Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing
by Cynthia C. Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D. and Magdalena Smolewski, Ph.D.
by Cynthia C. Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D. and Magdalena Smolewski, Ph.D.
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Introduction<br />
Many historical facts from the <strong>Aboriginal</strong> past have been veiled by official discourses <strong>and</strong> sometimes by<br />
<strong>Aboriginal</strong> people themselves, because, as Neal says: “There is a tendency for the older generations to<br />
avoid talking about [the] experiences that were painful, while many members of the younger generations<br />
have little interest in [the] events that are now frozen in the past” (1998:x). Only by revealing what<br />
remains hidden <strong>and</strong> only by reconnecting people with their memories, one may achieve the interconnectedness,<br />
interdependence <strong>and</strong> balance with the past that is so much needed for <strong>Aboriginal</strong><br />
communities to heal at a deeper level. Once this balance of truth is achieved <strong>and</strong> all the painful<br />
elements properly connected, <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people will be able to transcend the pain <strong>and</strong> grief that has<br />
become embedded in their identity <strong>and</strong> in their social <strong>and</strong> cultural egos.<br />
Nwachuku <strong>and</strong> Ivey (1991) propose that the healing process in <strong>Aboriginal</strong> communities must begin<br />
with the exploration of people’s natural helping styles. In McCormick’s (1995/1996) study, First Nation<br />
people utilized several healing modalities to heal their communities <strong>and</strong> themselves. These included:<br />
exercise <strong>and</strong> the expression of emotion to restore balance; establishing social connections to create interconnectedness;<br />
<strong>and</strong> addressing spirits to achieve transcendence. All these modalities had one thing in<br />
common: they were intended to place an individual in the context of the community <strong>and</strong> were evolved<br />
around this concept:<br />
Throughout the history of First Nations people, the definition of health evolved around<br />
the whole being of each person - the physical, emotional, mental <strong>and</strong> spiritual aspects of<br />
a person being in balance <strong>and</strong> harmony with each other as well with the environment<br />
<strong>and</strong> other beings. This has clashed with the western medical model which, until very<br />
recently, has perpetuated the concept of health as being “the absence of disease” (Favel-<br />
King, 1993:125).<br />
There is no doubt that restoring balance is of the utmost importance to <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people. What effect<br />
is one to expect if this balance is destroyed; not only shattered, not merely damaged, but almost entirely<br />
decimated by the multiple effects of death <strong>and</strong> destruction from the early epidemics, the early mass depopulation<br />
<strong>and</strong> the wanton <strong>and</strong> vicious killing that went on, especially under Spanish occupation.<br />
As Waldram, Herring <strong>and</strong> Kue Young say in their study on <strong>Aboriginal</strong> health in Canada:<br />
Epidemics were not simply medical events but had far-reaching consequences for<br />
<strong>Aboriginal</strong> societies … In some cases, whole communities were decimated … epidemics<br />
spurred on community break-up <strong>and</strong> migration … among the survivors, the loss of a<br />
significant number of community members altered leadership roles <strong>and</strong> disrupted the<br />
existing social structures … Still, relatively little is known about the health <strong>and</strong> disease<br />
histories of particular communities or reserves, so that the picture of health <strong>and</strong> disease<br />
up to the Second World War can be drawn in only the broadest of strokes” (1995:260).<br />
In this study, an attempt is made to draw in more subtle strokes in order to find, at least, some answers<br />
to the burning questions of why the process of healing in <strong>Aboriginal</strong> communities seems to be slowed<br />
down by apparently powerful forces that, to this day, keep people imprisoned in their troubled memories.<br />
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