Filed under: Aboriginal issues, Environment, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, religion, spirituality | Tags: Earth Day, Earth Day 2009, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous wisdom, Native American issues, Native American wisdom, Native Spirituality and the Environment, Religion and the Environment, spirituality, Spirituality and the Environment, Turtle Island, Washington DC
I would like to thank my sisters and brothers from the Environmental Protection Agency for inviting us to celebrate Earth Day with you. I wish to acknowledge the EPA’s new Administrator, Lisa Jackson, and also thank her for this invitation. I am honored to share this platform with the other esteemed speakers and performers. I am also very excited to be here in Washington DC – to come together in a spirit of sharing and friendship.
My name is Richard Bull. My ancestral name is Kakeena-monghee-wininiwag – which means ‘Teacher’. I was born into the Bear Clan and adopted into the Eagle Clan. I am Anishinaabe from the Lac Seul First Nation in Canada. I travel with my wife Tamara from our home in Vancouver.
The knowledge I share with you reflects the teachings I received from my Elders. There are many, but I would like to acknowledge three special people. They are Margaret and Jules Lavallee of Winnipeg, Manitoba and Bob Lovelace of the Ardoch First Nation in Ontario. Without their teachings, I wouldn’t be on this stage with you today.
When I was asked to speak at this beautiful celebration, I was deeply humbled at this chance to share my views on the environment. What we’re doing here today cannot be understated. We’re building a bridge – a bridge of understanding, a bridge that brings cultures closer together. We’re coming together in a good way to learn and to grow. Each time we get together like this, it’s an opportunity to see our similarities, hear our shared passions and feel the same energy. I come to you with open hands and an open heart.
We have many reasons to celebrate. We have many reasons to be thankful. In 2009, we’re a part of a real shift in Earth consciousness. Awareness about the Planet’s needs has never been greater. We’re making smarter choices as consumers. Our voices are coming together to demand Earth Justice. And this awareness is growing every day.
I’m very proud of the growth in accountability towards the environment. The very thought that our actions have real consequences, not only for us, but also for the generations to follow represents a true shift. Taking the long view is the ultimate in being considerate, for we’re thinking about people who have yet to be born.
My ancestors thought in this same way. They didn’t make any important decision without first considering the impact it would have on seven generations into the future. With our shift in priorities, we are learning to be less like the rabbit and more like the turtle. We are valuing patience and persistence over flash and dash.
As a Native man, my insight on the Earth is one that differs from mainstream approaches, even the progressive ones. As Indigenous people, the environment, our mother earth is sacred. It’s a relationship that is complex, oftentimes misunderstood. But it’s one that needs to be honored.
The environment is the most critical issue facing us today, even more so than the economy.
When we speak about the environment, anger is not the answer. My People traditionally used ceremony to cleanse and purify the mind, heart, body and soul from this toxin. If anger were to infect this message in any way, then it would quickly turn from one of care to one of attack. And that is definitely not my intention.
The scope of my talk here today is to focus on our emotional and spiritual connections with the Earth. In short, it’s a heart and soul approach.
The conventional approaches to the environment deal only with the mental and the physical aspects of being. However, to live a truly balanced life, the mind, the heart, the body and the soul must all be nourished. Our solutions for healing Mother Earth can’t just be about how we act or what we think. Emotion and prayer are just as important to charting the healing journey for our Mother Earth.
There is hope. We are on the dawn of a new way of thinking that seeks to learn from ancestral wisdom. It is this thinking that will let our great-great-grandchildren come together in celebrations like this one.
It’s not enough to recycle, buy organic local produce, or vote for progressive political candidates. These are all good actions and must be applauded. Make no mistake about that. However, the Earth needs more.
Many of us talk about ‘our relationship with the environment’. The language of relationship is very powerful. This widely used phrase signifies our emotional bond with the Planet. We can apply the lessons of building strong relationships to enriching our own bond with the Planet.
Communication is essential to building any relationship. Think about all your important relationships. They are all built on the strength of communication. Think back to the conversations you’ve shared, even the ones this morning. Consider the wide range of emotions you’ve experienced. It’s quite hard to imagine having any of these important relationships without the essential element of communication.
