Overcoming Diabetes in Indian Country:
A Holistic Perspective
Elise Krohn
Independent Study Degree Program
Professors Trocco, Ryser and Korn
January 19, 2007
Abstract:
1
Conventional medicine generally views type 2 diabetes as a metabolic disorder caused by
genetics, obesity, a poor diet and a lack of exercise. This perspective fails to address the
role of the nervous system and other factors that might contribute to the disease.
Colonization has contributed to the epidemic of diabetes in Indian country through
imposing generational trauma, poverty, environmental destruction, a loss of access to
traditional foods and a dependence on government commodities on communities.
Diabetes programs in the Northwest are taking on new life through holistic treatment
including addressing trauma, traditional foods and medicines programs, healing gardens
and the Canoe Journey. Through cultural revitalization individuals and communities are
finding new tools to prevent or treat diabetes.
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………….4
Chapter I
Colonial Factors Contributing to Diabetes in Indian Country….7
Epidemics……………………………………………………………7
Reservation Life……………………………………………………..9
Indian Schools……………………………………………………….11
A Different Epistemology: Environmental Destructions……………14
Traditional Foods Verses Commodity Foods……………………….15
Chapter II
Healing the Trauma…………………………………….………… 18
Chapter III
Community Wellness Trough Cultural Revitalization…..………20
Culture, Foods and Medicines……………………………………….21
Diabetes Prevention Trough Traditional Foods and Medicines……..22
D3WX bi Pa lil Northwest Indian Treatment Center………………..23
The People of the River Healing Garden…………………………….25
The Canoe Journey…………………………………………………..26
Conclusion…………………………………...………………………29
2
Overcoming Diabetes in Indian Country:
A Holistic Approach
Type 2 diabetes was non-existent among native Northwest Coastal People about
100 years ago and now it is an omni-present part of modern Indian life (Ferreira, 2006a).
As an herbalist working in tribal communities, I have witnessed the devastating impacts
of diabetes on both individuals and communities. Some of the effects are fatigue,
depression, vision loss, kidney failure, frequent infections, amputations and decreased life
expectancy. Conventional Western medicine focuses on the physiological causes of
diabetes including genetics, obesity, a lack of exercise, and diet. This approach is so
common that few question it. While exercise and dietary changes have been shown to be
beneficial, they have not been enough to reverse the rise of the epidemic. The incidence
of diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate and what was once a disease of middle to
older age is now beginning to affect tribal youth. Conventional Western medical
treatments have failed in preventing or holistically treating diabetes, perhaps due to a
narrow understanding of the disease (Roy, 2006, p. 173). By taking a broader perspective
on diabetes including the complex historic and social factors that may have led to the
epidemic in Native communities, prevention and treatment may become more effective.
Native American communities are at greater risk for diabetes than other groups.
Having American Indian or Alaskan Native heritage is one of the top four risk factors
(National Diabetes Statistics Clearinghouse, 2005). Currently the prevalence of diabetes
among Native Americans is 5-8 times higher than that of the general population (Lang,
2006, pg. 209). The common belief is that this is due to genetics. Actually, there is no
substantial evidence that diabetes is caused by genetics (Raymer, 2005; Ferriera and
Lang, 2006b). Diabetic practitioner and researcher, Terry Raymer (2005) is critical of
those who rely on genetics to provide a cure. He says, “While the ‘thrifty gene’ has been
postulated (Wendorf and Glodfine; Neel 1982) but not found, this search may be quite off
the point at this crucial time: we may expend terrific resources searching for a genetic
holy grail that we could direct toward true prevention” (p. 316).
Focusing solely on genetics, weight, diet, and a lack of exercise as risk factors
without putting them in a greater social, historical and cultural context is irresponsible
and damaging. It may lead people to believe that diabetes is an intrinsic part of being
Indian, as if it is a stigma that is tied to the culture. This reductionist view can promote
feelings of shame, disempowerment and hopelessness because of the belief that diabetes
is caused by “bad genes” and “poor cultural practices.” For example, one 80-year old
Yurok woman from Northern California said,
…my bad blood. That’s what the doctor told me. We Indians have bad blood…
It’s in me, in my blood. So there’s not much I can do about it, either… You think
I’m going to follow some diet, not eat all the good stuff I crave for if it’s in my
blood? You know, it’s like they want to kill you over and over. First they give
you whiskey, then when they’ve got you hooked on it they say you can’t drink it.
