Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

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Chapter 3 One must then underline the importance of analyzing Aboriginal traditions as constantly reacting to and interacting with the non-Aboriginal culture around them. In order for Aboriginal people to regain the status of full incorporation and health, their past must be re-negotiated vis-à-vis the non-Aboriginal cultures. Within the last fifty years, Aboriginal people have been given enough cultural space and freedom to enable them to analyze historical losses and the impermanence these loses brought to their lives. Now, the healing process is entering a new phase of solidifying these understandings. The next step will be, to paraphrase the words of Paula Gunn Allen, to change Aboriginal people’s social and cultural status from an isolated, dispossessed victimhood to one of incorporation into the fabric of society as knowledgeable, empowered and belonging equals. “In the transformation from one state to another, the prior state or condition must cease to exist. It must die” (Allen, 1986:79-80). 84
Chapter 4 The Elders Speak Today, seven generations later, you turn to us as your own culture is failing. The land you took from us, tricked us out of, is becoming too poisoned to feed you. Your rivers and streams are dying. I wonder, why do you turn to us now? Is it because through it all we never stopped praying? Never stopped beating our drums, dancing and singing songs to the Creator? And that somehow, somehow, you couldn’t silence us? (Sioux Elder cited in Johnson and Budnick, 1994:1) In closing, it is important to conclude with a chapter that captures the voices of Elders and their views on Aboriginal memory, tradition and healing. It is understood, in spite of the turmoil and human destruction that spewed across the entire continent after contact with Europeans, that there was much in the way of the spiritual that was preserved by Indigenous people in both the southern and northern hemispheres. Ceremony and traditional teachings were spirited away and safely stored in the homes, minds and hearts of those that survived the terrible holocaust of the epidemics. From the elders still living across the continent, it is known that even though the epidemics tore through the Indigenous population like fire across a field of dry grass, were followed in rapid succession by genocidal policies spewed forth by colonial governments and, later, multiple and unrelenting attempts at assimilation and genocide, the people carried their life ways forward in their hearts and spirits. Bertha Groves shares her thoughts on the question of continuing life ways, and on how Aboriginal people have remembered to be in this world: Spirituality is what holds the world and mankind together. When it is gone, there is nothing. Like a dead person when their spirit leaves them. It takes years to learn to be the type of person you have to be. It’s not like going to school where you graduate from four years of college and then you know everything. Spirituality is not like that. To be a healer or a pipe carrier, you have to be humble. The way of my teachings is that the creation came into being, all the trees, animals, insects, and then at the end was mankind. We are supposed to be his most wonderful creation, and yet they always tell us that we have to be more humble than the insects, the lowest crawling creature (as cited in Johnson and Budnick, 1994:168). Throughout this paper, the past was looked at in-depth to formulate hypotheses based on historic trauma and its effects, and to create a better understanding of why Aboriginal people continue to suffer on a more global basis than would seem reasonable, given the apparent survival of Aboriginal teachings and the sense of cultural continuity that is prevalent in oral tradition and in more contemporary historic texts. This study could not be complete without an understanding of how the elders (grandmothers and grandfathers) see the unfolding of Aboriginal history. Lavine White from the Haida Nation speaks to the devastation of loss and the optimism of herself and her people for recovery: There were three different epidemics among the Haida people. I’m seventy-three now, and I remember when I was little hearing the elders speak about them. They remembered the first time that our people were decimated through contact with white people, the 85
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Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Heal
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Table of Contents Historic Trauma a
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Table of Contents Definitions------
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Definitions This glossary of terms
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Executive Summary This study propos
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Introduction [A] healing ritual cha
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Introduction This concept involves
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Introduction of war and disease los
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Introduction Once the physical make
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Introduction Many historical facts
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Chapter 1 Historical Background Eur
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Chapter 1 In addition, once the Ind
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Chapter 1 patients who broke out in
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Chapter 1 From the earliest epidemi
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Chapter 1 also more than likely tha
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Chapter 1 and the lives of about 30
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Chapter 1 beliefs would have been w
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Chapter 1 journals that could be re
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Chapter 1 The European continent ex
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Chapter 2 Analyzing the Trauma In t
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Chapter 2 Soon after contact with t
Page 43 and 44: Chapter 2 Early Period - Cultural T
Page 45 and 46: Chapter 2 For many decades, researc
Page 47 and 48: Chapter 2 Soon, it became apparent
Page 49 and 50: Chapter 2 the Grandmothers, the Mot
Page 51 and 52: Chapter 2 Acculturation is more tha
Page 53 and 54: Chapter 2 Hurons” (Trigger, 1985:
Page 55 and 56: Chapter 2 people (and people versus
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 2 transgression; [and becam
Page 59 and 60: Chapter 2 There is often the feelin
Page 61 and 62: Chapter 2 There are many consequenc
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 2 repetition of traumatic e
Page 65 and 66: Chapter 2 of operating: power throu
Page 67 and 68: Chapter 2 White Russians and Ukrain
Page 69 and 70: Chapter 2 native people in western
Page 71 and 72: Chapter 2 In many parts of Australi
Page 73 and 74: Chapter 2 In 1975 through to 1979,
Page 75 and 76: Chapter 3 A New Model: Historic Tra
Page 77 and 78: Chapter 3 characteristics more typi
Page 79 and 80: Chapter 3 It is reasonable to think
Page 81 and 82: Chapter 3 available. Consequently,
Page 83 and 84: Chapter 3 contain some kind of seco
Page 85 and 86: Chapter 3 of traumatic memories and
Page 87 and 88: Chapter 3 Implications for Healing:
Page 89 and 90: Chapter 3 life (van der Kolk, van d
Page 91 and 92: Chapter 3 a result of contact with
Page 93: Chapter 3 and memory on to next gen
Page 97 and 98: Chapter 4 [T]he basic purpose is fo
Page 99 and 100: Chapter 4 information in my DNA Str
Page 101 and 102: Chapter 4 Further, the spiritual or
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 4 Lee, who is of Cree ances
Page 105 and 106: Appendix 1: Complex Post-Traumatic
Page 107 and 108: References Aboriginal Healing Found
Page 109 and 110: References Buchbinder, G. (1977). E
Page 111 and 112: References Elder, B. (1988). Blood
Page 113 and 114: References Hocking, B. (1993). Abor
Page 115 and 116: References McCormick, Rod (1997). H
Page 117 and 118: References Rotter, J.B. (1966). Gen
Page 119 and 120: References van der Kolk, B.A., O. v
Page 121: Aboriginal Healing Foundation 75 Al
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