Aboriginal canadians can’t be spoken for by census results
Whose ‘home and native land’?
Greg McVicker
of Statistics Canada recently released a survey stating that the number of people in Canada who are of aboriginal descent increased significantly to 1,172,790, a rise of 45 per cent from 1996. The term “aboriginal” identifies anyone who is First Nations, Inuit, or Métis. There is a problem, though — this number does not account for individuals who have had their identity stolen through tactics of colonization, exploitation, and residential schooling. Let me explain.
Since Europeans settled onto what is now the Canadian part of Turtle Island, there has been a huge emphasis to annihilate, or, if you prefer, assimilate aboriginal populations into the dominant society. In 1920, Duncan Campbell Scott, former Indian Affairs superintendent stated:
“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone. . . . Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.”1
Canadian history books (written predominantly to reflect the views of colonizers) have depicted aboriginal people as being savages, beast-like, and nomadic, having no sense of guidance or direction.
Many of the traditional values and practices that aboriginal communities held, such as powwows, sundances, and potlatches, were forced into secrecy. Potlatches, for example, were sacred ceremonies that marked the birth of a child, marriage, or honouring of the deceased: spiritual ceremonies that often involved as many traditional practices do — a feast. However, in 1884, the Dominion of Canada saw this custom as a threat and imposed a ban on such sacred ceremonies. Churches viewed the potlatch as demonic rituals of Satanism, and were literally “hell-bent” on Christianizing aboriginals. Those found to be participating in such “voodoo” practices were jailed; yet ironically, many items that were confiscated from these sacred ceremonies ended up in museums for public display.
Often, being aboriginal has been associated with being shamed. Terms such as “dirty, filthy Indian” were spoken clearly in many residential schools. Having to write such a derogative sentence literally sickens me, but this is the mere tip of abuse that aboriginal children suffered in these torture chambers. I myself grew up in Northern Ireland and was often referred to as a “Fenian bastard” (pronounced Feen Yun), the son of a Fenian whore, and other slanderous terms which I cannot put into print. Why? Because I was born and raised an Irish Roman Catholic, living on the land of my ancestors. By the way, a Fenian was an Irish soldier who fought in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 — at least 280 years before I was born! Sadly, I am not yet free from these scars.
In other countries, residential schools would have been attributed to internment camps. In Canada, they were viewed as educational settings, removing the “savagery” often associated with aboriginal children. However, please, someone enlighten me as to what is educational about children, who, upon their capture after running away, were whipped repeatedly or beaten to death, or those children who were scrubbed in baths filled with bleach to make their skin appear more white, had long braids of hair decorated in beads chopped in no particular fashion or style, slapped across the face for speaking traditional languages, told that traditional and cultural ceremonies such as smudging is the devil’s work that and those who smudge will burn in hell, had maggots mixed into their meals, fed dog biscuits, or, if one was lucky, given scraps of food leftover from the carefully prepared meals the priests and nuns would consume.
Lastly, please tell me what is educational about a child being raped repeatedly or watching nuns birth children borne of young aboriginal boys, only to have the newborn placed in a blanket and dropped recklessly upon a fire to dispose of the “sin,” or to have young aboriginal females raped by priests, only to have their babies confiscated upon birth, put in shoeboxes, and left to die while hidden in the school’s cold room, or the pregnant females being murdered for threatening to talk.
You will not find this information in Canadian history books. But, if you want to learn these truths for yourself, I invite you to follow traditional ways of teaching — through storytelling. Many aboriginal women and men who survived tactics of colonization and residential schools have shared, with unfathomable courage, their excruciatingly painful experiences, as it is a part of their healing process in surviving efforts deployed to “remove the Indian problem.”
Duncan Campbell Scott outlined that the purpose of residential schools was “to kill the Indian within the Indian.” As such, I invite you to read Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust – The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada. Be forewarned, you will be infuriated, horrified, and disgusted. Or check out the 13-part CBC series A Lost Heritage: Canada’s Residential Schools.
If what I have written sickens you, then maybe you will have an understanding of why so many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people do not identify as being Aboriginal Peoples and why the census report is vastly under-representative. I have often heard aboriginals describe themselves as being “Red Apples,” which means they are red on the outside (skin colour often associated with aboriginals), but their values and views are white on the inside.
There is a traditional saying here in Canada: “For as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the waters flow.” We also have a saying back home in Ireland: “Only our rivers run free.” I can only hope that somehow, and through much holistic visions and healing, our Sisters and Brothers who have had their identities stolen are proud to be counted as Aboriginal Peoples and fully reflect, in freedom, the large population of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people who live on this, their “home and native land”: Turtle Island.
Greg McVicker is a fourth-year social work student.