Our relationship with the Planet is no different. We start by listening. Our Elders say, ‘We were born with two ears and only one mouth for a reason’. Listening is twice as important as speaking. Our spirit shifts when we listen with an open heart to the sounds around us. If we listen long enough, we can actually hear rhythms forming from seemingly random sounds. It is then we are reminded that we are not separate from the rest of creation. We are a part of it.
When we develop a personal bond with the land, we begin to build trust. And trust is the foundation of any relationship. My People offer tobacco, as a sacred gift, whenever we approach water, so that the spirit of the water will know us and be gentle with us.
In my culture, traditional people still give tobacco to the Creator before anything is ever taken from the land. It is this concept of reciprocity – this give and take – that’s missing from the green revolution as it stands today. This type of balance exists in all lasting and meaningful relationships.
A simple act of reciprocity lies in saying just two words: thank you. We say ‘thank you’ dozens of times a day. It’s almost an automatic response to the good in our lives. We say ‘thank you’ to appreciate and acknowledge the many acts of kindness that come our way. Similarly, our spiritual bond to Mother Earth is summed up in those same two words. The spirit of thank you is a powerful way to express gratitude. When we say thank you in a conscious manner, it makes us focus on the positive. And there are so many things to be thankful for.
In the leadership training I do across the country, I have encountered communities ready to embrace healing. People from coast to coast are recognizing the need to grow and to heal. And this is a good thing. A big part of our healing comes from the return to ceremony.
Women are at the fore-front of this wellness movement. It is the women who nurture, who protect and who teach our children. And this care begins even before birth. To all mothers, the womb is sacred. The connection mothers have with the child inside the womb is so very special. This sacred relationship can instruct us all on how to nurture and protect Mother Earth. It is this deep relationship with the Earth that we seek to replicate in ceremony.
Each year, my wife and I take part in the Sun Dance ceremony on the Sagkeeng First Nation in central Canada. In this sacred ceremony, we go without food and water for four days as we renew our vows with the Earth. The days are long and grueling as we’re tested on all levels. Each morning starts before six a.m. with a sweatlodge ceremony. The sweatlodge is a ceremony that takes us back into the womb of Mother Earth. The drumming we hear in the Lodge represents the heartbeat of our Mother during those first nine months of life. The sweatlodge is deeply purifying. It’s a rebirth of our spirit. It’s a reawakening.
Our spirits are allowed to feast when our physical bodies endure suffering and sacrifice. All of our focus and energy during the Sun Dance is centered on the Sacred Tree. Our ceremonies and our altars are born out of the Earth.
In ceremony, I have witnessed truly amazing events. The terminally sick have been healed. Two years ago, I’ve seen a powerful healer even turn away pouring rain and thunderclouds. Behind the power of all these ceremonies sits an unwavering love for our Planet.
The Medicine Wheel is our sacred symbol. It signifies the balance of the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual. In its simple beauty, the four directions and the four colors are also in balance. Red and yellow, black and white all come together. No color is bigger than any other in the Medicine Wheel. All colors are equal in size and importance. This speaks to our interdependence.
A central theme in every major religion is to break through the illusion of difference and realize the undeniable fact of our interdependence. On a deep level, there are no divisions. Our own full experience of life depends on the life force held in the breath of even the smallest living creature.
The challenge I leave each of you is to nurture your emotional and spiritual relationship with Mother Earth. Smart as we are, we cannot fully predict the effects of love and care on our Planet. Not one of us is fully aware of the boundless energy resting inside each of our hearts. Let’s open them together and feel what happens. We’re making our Mother very happy today.
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The 45 minute ride in a 4-seater Cesna plane from Campbell River to Kingcome Inlet was both breath-taking and nauseating.
Breath-taking for the scenery, and nauseating for the turbulence.
Seemed like an extended version of the carnival ride, The Zipper, which is never a good thing. I always hated that scary ride.
However, unlike the usually sleazy-looking carnival ride attendant/operator, I had complete confidence in the pilot who flew the plane. I was sitting right beside him in a cramped seat, where I had to move my knee so that he could adjust a control.
