connor's favorite segment is closer that was the cat. 24:24.33 Kay Mattena Bye. Thanks. 24:35.45 archpodnet Food alarm. We'll just ignore that. Ah, he's not even here right now. So Connor what do you got for us today. Bud. 24:39.48 David Um, oh he will be so. 24:42.84 connor It's unfortunately it's not cat related but you know I hope it's still pretty funny. So have I've recently started telling people about the benefits of eating dried grapes. You know it's It's really about Raisin awareness. 24:54.14 David All right that was that was pretty good.