“8th Fire” Says It Well
On Monday night while cruising TV channels I happened upon the first episode of CBC’s “8th Fire.” The person on screen was saying it was time for the aboriginal and settler communities to come together. I stopped cruising. I knew he was right.
The show profiled a wide variety of people in the aboriginal community with the purpose of shining a new light on our first nations. New language, new topics and new understandings will help eliminate the first nation stereotypes our society has been soaked in.
For tens of thousands of years, the First Nations lived on this land, raising families, building communities and being mindful of the creator. Lake water was drinkable and the air always clean. The balance between human and nature was carefully respected.
It took only a few hundred years, after subsequent nations started arriving, for things to change dramatically. Yes, some of the changes were more “advanced,” but the lake water and air reflected a very different set of values.
Ignorance, arrogance and fear motivated the early settlers to make some barbaric choices. The many attempts to shun and assimilate/eliminate the First Nations met with horrible results.
I was surprised how I identified with Nakuset a woman featured on Monday’s episode. Nakuset was taken as a newborn from her Cree family in the awful “’60′s Scoop” and adopted by a Jewish family in Montreal. Growing up she was supposed to fully identify as a Jew, but deep inside she knew she wasn’t. When she learned she was aboriginal, she enthusiastically embraced her heritage calling herself “born again.”
I too was born in the ’60′s, but my life unfolded very differently. I was fortunate to be raised by my biological parents surrounded by people I looked like. While I fully identify as a Canadian, my ancestral roots for years were a blurry blend of Norwegian, Scottish, German, Russian, Dutch-descent… etc. I was really excited a few years ago to learn that my mom’s family, while Mennonite in culture, was essentially 100% Dutch in blood-line. I learned this AFTER I married a Dutch man and gave birth to a very Dutch-looking daughter. The first time I went to my husband’s extended family reunion I walked into a hall of tall, blondish people and I knew I belonged!
Nakuset loved discovering she was aboriginal. I loved discovering I was half Dutch. Individuals need to embrace roots to grow. So too, collectively as a nation, we need to attach to our roots so we can grow into a stronger future.
It is time for dialogue. It is time for all of us – the first nations and subsequent nations – to sit down, talk, listen and learn. It’s time to look with open eyes at the past – the good, the bad and the ugly – and together vision our future.
The lake water and air will probably thank us, too!
“Tena ka mihi atu ki a koutou
me to whanau kei te tuara o te honu.(Acknowledgements to you and your
family upon the back of the turtle island.)
Meet some of my friends in the aboriginal community who are doing really interesting things:
http://skybuffalo.net/http://theplainsofaamjiwnaang.wordpress.com/
http://www.ojibwaylegacy.com/Descipts.html
Aboriginal Student Experience at University of Alberta
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1700463/ http://www.creative-native.com/ http://www.rvvrd.com/ http://www.mckenzieproperties.ca/ - -
I’m a HUGE fan of Buffy Sainte Marie. Here is one of my faves!
Carla, You have always had a good heart and are a gift to us all. I think of all the students you have touched and the people who are so lucky to meet you. I am thankful to be numbered as one of you friends. Kathryn
Thank you Kate! You are so very kind. I am thankful to be one of your friends too!
Carla, you rock!
Meegweech for participating in the moccasin telegraph. The 8th Fire presentation is designed for exactly what you are doing! That is building relations. Good relations cannot proceed without full understanding of each others experiences. You and I met at St. Clair High School in the 70′s, a time when neither of us knew of the 60′s scoop. I am a survivor of that cycle of Canadian cultural genocide. Niiya Anishinabe who learned to blend into whereever I found myself. I have a lifetime of experience in understanding and navigating mainsteam dominate colonized culture. I am so fortunate to have have the right people/teachers along my life journey to contextualize the colonizing forces that planned my familial, institutionalization, my societal experiences and the comprehensiveness of the effects upon self (and also North American settler society and consciousness overall) that removing the viel of colonialism has been relatively easy for me. That viel never existed to many indigenous peoples on Turtle Island (they have seen it for what it is), yet revelation is becoming more widespread. (Please consider the unsustainable nature of consumerist capitalism rampant in North America and how the current political leadership promotes and sustains such folly). More and more people are begining to understand this.
That indigenous peoples were to experience deeply felt hardships at the hands of other humans was prophesized well before 1492. But also prophesized was a time will come when the colonizer will require and seek indigenous knowledges, when indigenous peoples will have an opportunity to lead humanity through Mother Earth’s next cycle or two, (and maybe some human growth).
By sharing the information about the broadcast of CBC’s 8th Fire is a step towards a greater understanding of the experiences indigenous peoples and what we have to offer humanity.
Please keep in mind that we do not and can not go through a day without considering what non-aboriginal people are doing… yet non-aboriginal people rarely even consider us and what we do (other than stereotypical and racist assumptions and attributions).
Well done, Carla! Keep up the good work!
I anticipate reconnecting with you and meeting your family in the future.
Steve Gold