Copper-breaking shames feds

Celebrated Namgis First Nation carver Beau Dick was only days from the end of his long journey home from Parliament Hill when his caravan heard the news in Calgary: the Mount Polley mine tailings dam had breached in B.C.’s Cariboo region, dumping nearly 15 million cubic metres of toxin-laden sludge into the Fraser River ecosystem.

Only days before, the Vancouver Island elder and his group had broken apart large copper shields at the doors of Canada’s government, a traditional ceremony of shaming after a breach of law or protocol.

“As soon as we got the news about the tragedy we all burst into tears,” he told Windspeaker. “It was an emotional experience.
“It was horrifying, and a testament that this is all real what we’re facing. This is just one incident; it’s continuous, we don’t hear about most of it … We’ve been warning these people for a long time now what could happen, that’s what we’re trying to warn the government about: taking care of our environment and protecting it for future generations.”

That message has gained increasing urgency amongst Indigenous people with the federal government’s conditional approval of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline this year, and its ensuing coastal tanker traffic, as well as controversy over recent legislation critics say gutted environmental assessments and fish and waterway protection.

Though most of the trip was by van, Dick, 59, spent the first day on foot, leaving the First Nations House of Learning at University of British Columbia on July 2, where a crowd of roughly 100 people gathered to launch the trip.

Celebrated science broadcaster and environmentalist David Suzuki spoke beforehand and voiced his support for the copper-cutting journey.

Also present for the launch — and also for its conclusion in Ottawa — was Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, former president of the Council of the Haida Nation and a renowned carver himself. The copper plates taken 5,000 kilometres to Ottawa came from Haida Gwaii.

“This government — any government — now has to be more responsive to our people and to looking after this earth,” he said. “We want to quit crying, we want to quit fighting, we want to quit whining, we want to just have a real life. That’s what will come from this, but it will come from within ourselves.”

Dick explained to Windspeaker that the mining of copper dates back to before the arrival of Europeans, and was mined by the Tsilhqot’in and traded north as a form of medicine — a “gift from the heavens,” he said. But occasional Chinese shipwrecks near Haida Gwaii, he said, meant that even larger copper sheets made into decorated shields became a symbol of power and prestige and a record of good deeds.

In potlatch culture, the plates were enlarged when a chief distributed wealth broadly in the community or carried out good works — they became a sort of “credit card,” he said, in exchange for mutual aid and favours between leaders.

So to break a copper into pieces — a rite not practiced for decades until Dick revived it — became an act of shaming, banishment and a symbol of a wrong needing to be addressed. Usually, Dick said, just the threat of breaking it was enough to bring feuding factions together. It was a way of “keeping the peace,” he added.

“Now it’s become more than a credit card. It’s used to enforce authority,” he explained. “It’s a symbol of justice, balance, truth and connectedness with Mother Earth and the Creator.

“Breaking copper is an extreme act of shaming and a challenge, but it also can be repaired … Quite often things would be straightened out before it got to that point. The threat should have been enough to invoke atonement.”

Dick admits the federal government likely wasn’t paying too much attention to the copper being broken on its doorstep last month, or to the serious message it carries to the Haida. But nonetheless, the journey across the continent was “truly amazing,” he said.

“It was not always easy or comfortable, it was tiresome,” he admitted. “But what a fulfilment.

“We went to so many places and had so many experiences — the welcomings to Sundances, peyote ceremonies, powwows, all these cultural events … it is still resonating. History was made.”
After a similar copper-breaking ceremony he conducted at B.C.’s Legislature Buildings in Victoria in February 2013, Dick said that Guujaaw encouraged him to take the message of environmental and social brokenness — and the need for atonement and reconciliation — all the way to Canada’s capital.

“I’m certain that the government of Canada didn’t feel threatened by our little ceremonies,” he said. “There was no response, whatsoever, but we’ll keep pushing to bring forward this notion of justice, truth and dignity.”

At the launch ceremony in Vancouver, Chief Robert Joseph spoke about the copper-cutting journey as part of the historic struggle for healing from the legacy of colonization, work he’s advanced through his organization Reconciliation Canada.

He told the crowd that if Aboriginal people and Canadians are to “find a new way forward together,” it’s going to take effort.

“It’s going to take a lot of hard work like this,” Joseph said. “One day at a time.

“It inspires them to walk across the country even more strongly and loudly than they would have without your support. They’re going to carry this message to others, that … we all should begin to embrace each other regardless of race, colour, creed or circumstance. All of us have purpose and value.”

Citing not only environmental crises but also cuts to health care, education funding and mental health support, Dick said that he hopes the powerful messages of ceremonies such as copper-cutting and potlatch could inspire people far beyond his nation or even just the continent; the journey wasn’t about “First Nations issues,” he said, but about issues facing humanity as a whole.

“We talked about what’s going on in Palestine, Ukraine and China, all around the world there’s upheaval, it’s being plunged into chaos,” he said. “As First Nations we do have an edge, as we’ve healed and stepped onto the world stage we have a voice now.

“If we went back to our ways of potlatching and measuring people by how they provided and how responsible they were for looking after the people, I think it’d be a better world for all of us.”