An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States Ortiz

The Doctrine of Discovery 217

conventions of survivance create a sense of Native presence over
nihility and victory. Survivance is an active presence: it is not ab­
sence, deracination, or ethnographic oblivion, and survivance is the
continuance of narratives, not a mere reaction, however pertinent.
Survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, the unbearable
sentiments of tragedy, and the legacy of victimry."37
The Doctrine of Discovery is dissolving in light of these profound
acts of sovereignty. But neither arcane colonial laws nor the his­
torical trauma of genocide simply disappear with time, certainly
not when conditions of life and consciousness perpetuate them. The
Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty movement is not only
transforming the continent's Indigenous communities and nations
but also, inevitably, the United States. The ways it is doing that are
explored in the concluding chapter.