Healing, One Sacred Piece of Paper at a Time

But discomfort grows as he continues to chew. This was, after all, the piece of paper he first held up and said: “Imagine this paper is the eagle feather, representing courage and honour ... imagine this is also the peace pipe, representing ceremony and celebration for our people ... it also contains our languages, and it is the talking circle where people discussed issues, solved problems and supported each other.”

That’s one loaded piece of paper for this audience, comprised primarily of Aboriginals from across Canada who work in the violence-prevention field. They are here at the World Conference on Family Violence, sponsored by the Alberta government, to share ideas and learn ways to reduce interpersonal violence.

The incidence of violence in Canadian Aboriginal communities is staggering. Child and spousal abuse affects as many as four out of five families, and suicide rates in some First Nations communities are among the highest in the world. For that reason, this 2005 conference in Banff opened with a special day focused on Aboriginal issues.

DJ is from Elsipogtog, the largest native reserve in the province of New Brunswick. He’s here to co-facilitate a presentation on Walking the Prevention Circle, the Canadian Red Cross program designed by, with and for Aboriginal communities to help them understand the origins of the violence and abuse in their communities, and begin the long journey toward healing. 

Before DJ took centre stage and started chewing this wad of sacred paper, Red Cross Aboriginal Consultant Shelley Cardinal explained that the program aimsvto define what abuse is, how it might present itself, and its impact.

“Walking the Prevention Circle gives a language to the experience of violence. Until something is named, it’s very hard to move past it,” Cardinal said of the program she was instrumental in developing. “Lots of prevention happens through education.”

Cardinal has spent the past seven years traveling throughout Canada and training Aboriginal Prevention Educators like DJ. Every workshop begins with a history lesson: “There are significant things that have happened to our culture, beginning with contact with another culture that defined itself as superior. When there’s a greater loss of culture, there are more challenges and we have to go right back to the beginning to address them.”

Three years ago, Elsipogtog invited the Red Cross into its community. What began as a three-day workshop turned into a community-based prevention strategy.  DJ, a mental health support worker, was trained as a Prevention Educator. In this role, he delivers Red Cross abuse prevention education in the schools, and has reached over 600 young people. It’s critical work in a community where abuse has affected over 85% of the population, and where a rash of suicides in the 1990s deeply affected youth like DJ.

Yet now he’s chewing this sacred piece of paper. When it’s a mushy wad, he throws it to the floor. And then he says: “We had residential schools,” and he stomps the paper under the heel of his boot.

“We had the Indian Act’s policy of assimilation." Stomp.

"And we have systemic racism." Stomp.

"We have internal racism against ourselves." Stomp. "And we have alcohol and drug use and suicide.” Stomp.

DJ leans over to pick up the paper. The once pristine sheet is a flattened, dirty wad. He holds it up between two fingers and says, “We’ve been trying to work with this for too long.”

The room is absolutely silent.

He continues. “But as unrecognizable as it is, this is still a piece of paper; it’s different, but it’s a piece of paper no less. However, treating this like a regular sheet of paper obviously won’t work.”

He explains that the paper can never go back to its original form, and that with careful, delicate and painstaking work to unravel and unfold the paper, we will begin to be able to see what it originally stood for.

“We have to understand that it will never look, or even be the same as it was in the beginning, but we can acknowledge the fact that it is still a piece of paper, and it holds what we need—we have to try and look beyond the creases, tears, and stains,” DJ tells his rapt audience. “And once we set it out to dry, we have to know how brittle it may be, and we have to be careful not to do more damage.”

There is, he concludes, much careful work to be done.

Updated 2006