I never got a chance to read the newspaper or sip on my water at anytime during the flight because of the lack of space and more importantly, the turbulence.
At least with The Zipper, you knew what you were getting into, but the turbulence was completely unexpected and very intense.
I don’t consider myself to have a jumpy stomach, but I was definitely feeling the effects of this very different kind of high after the tenth sudden climb and descent.
I tried my best to be brave because I would have just been a major distraction to everyone on board, pilot included.
I was never so happy to be landing than on that flight.
After we landed, we didn’t have to wait too long at the dock for the boat to come and get us.
Feelings of nausea were quickly replaced with stinging cold on the water.
Just coming from -40 degree weather in Dawson Creek, I underestimated the different kind of cold Kingcome Inlet had to offer.
You hear it all the time: ‘It’s a damp cold”. Well, there’s merit and an underlying (literal) chill to that sentiment.
All in all, working with the very friendly people of Kingcome Inlet is both fulfilling and exhilarating.
It’s gratifying to be on solid ground with good people.
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I am working on this with my therapist.
Now that I know my sense of humour subconsciously compensates for this deficit, I am not so keen to tell engaging stories.
However, when I pick up the reliable crutch and get the usual laughs, I don’t necessarily view it as a success like I used to.
The line between laughter and tears is fuzzy.
I am talented at making people laugh, but this happens at the expense of my self-growth.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, emotional health, health
THE SACRED MEDICINES
The four sacred plants are gifts of the Four Manitou (Spirits of the Four Directions). To those who live in a traditional way, there are four plants which are especially revered and used in daily living. The Creator taught us to use the natural herbs of sage, sweetgrass, tobacco, and cedar smoke as a physical reminder to them of this omnipotent presence.
Tobacco (Semah)
Semah, or tobacco, is one of the four sacred plants. It represents the Eastern Direction and the mind. The Anishinaabe use a form of tobacco known as kinikinik, or a red willow mix. Because it opens the door to the Creator, when tobacco is used to make smoke, it is one of the most sacred of plants for Native people. Some elders say that tobacco is used to connect the worlds since the plant’s roots go deep into the earth, and its smoke rises high into the sky. This plant is highly respected and highly honoured. Giving tobacco is a beautiful way of our people. Ceremonies using tobacco invoke a relationship with the energies of the universe, and ultimately the Creator, and the bond made between earthly and spiritual realms is not to be broken. There are four traditional Tobacco uses. None of them will harm you.
Prayer
When we put sacred tobacco into our Sacred Pipes, we are also using that tobacco as a communicator to the sky world where all of our ancestors have gone on before us. We do not inhale the sacred smoke that comes from the pipe. When the smoke rises, it is taking our prayers with it up to the Creator and all of our relatives who have gone on before us. Our elders show us that when we finish with prayers, we sprinkle a small amount of tobacco on the drum. This is a way of giving back to and thanking the Creator for all he has given to us. Tobacco can be used on a daily basis as each new day is greeted with prayers of thankfulness. Many elders say to hold it in your prayers of thankfulness. They also add that you are to hold it in your left hand as this is the hand closer to your heart.
Offerings
Traditional people burn tobacco before storms. It is used to pray that powerful storms will not hurt our families. To pray with tobacco in your Native language is very powerful. It can make a difference in the physical world.
Purification
Tobacco is used in the offering of prayer to the Creator, acting as a medium for communication. It is either offered to the fire, so the smoke can lift the prayers to the Creator, or it is set on the ground in a nice, clean place. It means we come humbly to our Creator. We proclaim our innocence. When you want to speak to the Creator, we are told to make an offering of the tobacco plant. An Elder will take tobacco ties and offer them to the fire or offer it back to Mother Earth on behalf of the Sacred Circle. Anishinaabe people live life in a very sacred manner. When taking something from the Earth, they always explain to the spirit of the plant why it is being done and offer some tobacco in return for the generosity and help of the plant which shared itself so freely. Purification and working with a clear mind and heart are essential in asking the land to provide for people. This is keeping with the Native belief that if you do things in a good way, good things will follow. If careful attention is not established, the result will not be as good. Sometimes elders place tobacco on the water. This shows our thanks to the Creator, for the lifeblood of our Mother the earth that is provided to us. At this time we also acknowledge the moon who in her 28-day cycle cleanses the water by filtering it through the sands.
