Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Chapter 1
journals that could be read in the present to grasp the depth of the pain and grief they experienced.
One cannot read how Aboriginal people might have helped each other through their fear and confusion
that, in turn, makes one unable to empathize with their feelings in a contemporary context. However,
there are many letters and journals that have been preserved from the 400 years of plague that devastated
European populations. A general comparison of the aftermath of these horrific continental debacles is
a useful exercise that may help to fill in some of the blanks. It is possible that the experiences of
Medieval Europeans might reflect the early historic experiences of Indigenous people in the Americas,
and explain known responses to similar European devastation, such as rampant alcoholism, social apathy
and anomie, cultural and moral breakdown, spiritual rejection and reformation, as well as profound
mental and emotional withdrawal.
Recovery from the Black Death in Europe was eventually achieved through the processes of spiritual,
economic and social adjustment. For some, the return to normal activities was relatively simple. Many
cities and towns found they were able to survive the occasional loss of large portions of their population.
People were quickly replaced through births and immigration. In fact, in many European cities,
immigration was encouraged, in order to re-establish human and material resources and rebuild economic
bases. In similar fashion, after the worst epidemics hit the Americas and the death rate slowed sufficiently
to allow some kind of recovery, many Indigenous groups took in remnants of other tribes for much the
same reason (Cook, 1998). Axtell (1992) makes reference to at least three adaptations used by various
tribes to cope with demographic devastation, which included increased warfare to replenish populations
with captured replacements, intermarriages with black Africans and white Europeans and joining together
of rival tribes.
The speed of recovery for Medieval society was striking, considering the sheer horror of the experience
for its citizens (Zeigler, 1969). After the Black Death, fatality statistics drawn up on the order of Pope
Clement VI gave the number of deaths for the “whole world” at 42,836,486 (Nohl, 1961). This figure
is said to have represented, at a minimum, half of the existing population of the entire Old World
continent.
This level of population mortality was true, at a minimum, for Aboriginal people of the Americas as
well. Unfortunately, an equally effective recovery process was not to be true for the Indigenous population
on this continent. On the New Continent, while Indigenous people were trying to contend with
never-ending waves of smallpox and influenza epidemics, they were also grappling with the additional
burdens of slavery, murder, colonialism and the indignity of being forcefully removed from their homes
and traditional territories.
For 500 years there was almost no sustained reprieve from physical, social and spiritual devastation that,
in turn, would have allowed a steady and sustainable rebuilding process to occur. Even after epidemics
ended, the Indigenous people remained under mental siege from colonial governments, assimilationist
tactics, church and government-run residential schools and Christian missionaries. The huge loss of
life they experienced immediately after contact virtually ensured the destruction of leaders, artists,
teachers, warriors, healers and holy men. These losses would have had a huge impact, perhaps even
bigger than that on Medieval Europe, since the majority of Indigenous cultures were not literate. There
were no written records to preserve detailed aspects of their history, cultures and belief systems, which
would not necessarily have been known to the “common man.” Most had oral traditions that were
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