Then they put you on commodities, give you sugar and fat, you get to liking it, and
they say it is bad for you. But if diabetes is in us, and there’s nothing we can do,
why bother with diet this and that, exercising and stuff? I just can’t believe in
anything anymore… (Ferreira, 2006b, p. 97)
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Clearly, associating diabetes with being Indian has the potential to decrease self-efficacy
in patients.
If diabetes is more than a metabolic disorder, then what other factors are
involved? It is now widely accepted that the nervous system plays a key role in the
development of diabetes (Ferriera and Lang, 2006b; McGrady and Grower-Dowling,
2006; Scheder, 2006). According to Jo Scheder (2006), when the sympathetic nervous
system is in a “fight or flight” stress response, the catecholamines epinephrine and
norepinephrine are secreted. This can inhibit the secretion of insulin, a hormone that
opens the transport of glucose into the body’s cells. Even small secretions of epinephrine
can cause a decrease in glucose tolerance. It appears that stress has a deregulating effect
on the secretion of adrenal hormones called glucocorticoids (including cortisol). High
cortisol levels, low cortisol levels and impaired hormone signaling caused by stress can
disrupt insulin sensitivity (Raison and Miller, 2003). Simply stated, chronic stress, posttraumatic stress disorder and depression impair the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar
(Wrief, Oumett, Wade, Shanashan, Weinstock, 2006; Scheder, 2006; Raymer, 2006).
Western medicine has been slow to acknowledge the role of the nervous system in
diabetes. It should be noted that research in this area is not new. In 1877 Claude
Bernard, a French physiologist, demonstrated that diabetes originates in the nervous
system (Ferriera, 2006c). Integrating this knowledge into biomedical treatment could
have a powerful impact on efficacy. Diabetes programs throughout the world are just
recently taking on new life by recognizing trauma, chronic stress and depression as risk
factors (Raymer, 2006).
Other probable, yet generally unrecognized risk factors in diabetes are poverty, a
loss of cultural practices and decreased access to traditional foods. Over 31% of
American Indians live below the poverty level (Joe, J. and Frishkopf, S., 2006, p. 440).
The reservation system and other U.S. policies have led to a significant decrease in access
to traditional foods and increased community reliance on government commodity foods.
Desecrations of the environment and increased pollutants have had a negative impact on
people’s health. Considering these factors and a history of oppression and trauma,
diabetes may be described as a symptom of colonization.
Unfortunately, there have been very few studies on causes and possible treatments
for diabetes in Northwest Indian communities. While diabetes among the Pima Indians
of the Southwest has been studied, they have a different history and different traditional
foods and social customs than other tribal communities. In Indian epistemology, people
are not separate from their history, their community or the place they live. These all have
an impact on the health of the individual. I believe that the most effective medical
treatments for chronic disease address cultural specificity. History has shown that the
“one size fits all” treatment of disease does not work (Joe and Frishkopf, 2006, pg. 444).
Frustrated with a lack of answers and effective treatments, many tribal people are
looking for answers from inside their own communities. Holistic programs that
encompass the broader causes of diabetes and honor Indian people’s history, culture,
environment and cosmology are emerging. Tom Ball, in his speech on historic trauma at
the Nisqually Healing our Wounded Spirits Conference, said, “Those things that were in
place before [colonization] heal us. Cultural practices are most important because this is
our story… Things that help us are the things that we already had” (2006). This paper is
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an exploration into what may have led to the diabetes epidemic among Northwest Coastal
Indians and how culture might serve a mediating role in prevention and treatment.
Colonial Factors Contributing
to Diabetes in Tribal Communities
Diabetes did not emerge as a chronic disease for Indian people in the Pacific
Northwest until the 1950s (Lang, 2006, pg. 203, Ferriera , 2006a, pg. 366). It hit
epidemic levels almost overnight. While there is no definitive scientific explanation to
this dramatic rise, there are many probable contributing factors. These include
epidemics, dislocation, boarding schools, cultural oppression, environmental damage and
a loss of traditional foods and medicines.
