Interwoven
timxʷ tmxʷúlaʔxʷ siwɬkʷ sasʕaws
all living things, the land, the water, the people/ancestors

The Real People

 “All of the attention now went to Mother Earth. From far above, Creator Sun took care of his new wife, Mother Earth. It was all spiritual contacts they made with one another to have many life forms again, and the power for Mother Earth to give life to all of their many children. Today that spiritual power of both Creator Sun and Mother Earth combined can easily be seen or felt; the warmness of the rays of the sun, the many lives of this earth they have produced. Plants, insects, fowls, animals- so many different forms of life, we don’t know all of them. Even the live elements for that life or for the death of them-lightning, thunder, wind, the many kinds of storms. All of these bring life or death, as Creator Sun wants it to happen.” -Earth’s Beginning, The Sun Came Down. Percy Bullchild

Nitsitapiiks , also known as ‘The Real People’ lived in harmony with everything around them. The Creator and Mother Earth provided all that they needed to live. The water, the land, the animals, and our teachings were all that we knew in the time before the settlers had come across the big water. During our peaceful and nomadic ways we continued in this harmonic manner with everything that surrounded us. Our relationship with the land was strong, our relationships with each other were strong.

Throughout time, the Blackfoot Confederacy grew immensely. The people were spread out and though they were all Nitsitapiiks, the dialects of the language varied. There are the Siksika, North Pikuni, Kainaiwa and Amskapii Pikuni. The Blackfoot territory extended through today's Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. It stretched from The Rocky Mountains to Saskatchewan and from the North Saskatchewan River, to the southern border of Montana. This vast amount of land is the original territory of the Nitsitapiiks. Throughout the years the four bands became allies, and together they formed the strongest and most fearsome group on the prairies. For many years the warriors protected the lands from white settlers.

The life of the Blackfoot included following the buffalo herds in the warmer months, attending ceremonies in the summer and in the fall would dry meat and berries to prepare for the long harsh winter to come. Within the camps there were many different societies that each had their own position within ceremonies and had their own responsibilities to the camps well being.

Our nations were and still are very connected to these societies and they are strong amongst our people in all four areas. When the white settlers did make their appearance it was very clear that they brought goods but as well as sickness. The Blackfoot tribes had kept their distance and did not stay near the settlers trading posts. The Hudson's Bay company and North West companies had opened trading posts on the north edges of the Blackfoot hunting grounds as early as 1790. The Blackfoot mainly traded for the goods they needed: guns, bullets, blankets, beads, ribbons, shells, and utensils.

The Blackfoot did not changed their way of life to suit the traders. They were buffalo hunters and offered dried meat and horses for the goods they needed. The traders needed meat to provision the northern outposts and horses for transportation, so they made no attempt to turn the Blackfoot into beaver hunters or trappers. The traders left them alone and didn't interfere with their tribal systems, religions, or customs. When the settlers and foreigners began to trade more, their settlements grew. More and more settlers were coming. Though they brought many trade items they also brought sicknesses.

Indigenous people had never had contact with the diseases that cam with the foreigners, and they weren’t immune to them. There were many waves of sickness that came to the Blackfoot. In 1836, an epidemic of diphtheria had struck the four bands very suddenly. With this sickness among the camps, people died constantly. Whole bands were wiped out from the sickness and the Blackfoot Confederacy mourned the losses of many. This was the first wave of sickness that came to the Blackfoot People. The next sickness was the smallpox epidemic that came only a year later in 1837. This disease was carried on the St. Peters steamer, which transported blankets and trading goods from The Hudson’s Bay Company.

Throughout the years, the Blackfoot and settlers relationship was seldom warlike. There were many things the traders had, and one of them was whiskey. When the tribes were at a time of starvation because of the drastic depletion of buffalo, there were many that would trade what they had for rations and whiskey. Whiskey had a bad effect on our people ever since it was brought here.

During the starvation period, the Blackfoot suffered. Treaty 7 was signed by Kainai, Siksika, Brocket, and Sarcee in 1877, at Blackfoot Crossing, by the Bow River. Treaty 7 is one of 11 treaties signed between First Nations and the Crown between 1871 and 1921. The treaty established a reserve to each band. It promised annual payments and/or provisions from the Queen to the tribes and promised continued hunting and trapping rights. In exchange, the tribes ceded their rights to their traditional territory, of which they had earlier been recognized as the owners.

In 1893, residential schools and missions were established by the Canadian government. These schools were designed for indigenous children. They were forced to go to these schools away from their families. This was the way the Canadian government had tried to assimilate First nations into a western society with western beliefs. There are many different ways these schools have affected our nations. Most of them in a negative way. Countless incidents of abuse and being mistreated while at the schools have been talked about.

