STSI’ELH - RESPECT
Respect yourself
Respect all members of the human family
Respect the earth, all of its beings and forces
The world is one family.
Before returning to Canada at age 17 after living in the United States for 14 years, I imagined it the utopic northern neighbour. Life is good here, but not for everyone. We take pride in being a highly multicultural country, rightly so, but the subjugation of the native populations which allowed Canada to become this way is a festering wound making us as sick as our neighbours to the south. For my friends and family around the world who may not be aware, up until 24 years ago Canada had a residential school system in place to assimilate indigenous children into settler culture. Some facts:
* 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)
* Over 130 residential schools were located across Canada, and the last school closed as recently as 1996.
* 90 to 100% suffered severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
* Traditional languages, names, and faiths were forbidden, and punished when used. They were indoctrinated into Catholicism and settler ways by force.
* As many as 6,000 children died in the schools.
These figures are taken from the Canadian Government itself, but many speculate the figures are even higher.
Needless to say, the generational trauma as a result of the residential school system along with the pain of colonization as a whole has left deep wounds in native communities. Today, many native people are faced with poverty, alcohol and drug addiction, high suicide rates, poor education, high infant mortality, low life expectancy, and chronic unemployment. Native women, especially, are suffering.
As Hayden Burgess/Poka Laenui (World Council of Indigenous Peoples) said:
“The cultural respect other societies accord indigenous cultures is a mirror of the advancement or regression of the their own. We are all members of a large human family. Disregard for one member only results in disintegration of the family itself. By uplifting the rights of each member, we uplift the whole.”
The time is now for us to find how we can uplift the whole, with our strengths as individuals. The way forward is together. The global state of environmental degradation and social chaos is evidence of the fact that we have long been walking out of balance. So much wisdom in right relationships, the right way of walking in balance and harmony with the earth and her cycles is embedded into traditional ways, and it’s time that we LISTEN instead of fearing, averting, and overpowering. Thankfully, despite all attempts to eradicate them, the lives, language, and culture of Canadian First Nations and others across the world are pulsating a loud, drumming heartbeat. May we all hear it in time, may we all find our place in the circle. And may all the ethnocides taking place presently of Rohingya, Uighur, Kashmiri, Nuer, Yazidi, and others come to an end.
Hych'ka Siem, Thank you to Cowichan Master Carver Harold Joe for the welcoming poles of Xwaaqw'um, Burgoyne Bay, who inspired the figures in the mural. May we all arrive humbly on the shores of wherever we land in life and greet each other as equals, with open hearts.
Hych'ka Siem, Thank you to Ms. Claudia of Cowichan Valley School District for teaching the Hul'q'umi'num' language and making it accessible through weekly videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXkglBGAh2ghCjUU6_xT2Q...
Hych'ka Siem, Thank you to the many respected community members hailing from near and far who contributed a handprint and a prayer to the bottom of the mural.
Hych'ka Siem, Thank you to Ganges Marina for sponsoring the mural.
Hych'ka Siem, Thank YOU for reading.