If there was ever any doubt that culturally focused education contributes to student and overall success, this story of a graduating class might just convince you that incorporating traditional values, culture, language and identity is the most important factor in a vision of the future for First Nations communities, not this so called "progress" that is continually shoved down our throats, leading us further and faster down the path of outright assimilation.
A community member perspective...
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Landfill
We need to fence in the land fill to stop the bears from coming around, and garbage should be put out the day of the garbage pick up,, not sitting on decks for days The band needs to build steel garbage bins. This may help in keeping the bears out of the village.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Think somebody maybe should've told this guy not to wear the bear suit?
Nice. First Nations Day. Less than a week after the bear shooting. Thumbs up buddy. Update from the MNR regarding the bear
Update on the bear from the MNR. This particular bear wore tracking tags in its ears, which means it has been moved by the MNR before. They confirmed that the police or anyone really only needed to call them and they would have moved the bear again. This is just too sad on so many levels. I agree with the commentor about the potential for mauling of a child, that risk is always there, as it is with dogs, etc. But it's the treatment of the bear following the shooting, the suffering, the secrecy etc that is truly upsetting. There are two elders in this community who have both expressed their saddness, concern and disappointment about this. There is a bear who was found struck by a vehicle in Wooodstock New Brunswick that the water walkers just found. They are doing ceremony for that bear in that community at present. Where are our ceremony makers at a time like this? Oh another thing the MNR did tell us was that the police report on the bear shooting is public record that we have the right to see it. The police board is meeting this evening by the looks of things, and I did request the police report be made public in my email to chief and council on the weekend. I got very minimal response and no one took me up on my request and offer that someone from council come to my house and visit me over the weekend to give me the facts as they have to come to know them about the bear shooting incident.
Shawna
Shawna
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Bear Shooting
As most of the community is already aware a bear was shot and killed in Rama last week.Numerous bear sitings have been reported this past spring.It is understood that a member of the Rama Police Services shot a year old black bear, estimated to weigh 150lbs.The bear was shot near the graveyard, wounded and ran away to die. Reports indicate that the bear ran up the tracks toward the bush on the east side of the tracks. It was also rumoured that the bear suffered and was heard moaning as it died. It was not given a proper burial.Contributors to this blog have emailed Chief and Council to get answers as to why a young bear was shot by a police officer and left to suffer for three days. The response received is that chief and council are 'looking into it' and have called for an investigation and would report to the community. That was on Saturday June 18th. Contributors to this blog contacted the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) who advised that that particular bear was wearing a tracking collar. We are waiting to hear from them with more information. A couple of things are cause for concern. How can a bear be left to suffer in a First Nations community? The bear is our brother, our teacher and our protector. We learn from the bear and honour and respect the bear as part of our ceremonies. Also, it's concerning that a police officer shot the bear. Why wasn't the MNR called to tranq and relocate the bear? Did the officer discharge his or her service revolver to shoot the bear? In a residential neighborhood no less? From what I understand a substantial amount of paperwork has to be completed when an officer discharges a weapon. So what's in the police report? Why is nobody telling the community what happened? The truth would set us at ease and allow us to collectively decide how to come to terms with the death of the bear. It is interesting and important to note that in other FN communities when a bear is killed or dies ceremony is held and the community feasts to celebrate the life of the bear. This bear was left to die wounded and it's spirit unacknowledged. The bear carries very powerful medicine with him. What does that suggest about our community? It concerns me greatly to think how far removed we are from our original instructions. I've requested that the police report be disclosed to the community. We have a right to know what really happened and how that bear spent it's final days.In closing I will transcribe what Master Herbalist Matthew Wood has to say about the bear:
Bear. Bear provides one of the most powerful and important medicines in human society. The bear, which occasionally walks upright, is the animal most analogous to the human being and from it the Indian people learned which plants to eat and many medicine plants. With his claws bear digs up roots, pulls off berries and bark, catches fish and small animals and insects. Thus the bear is totem or representative of the food and medicine gatherer and preparer.
Bear medicines strengthen what we would call the adrenals (adrenal cortex). They give reserve, power and stamina. One set of bear medicines are oily, brown furry roots (there are more of these than one would suppose). The oil builds up the adrenals, which are composed of oil. Another set are berries, which bears love to eat. These sedate and cool, since fats and oils build up energy reserves which can cause hear.
People with bear medicine are constitutionally usually large and powerful, the they tend to be introspective. Like the hibernating bear, they like to sleep and dream. Often they are not active in the theatre of life until some powerful stimulus awakens them to their destiny. They need the first of the two categories below. People who need bear medicine of the second category are thin, weak with exhausted adrenals. They need dietary oil to rebuild their system.
In closing, we just want to acknowledge the bear, thank him for his life and ask that Creator help that bears spirit return to the spirit world. I ask that the bear forgive us for our indiscretions and bless us with his medicines. We also ask that leadership be honest and share the truth with the community.
Miigwech.