According to Robert Boyd (1995), “Native American people have been subjected
to one of the most systematic attempts at genocide in the world’s history” (p. 28). Boyd
goes on to say that the Native American experience was similar to the Jewish holocaust
with the exception that it has gone virtually unrecognized. This lack of acknowledgment
by the world, and especially American citizens, is a great stumbling block to healing
trauma in Native American communities.
Epidemics
Before European contact there were few chronic diseases among Northwest
Indian people. Occasional deaths may have occurred from hunting accidents, violence
including warfare, and possibly starvation. Certain types of arthritis and intestinal
problems were also present. Herbal remedies including touching sore joints with stinging
nettles and using Oregon grape to cure digestive upset were well known (Ryser, personal
communication, January 3,2007). But Northwest people had never seen epidemics like
smallpox, malaria, measles or influenza and the majority of the population had no
resistance against them (Boyd, 1990, p. 137). The initial outbreak of smallpox occurred
in the 1770’s and hit most of the coastal populations. A minimum of one-third of the
people in the Northwest died during this time. Repeated assaults continued in 1801 and
1824-1825, killing an additional 10-20 percent of the population (Boyd, 1990, p. 138).
Malaria first arrived at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, probably via a
ship in the 1830’s. At that time Fort Vancouver’s Chief Factor, Dr. John McLoughlin
said that “three-fourths of the Indian population” in the “vicinity” had died. Natives who
fled to the fort were driven away because of lack of resources, and at least one
depopulated local village was burned to the ground on the orders of McLoughlin (Boyd,
1990, p. 139).
In the words of Boyd (1990), “Before the arrival of Europeans in 1774 as many as
200,000 Native Americans inhabited the Northwest Coast culture area, making it one of
the most densely populated nonagricultural regions of the world. Within 100 years, the
aboriginal population had declined by over 80 percent” (p. 135). The cultural and social
implications of this magnitude of loss are unimaginable. Not only did survivors lose their
loved ones, they also lost their social framework and a sense of normality in their daily
world. According to Dr. Rudolph Ryser of the Center for World Indigenous studies,
communities were so devastated with loss and caretaking the sick that survivors from
different longhouse communities banded together to live. Each community had
5
distinctive cultural practices and social protocols. The cultural chaos that emerged from
this collective trauma was profound (Ryser, personal communication, January 3, 2007).
Spiritual and medical practices that had been used successfully for centuries did
not treat the new diseases that swept through the population. Ryser comments:
It is a devastation to one’s beliefs if you held the view that the winter dance and
other spiritual practices could solve problems and you would come out of them
repaired. You knew they worked, and then they did not work for the first time.
(personal communication, January 3, 2007)
Until the epidemics hit the Northwest, Medicine people served as capable doctors
and spiritual advisors. The power of the Indian doctors was well established. Healers
had the power to heal, but in Indian cosmology, when one has power, they can use it both
to create (heal) and to destroy (harm). Because of this, Indian doctors were feared as
much as revered (Ryser, personal communication, January 3, 2007). Indian doctors had
no experience with the new diseases like malaria and smallpox that rapidly swept through
the Northwest. The practice of steaming in a sweat lodge then plunging into cold water
probably hastened death from malaria due to inducing shock and pneumonia (Boyd,
1995, p. 139). Indian doctors were held accountable for the health of their patients, and
if there were too many deaths, “village people might even go out and kill him [the Indian
doctor] as a public service” (Bergeson, Ash and Hurtado, 1988, p. 65). The epidemics
may have bred a mistrust of Indian doctoring and traditional healing techniques and a
subsequent loss of knowledge in herbal medicine and spiritual traditions. The
consequences of this for following generations are unknown, but are probably significant.
Reservation Life
Northwest Coastal People traditionally traveled to areas where food was
seasonally available (Boyd, 1990). Temporary shelters housed families while they
gathered and prepared fish, game and plant foods for future use. These foods were relied
on throughout the year for survival.
As frontiersmen pushed west, they placed significant pressure on natural
resources. In 1853 Washington became a territory of the United States and the federal
government began implementing a policy of moving many tribes onto a few reservations.
