Invitation extended to Elders and youth

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The heavy load of centuries worth of trauma is being carried on the shoulders of Aboriginal youth. Elders will meet at Hamilton and the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in the hopes of lightening that load.

They want to acknowledge and talk about the hardships their people have been dealt over the years since contact and deal with the effects that those hardships have had on the generations.

Organizers of the International Indigenous Elders' Summit are inviting Elders and representatives from Aboriginal communities across the Americas to take part in the discussions, which will be held Aug. 27 to Sept. 1.

The main focus of the summit will be for Aboriginal people to acknowledge their past and talk openly about it. Dawn Martin-Hill, director of Indigenous studies at McMaster University, and a member of the committee that is organizing the summit, hopes that the Elders will be able to come up with some sort of resolution that will help Aboriginal people for centuries to come.

She said that Aboriginal people have never recovered from the trauma they suffered at the hands of Europeans during colonialism. Disease, war and massacre took their toll on the tribes during that time.

"What I've seen across the country is that Elders are not brought into the forefront in policy making in Indigenous communities. When they're at the self-government talks, when they're talking about self-determination or trying to do something, you might have an Elder do an opening, but they're not there," said Martin-Hill. "I think that it's time that we bring the Elders into the position of authority and [be the] guides that they need to be, and ask them to deal with some really, really tough realities in our communities today," she said.

The summit is the result of a meeting held at McMaster University four years ago. Members of the Iroquois Women's Circle, students from McMaster University and a number of Elders were invited to speak about concerns they had about their community. Martin-Hill said that people were having visions or dreams of a great gathering, and when she spoke with more and more Elders about these visions, she heard that more and more people were having them, so she knew that this summit was something that had to happen.

The summit is tied to the Unity Ride and Run, which will officially begin the summit when it arrives from their journey from Sioux Valley, Man. The Unity Ride and Run was first envisioned by Birgil Kills Straight in the 1960s to honour the victims of the massacre at Wounded Knee. Participants travel on horseback or run countless miles while praying. They stop in many Indigenous communities along the way, visiting and paying respect to many sacred sites in the hope of healing the trauma their people have suffered.

Martin-Hill said the focus of this year's ride is to honor women, which is the vision of the summit as well.

Kills Straight was asked and is happy to have the ride opening the summit.

"When you're on top of a horse you can see a lot of things. If you do it in a spiritual way, questions one might have may be answered on the back of a horse," said Kills Straight. "The people involved with it will all have that spiritual connection with the ride. When the connection to the past is made, you can begin to see the future a little bit clearer."

Martin-Hill agrees.

"The ride is where we're encouraging people to join, to bring their Elders out, to send their youth, because the ride in itself is part of the healing. The message that the ride carries is part of that healing process. Acknowledging there was a holocaust needs to happen."

Bonnie Freeman is a volunteer for the summit and has taken part in the ride before and she said that she's seen it change people. Her son went on a ride with her, and she said there was a noticeable change in his level of confidence and self-esteem. People are proud to be on the ride, or to have the ride come through their commuity.

"I think everybody should have the opportunity to experience it because it goes back to our traditional ways and culture," said Freeman, an Indigenous student counsellor at McMaster University. "I think there's a lot of answers in our culture for the trauma that we experienced over generations. By going back to our traditional teachings, the languages and understanding our connection to the land, I think we may be able to overcome a lot of things. It won't be easy, but I think it's a start. I think it's going to bring a lot of hope."

Martin-Hill believes that many young people today are carrying hundreds of year's worth of traumatic baggage with them, which comes from the death of many Aboriginal people. This baggage is what is causing many disturbing problems, including the high suicide rate among Aboriginal youth.

Martin-Hill, who is an anthropologist, said that during colonization, nine out of 10 Aboriginal people died because of diseases or massacres, so being able to acknowledge this terrible past is what needs to happen.

"That cannot be called anything but a holocaust. So being able to name what happened to us, to have it acknowledged, to grieve and then to move on is what we would like to see happen... part of the historical trauma is that the society we live in denies that this even ever occurred," said Martin-Hill.

"It's not that we want to rehash all the horror that was inflicted on Indigenous people. We just simply want to make sure it's acknowledged and talk about how were going to change that for the next 500 years."

Martin-Hill hopes that most First Nations communities will send some community representatives. She doesn't want this event to become politically charged and "flashy" with lobby groups taking over the event.

"We are catering to the grassroots. We were very clear when we went to the [Assembly of First Nations and National Aboriginal Health Organization] that this is a grassroots event, and we would like their assstance. We would like their support, but it is a grassroots event. That was our overall goal, is that people would send their Elders and youth. We really want the youth completely interwoven into this whole event, because we're really, as mothers and grandmothers, which this committee consists of, we're really, really worried about the young people. That's why we're doing the work we're doing. For the kids."