Balancing the wheel of life

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Balancing the wheel of life

In seeking good health, be mindful of the lessons of

the moose, experience of native people suggests

 

July 22, 2007

Christine Graef

Special to the Star

 

OTTAWA – When loss of habitat resulted in a decline in

the moose population in the Opasquayak Cree Nation in

Manitoba, hunters were unable to provide for their

families.

They went on welfare and began drinking.

The women no longer had the work of preparing meat or

hides. Sons no longer had pride in going out with the

men. Rates of abuse, crime and diabetes went up.

 

The government poured money into diabetes prevention

programs – toward monitoring symptoms and glucose in

the blood. The rates of diabetes and of crime

continued to rise.

 

" But as we watched the moose population go up after a

moose management program was instituted in 1975, we

saw the diabetes and abuse go down, " said Henry

Lickers, a Seneca Indian, Turtle Clan, and director of

the Department of Environment for the Mohawk Council

of Akwesasne. " There's now about 1,250 moose. Men are

out on the land. Sons and daughters have duties. Even

the worst hunter in the community can bring home a

moose. "

 

Biologists had measured the moose population. Health

Canada had measured the diabetes. But no one had

thought of the two as interlinking components of the

community's health. When the Mohawk department of

environment partnered with the University of Ottawa's

Institute of Environment and several First Nation

communities to take a new look at the problems, the

result was a community health indicator study,

launched in 2000.

 

" When we went to the elders, we were told that `we do

not need non-natives to study us and tell us we're not

healthy. We know that,' " said Lickers. " They asked,

'who among you studies life?' "

 

Western culture tells people what is wrong with them

by measuring descriptors such as disease, suicide and

death, but not causes. It brings no hope, Lickers

said.

 

The Circle of Health Indicator on this page is divided

vertically. The right half of the wheel represents the

spiritual side. The left side represents the

corporal/physical world.

 

The circle is then divided in half horizontally. The

upper half represents the intellectual aspect of the

community. The lower half represents the visceral

aspects.

 

In the centre is " Health. " The segments around the

circle are divided into eight opposite life indexes

that balance each other: Environment/Morale;

Economics/Values; Religion/Spirituality;

Politics/Responsibility.

 

For the Cree Nation, Economy represented the number of

moose and Value represented the number of successful

hunters. Today, all because the moose are present, the

community today has its own school, water treatment

plants and a hotel. Energy once spent on bureaucratic

issues has shifted toward youth programs.

 

" When we asked communities what we could measure in

their community to indicate health, not one ever said

death or illness, " said Lickers.

 

A Davis Inlet community said a well-lit recreational

centre was a component for their health. Environment,

the amount of bright sunlight, was balanced with

Morale, the community gatherings of picnics.

 

 

IN THE MIAWPUKEK First Nation in Newfoundland, playing

drums equalled spirituality and having drums equalled

religion.

 

" So they counted the number of drums and found there

were more than 100, but no one was playing them, " said

Lickers. " The link between spiritual and religion was

broken. "

 

The community began singing and invited others to join

them. They were again working together and motivated.

 

" The indictor has to give hope, " said Lickers. " It has

to give something that the people can do. "

 

Lickers and George Haas, a research associate at the

Institute for Environmental Research, began working on

the health indicator study because of the impact of

pollution in Akwesasne.

 

Akwesasne spans the St. Lawrence River where Quebec,

Ontario and New York State meet. In 1957 the St.

Lawrence Seaway was completed. On its shores, the

Reynolds Metals Company emitted thousands of pounds of

fluoride that settled on the lands, crops, animals,

water and people in surrounding communities. Tons of

PCBs were dumped into the river.

 

In the 1970s, people of Cornwall Island began to study

the effects. But in 1985, health studies done with

Health Canada and others concluded there was no link

between the pollution in the river and the community's

declining health.

 

" But diabetes was found in 75 per cent of adults, "

said Lickers. " The people had stopped eating fish, a

high-protein diet. "

 

As the Mohawk department of environment studied the

river, they watched the impact on the people. Because

of the warnings about toxic fish, fishermen were

laying down their nets and turning toward new income

found in border smuggling.

 

By 1990 there were also five casinos, causing splits

in the community as some supported the gaming and

others fought against it. In the summer of 1990, an

army was sent in to quell a violent outbreak.

 

The governments were doing the same thing over and

over again expecting to get a different result,

Lickers said. Haas and Lickers sat down and asked how

could they break the insanity.

 

" In the past, a doctor was the single extender of

health into a community, " said Lickers. " Then public

health came in and doctors worked with doctors. Then

there was a need for a team surrounding a doctor, such

as nurses and midwives. Why do you believe health is

from one doctor? It takes sociologists, psychologists,

environmentalists, all the fields working together

with communities to have health. "

 

A community knows what is important to it, said Haas.

 

" Native communities were being told that diet and

exercise would fix everything, " said Haas. " That's

offensive. It fixed nothing. "

 

Haas said that when they asked the community about its

health, the people said that pollution, high

population density and men working isolated outside of

their communities were major stressors.

 

" We structured a research model that was designed by

the community and found exactly what they said – the

high pollution, population density and working outside

the community were all factors where we found

diabetes, " said Haas. " The way they look at it is

different from the western components of diabetes. "

 

The way many aboriginal people look at the world is as

circles within circles.

 

" In the smallest circle that we can look at as an

example is a sub-cell, " said Lickers. " Then at an

individual. Then a family or group. Then community.

Then nation. Then nation within a Confederacy. Then in

the spiritual realm around us. So when we say

diabetes, we see it as a whole. We don't just treat

the individual. We treat the family too, as, for

example, encouraging gardening. Family is in

community, so we look at that too. "

 

 

IN THE EVENTS that arose in Akwesasne after the river

was polluted, the sub-cellular level was the fish.

Then the individuals, the fishermen, took the

consequences.

 

" Then the family lost that income and had to look for

another income, " said Lickers.

 

" Then community respect of trade between fishermen and

farmers was lost and politics changed. Then the nation

approaches the issue.

 

" The Confederacy is now impacted. Canada and United

States call in the police, call in the army and spend

billions of dollars since 1990. "

 

The cause of the uprising and the diabetes at

Akwesasne was not economics, he said.

 

The cause was PCBs in the river.

 

" Between 1990 and the present, Canada has spent about

$2.5 billion on policing Akwesasne, " said Lickers.

 

" A fraction of that money could instead have cleaned

the river and sustained community health. "

 

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/238514