Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Chapter 2
and in the pre-contact conditions where there were few pathogens in the Aboriginal people’s natural
ecosystem, epidemics of introduced infectious diseases resulted in dramatic changes to the demographic
system: the number of deaths increased, while the number of births decreased, which obviously resulted
in a population decline. With famine interacting with epidemics and newly introduced types of food
(mainly carbohydrate supplements), the nutritional patterns changed as well. People, who relied mainly
on a high protein diet prior to contact, had to depend on high-carbohydrate rations from the missions
and trading posts. The poor nutritional value of introduced foods perpetuated low disease resistance
and demographic imbalance for several generations. Finally, traditional health resources were also
altered. In a pre-contact stage, medicine men and mid-wives fulfilled medical and psycho-therapeutic
needs; however, after contact, the medicine men were discredited and lost their power and credibility
(as they were unable to help dying people), while missionaries adopted a dubious role of “health providers.”
These physical changes caused profound alterations in social structures and cultural identity of Aboriginal
people, changing everything from marriage rules to lineage relationships, from belief systems to
psychological make-up of the groups. Initial psychological reactions to the physical damage that were
sustained must have been severe distress, fear and feelings of uncertainty. People did not know what
caused the crisis, they did not know how to treat the ill and they did not know what to expect. According
to Johnston:
[R]umours circulated within Huronia and throughout the northeast about what the
epidemics meant and who was responsible. Various local spirits were suspected, as were
human agents, some of whom were killed. But the main suspects were the Jesuits who
were considered to have extraordinary powers. By 1639 the disaster had lasted five
years, and they had no reason to believe it would end, especially if they could not
discover the cause and thus the cure. They felt they were being intentionally destroyed
as individuals, as families, and as nations. The Huron felt that the Jesuits were destroying
them by refusing to share with them their powers over disease, famine, drought, and
enemy attacks; by interfering with their own powers in many fields; and by conspiring
with their enemy (1987:22).
Unfortunately, as already noted in the opening pages of this study, there are no written records of
personal responses and behaviours of the northern Aboriginal people to the massive death rates and the
utter destruction they experienced. However, there are written testimonials from early European observers
indicating that grief-stricken Aboriginal people often committed suicide, hid their dead and that there
were many manifestations of trauma and shock, apprehension, dread and despair. As Johnston notes,
one Huron was reported to have said: “What wilt thou have? Our minds are disordered” (1987:22).
The same source recalls that: “by the end of the second epidemic, at a council where the headmen were
listing their dead, they looked at one another like corpses, or rather like men who already feel the terrors
of death. By 1639, the Jesuits were reporting that “the death of their nearest relatives takes away their
reason”” (Johnston, 1987:22). Moreover, all possible resistance resources (normal social relationships,
community ties, social support, etc.) were already destroyed.
As in Europe, in times of the plague, tragic pessimism would pervade all aspects of life; death would
become a dominant theme. Epidemics and their tragic effects became new pathogens that corrupted
social and cultural structures.
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