Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Introduction
trauma being a disease of time in the etiological sense. That is: “the pathology consists of the past
invading the present in re-experiences and re-enactments, and of the person’s efforts to defend himself
from the consequences” (as cited in Antze and Lambek, 1996:97).
Young further notes that:
[O]ur sense of personhood is not only shaped by our active or conscious memories, it is
also shaped by our conception of “memory” which means that it is not only direct traumatic
experiences that can create negative effect, it is also present interpretations of events that
can continue to impact our lives (Young, 1995:4).
To back up the contention of effect and transmission of trauma and unresolved grief, examples are
drawn from European history of disease and epidemics. In order to highlight the multiple layers of the
process of colonization and historic trauma that influenced and keeps influencing lives of Aboriginal
people in North America, the effects of colonization on five areas of impact have been identified:
1) Physical: associated with the first stage of colonization (cultural transition) and the introduction
of infectious diseases that decimated the Indigenous population and resulted in an intergenerational
and culturally propagated (endemic) form of complex post-traumatic stress disorder;
2) Economic: associated with the first stage of colonization (cultural transition) and a violation of
Native stewardship of land and forced removal of people from their natural habitat and life ways;
3) Cultural: associated with the second stage of colonization (cultural dispossession) and the wave of
Christian missionization intended to bring about religious transformation and cultural destruction
through prohibitions imposed on Aboriginal culture and belief systems;
4) Social: associated with the second stage of colonization (cultural dispossession) and the stages of
Aboriginal displacement through colonial settlement, which brought alien social structures,
introduced non-traditional coping mechanisms and silenced “knowledgeable subjects” within the
Aboriginal population; thereby, damaging families, altering gender roles, authority and diminishing
cultural values and mores; and
5) Psychological: associated with the third stage of colonization (cultural oppression) and the
marginalization of Aboriginal people, as their social selves became largely diminished and
impoverished. As well, any perception of control that they had over their lives became reduced and
badly undermined and, ultimately, placing perceptions regarding locus of control on the colonizers.
Findings have been organized chronologically according to the waves of colonization: cultural transition
(early period), cultural dispossession (middle period) and cultural oppression (late period). It must be
stressed that, for the sake of structural clarity, the five areas of impact have been categorized into three
temporal stages. At each historical time, all five areas were being affected and altered, as rapid external
changes kept altering Aboriginal cultural identity and eliminated the boundaries between the areas of
impact and private and public spaces.
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