Reconciliation is a term easily recognizable but how it applies to First Nations in Canada and indigenous cultures may be misguided.
Dr. Dian Million, associate professor in American Indian Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Canadian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle took some time Tuesday, Jan. 26 to explain her thoughts on reconciliation and what it actually means from a First Nations perspective.
Million, an indigenous feminist scholar, challenges human rights agendas with regard to gender inequality and violence as well as how governments work with nations to reconcile over past traumas. Understanding how First Nations handle past issues needs a look at the culture of storytelling.
She says stories are a “premier native technology” that involves the heart, the mind and the world. “It is a human thing we do,” said Million.
There is a certain power to stories and Million sees that ability as a sacred thing. The Coast Salish people in Puget Sound, WA, describe it, says Million.
“What they think about stories is they’re part of the breath and the breath is sacred,” she explained.
Stories have a way of branching out to other subjects while a written story, with a beginning and a middle and an end, has a different purpose. As different as storytelling is to written stories, so is the difference in understanding colonial governments and United Nations’ endeavour at reconciliation.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an example of how articulating past traumas from an indigenous perspective differs to a government’s. The definition of reconciliation means the restoration of relations.
This implies relations between First Nations and governments was at one point a positive one. Million wanted attendees to see that recapturing stories and cultures will help shape indigenous self-determination, not the ones defined by colonial theories. “We’re no longer victims.”
“We’re survivors,” she said simply. “What do we do now?”
Million suggests the stories do not all have to be the sames ones of “victim-hood.” She feels indigenous people can control that narrative from their perspective.
“We can love each other the way we are,” said Million.
Getting closer to their culture will also help understand the loss of natural resources and the inequality of men and women. For Million, indigenous feminism is important not as a way to break out, but to understand the relationship between men and women and honouring those relationships.
“The land is changing rapidly. We have the power of the story and the world, and we need it,” said Million.
This speech is part of a monthly lecture series open to the public held at Maskwacis Cultural College.