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Blood Memory

Blood memory is a term used most often by Indigenous peoples of the world, for the understanding of how Indigenous traditional knowledge(s) and memory is stored in the cells; or genetic makeup of one’s body (also referred to as cellular memory) (1,2,3,5,9,10,13). Other terms that have been used and linked to this concept include historical memory and heart memory (12,14).

Since blood is a natural feature of the physical body, the memories carried through blood represent shared ancestral memories and knowledge(s) that are interconnected and fluid through a generational mode of transmission The understanding of blood memory is tied to Indigenous knowledge(s) and Indigenous worldviews (1,2,3,5,9,12) Discussion of blood memory within Indigenous worldviews includes the experience of déjà vu (5). From an Indigenous knowledges understanding, déjà vu represents the body’s re-experiencing of an ancestral life path. Dreams and dreamtime are another mode of blood memory transmission for Indigenous knowledges to be remembered, learned, or taught (1,3,4)

Many Indigenous worldviews embody reincarnation within their experiences of spirituality, which may be representative of the linkage between ancestral life, spirit and blood memory transmission (10, 11). Reincarnation is the belief that one’s spirit leaves the body at the time of death and is again reborn into another body of either human or non-human. It has been argued that “blood memory” is “absurdly racist…(and) essentialist (ref 1). This literal analysis of blood memory states that because there is no human gene for perception to be experienced or felt, the idea of blood memory therefore creates barriers to understanding Native realities (8).

However, other Indigenous commentary asserts that memory in the blood is not understood to be an exclusive representative of (North American) Indigenous cultures and peoples (ref 1). Blood memory being identified as being essentialist has been identified as a sociological, critical analysis based in Eurocentric frameworks that have served and continue to serve to discount Indigenous knowledge (9).

“In a country where a powerful body of white politicians and scholars have for years maintained a monopoly of defining Indianness, and where Native peoples do not control the discourse that controls our lives, the concept of blood memory cuts through the pronouncements of “Indian experts”…for a people who have had much of their knowledge of the past severed, blood memory promises a direct link to the lives of our ancestors, made manifest in the flesh of their descendants” (9)

Blood memory in creative art forms
NVTV –Good Shield Aguilar. Blood Memory. Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqc7MXP8QHE

Jolene Rickard – Commentary about Anishnabe artist Rebecca Belmore: http://www.rebeccabelmore.com/assets/Performing_Power.pdf

Blood Memory commentary from Mary Annette Pember about the Ziibiwing Center in central Michigan: http://www.dailyyonder.com/blood-memory/2010/07/15/2841