One of the ways that Canada and the world have heard about these incidents is through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that began in 2008 and closed in 2015. The TRC is a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Its purpose is to inform all Canadians about what happened in residential schools. The commission documented the truth of survivors, families, communities and those affected by residential schools.

As Indigenous people, we are all affected by what is called intergenerational trauma. The technical definition is, “intergenerational trauma is what happens when untreated trauma-related stress experienced by survivors is passed on to second and subsequent generations.” There are many different ways that this trauma affects the generation today. It is the direct effects of the trauma that our parents, grand parents and great grandparents went through in their lives. As native people we have many forms of unhealed trauma that have been within families for a long time. Specifically, trauma from the result of residential schools.

These schools were designed to “kill the Indian in the child.” Indigenous children were taken from their families, and forced to stop speaking their language, their hair was cut, and cultural practices were prohibited within the schools. Terrible and atrocious things happened within the schools, including all forms of abuse, and forcing the children to abandon all they knew.

Another form of trauma that our people have endured is colonial trauma. When I think about the very reason they were taken, I can’t help but feel for the mothers, the life givers, the caretakers of their beautiful children. The emotions and the trauma of having their children taken from them. To me this really felt like the objective of trying to destroy our nations and our traditions is to hurt and damage the mothers, women and matriarchs of the tribes. To tear them down and weaken them by taking away their love, and joy. Children are so precious to Indigenous people. Children are blessings, we value our children and keep them close to us, to teach them, but also to learn from them.

Ever since I became a mother, my sole reason for continuing on and striving for success and healing is for my son. To think about someone coming and taking him, I think about all the ways that it would affect me mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Was this the true intent of the Canadian Government at the time? To truly bring down and damage the mothers and the life givers into this tremendous amount of grief and sorrow? Did they know what they were doing by taking our children away? Did they know that in doing so this would affect the “backbones”, our women in a direct and damaging way? Did they know that they were enabling alcoholism within our communities? Did they know we had never known this type of hurt?

As a whole, our people still struggle with colonial trauma, historical trauma and continuing intergenerational trauma. However, there is light to this situation. The prophecies predict that with the seventh generation, this cycle of trauma is going to end. The cycles of trauma and abuse that have been continuing with our parents and grandparents is going to stop with our generation. This is the generation of healing.

Within communities and the vast amount of social media and the way we can all connect and communicate is so powerful. Yet, it isn’t just those components that are contributing to learning more about trauma and the effects it has on us mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. This is the time of healing that our ancestors have seen. The need for healing is crucial right now because it is the energy, it is the prayers, it is seeing for ourselves the true toxic ways that this trauma is affecting us, our loved ones, communities as a whole and universally.

This movement of healing and facing the raw and intimate feelings from trauma, from events that were led by trauma, and places that carry trauma is becoming clearer. We are all in different phases of healing and dealing with this trauma. All of these traumas were caused from the first encounters with the settlers, colonialism, abuse, addictions, and the list goes on. There is a movement in Indigenous communities that sees people going back to their roots and practicing the original way of life. These values goes in hand with how we treated each other, our children, the land, our relationship to the Creator, the laws that were once so respectfully followed. This movement of healing and visiting those feelings is becoming more and more powerful. The unhealthy cycle from those traumas is coming to an end. My hope for the future is that we all connect more when it comes to talking about these traumas, because people of all ages have been affected by it and it's really our job to take these things into our hands with the help of our spirituality, our language, our culture and our children because they are the future. They are the ones watching and learning. Ekosi.

References:
http://sites.bu.edu/daniellerousseau/2019/04/28/breaking-the-cycle-intergenerational-trauma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_7

by Eartha Good Striker               

A Response from the Future Poem for
Jeanette Armstrong’s Indian Woman Poem 

Indian Woman                                                                                   Native Women

I am a squaw                                                                            I AM NOT A SQUAW!

a heathen                                                                                       NOR A HEATHEN

a savage                                                                                          NOR A SAVAGE

basically a mammal                                                                             I AM HUMAN!

I am female                                                                                        I am a female

only in the ability                                                                          I do have a choice

to breed                                                                                        to carry beautiful

and bear papoose                                                                                       children

to be a carried                                                                                        to hold and

quaintly                                                                                                       cherish

on a board                                                                                             to love and

or lost                                                                                                          protect

to welfare                                                                                             with my life

I have no feelings                                                                   I DO HAVE FEELINGS!