Bear. Bear provides one of the most powerful and important medicines in human society. The bear, which occasionally walks upright, is the animal most analogous to the human being and from it the Indian people learned which plants to eat and many medicine plants. With his claws bear digs up roots, pulls off berries and bark, catches fish and small animals and insects. Thus the bear is totem or representative of the food and medicine gatherer and preparer.
Bear medicines strengthen what we would call the adrenals (adrenal cortex). They give reserve, power and stamina. One set of bear medicines are oily, brown furry roots (there are more of these than one would suppose). The oil builds up the adrenals, which are composed of oil. Another set are berries, which bears love to eat. These sedate and cool, since fats and oils build up energy reserves which can cause hear.
People with bear medicine are constitutionally usually large and powerful, the they tend to be introspective. Like the hibernating bear, they like to sleep and dream. Often they are not active in the theatre of life until some powerful stimulus awakens them to their destiny. They need the first of the two categories below. People who need bear medicine of the second category are thin, weak with exhausted adrenals. They need dietary oil to rebuild their system.
In closing, we just want to acknowledge the bear, thank him for his life and ask that Creator help that bears spirit return to the spirit world. I ask that the bear forgive us for our indiscretions and bless us with his medicines. We also ask that leadership be honest and share the truth with the community.
Miigwech.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Environment
There latest propaganda on the environment, stating Rama is on the leading edge of environmental issues is laughable. Do people really believe this crap. Protecting are water as we pour tones of salt into the lake every year killing every thing in its path.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
What makes an Elder?
By Maurice Switzer
BayToday.ca
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A lot of people want to know when someone becomes an Elder (capital “E”).
During my involvement as a reviewer in two Native Studies textbooks being introduced into Ontario high schools this coming fall, editors were regularly calling to ask if certain First Nations citizens should be referred to as Elders.
I suggested that a good test would be to call these individuals and ask how they wanted to be described. Anyone who replied “Elder”, I said, wasn’t one.
Every First Nations person who achieves senior citizen status can rightfully be described as an elder, as in “elderly”, but the magic number seems to vary, depending on the circumstance. A friend was just in my office inviting me to join a “seniors” billiards league with him, for which the qualifying age is 50.
That seems a tad young. I didn’t sit in front of a computer until I was 50. Come to think of it, I didn’t even start to grow up until I was that age.
Good luck to celebrities like Brittany Spears who produce their autobiographies when they’ve reached the ripe old age of 17 or 18, but, comparatively speaking, they’re still in life’s diaper years.
It seems that a better way to define such an important term as Elder is to provide examples of people who seem to fill the bill. For me, the first prerequisite of an Elder is that they be someone from whom we can learn important things about how to live a good life.
Three names immediately come to mind, all of them having passed into the Spirit World in the past few months.
****
I met Ernie Benedict at First Nations Technical Institute on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory east of Belleville. We were developing the first Aboriginal-specific post-secondary program in journalism , and Ernie was asked to be an advisor for our media faculty.
The first time he visited the campus, I was speaking with him outside the FNTI building on a beautiful, sunny, late spring day. I happened to glance over Ernie’s shoulder and saw a huge snapping turtle trudging up the steep driveway incline behind him. That image will stay with me forever.
Elders in FNTI programs did more than open and close meetings, a practice that Anishinabek Elder Gordon Waindubence might include in his wry definition of “drive-by spirituality”. We relied on Ernie’s experience and accumulated wisdom about journalism – he began writing, editing and printing his first newspaper in Akwesasne on a high school Gestetner. (Younger readers can Google Gestetner.)
During one class he talked about how mainstream media so often treat Native Americans as if we are invisible. He offered the example of a young Inuit boy who ran for miles to notify authorities after stumbling across the 1935 wreckage of the plane in which American humourist Will Rogers died.
“Not one story mentioned the name of that Native boy,” Ernie told us, a lesson I have recalled on many occasions since.
****
Few teachers can command attention in the way Merle Assance-Beedie did when touching on her residential school experiences for participants in cross-cultural workshops. You could hear the proverbial pin drop when she described how her idyllic childhood years with loving parents abruptly switched to the trauma of internment at four residential schools.
Merle never had to elaborate on the cruelties she endured; the impact they had on her for decades told in her voice, and brought to tears many who heard her speak. The fact that she paid a visit to one aging clergyman who had been particularly abusive to her spoke volumes about Merle’s unshakeable conviction that kindness and compassion are better solutions than hate and revenge.
Hundreds of teachers, social workers, police officers and government employees have participated in cross-cultural workshops we call “The Missing Chapter: what you didn’t learn about aboriginal peoples in school”, a title contributed by Merle.
****
When I once hesitatingly told David Gehue that I was surprised by some of the, shall we say, “colourful’ language he sometimes used, he snorted “I’m not a holy man.”
What you saw was definitely what you got with the lumbering Mi’Kmaq healer, who had been tutored by some of the most respected traditional teachers on Turtle Island.
Blind from an early age following a scuffle with his brother, David was groomed by the old people in Indian Brook who believed that the little boy born with pure white hair was destined to do important things.
