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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Chapter 2<br />
Soon after contact with the colonizers, in the period termed the “cultural transition,” <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people<br />
were stripped of their social power <strong>and</strong> cultural authority. Once they realized that they could neither<br />
control nor escape catastrophic events, they began to exhibit helpless “giving up” behavioural patterns.<br />
Many, by choice, withdrew socially, thereby lessening their social <strong>and</strong> psychological investment in<br />
communal <strong>and</strong> societal relationships. They reduced their cultural <strong>and</strong> spiritual activities <strong>and</strong> became<br />
engaged in displaced re-enactments of conflict that, in turn, led to disruptive behaviour, social alienation<br />
<strong>and</strong> profound psychological problems, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence <strong>and</strong> sexual<br />
abuse. These maladaptive behaviours, acquired early in the cultural transition period <strong>and</strong> magnified<br />
later during the residential school period, left a legacy of cyclical dysfunction <strong>and</strong> disruptive behavioural<br />
patterns that can be directly related to upset cultural identity formation. Coupled with increasing<br />
external <strong>and</strong> internal abuses is the loss of story-telling as a traditional deterrent because of spiritual <strong>and</strong><br />
government suppression of cultural activities <strong>and</strong> mores.<br />
As mentioned earlier, Medieval Europe also experienced social, moral <strong>and</strong> spiritual breakdowns from<br />
the trauma of the Black Death of 1349 to 1351 <strong>and</strong> successive p<strong>and</strong>emics that raged across the continent<br />
until at least 1720. Medieval Europe experienced subsequent reconstruction of social order <strong>and</strong> people<br />
were able to re-populate in the 30 to 40 years between major plagues. <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people were not able<br />
to reconstruct or re-populate because epidemics hit every 7 to 14 years, leaving insufficient time frames<br />
in between.<br />
Some Indigenous people hung on to some semblance of their socio-cultural structures through 400<br />
years of epidemics. Some, like the Yahi Indians of northern California, became extinct. The Yahi case,<br />
as described by Kroeber (1961), an anthropologist who worked with the last surviving Yahi during the<br />
1910s, provides a tragic example of what may happen when two populations encounter each other with<br />
one dominating the other.<br />
About 400 Yahi once lived near the Sacramento River. During the gold rush of the 1840s, non-<br />
<strong>Aboriginal</strong> miners <strong>and</strong> settlers moved into the region. Hostile ranchers cut off the Yahi from their<br />
hunting <strong>and</strong> gathering territory. The settlers’ livestock over-grazed the vegetation. The chemicals from<br />
the mines polluted the streams. The Yahi’s access to food sources diminished <strong>and</strong> they began raiding<br />
the settlers’ farms. In retaliation, the ranchers raided Yahi villages, shooting <strong>and</strong> hanging people, killing<br />
children, kidnapping <strong>and</strong> enslaving women. Those who survived the raids soon died from infectious<br />
diseases. By 1870, only twelve Yahi remained alive. They hid in the hills but failed to reproduce. By<br />
1894, only five Yahi remained alive. When, in 1909, the settlers discovered the Yahi camp, there were<br />
just four of them left. One woman <strong>and</strong> an old man drowned while trying to escape. From the two<br />
remaining Yahi, an old woman <strong>and</strong> her son, the settlers took all their food, clothes, tools <strong>and</strong> utensils,<br />
but left them alive. The woman died soon after <strong>and</strong> the man lived alone in the hills for two years. In<br />
1911, he was found near the town of Oroville. He was starved <strong>and</strong> exhausted <strong>and</strong> had burns on his<br />
head: a sign of mourning. The man, known today as Ishi (“man” in Yahi language) was taken to San<br />
Francisco where he lived in the anthropology museum at the University of California until his death<br />
from tuberculosis in 1916 (Kroeber, 1961).<br />
The physical changes that <strong>Aboriginal</strong> people experienced in the early period of colonization (cultural<br />
transition) as a result of contact with the outsiders can be analyzed into four major categories of variables:<br />
epidemiological, demographic, nutritional <strong>and</strong> health resources. In terms of the epidemiological system<br />
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