Understanding Historical Trauma: How Tribal
Communities are Changing the Legacy
August 9, 2012
“A society that cannot
remember it’s past and
honor it, is in peril of
losing it’s spirit.”
–Vine Deloria Jr.
Sina Ikikcu Win (Takes the Shawl Woman)
Ethleen Iron Cloud-Two Dogs
Hmuya Mani (Walks with a Roaring)
Richard Two Dogs
How did we get here?
What is Historical Trauma?
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Historical trauma can be conceptualized as an event or
set of events perpetrated on a group of people (including
their environment) who share specific group identity (e.g.
nationality, tribal affiliation, ethnicity, religious affiliation)
with genocidal or ethnocidal intent (i.e annihilation or
disruption to traditional lifeways, culture and identity.
Historical unresolved grief is the grief that accompanies
the trauma.
Historical Trauma Response
“Constellation of features in reaction to this trauma”
 Depression
 Anger
 Anxiety
 Substance abuse
 Low self esteem
 Difficulty with
emotional
identification and
expression
Historical Trauma Examples
Wounded Knee Massacre 1890
Jewish Holocaust
Similarities
Indigenous Experience
Holocaust
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Imprisonment
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Imprisonment
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Forced Relocation
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Forced Relocation
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Death
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Death
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Abuse
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Abuse
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Individually, each event is profoundly traumatic; taken together
they constitute a history of sustained cultural disruption and
destruction directed at communities.
The trauma is held personally and transmitted over generations.
Thus, even family members who have not directly experienced the
trauma can feel the effects of the event generations later.
The resulting trauma is conceptualized as collective in that it
impacts a significant portion of the community and compounding, as
multiple historically traumatic events occurring over generations join
an overarching legacy of assaults.
Lakota Perspective
Iyowaniye-Historical Trauma
Ancestors
e.g.Wounded Knee Massacre
Iyowaniye-Historical Trauma
Grandparents & Parents
e.g. Boarding Schools
WokaphaIntergenerational
transference of
Negativity
Iyowaniye - Personal trauma
Any type of trauma or unresolved grief
passed to the next generation
e.g Sexual Abuse
E. Iron Cloud-TwoDogs
 Confronting
historical trauma
 Understanding the trauma
 Releasing our pain
 Transcending the trauma
Confronting Historical Trauma
Beginning of Contact
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Life shock
Genocide
No time for grief
Economic Competition
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Sustenance loss
(physical/spiritual)
Invasion War Period
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Extermination
Refugee symptoms
Subjugation and
Reservation Period
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Confined / translocated
Lack of security
Boarding School Period
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Destroyed family system
Forced Relocation and
Termination Period
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Transfer to urban areas
Prohibition of religious
freedom
“Kill
the Indian, Save the Man.”
– Captain Richard H. Pratt
Boarding school period (1879-1935)
1st school: Carlisle, Pennsylvania
 Captain Pratt modeled Carlisle and other off-reservation boarding schools on a
school he developed at Fort Marion prison in Florida from 1872-1875 where Native
prisoners of war were held.
His “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” policy proposed that children be forcibly
removed from home with no return, until they were young adults.
By 1909, there were 25 off-reservation boarding schools. More than 100,000
Native children were forced to attend these schools.
Attendance was mandatory or parents would be imprisoned. (e.g. in 1895, 19 Hopi
men were imprisoned at Alcatraz for refusing to send their children to the schools.
Lakota boys before their arrival at Carlisle
Lakota boys after their arrival at Carlisle
Environmental & Spiritual Trauma
Federal Indian Policy
Westward expansion and Indian relocation
 Eastern tribes forced out of homelands and put on barren lands
 Justification of Indian removal by Thomas Jefferson was to “give them a space to
live undisturbed by white people as they gradually adjust to civilized ways"
Allotment and Assimilation (1887-1943)
 Federal policy that aimed to take from Indians, the idea of group ownership of land
and parceling the reservations into small plots – mainly given to Indian males.
 “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” policy
Termination and Relocation (1945-1960)
 This time federal policy called to obliterate tribal existence by terminating the
federal relationship with certain tribes.
 Federal government initiated a policy called Relocation, that encouraged Indian
people to blend into mainstream society by moving to urban areas.
