Cultural anthropologist Dawn Martin-Hill is the recipient of the 2022 OU International Water Prize presented Sept. 26 at the OU International WaTER Conference at First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. An associate professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, she was recognized for her contributions to understanding how water quality and security are linked to Indigenous community culture, livelihood and health.
By Jim Chamberlain | OU WaTER Center Co-director
Dawn Martin-Hill is a storyteller because it is in stories where the truth lies. She tells one story of leading a water ceremony out on the west coast of the United States. One participant brought a pottery bowl that was engraved with “Water is Life” in many different languages. That bowl is a symbol of Martin-Hill's lifework – to honor and celebrate the sacramental gift that water is to all peoples using the stories and myths of her culture, the Haudenosaunee peoples of Canada’s Six Nations of the Grand River.
The two-row wampum belt is another symbol that expresses the journey of two cultures who travel down the river together, side by side, without trying to steer one another. Surrounded by the Great Lakes, Martin-Hill's tribal culture is defined and nourished by freshwater. She says that “our entire way of life is governed by water. It is spiritual, it is cultural, it is our identity. When you take that away from us, you are literally taking away our culture.”
Traditional indigenous knowledge is relayed through oral tradition, primarily from stories, arts, crafts and ceremonies, all done in the indigenous language. Under colonization, the residential schools outlawed the indigenous language, and yet indigenous knowledge about water and ecology is embedded in the native language. When the language is lost, so is the indigenous knowledge. Thus, Martin-Hill's integrated teams of elders, youth, biologists, scientists, and engineers present their work in a bilingual format.
The seventh biennial OU International Water Conference was held in a virtual format on Sept. 26-27 and featured 104 registrants presenting on and discussing such topics as engineering with nature, hydrology and water security, water for disadvantaged populations, wastewater epidemiology, water resources and climate change, and household water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH). An in-person prize banquet was held on Sept. 26 with 128 people in attendance at the beautiful First Americans Museum (FAM) in Oklahoma City.
Martin-Hill, Ph.D., was honored at the banquet with the 2022 OU International Water Prize. Martin-Hill is an Indigenous (Haudenosaunee) woman, a cultural anthropologist and an associate professor at McMaster University. In addition, she is a mother who raised her girls in a home with periods of no running water. Using grants from Global Water Futures, she and her students from McMaster University have developed indigenous water quality tools to monitor and assess the rich water life that surrounds them.
Her research examines the sources of water contamination in both Six Nations and the Lubicon Cree in Alberta. At the prize banquet, Martin-Hill spoke of her passionate commitment to studying and improving the health impacts of water quality on people and animals that live in both communities. She presented her work in water as a relationship, not utility alone. Martin-Hill is committed to understanding how water quality and security are linked to Indigenous community culture, livelihood and health, all important in the pursuit of future water security. Water is life ... to all peoples.
Learn more about the Gallogly College of Engineering Water Center at ou.edu/coe/centers/water.