This would free up land for settlers who were arriving in large numbers as the frontier
closed (Bergeson, Ash and Hurtado, 1997). In 1854 Isaac Stevens was sent to
Washington territory to make treaties with the Indian tribes and move them onto
reservations. The treaties were written in English, and then were translated to Chinook
Jargon, a common trade language of Northwest tribes that only had 300 words (Bergeson
et al., 1997). This severely limited communication. Also, Indian people did not have an
understanding around signing legal documents.
Ultimately, Indian people had few alternatives to signing treaties. U.S.
representatives often came to negotiation meetings with a proposed treaty or the threat of
war (Bergeson et al., 1997). In 1855 Governor Stevens met with the Puget Sound and
Washington Coast tribes and secured seven treaties that formed most of Washington
states reservations. The U.S. government took title to 64 million acres of land. Indian
people were left living on small reservations, a change that severely hindered their
traditional ways of living. The spread of disease was compounded because groups that
had been isolated moved in close proximity to each other.
6
Part of the initial treaty agreements was that Indian tribes were paid by the U.S.
government for the taking of their land through annuities including blankets, clothing,
utensils, food and farming equipment. Qui-tal-I-can, a Yakima elder, made this speech
while picking up annuities:
The white man proposes to bring all Indians to one land. Not good. Like driving
horses into a corral. Suppose the Indians went to Boston and told all the Bostons
to go to one place. Would it be well? I am a poor man, but I will not say to the
agent I am a dog. The Great Spirit will take care of us. He will always cause the
grass to grow and the water to run. I am somewhat ashamed to be here today.
My land is not to be sold for a few blankets and a few yards of cloth. (Trimble,
1914, pg. 39)
Promised goods and services that were agreed upon in the treaties, including annuities
and education for Indian children, were often delayed or simply not provided, leading to a
disruption of social order (Ryser, personal communication, January 2, 2007).
A violent war for natural resources began brewing between Indian people and
settlers. Indians became the target of animosity and violence, perhaps because they
posed a threat to the Northwest’s rich resources. In the treaties, Indian people ensured
that they retain their right to fish in “usual and accustomed places” (Bergeson et al.,
1997, pg. 105). The U.S. government did not initially consider this a problem because
they believed that settlers were interested in farming as a food source. They were gravely
mistaken. Indian people’s right to fish in accustomed places was not actually upheld in
Washington State until the Boldt decision of 1974, but there was vehement tension
between sports fishermen, the state and Indian fishermen that has persisted continuously
to the present.
In 1887 the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) broke the integrity of the
reservation system. Indians were to select 160 acres of land on the reservation for each
head of a family and 80 acres each for other tribal members. If they failed to choose,
Indian agents would choose for them. The purpose of this act was to destroy tribalism
and to open Indian lands for non-Indians to purchase. Reservation land ownership looked
like a checkerboard in many places, which took power away from “sovereign nations”
and allowed the U.S. government to have jurisdiction over non-Indians within the
reservation. Land holdings decreased from 138 million acres to 48 million acres
(American Indian Issues, An Extracurricular Guide for Educators, n.d., historic overview
section). The act was repealed in 1934, but the damage of fracturing tribal communities
had already been done.
Once moved onto reservations, Indians were expected to become “civilized” by
divorcing themselves from their migratory lifestyle and learning to farm new European
foods. Reservation land was often inhospitable or far from customary gathering places.
Leaving behind the land that was a part of people’s history, land that carried the bones of
their ancestors and their stories, not to mention their accustomed gathering sites and
spiritual places, contributed to diabetes through imposing tremendous stress on Native
people’s nervous systems. The Klallam people refused to leave their ancestral areas, but
were denied land, federal status and federal aid until recently.
7
Indian Schools
One of the most devastating assaults to Indian culture was the mandate that Indian
children attend schools where their behavior could be molded by Christianity and the
U.S. government. Boarding schools instigated the diabetes epidemic through many
modalities. The students diet completely changed from traditional foods to refined highcarbohydrate foods. Traditional medicines were not available. Most significantly,
children experienced trauma from being torn from their families and their culture.
The first schools to appear in the Northwest were mission schools. A Christian
church was established at Cowlitz as early as 1841. Ryser believes that,
The church and its religion became a powerful substitute for the Indian Doctors.
Priest’s power was demonstrated by way of vaccinations. [They dispensed
vaccines to treat the epidemics]. This may have altered attitudes toward plant
medicine and created a whole other kind of dependency and conformity… The
church reiterated the idea that people could not access knowledge or the spirits of
nature on their own. Reservation schools picked up where the church left off.
