this is just a random factoid: when I moved to the US, I tried to find information about the traditional owners of the land I would be living on and if there were any official ways of asking elders for permission to live on their country

there are not

I think part of this is that due to forced relocation, many traditional owners no longer live on their country, but it's also because native "sovereignty" as it exists in the US is a legal fiction that can be disregarded at will, like whenever someone wants to build a pipeline

we talk a lot about decolonisation but coloniser/settler states have made it as difficult as possible to legally engage in any type of meaningful decolonisation when it comes to asking for permission to use or live on land and waters and it's 100% intentional

it's absurd that you have to apply to a colonial state for permission to live on land that doesn't belong to them, but you actually *can't* ask for that same legal permission from the people who actually own the land, even if you want to (which you should)

how can we have meaningfully sovereign native/Indigenous states when the traditional owners have absolutely no legal say over who gets to live on their land, but the illegitimate colonial power can grant or deny that permission to whoever they like?