Salon 55 Gifting Nature with Kaarina Kailo and Barbara Mann

Barbara Mann

Barbara Alice Mann, is a Ph.D. scholar and Professor in the Honors College of the University of Toledo, in Toledo, Ohio, USA. She has authored fifteen books, the latest of which are President by Massacre: Indian-Killing for Political Gain (2019) and Spirits of Blood, Spirits of Breath: The Twinned Cosmos of Indigenous America (2016). Other works include The Tainted Gift (2009), on the deliberate spread of disease to Natives by settlers as a land-clearing tactic. Dr. Mann is currently working on an international project examining historical massacres, around the world 1780–1820, and is participating in book project on that. Her internationally noted Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas (2001, 2004, 2006) is in its third printing. Two other internationally known books include George Washington’s War on Native America (2005, 2007), Daughters of Mother Earth (2006, out in paperback as Make a Beautiful Way, 2008). She has published over 400 articles and chapters since 1995. She lives in her homeland and works for the rights of the people indigenous to Ohio, living in Ohio. (“Ohio” is a Seneca word meaning “Beautiful River,” a spiritual designation.) An Ohio Bear Clan Seneca, with community recognition, she was for twenty years the Speaker and/or Northern Director of the Native American Alliance of Ohio.

Kaarina Kailo

Dr. Kaarina Kailo, Ph.D. from the University of Toronto has held numerous women’s studies positions (Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Interim Principal, Concordia University; Oulu University, professor; Finnish Academy, senior scholar). Her numerous publications include Finnish Goddess Mythology, the Golden Woman and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. From Climate Change to Indigenous Earth Democracy and the Gift; Mothering, Gift and Revolution. In Honor of Genevieve Vaughan’s Life’s Work (ed) and several forthcoming books (“The Woman Who Married the Bear: The Bear Spirituality of Ancient Foremothers” with Barbara Mann; in Finnish The Sauna and Sweatlodge as sites of Rebirth and Bare/Bear Being).