Respect
Sacred tobacco is used for prayers of gratitude to thank the Creator of Mother Earth for our many blessings, such as good health, great fishing, and good crops. When any plant is picked or any animal is taken, Tobacco and Prayer must be given to show respect. By honouring all our relations we demonstrate that we have not forgotten our place within the web of life. To offer someone tobacco is to ask that you and the person receiving the tobacco be of one heart, one mind and one spirit. Tobacco is offered when you ask someone to do a ceremony for you, such as a name-giving, drumming or singing for someone, to do a smudging ceremony, a sweat-lodge or sacred pipe ceremony; any ceremony. This signifies that you and the one doing the ceremony are of one heart, one mind and one spirit, that you have the same purpose.
Another way that is used to bring people together in unity is that it is used to heal rifts between people. If you have a disagreement that causes ill feelings or someone has treated you badly, or if you have treated someone badly, you can bring tobacco and ask to speak to the person. Then of course, you would do your best to heal the rift, not to make things worse, so tobacco assists us in making amends, getting over resentments, healing emotional wounds and in forgiving people. Even a little tobacco can be given if you do not have money for a pouch. It is the sacredness that counts, not the amount. The person can decide to accept your tobacco or reject. Some of our Elders still offer tobacco to everyone who visits them.
Tobacco is given to elders when one is seeking advice. It is always good to offer tobacco when seeking knowledge or advice from an Elder or when a Pipe is present. It shows gratitude and respect for the elder whose advice you are seeking. Tobacco is given when you appreciate a teaching from an elder or even a younger person if you value what that person has told you. It is a way of showing respect and gratitude.
Proper Uses
Sacred herbs are powerful, but when misused or disrespected, their power consumes us. Tobacco can be a healer or a destroyer. It depends on how and how often it is used. When used in a sacred way, it can promote good health and assist with spiritual guidance and growth. When tobacco is used in a protocol way it becomes sacred. In the old days, tobacco was the most holy of plants and the most sacred of ceremonial objects. The Creator’s spirit is in tobacco. When used in this sacred manner with the sacred pipe, the spirit as smoke enters the man, refreshes him, and then travels to the sky laden with thanksgiving. For hundreds of years, the people were taught this holy and powerful way to communicate with their creator. If used correctly, tobacco can improve your spiritual, mental and physical well being.
Abusive Uses
When it is not used in a sacred way, it can be very harmful. Commercial tobacco is a poison containing over 4000 chemicals. The dominant culture exploits tobacco by commercializing and glamorizing cigarette abuse. When tobacco is used as a drug: smoking daily or chewing, it is not being used in a sacred manner. It’s also a problem when young people use it to be cool and fit in even if they don’t have the right. Commercial tobacco was introduced from the outside. When smoking is considered an everyday affair, it loses its power. The addictive nature of it destroys our communities. 40% of all Native Americans smoke. Around the world, 7 people die every minute because they abuse tobacco. Native Americans abuse tobacco at a higher rate than any ethnic group in America.
Role Models For Our Youth
We need to be good role models to our youth. We cannot be hypocritical in our actions. We must show our youth that tobacco should only be used in ceremony. Think about where will we be as a people if we lose our spirituality? Our young people must realize that they need to stop abusing tobacco and educate themselves about its spiritual aspects. Tobacco teaches Indian people about themselves. The discipline it teaches and the respect it demands helps and individual grow to be a good person. It is important to remember that Native Tobacco is a different species that is indigenous to the Americas. Real tobacco is not the tobacco you find in smoke shops and stores. When we say tobacco in English we are not talking about a sacred plant. There are over 60 species of this plant. It grows wild in most sections of North America. However, it is no way related to tobacco and does not contain nicotine or other poisonous properties.
