From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Ahneen, hello and tansi once again. Last week we said this week we would try to get to the bottom of why certain people object to the idea of reserves in the first place.

The image of reserves in the public mind is either as luxury resorts where the people are brown from laying around on welfare under an Indian Affairs-funded sun. Others figure the people are so poor they would all crawl off someplace else if they only had the strength. Other see them as savage place, a mix of firewater and gunpowder.

Like most rumors and reputations, they way things really are falls somewhere in between.

Most reserves are like small villages. A bunch of people living together trying to raise their kids as best they can. There are problems. Some very serious ones, but what town or city doesn't have its share of those.

In Edmonton, lots of people need the food bank or they would go around hungry. Some American cities turn into gangland jungles at night.

Still some people even related to us, say reserves should just be done away with. They say those places are so economically and culturally isolated Indians will never catch up to mainstream times. What they are really asking is, what is best for those socially retarded red brothers of ours? Then before we get a chance to talk, they are already telling us what they think.

Well the idea for reserves came about in answer to just that question.

The Jesuit priests around Quebec City way back in the seventeenth century first thought them up. These Huron Indians were hanging around the fort hiding out from the Iroquois. They were suffering from unemployment, lack of job skills and other imported hardships. The black robed priests convinced them to go live on a patch of land in the bush far away from town. The plan was to civilize the Huron out of these Hurons and shove them back into civilized proceedings as happy, culturally adjusted, slightly darker than normal citizens. The fact there aren't too many Huron left these days maybe means they would have had a better chance fighting it out hand to hand with those deadly Mohawks again.

Anyway, the government, when they signed the treaties promising us reserves in the process, had the same idea in mind.

They sent in the churches to civilize the hell out of us heathens. We would get so educated we would never again be happy hanging out with Buffalo and Beaver. We would all rush off to the closest city so pleased to be smart we'd plum forget the fact we were Indians. Along the way we would forget those little treaties we'd signed also.

Just in case that didn't work, they came up with a sneaky plan "b" called the Indian Act. The first third of that is about membership. Who gets to be treaty and live on the rez, in other words. Most of these weird regulations are intended to paper shuffle us off our own property as quickly and legally as possible.

The only other way to get rid of reserves is to get rid of the treaties also. This they try to do every three years or so. The only thing that stops them is that they would lose their treaty rights, too. Their right to live on the land to live on it in peace would get crumpled up and thrown away also. The whole of Canada would turn into one big reserve then.

Most reserves aren't working out exactly as we want them to, though. Even though they are the only places where full treaty rights apply, unemployment is way too high. The social problems of alcohol, suicide, family breakup and so on are no good either.

Getting rid of reserves is no plain and simple answer. The Metis and non-Status are trying to get a land base as a chief point in their struggle. We at least have that much. Those Native groups haven't had the treaties and Indian Act to hold them back like our critics say has happened to us. Yet they suffer the same heavy duty problems without medical or education treaty rights to help them out even a little.

If the ones saying reserves will never have an adequate economic base are so cncerned about us, how does this idea sound? How about sharing the land and its resources, the money made from it more generously with us? The treaty deal is about sharing that stuff, not giving it up.

We could use that royalty revenue to create employment and training opportunities on the rez.

Usually, though it is the money channeled to us through Indian Affairs and us having rights they don't that upsets our white brothers so much. That's why you hear suggestions like, "We oughta just grab them Indians from outa the trees and herd 'em into the cities. Force them to be like us. Work out better for everybody in the long run.

That kind of thinking is called assimilation. Anybody with half a mind can do it.

Cities, for example, are bad ideas. They pollute the air, water and land for hundreds of miles around. They isolate people from caring for each other. The people and the country would be better off with such things as cities. Plant a garden and live off the endless supply of buffalo migrating across your front yard instead. Sure it would be tough on 'em at first, but things would work out better in the long run. In a year of living outside so much they would all turn a friendly brown and things would be just great.

Who would do that, you ask? Well those who suggest we give up our homes and our way of life because they don't agree with how we're living, that's who.

One in three treaty people now live in town. It's a choice we each must make along the way. But it is our decision to make. Anybody who figures otherwise is living in the wrong century.

Well that's it for another week. You know, no matter where you are it's possible to create a sense of community amongst each other. A shake of the hand or even a nod is all it takes to start one. As we go around this week, let's each try to do some of that and maybe that old, brown, hometown feeling will reach out and warm us wherever it is you pick up your mail these days. See you all later. Adios...