(personal communication, January 3, 2007)
Whereas Christianity puts power in the Bible and the word of God, Indian cosmology
finds power in the spirits of the land directly around them. Churches and schools taught
that Indian people could not and should not communicate with their spiritual world.
An official federal school curriculum was created in the 1870s to assimilate
Indian children into Western culture. In this case the separation of church and state did
not apply. Christianity continued to have a strong presence in the schools. In the words
of Carolyn Marr (n.d.):
Whereas before many Americans regarded the native people with either fear or
loathing, the reformers believed that with the proper education and treatment
Indians could become just like other citizens. They convinced the leaders of
Congress that education could change at least some of the Indian population into
patriotic and productive members of society. (Indian Boarding School Section,
para. 2)
Captain Richard Pratt, a leader in the assimilation through education policy, believed that
“Indian ways were inferior to those of whites. He subscribed to the then popular
principle, ‘kill the Indian and save the man’”(Marr, n.d., para 3).
Children were sent off to school as early as six years of age. At first day schools
were created where children were allowed to return home at night, but this did not
effectively sever Indian children from their culture. Reservation schools took children
farther from home and eventually boarding schools that were great distances from home
became the norm (Keohan, 2005). Students often remained at school for eight to nine
months out of the year and saw family only during summer and the Christmas holiday.
Children were not allowed to speak their native language in school and were
sometimes severely punished for doing so (Duran, 2005; Keohan, 2005; Marr, n.d.).
Stories illuminate the torture and scrutiny they were subjected to for simply speaking
their language. In an astonishing display of perceived superiority, T.J. Morgan, the
commissioner of Indian Affairs stated:
I expressed very decidedly the idea the Indians should be taught in the English
language only...There is not an Indian pupil whose tuition is paid by the Untied
States Government who is permitted to study any other language than our own
8
vernacular - the language of the greatest, most powerful, and enterprising
nationalities under the sun. The English language as taught in America is good
enough for all her people of all races. (Keohane, Day Schools verses Boarding
Schools section, para. 2)
This hegemonic teaching methodology has the ability to strip the richness of culture away
from people. Language is not only made of words, language is a way of thinking. The
sounds that people use to communicate are informed by the land itself. The word for
bear or wren or elk might sound like those creatures. Many words are rich with stories,
including the names of places. As speaking the language was prohibited, a whole way of
thinking and interacting with the earth was oppressed.
Indian students were made to dress in European style clothing, their hair was cut
and they were given new “pronounceable” names (Keohane, 2005). The notion that their
culture was no longer valid was continually reinforced. Then they would return home to
their families and be expected to speak their own language and fit in to their culture. This
must have formed a severe strain in self-identity and self-esteem.
Sonja Keohan (2006) points out that another method of boarding school oppression
was the control over student’s environment. She says that:
The school, the new physical environment, was also used as a teaching tool. The
wild and natural was pushed back and orderly, managed grounds were
constructed. The land was tamed, controlled and conquered and mirrored the
process outlined and established to deal with the students, all an expression of the
power of the white man. (Carlisle Indian School and Richard Henry Pratt section,
para. 5.)
Every part of the boarding school experience forced Indian children into a new way of
relating to their environment and their culture.
Many students ran away. Chemawa, a large boarding school in Salem, housed 903
students from 90 different tribes in 1920. There were 46 desertions in 1921, and 70 in
1922 (Marr, n.d.). Helma Ward from Makah reservation described how severe the
punishment for runaways was:
Two of our girls ran away...but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their
hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell,
fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she'd get out there and
whip them and make them stand up again. (Marr, section 5, Negatives and
Positives, para. 1)
Horror stories like this are common. Many students who attended Chemawa referred to
boarding schools as prisons. They speak of the nightmares of being beaten, raped,
tortured and isolated from family (Ferriera, 2006).