The Anishinaabe, and the neighbouring Iroquois used it for a number of medicinal purposes, including as a remedy for stomach aches and fever. It tends to remove obstructions from every part of the system and is even felt to the ends of the toes. “Indian Tobacco” not only cleanses the stomach but exercises a beneficial influence over every part of the body. Our own native languages have a word for tobacco that is to be used in offerings. We need to address the energy within that plant by its native name so that we can understand the plant as it understands us. It is important to know the name of the plant in your native language.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, Environment, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, emotional health, family, health, life, relationships, residential school, residential school syndrome, self-help | Tags: Aboriginal health workshops, Aboriginal self-esteem, facilitation, facilitation skills, First Nations self-esteem, group work, native workshops, wellness workshops
STYLE, ROLES AND SKILLS IN FACILITATING
To move through a workshop together, a group needs to be coordinated and guided. The group, itself, can share leadership by taking turns leading discussion and different exercises. One person can be the group guide, or a team of guides can plan and facilitate this together.
Each of us has his or her own style of working, as distinctive to us as the way we walk or laugh. Trust it. Our naturalness and genuineness in the work is our gift to workshop participants. If you are a singer, your workshop will probably draw heavily on the power of sound and music. Or if you are a dancer, your participants will be encouraged to use their bodies to explore and express their ideas and emotions. Some guides, like myself, work within a fairly structured framework moving from one exercise to another. Others prefer a less directive approach, giving participants more leeway in setting their own agenda and following their needs as they arise.
We must remember that as facilitator we are not offering ourselves as experts or healers. We provide experiences and structures in which people can do their work. We are there to guide this work, not give answers or solve problems or cure.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, Environment, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, emotional health, family, health, life, relationships, self-help | Tags: Aboriginal health workshops, facilitation, facilitation skills, group dynamics, groups, native workshops
Exercise: Sharing Circle (20 minutes for 15 people)
Begin by having the group sit in a circle. Sitting in a circle achieves many healthy goals before anything is even discussed. It personifies a deep democracy in the sense that everyone in the workshop is facing each other at the same level. No one is more important than anyone else. Everyone can see everyone else. When people are seen and feel as equals in any group, they have the ability to fully participate. This is very important to establish trust in the group.
The circle also grounds us in our traditional ways because this is how our ancestors communicated.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, Environment, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, emotional health, family, health, relationships, religion, self-help, spirituality | Tags: holistic health, interconnectedness
THE WEB OF LIFE
The one thing that allows us to enjoy true relationship and deep peace is the feeling of interconnectedness with life and all other beings. It is the living web out of which our individual, separate existences have risen, and in which we are interwoven. Our lives extend beyond our skins, in radical interdependence with the rest of the world.
Western Science Catches Up with Indigenous Wisdom
Until recently, classical Western science had proceeded on the assumption that the world could be understood and controlled by dissecting it. Breaking the world down into ever smaller pieces, classical Western science divided mind from matter, organs from bodies, plants from ecosystems, and analyzed each separate part. This mechanistic approach left some questions unanswered – such as how do these separate parts interact to sustain life and evolve?
As a result of such questions scientists in the twentieth century, starting with biologists, shifted their perspective. They began to look at wholes instead of parts, at processes instead of substances. They discovered what Indigenous Peoples have known for millennia – that these wholes (be they cells, bodies, ecosystems, and even the planet itself) are not just heaps of parts, but dynamic, intricately organized and balanced systems, interrelated and interdependent in every movement, every function, every exchange of energy. They saw that each element is part of a vaster pattern, a pattern that connects and evolves by discernible principles. The discernment of these principles is what is known as general systems theory.
Instead of beholding random separate entities, the scientists are beginning to see the universe with “Indigenous eyes”. They are becoming aware of interconnecting flows – flows of energy, matter, information – and see life forms as patterns or currents in these flows. By these flowing currents, open systems sustain themselves and evolve in complexity and responsiveness to their environment. Interacting, they weave relationships that shape in turn the environment itself. Every system – be it a tree, a cell, a human being – is like a transformer, changing the very stuff that flows through it. What flows through physical bodies is called matter and energy, what flows through minds is called information; but the distinctions between matter, energy and information have become blurred.