Like many true Elders, he had to experience life’s bumps before accepting sacred responsibilities, in David’s case the duty of carrying the Shake Tent ceremony. He helped scores of people – Native and non-Native – deal with all manner of pain and sickness, with results that often baffled practitioners of Western medicine.
He told those who sought his help that he could only relay things about their condition that the Spirits showed him; that ultimately, each of us has to do what is required to heal ourselves.
David’s death followed by a month that of his brother with whom he had the childhood scuffle that caused his blindness.
****
May their spirits be in a better place, and shine in the night sky with all the other stars.
Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He serves as director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and editor of the Anmishinabek News.
BayToday.ca
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A lot of people want to know when someone becomes an Elder (capital “E”).
During my involvement as a reviewer in two Native Studies textbooks being introduced into Ontario high schools this coming fall, editors were regularly calling to ask if certain First Nations citizens should be referred to as Elders.
I suggested that a good test would be to call these individuals and ask how they wanted to be described. Anyone who replied “Elder”, I said, wasn’t one.
Every First Nations person who achieves senior citizen status can rightfully be described as an elder, as in “elderly”, but the magic number seems to vary, depending on the circumstance. A friend was just in my office inviting me to join a “seniors” billiards league with him, for which the qualifying age is 50.
That seems a tad young. I didn’t sit in front of a computer until I was 50. Come to think of it, I didn’t even start to grow up until I was that age.
Good luck to celebrities like Brittany Spears who produce their autobiographies when they’ve reached the ripe old age of 17 or 18, but, comparatively speaking, they’re still in life’s diaper years.
It seems that a better way to define such an important term as Elder is to provide examples of people who seem to fill the bill. For me, the first prerequisite of an Elder is that they be someone from whom we can learn important things about how to live a good life.
Three names immediately come to mind, all of them having passed into the Spirit World in the past few months.
****
I met Ernie Benedict at First Nations Technical Institute on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory east of Belleville. We were developing the first Aboriginal-specific post-secondary program in journalism , and Ernie was asked to be an advisor for our media faculty.
The first time he visited the campus, I was speaking with him outside the FNTI building on a beautiful, sunny, late spring day. I happened to glance over Ernie’s shoulder and saw a huge snapping turtle trudging up the steep driveway incline behind him. That image will stay with me forever.
Elders in FNTI programs did more than open and close meetings, a practice that Anishinabek Elder Gordon Waindubence might include in his wry definition of “drive-by spirituality”. We relied on Ernie’s experience and accumulated wisdom about journalism – he began writing, editing and printing his first newspaper in Akwesasne on a high school Gestetner. (Younger readers can Google Gestetner.)
During one class he talked about how mainstream media so often treat Native Americans as if we are invisible. He offered the example of a young Inuit boy who ran for miles to notify authorities after stumbling across the 1935 wreckage of the plane in which American humourist Will Rogers died.
“Not one story mentioned the name of that Native boy,” Ernie told us, a lesson I have recalled on many occasions since.
****
Few teachers can command attention in the way Merle Assance-Beedie did when touching on her residential school experiences for participants in cross-cultural workshops. You could hear the proverbial pin drop when she described how her idyllic childhood years with loving parents abruptly switched to the trauma of internment at four residential schools.
Merle never had to elaborate on the cruelties she endured; the impact they had on her for decades told in her voice, and brought to tears many who heard her speak. The fact that she paid a visit to one aging clergyman who had been particularly abusive to her spoke volumes about Merle’s unshakeable conviction that kindness and compassion are better solutions than hate and revenge.
Hundreds of teachers, social workers, police officers and government employees have participated in cross-cultural workshops we call “The Missing Chapter: what you didn’t learn about aboriginal peoples in school”, a title contributed by Merle.
****
When I once hesitatingly told David Gehue that I was surprised by some of the, shall we say, “colourful’ language he sometimes used, he snorted “I’m not a holy man.”
What you saw was definitely what you got with the lumbering Mi’Kmaq healer, who had been tutored by some of the most respected traditional teachers on Turtle Island.
Blind from an early age following a scuffle with his brother, David was groomed by the old people in Indian Brook who believed that the little boy born with pure white hair was destined to do important things.
Like many true Elders, he had to experience life’s bumps before accepting sacred responsibilities, in David’s case the duty of carrying the Shake Tent ceremony. He helped scores of people – Native and non-Native – deal with all manner of pain and sickness, with results that often baffled practitioners of Western medicine.
He told those who sought his help that he could only relay things about their condition that the Spirits showed him; that ultimately, each of us has to do what is required to heal ourselves.
David’s death followed by a month that of his brother with whom he had the childhood scuffle that caused his blindness.
****
May their spirits be in a better place, and shine in the night sky with all the other stars.
Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He serves as director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and editor of the Anmishinabek News.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Financial Meeting
Saturday ,June11,2011 Chippewas of Rama Community Hall 9:30a.m. Identification requuuired MEMBERS ONLY.
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