TAĆEL SW̱ HÁLE, welcome everyone. Beginning my introduction in SENĆOŦEN feels appropriate as my time is spent mostly on the unceded territories of both the W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən (what is now called Victoria, BC), though because of my love for he’e nalu/whakahekeheke, some of my time is also spent as an uninvited visitor to unceded Pacheedaht and wider Nuu-chah-nulth territory.
My lineage is entirely settler/pākehā/haole/mzungu of mostly Germanic (Bavarian, English, French, Norse) and Celtic (Swiss, French, English) lineage, and i was born on Anishinaabe territory before spending much of my adult life in Tiohtiá:ke, unceded Kanienkeha:ka territory.
My name (Kikila) means “kettle” in ‘ōlelo Hawai’i and while it didn’t come to me through ceremony or as a gift, or a product of my lineage, it came to me as a child through relationships, and it is an honour to bear today. The rest of my name on wikipedia (Mai Tawhiti) means “to be distant” or “from afar” in te reo Māori.
After working labour jobs through my teens and 20s a friend talked me into starting university at 28 (Concordia University, BA honours history 2011). Graduating from my MA (Concordia university, history 2012), i was motivated to try other experiences, and through my connection to environmental and social activism, as well as a pretty big amount of white and male privilege, i was gifted a series of experience in a series of territories that brought me both to supporting Indigenous-led decolonization as both an embodied experience and professionally.
Amassing even more student debt (my social background is working class with no access to savings or intergenerational wealth or equity), my phd in Indigenous Studies and Geography was completed in 2025 (University of Victoria).
Wikipedia has a problem with perspective. It centres white/settler ways of knowing that are also patriarchal and obscure Indigenous truths through the adherence to policy. With my role of “witness” (see articles by Sarah Hunt), it feels like part of my responsibilities to participate as a wikipedia editor to attempt to address these structural issues through small edits and discussions on talk pages.
HÍSW̱ḴE (thank you, in SENĆOŦEN) for reading. Nice to meet you all :)