What has become clear, however, are the principles by which systems evolve – and central to these principles is openness to the environment, openness to feedback. This is how intelligence and power are created. For it is by interaction that life forms are sustained. As earlier stated, the old mechanistic view of reality has erected dichotomies, separating substance from process, self from other, thought from feeling. But given the interweaving interactions of open systems, these dichotomies no longer hold.
What had appeared to be separate self-existent entities are now seen to be so interdependent that their boundaries can only be drawn arbitrarily. What had appeared to be “other” can be equally construed as an extension of the same organism, like a fellow-cell in a larger body. What we had been taught to dismiss as “just” feelings are responses to input from our environment that are no less valid than rational constructs. Feelings and concepts condition each other, both are ways of knowing our world. In this way we participate and co-create in the living web, giving and receiving the feedback necessary for its nourishment.
To convey this dynamic process, systems theorists use a variety of images: an open system is like a pattern made by flowing water, or it is like a flame that keeps its shape by transforming the stuff that flows through it. The image or symbol many First Nations use to express this interconnectedness is the Medicine Wheel.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous wisdom, Uncategorized | Tags: DIAND, First Nations policy in Canada, INAC, Indian Affairs
There are basically two types of people who work for the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa: xenophobic scum and naive puppets who eventually become xenophobic scum.
Indian Affairs employees would have made great Nazis—so exacting, so hateful, so policy-driven.
They are people with graduate degrees who lack any imagination or purpose, except to work diligently towards the most lucrative pension they can get.
These are the people who form and administer Native policy in Canada. On the street, they would be the ones who load the dice and pretend to shuffle the deck to continuously dupe unsuspecting generations.
They are the colonizers.
For all the political activity in the Native community, very little is known about the department of Indian Affairs, yet they are the ones who continue to hold the purse strings of power.
Indian Affairs does not give any real power to those who work in the regional offices because, according to their internal logic, the face-to-face contact the regional employees have with actual First Nations people would compromise their loyalty to the Crown.
Indian Affairs sends its best negotiators to deal with the Blackfoot and Blood Nations in southern Alberta because they are the most educated First Nations and they send their most junior associates to deal with the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation and other First Nations they deem to have “capacity issues” (their internal code for lack of formal education at the leadership level).
Before First Nations go and sign treaties, they should first know that the Indian Affairs treaty negotiation budget dwarfs the treaty implementation budget (i.e. they spend far more to negotiate with First Nations than they do to honor the treaties they sign).
The government of Canada has never fully honored any treaty it has signed with any First Nation.
For all the shortsightedness and myopia in Ottawa, the department of Indian Affairs is ironically the only department that thinks seven generations into the future. This blue-printed future is one in which there is no longer a department of Indian Affairs because they plan on wiping us out –on paper.
What good can we as First Nations people take from the existence of Indian Affairs?
As people from many diverse and sometimes rival First Nations, Indian Affairs provides a common enemy for us to fight against. After all, colonization is a big stick that beats us all indiscriminately regardless of whether we’re Tsimshian, Cree or Mohawk.
Besides that, I can’t think of much else Indian Affairs is good for.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, culture, leisure, life | Tags: long hair
My three-year experiment with long hair ended yesterday when I cut it off.
Going to the mall in Surrey to see my reliable hairstylist was a very liberating experience.
I went from having braidable hair to essentially a brush cut without any regrets.
Going to the local swimming pool will be a lot easier without dealing with the tangles, the conditioner, and blow-dryers that never dry fast enough.
Talking to elders about the significance of long hair left me without any real reason to keep it long. Basically, no one was able to give me a good enough reason for keeping my hair long. Long hair does not make a man more spiritual.
The ones most disappointed by this news will be those who subscribe to outdated romantic ideals of the Native man.
I’ve determined that hair styles for Native men follow convention and style, just as they do for every other culture in the world. What’s convenient in one century becomes inconvenient in another.
Although it’s still considered traditional in many First Nations cultures for men to keep their hair long, that tradition is not really based on much of anything other than following a style that was trendy a couple hundred years ago (for cross-cultural examples please see muttonchops and powdered wigs).
