People worried case could lead to government interference

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Criminal charges against a South American healer who performed a ceremony in Ontario where an Elder died have many people concerned about a possible crackdown on traditional Aboriginal healing in Canada.

Juan Uyankar and his son face charges, including criminal negligence causing death, after Jane Maiangowi died on Manitoulin Island during an October ceremony they performed.

"There's a concern that because of the (Manitoulin) incident, that's going to fuel the federal government even more....They're going to use that as a way to justify regulating and licensing traditional Indian medicine," said Perry McLeod, a traditional healing helper from Ontario's Nipissing First Nation.

Ottawa is in the process of enacting a law that will govern how "natural health products" are used and who can sell them. McLeod said the healers he works with are concerned the law will be the first step in forcing them to qualify for a licence.

But Health Canada spokesman Marie Lemaire said the new rules will exclude Aboriginal medicine if healing items are not sold on the market and the products are created "at a particular moment in time for a particular patient."

Governments are taking an ad hoc approach to Aboriginal healing. Health Canada pays transportation costs for healer visits and funds some centres that provide healing programs.

Provincial and local governments pay for various other initiatives often with the goal of offering traditional healing as a complement to Western medicine. The programs seem to coincide with what one observer calls the slow re-emergence of healing.

"There's a feeling that it was extinguished, but it just went underground," said James Lamouche of the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). "In every Aboriginal community if you knew who to talk to you would find someone who practises traditional healing."

But "sometimes [a healer's] presence is unknown even in their own communities," said the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. A 1994 survey it sponsored found that 10 per cent of people living on-reserve, five per cent of urban Aboriginals and three per cent of Metis people had consulted a traditional healer the previous year.

NAHO, which was born from the RCAP recommendations, is sponsoring a study to gauge the current use of traditional healing.

The RCAP report also recommended developing ways to assure Aboriginal people have access to traditional healers, taking steps to safeguard traditional knowledge and skills, encouraging traditional healers to organize in order to self-regulate and increasing contact between traditional healers and Western medicine.

The growing interest in healing is part of a cultural renaissance among Indigenous people, but healers remain cautious about any government involvement, said Lamouche.

"There would be a huge resistance to it, especially because many healers grew up at a time when the government had banned it."

The healers network spread the news of the Manitoulin arrests even before the Uyankars were charged, said a British Columbia woman who also works with healers. "There are healers in Canada who are extremely concerned about this case because it's Canadian law that's being made," said Rhonda Weitzel.

Others outside the country understand the Uyankars' plight, she added.

"Jailing of healers and the oppression of healers is still an ongoing phenomenon across the Americas," said Weitzel.

Healers in Mexico lobbied for more than a decade before the government finally changed the law last year to recognize their healing practises, she said, adding that she cautions healers travelling across the Canada/U.S. border not to carry their medicine bundles.

Lamouche said visits of healers from other countries are likely to dry up if Canada gets a reputation as a country that prosecutes them. Gatherings like the one hosted by the Nekaneet First Nation in Saskatchewan attract many healers from outside Canada, including Ecuador.

Fewr visiting healers would also open the door for fake healers, Lamouche added. "It's kind of a test case. Everybody's wondering what the government's going to do."

Funders are also following the case, which will see the Uyankars back in court for a pre-trial hearing on May 14. In January a judge refused to return the Ecuadorans' passports so they could return home while free on bail.

"Organizations are very keenly watching this and they are very concerned as well," said Kathy Wakeford, manager of Ontario's Aboriginal Wellness Program.

She said the incident hasn't changed her feeling about the seven-year-old Wellness program, which funds health centres whose communities decide what traditional healing should be available.

"I participate in a large strategy, that is jointly managed by Ontario and 15 Aboriginal organizations, that has signed a long-term agreement and in that agreement there is a recognition of traditional practices. That has not changed."

Juan Uyankar's lawyer said he sees no reason his client's case should focus on Aboriginal healing.

"I don't think this case should be a debate about this type of healing process because it's been going on for centuries," said Bill Trudell. "The moment you set off on larger questions, the longer and more complicated the case becomes.

"What we have here really," added the Toronto-based lawyer, "is some people who in good faith came to Canada- were invited-to help with what has been recognized as a healing ceremony. As a result of this, something went wrong with this one person."

An Indian Affairs spokesman said the department does not have a policy on traditional healing.

Supporters of the Uyankars have formed a group to help raise money for their defense.

"My husband and I pick medicine," says Marie Eshikbok-Trudeau, an organizer of the Association in Support of Indigenous Medicine International (ASIMI). "We're kind of taking a stand for our plants because they're being attacked."

She said police, who also carged the Uyankars with importing a controlled substance, don't understand Aboriginal healing.

"Our medicines are not a drug. They are sacred medicines that have been used for thousands of years."

The arrests were also discussed on the sidelines of a recent international meeting in Montreal to discuss traditional knowledge. Participants met to discuss the Convention on Biodiversity, unveiled during the 1992 Earth Summit, which includes a section devoted to protecting and promoting traditional knowledge.

Canada's signing of the treaty contradicts the Uyankar charges, said Weitzel. It "has signed on to a global convention that calls for the protection of traditional Indigenous knowledge, of which traditional medicine knowledge is part, and yet here it is criminalizing traditional healers for doing what they do."