PART 8
December 14, 2008 Ottawa Sun
By MARK BONOKOSKI, Sun Media
In a world filled with the racial stereotypes that political correctness eschews — think monied Jews, cheap Scots, dumb Poles, and mobster Italians — the “drunken Indian” has long retained its ignoble place on the historic mantlepiece of humanity’s slanders.
It is an ugly epithet, but not one without a modicum of credibility.
It had to come from somewhere, and writing it off as simply a predisposition among Natives to alcoholism is both ignorant and dismissive.
“We cannot deny the collusion of cultures at contact (with the Europeans) centuries ago,” says Joe Hester, a Cree, and executive director of Anishnawbe Health Toronto.
“And it manifested itself, years later, with both the colonial and the residential school syndromes.
“It created a whole array of issues and problems that are certainly related to Native health, specifically,” he says. For Joe Hester, the problem with alcohol in the aboriginal community began with the colonial whisky traders out West who introduced it to Natives as a bargaining chip, after which it worked its way further into the psyche with the Indian Act of 1876 and its decamping of Natives into reserves.
It then dug a deeper hole with the yanking of upwards of 150,000 Native children from their homes in the mid-1900s, and forcing them into residential schools where physical and psychological brutality, plus the estrangement from their traditional culture, were used to whitewash the “Indian out of them.”
“It was the attempted destruction of a people. That’s what really occurred,” says Hester. “It didn’t quite do away with us, but it came very, very close.”
As one anthropologist explained the project, the goal was to turn Natives into the equivalent of an apple cultured from some tube in a laboratory — keeping them red on the outside, but turning them white on the inside.
“If you take away who you are. If you kill your self-esteem and you take away your self worth, well, many did turn to the bottle to escape,” says Hester. “And terribly, and tragically, you found a diabolical happiness that was leading to your own destruction.
“Certainly alcohol wasn’t something that was part of our culture (prior to contact),” says Hester. “It just wasn’t there.
“It’s a terrible stereotype — the ‘drunken Indian.’ Even though we see it as a disease, alcoholism is a symptom of something deeper that’s going on in your life.
“Unfortunately society tends to look at what is visible from a distance, and refuses to look a little closer,” says Hester, who admits he fought the demon himself before bringing it to its knees more than 20 years ago.
When the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of Natives was taken away, and reserves were created as supposed guardianships under the Indian Act, it was only then that the Native population began experiencing diseases that they had never witnessed before — diabetes from foods that were far removed from traditional, tuberculosis from over-crowding in substandard reserve housing and, of course, a rise in alcoholism that is, in itself, persistently progressive.
“It quickly becomes inter-generational,” says Hester “Whether it’s genetic, or a predisposition, I don’t know, but if you are in an environment (on a reserve) where it seems to be the normal course of things throughout the day, well you tend to emulate it, do you not?
“It becomes an escape from an historic pain.”
At Anishnawbe Health Toronto, there are 7,500 to 8,000 clients on record at its three downtown locations, dealing with medical gamut from alcoholism, fetal alcohol spectrum syndrome, diabetes, AIDS/HIV, and tuberculosis to mental health issues that, according to Hester, are “90% related to historical contact and 10% that are clinical.”
To deal with the majority of its medical docket, Anishnawbe Health relies on Native culture — traditional healers, elders and medicine people, aboriginal songs, dances, stories, prayers and ceremonies — but does not negate the use of more clinical approaches if staff doctors and registered nurses see the need.
Joe Hester, who has been with Anishnawbe Health for 15 years, and the last 10 as its executive director, sees the solution for the mental health issues among his clientele as being best addressed through Native culture and traditions.
“If you talk to elders, they will tell you that Native culture and traditions are much more alive in the urban area,” he says. “They want that connection in their lives.
“We have a sweat lodge not far from here. We have sacred fires here. Our ceremonies are thousands of years old,” he says. “We do something unheard of.
“We put our traditional people at the front end of our intake assessment process. That doesn’t mean we don’t value other approaches to health and well-being, because we do.
“We have psychiatrists, psychologists. We have counsellors. We have dental workers. We have mental-health workers, we have a diabetic program, and we have family counsellors,” says Hester. “Over 100 personnel.
“But, to look at the historical aspect, and how it manifests, we also believe that illness starts in the spirit.
“And the person who is expert in that area, and therefore an integral part of the intake process, is the traditional healer,” says Hester.
“Only the traditional healer can truly take us home, but try to convince a Western mentality that our approach to health is legitimate.
“It’s next to impossible — even though there are a lot of indigenous medicines on the pharmacy shelves of today.
“And medicines that go back centuries.”
***
In a booklet called Anishnabe 101 — The Basics of What You Need to Know to Begin Your Journey on the Red Road (published by the Circle of Turtle Lodge out of Golden Lake, Ont.) — the five Native plant medicines are described as such:
1. Tobacco:
Its status is No. 1. It is used as an offering before anything is harvested from Mother Earth, is believed to open the door between our world and the spiritual world, and is used to carry prayers to the Creator.
Never meant to be used in a recreational sense as it is today, it was used as a proper way to ask a favour. The bigger the favour, the more tobacco is to be offered. Tradition holds that if the person is able to do what is being asked, the tobacco will compel them to do so.
2. Sage:
It is the woman’s medicine. While it is said to be a masculine plant, it reduces or eliminates negative energy. Often in women’s circles, only sage is used in smudging ceremonies. While there are many varieties of sage, this sage is not the one available as a spice.
In Eastern Ontario, this variety of sage is commonly known as Pearly Everlasting, a silvery-green, single-stalk plant with a crown of white, fuzzy blossoms. It grows everywhere, especially where there is poison ivy, and is best picked in late August.
3. Cedar:
It offers protection and grounding. Most Native ceremonies include making a protective ring of cedar around the activity circle. Boughs can be hung at the entrances of homes. Small leaves can be kept in a medicine bag and worn daily, or can be put in shoes when extra grounding is needed.
Cedar tea is often served during times of teaching and circles, so that the mind can focus on the task at hand.
4. Sweetgrass:
It is perhaps the best known of Native medicines. It is said to be a feminine plant that teaches kindness because it bends without breaking. It is considered to be the hair of Mother Earth.
Known for its gentle scent, it is used in smudging ceremonies to push out negative energy and attract positive energy. It grows in wetlands and is picked in mid-summer.
5. Strawberries:
Their medicine is reconciliation. They teach how to forgive, and are shared in ceremonies to remind that life is too short to hold grudges.
Tomorrow: The homeless