Indigenous Peoples’ Blanket Exercise
The Blanket Exercise acknowledges what has been buried by honoring the truth.
“Opening our eyes and unforgetting the past” was the theme of the recent Blanket Exercise, designed to help participants understand how colonization of the land has impacted the people who lived here before Columbus and other settlers arrived.
On May 13 at First English Lutheran Church on Ballard Road, nearly 70 participants gathered for the Blanket Exercise to build understanding about our shared history as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Blankets arranged on the floor represented the land before the arrival of Europeans. Everyone stepped onto blankets that represent the land, and took the role of the Indigenous peoples. As I listened to the history from pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance, I could see the people and the land disappear. At the end of the exercise only a few people remained on the blankets. Going through this visible history of eliminating people and stealing land was an intellectual and emotional experience.