It’s become mostly symbolic of having pride in your heritage as a Native man. However, when you break down most symbols and analyze them within the context of history and other factors, they start to lose their mystique.
There are plenty of other ways to show pride in your First Nations culture than to just focus on the hair. There are both deep and superficial ways to express one’s culture, and I’ve always been more comfortable in the deep end of the pool.
Even though James Brown, the godfather of soul, almost always straightened his hair, black people still look to him as a man of black pride. He didn’t have to have an afro to garner this respect.
For me, it was a nice experiment, but ultimately I needed a more athletic hair-cut to avoid getting soft in the belly.
Don’t worry: the short hair cut has done little to keep me from communing with the mystical and the spiritual aspects of existence.
Filed under: Aboriginal issues, Environment, First Nations, First Nations issues, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous wisdom, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native Peoples, coaching, communication, culture, diabetes, emotional health, family, health, leisure, life, love, protest, residential school, residential school syndrome, self-help, women | Tags: Aboriginal, Aboriginal dating, Aboriginal health, Aboriginal health workshops, Aboriginal issues, Aboriginal self-esteem, addiction, bannock, bannock power, bannock recipes, Canada, culture, family, First Nations, First Nations dating, First Nations health, First Nations issues, First Nations self-esteem, food addiction, health, healthy diet, holistic health, Indigenous, Indigenous health, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous wisdom, love, Native American culture, Native American issues, Native American self-esteem, Native American wisdom, Native self-esteem, post-colonial diet, post-colonial theory, protest, relationships, residential school syndrome, self-esteem, self-help, self-improvement, self-love, tasty and delicious, Turtle Island, wellness workshops
Bannock: we love it because it tastes good.
Baked or fried, with raisins or without, it’s the one food that bonds us together here on Turtle Island.
We love it because it anchors us to our childhood. I can think back to many meals of fried moose-meat (sauteed with onions and mushrooms), mashed potatoes, baked beans, hot tea and bannock. Especially on cold days, those were always the best meals. Meals like that symbolize my Mom’s love.
When we eat bannock, we can’t help but feel a connection with our Indigenous heritage. Bannock is what got many of our grandparents and great-grandparents through cold winters and trying times. Bannock served them well.
For those of you not in the know, bannock is a popular bread made by Native Peoples throughout Canada and the United States. It consists of flour, lard, baking powder and water. There are some variations on the ingredients, but that’s generally what goes into it.
You’ll find bannock being served at most pow-wows. It’s also known as fry-bread or Indian bread. Native women are very competitive when it comes to making the best bannock. Reputation quickly spreads. Just as everyone knows a community’s toughest guy, they also know the woman who makes the best bannock.
Now the bad news about bannock: it’s probably the worst food in terms of nutrition.
For a People who struggle with heart disease and diabetes, bannock unleashes a slow and lethal combination of clogging our arteries and shooting up our blood sugar levels.
Some people think they’re being healthy by making it with whole wheat flour, but it doesn’t really make it healthy. It’s like cooking up crystal meth without the drano and adding vitamin C instead.
This is an example of the many lies we tell ourselves and others about what we eat and our levels of exercise being more than healthy even when it’s the furthest thing from the truth. Talk with any obese person and most of them will try to convince you that they’re eating a healthy diet, even as they’re holding deep-fried food up to their mouths.
As Native People, we really don’t need any additional help in getting diabetes. And we can’t continue the perpetual lies about our diet at the expense of our health.
Let’s get real!
Looking at our history, bannock is not even Native in origin. It originated in Scotland over a thousand years ago. It only became popular when our ancestors grew to depend on government rations for survival.
In many ways, bannock symbolizes our colonization. We enjoy eating bannock in the same way we enjoy watching TV: we know it’s bad for us but we do it anyways.
Eating bannock encouraged us to break from generations of hunting and gathering to eek out alien, sedentary and largely dependent lives.
Government dependence didn’t happen overnight.
It’s okay to acknowledge bannock’s place in our history, but now is the time to embrace a new diet and a stronger concept of who we are–independent of the Crown.
