Kirk Buffalo, cultural connector for Samson Community Wellness, is a man who’s faced his own past and is now determined to let others in his community know that someone cares, and there is a path forward.
Buffalo’s job is to serve anyone who may be in the system — either the courts, family services or just going to school — who’s needing an empathetic connection and helping to bring them back to wellness through culture and ceremony.
The youth need to know someone will check in with them about how they’re doing, and really care about the answer, he said.
“We can’t change the past, but we can definitely change your character today,” said Buffalo.
It’s the guidance of elders and the strength he draws from his culture that he credits his own recovery with, and which he believes can bring others back to themselves, as well.
Buffalo facilitates connections to culture, whether that’s participating in sweats, which are held every two weeks in the community, advocating for defendants in court and connecting youth to elders for mentorship, guidance and teaching, or holding sharing circles between the families of offenders and victims.
In short, he says connecting Indigenous people back to their culture helps them to recognize and return to “the spirit they were born with.”
His own personal history and recovery journey, as well as his years working in provincial remand centres and as a tribal police officer, give him an informed perspective: one of compassion as well as the need for restitution for Indigenous offenders.
Perhaps best known in Maskwacis from playing the role of the ‘hoop-dancing Santa’ for over 40 years, he said for a lot of that time, he was only putting on a show of being well.
Buffalo was a young tribal police officer, on the job for just two years, when he lost his father on Dec. 19, 1975 in a vehicle collision. He said that day changed the course of the rest of his life.
While he still lives with the pain of losing his father decades ago, he has overcome his alcoholism and faced the repercussions that it had in his own family and continues to be determined to move forward.
The reality for many members of Maskwacis is one of constant loss and trauma.
“It’s tragic when there’s so many murders and deaths in the community,” said Buffalo.
Recently, there was a two-week period when Buffalo said he attended a funeral every day.
“I forget which ones I’m grieving for,” he said.
Buffalo’s father passed at age 46, and he didn’t see himself ever getting older than that.
Now at 68-years-old, he’s part of just 30 per cent of his Grade 4 class at Ermineskin Residential School that are still alive today.
Today, the Nation’s graveyard is two or three times the size it was in his youth, he said.
“There’s far too many, far too young.”
Buffalo feels reform is needed in how the court system handles Indigenous offenders.
“We do have a problem with our court system,” he said.
He wants there to be more recognition for the circumstances around offences, with acknowledgement and consideration for meaningful change and efforts to reconnect to culture and making restitution within the community, while also balancing accountability for violent offenders.
“The system isn’t accountable … (sometimes) the sentence is very light when (the accused) is from the reserve,” he said.
“(And) what constitutes as labelling someone as a ‘dangerous offender’?”
Buffalo said the courts need to realize the obstacles there are to being able to make court appearances, such as no minutes left on a cell phone, no driver’s licence, or inability to find a babysitter.
Rather than healing and rehabilitating individuals, Buffalo said “the new child welfare system is the jails.”
While the Indian Act has been revised several times since it was first passed in 1876, restrictions remain, and the original form is largely the same (indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca).
For centuries, First Nations laws had been oral, but now they’re at the point they’re able to have their own written laws, in their own languages.
“Those days of paternalistic thinking are gone,” said Buffalo.
First Nations need funding to create their own education and programming for their members, not outside, “hired experts” on Indigenous culture, he said.
Currently, there is no established process within the court system for offenders to make restitution to victims and their families, said Buffalo.
“The court has nothing that says ‘forgiving.’ When does it stop?” he said.
Buffalo said when the court cases are finished, when the sentence has been handed down, that’s when the work of the community to move towards healing begins.
“Healing begins within culture,” said Buffalo. “We need to stop looking outside to heal what’s inside.
“Help people be better citizens; then we don’t need to call on the police.”
Buffalo emphasized that most of the band members will live their whole lives in Maskwacis. Families of perpetrators and victims will have to deal with each other, as they won’t be able to avoid each other at the bingo hall or at powwows.
“Every place you go will remind you,” he said.
There is a Cree word that sums up the need to get along: miyo-wîcêhtowak.
That’s why sharing or sentencing circles, which brings victims of violence together to heal, are so important, he said.
Sweats release anger and pain, Buffalo explained.
Since 1977, Buffalo has prepared 26 Gladue reports for court cases. Of those individuals he worked with, he considers eight of them success stories, as they’ve made changes for themselves and are no longer involved in the justice system.
“Our system does not acknowledge success,” he said.
Buffalo said the RCMP also have a role to play.
“The RCMP must be more approachable; more part of the community.”
Part of the answer to addressing the over representation of Indigenous people in jails could be bringing in tribal police, he said.
“We’re not trying to take their jobs away, we’re trying to make them easier,” said Buffalo.
“Doing this work, we’ve got to build a dialogue,” he said, whether that’s with the RCMP or the courts, the community at large, or all the above.
Buffalo said Indigenous people need to develop their own positive role models, and re-learn how to parent.
“This generation needs to wake up, and stand up, and work with society.”
Buffalo added those who want to recognize an outstanding member of Maskwacis should give his office a call, as he’d like to make a wall of fame, to celebrate achievements and show a positive way forward is possible.