Relocation
Relocation offices were set up
in 7 major cities:
•Chicago
•Denver
•Los Angeles
•San Francisco
•San Jose
•St. Louis
•Cincinnati
•Cleveland
•Dallas
Understanding the trauma
Response Features:
 Survivor guilt
 Depression and psychic numbing
 Fixation to the trauma
 Low self-esteem
 Victim identity
 Anger
 Self-destructive behavior
 Substance abuse
 Hypervigilance
 Preoccupation with death, death identity and loyalty to ancestral suffering and
deceased
 Internalized oppression
Lakota Perspective
Nagi Yata (Spirit World)
Return to Spirit World
Pre-Birth +
Interruptions to
Natural Life Cycle
(e.g. abandonment,
trauma at age 3)
Age 50+
Age 12+
Age 21+
E. Iron Cloud-Two
Dogs, 2004
Un Lakota Pi Hehanl
When We Were Lakota
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Wocekiye- Prayer
Okiciya Pi- Helping One
Another
Ihakicita Pi- Looking Out for
One Another
Wokigna- Comforting One
Another
Wounsila- Compassion for
One Another
Wowacin Tanka- Fortitude
Woksape- Knowledge and
Understanding
Wowasake- Strength
Wowicala- Belief
Disconnection from
Sacred Teachings
•Miye (I, Me)•No longer Niye (You), or
Unkiye (Us)
•With the onset of Boarding
Schools- there was shame in
being Lakota- afraid to speak
Lakota and the loss of using
kinship terms (e.g. Unci, Ina,
Leksi)
“Ehanni Canupa na oinikage el ikiliya opiciyapi hehan winuhcala na wicahcala ota pi.”
“When we lived close to the sacred pipe & sweat lodge, there were many old men and
women.”
~Matthew Bear Shield
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Wahohunkukiye Pi Sni- No Cultural Teachings
Wasigla Wacinyesni Okihisni (unresolved grief)
Takuni Wacinyesni (Hopelessness)
Kakije (suffering)
Sil Okihanpi (sexual abuse)
Wiconi Kokipa Pi (Fear of Life)
Alcohol/Substance Abuse
Okahpa (Transgenerational Transference of Negativity)
Okatkabiya- Permeating Negative Influence (e.g. physical abuse or alcohol abuse
in the home)
Nagi Cola Ounye (without a spirit)
Releasing the Trauma
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By allowing ourselves to feel and express the
emotions and pain tied to the trauma, the
healing process can then begin.
 Validating the experience of people
Transcending the trauma
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Transcending is healing and moving beyond the trauma
No longer define yourself in terms of the trauma
Survivor instead of victim
In order to heal you must be able to forgive. We have to be
able to forgive the unforgivable, which is the only way we
can evolve as people, as a country, or as a species. We must
learn from our past and dream of a better future for all.
Restoring our “Original Instructions”
Relational restoration
Lakota Perspective
Apiciya Pi (Healing from the trauma)
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When an individual
experience trauma, there
were cultural
interventions that were
immediately applied to
prevent the traumatic
experience from having
a long term affect on the
individual
Traditional Lakota Interventions
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Wokigna (Comfort)
-Child is given care and gentle nurturing)
Wopakinte (Spiritual Cleansing)
-Cleansing of the four parts of the Nagi (spirit)
Nagi Kicopi (Calling the Spirit Back)
Wiping of the Tears (Addresses & releases the grief)
Woapiye (Doctoring)
-This can be healing of all four parts of the self- Mental, Physical,
Emotional and Spiritual)
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Provide Cultural Teachings
Provide Spiritual Foundation
Promote the Language
Support of family
Support of Sobriety
Listening and Caring
Elders
Waziliya
Utilizing Traditional and
Spiritual Healing (e.g Inipi)
Wocekiye- Appealing to the
Creator
LAKOL WICOHAN NA WOOPE OGNA
UNYANPI HEHAN, OYATE KI TANYAN
WICONI. CANKE HE UN, LAKOL OUNYE KI
UNGLU KINI PI KTE.
Empowering Lakota youth and
families to improve the health,
culture and environment of
our community, through the
healing and strengthening of
cultural identity.
WHEN THE PEOPLE FOLLOWED THE
LAKOTA LIFEWAYS AND LAWS, THE PEOPLE
FLOURISHED. THEREFORE, TASUNKE
WAKAN OKOLAKICIYE PROMOTES THE
REBIRTH OF THE LAKOTA LIFEWAYS AND
LAWS THROUGH EDUCATION, HEALING
AND COLLABORATION.
“Our survival is based on returning
to our own beliefs and our own
ways of praying, our own
culture.” ~ Richard Two Dogs
Buffalo Kill
What we want for our people….
Pilamayaye!