Happy Healthy YOU
Article content
Kelly Spencer - Happy Healthy YOU
(A wellness column by Kelly Spencer: writer, life coach, yoga & meditation teacher, holistic healer and a mindful life enthusiast!)
Last week, on social media, a heated debate and discussion developed after Halloween outfits were pulled from a London costume store of stereotypical indigenous costumes, such as those called 'Reservation Royalty,' 'Native American Princess,' and 'Wolf Dancer.'
The removal of these costumes has been nationwide after complaints by many that the outfits are racist, disrespectful and damaging.
I turned to research and my family and friends with indigenous and First Nations background to inquire: Is this over-the-top political correctness or respect and civility?
“Over-sexualization and hyper-sexualization of the female native costumes is a dangerous precedent to set,” states my friend Lisa Scott, Community Wellness Coordinator for Métis Nation of Ontario.
“Indigenous women are 97% more likely to experience sexual violence than a Caucasian woman.”
Currently in Canada, there are 4,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in our country and a national government inquiry is under way on this issue.
A CBC news report interviewed Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour, a member of the Tk'emlúps Tes Secwépem and sessional instructor at Thompson Rivers University, says “a lack of education across Canada about these issues could be the reason that so many people in comments on news websites and on Facebook are defending the right to wear Indian costumes and telling those who complain to 'get over it.'”
The Indigenous and white man history in our country is vast and gutwrenching and the awareness painfully low. And while I will attempt to be succinct, I do so acknowledging that my words will not give justice to the colossal and endless complexity of the matter.
North American Indian Genocide is sometimes referred to as the North American Indian Holocaust or the '500 year War,' claiming the lives of millions and millions of Native Indians. Massacres by European settlers in North American, some say claimed up to 100 million lives and 90% of Indigenous population was wiped out through small pox or killed by Europeans immigration through slavery, rape and war.
For perspective, the German Holocaust which many of us learned about in school in much more depth and detail, had Nazi soldiers claiming the lives of six million Jewish people. And while many of us grew up playing cowboys and Indians, my native in-laws remind me that this is as wrong as playing, Nazis and Jews.
Of those that survived the white man invasion of the native lands, many were taken to 'reserved' land and their children were plucked from their families to be made 'civilized.' In operation from 1880s to the 1960s, roughly 150,000 Canadian Native children were placed in residential schools organized by government and administered by churches. Of these, at least 6,000 students died while in attendance.
Their sacred long hair of spiritual significance was cut short to assimilate with white culture. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to
acknowledge their Aboriginal heritage and culture or to speak their own languages. Children were severely punished if these, among other, strict rules were broken. And despite being forced to assimilate to the Euro-Canadian way of life, the residential school curriculum provided an inferior education, often only up to Grade 5, that focused on training students for manual labour in agriculture, light industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and sewing.
The system has been described as cultural genocide and the executive summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that physical genocide, biological genocide, and cultural genocide all occurred: physical, through all kinds of abuse; biological, through the disruption of reproductive capacity; and cultural, through forced cultural assimilation.
Whether students returned to the reserve with their families or placed in adoptive homes, they often found they didn't belong. They didn't have the skills to help their parents, and became ashamed of their
native heritage. The shame felt within the child coupled with the judgment and mistreatment from many created a grip of dysfunction, difficult to release from.
After reviewing the file of every Native child who had been adopted by an out-of-province family in 1981, Judge Kimelman stated in the Kimelman Report: "unequivocally that cultural genocide has been taking place in a systematic, routine manner.”
The regalia is a sacred outfit worn by first nation people to celebrate powerful spiritual customs and tradition, not a party costume to wear one night of the year. Surely we can honor that and teach our children (and ourselves) to consider loving kindness, civility and respect when choosing a Halloween outfit.
Next week’s column will continue this discussion. I will be talking to some more native family and friends that have experience with residential schools and the effects it had on them and how we can shift our energy towards this for the health and happiness of ourselves and our entire community.
(If you would like to see an article on a specific topic, please email kelly@indigolounge.ca)