The sinuous planes                                                                       The sinuous planes

of my brown body                                                            of my beautiful brown body

carries no hint                                                                                    craves for the

of the need                                                                                                    NEED

to be caressed                                                                                to be CARESSED

desired                                                                                                     DESIRED

loved                                                                                                           LOVED

it’s only use                                                                             ITS NOT TO BE USED

to be raped                                                                                                   RAPED

beaten and bludgeoned                                                      BEATEN OR BLUDGEONED

in some                                                                                              I AM HUMAN

B-grade western                                                                                     I AM ALIVE

I have no beauty                                                                                     I am beauty

by Shianna Allison

The Impacts of Pipelines in Tsleil-Waututh Territory

One of the many greatest environmental impacts of my nation of Tsleil-Waututh (TWN) are the pipelines and the effects the pipeline has on our territory, our land, air, water, sea life and wildlife. We and many other nations, cities and environmental organizations have fought hard against the colonized dream of the pipelines and oil. We fought at the frontlines and in court with Kinder Morgan and now Trans Mountain pipeline since 2012.

The Trans Mountain pipeline is located on Burnaby Mountain which is directly across our inlet, our homeland and waters of Tsleil-Waututh nation. Burnaby Mountain is recognized as a part of Tsleil-Waututh territory and our land has never been signed to a treaty. The Salish territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Musqueam Nations is un-ceded which means we never signed treaties to our land.

In 2017, six First Nations alongside two environmentalist groups, and both Vancouver and Burnaby cities filed a court challenge against Kinder Morgan, the builders of the pipeline. Kinder Morgan neglected and failed to consult the Nations about the pipeline being built on our territories and to disclose the harmful effects and future impacts that oil spills have on our land, waters, sea and wildlife. They also did not have an effective plan for oil spills.

In June 2019, Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and the Cold Lake Indian band, appealed the Federal Government's second approval of the Trans Mountain expansion, but the federal court rejected and refused to hear the appeal. Although our appeal was rejected, we still fight for to maintain the quality of our Indigenous lives and for the safety of the next generation, the air, water, wildlife and sea life on our territory and waters. Our concerns are for our natural environment; the land we hunt on, the water where we catch our seafood, the health of the sea animals such as the killer whales and the salmon, the health of the local wildlife, and the impact that oil spills will have. We worry that the pipeline like many times before that has already spilled in our inlet will cause great concern and pollute our waters and sea life.

Not only are our concerns just for our territory but it is also the land and territories and natural streams and the impact that the oil spills have on our whole environment. Many times oil spills have devastated the surrounding waters, land and wild life. So we continue our battle against the colonized ways and the pipeline dream of oil, natural gas and money.

References:

https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/report-shows-impact-of-an-accident-in-burrard-inlet-301123
https://thenarwhal.ca/supreme-court-rejects-trans-mountain-legal-challenges-so-whats-next/
https://twnsacredtrust.ca/assessment-report-download/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pNS5Q_og38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcCZkF0ZYv8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExdwVNuSXEY

by Elisha Williams                       

We Dance
Kitokiipaaskaan-Prairie Chicken Dance

The men's prairie chicken dance originated from the Blackfoot Confederacy. The dance itself came from mimicking the prairie chickens in the springtime when they would show off their moves and their style during mating season. It is a dance that came with songs and was given to our people long ago. This dance represents the connection we have to the animals and their spirits. The original story of this dance is one that the Blackfoot people hold in high regard.

Long ago a young Blackfoot man was hunting. He had not seen any game for a while then he came upon some birds dancing on the prairie in the tall grass. He shot one with his bow and arrow and took it home to his family and they ate well. That night during the man's sleep the prairie chicken spirit appeared in his dream. The kitoki (prairie chicken) asked the man why he killed him, and the man answered “I needed to feed my family.” The kitoki then started dancing, he was showing the man the dance that he and the others were doing before he was killed. The man was to learn this dance, and teach it to all the people. If he did not do as he was told, the kitoki would come back and take the man's life. The man listened and this is how the sacred prairie chicken dance came to be.

Throughout time the dance and style has stayed with us but has also been introduced to new styles and ways of dancing. There is the old style and the contemporary style today. Among the Blackfoot people there are many sacred societies, and the Kitoki Society is one of them. There are certain protocols made and songs sung to be brought into the society. One is given specific directions and rights once they are a part of these societies.

A traditional old style chicken outfit consisted of, rounds bells on the ankles, leg bands, rounded aprons, breastplate, arm bands, head band that had beads that covered the eyes, pheasant feathers on the roach, and a round bustle.

This style of dance was kept close to our people even when our powwows and social gatherings were prohibited. There are some people today still that remember the powwows and dances that were held in houses, barns and other smaller places. In this way the people were preserving this dance, it would not be here if we stopped all of our practices. The Blackfoot people kept this dance alive even through strict rules that the Canadian government issued on Indigenous people.

By Eartha Good Striker

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