By the 1920s the Bureau of Indian Affairs changed its education strategy. This
was due to complaints about the high expenses of boarding schools and the belief that
they caused more dependency on the government than self-sufficiency. The federal
government began allowing teaching around Indian cultural diversity. Most boarding
schools had closed down by the1930’s and many Indian children attended public schools
(Marr, n.d.). But after more than 50 years of severing Indian children from their families
and communities, a generational gap between traditional ways and modern ways was
well entrenched. Native foods, medicines and cultural practices that might have served
9
as tools in battling diabetes and other chronic disease had receded under the pressure of
colonization.
A Different Epistemology:
Environmental Destruction
Epistemology describes the manner in which a group of people or culture
understands the universe around them. Northwest Coastal People’s epistemology was
drastically different than that of arriving Europeans, meaning that they thought, attained
knowledge and understood things in a different way. Richard Atleo, a Nuu-chah-nulth
elder, says that heshook-ish tsawalk, meaning “everything is one,” is “inclusive of all
reality, both physical and metaphysical” (xi). The belief that everything is connected
promotes a sense of belonging, stewardship and accountability. Over-harvesting or
damaging natural resources simply does not make sense from the standpoint of Northwest
Coastal epistemology because damaging the environment would lead to damaging one’s
self and one’s greater community. Eduardo and Bonnie Duran (1995) believe that:
Western masculine cosmology literally raped the New World. The rape occurred
at all levels of the Native American experience; rape was done to the Earth as
well as to the people who were in close harmony with the Earth spirits. The
Western way of being in the world has been systematically forced on Native
American people in such brutal and genocidal proportions that there has been a
wound severing their connectedness with the Earth. (p. 82)
In the face of colonization Indian people’s way of relating with nature was devalued and
systematically annihilated.
The belief that the health of the land is inextricably connected to the health of
individuals, the community and all living things has vast implications. With our current
denigration of the natural environment, it makes sense that people would become
depressed and physically ill. Modern science is validating what tribal elders have been
saying for generations. A recent broadcast on National Public Radio’s Living on Earth
program covered a Korean scientific study demonstrating the relationship between
persistent organic pollutant (POP) concentrations in the body and an increased likelihood
of developing type 2 diabetes (Carpenter, 2006). It appears that almost everyone has
concentrations of POP’s in their body. These can come from pesticides, pollution and
food. Animal fats are high in POP’s because pesticides and pollutants concentrate in the
fat of animals that are higher on the food chain. Humans, in turn, eat these animals and
concentrate POP’s in their fat, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects, disabilities
and now diabetes (Carpenter, 2006). As indigenous teachings have demonstrated, we
must focus on the health of the land, the air, the water, the plants and the animals
simultaneously as we focus on human health.
Traditional Foods
verses Commodity Foods
Northwest Coastal Indians were the richest in the United States because of the
abundance of salmon, game, seafood, berries, roots and wild greens. Food was an
important aspect of social life and strict cultural protocols were traditionally followed for
fishing, hunting, gathering, preparing and eating. These protocols protected natural
resources and insured continued abundance. First Foods ceremonies like the First
Salmon Ceremony and the First Elk Ceremony honored the spirits of the foods.
10
Many traditional foods have blood sugar balancing and anti-inflammatory
properties. For example huckleberries are a powerful antioxidant and can lower blood
sugar. Animal fats, organ meats and fatty fish like salmon are high in vitamin A and D,
which help the body to assimilate proteins and minerals (Fallon, 2001). Indian people in
the Northwest ate plenty of fat including seal oil, bear fat, eulachon grease and salmon.
Contrary to popular belief, studies are showing that eating good quality fats can actually
reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol and protect the heart and cardiovascular system
(Fallon, 2001).
A recent study showed that fish oil, with its high Omege-3 content, helps infant
brain development (Breastfeeding Mom's Diet and Baby's Brain Development, 2007).
This may be especially true for Indian people. Because secondary compounds in some
traditional foods and medicines actually have the ability to change our genes, it may be
said that we have evolved with the things our ancestors ate (Nabhan, 2004). I have heard
elders affirm this belief by saying that Indian people’s bodies and spirits respond to
native foods with profound recognition and knowing. Losing access to traditional foods
was not only nutritionally devastating, it was also spiritually devastating.
Northwest Coastal People had a keen understanding of how to maintain
traditional food systems. They knew that prairie areas where foods like Camas bulb,
berries, acorns, bracken fern, tiger lily and nodding onion grew needed to be burned
every 2-3 years or the ecosystem would disappear and become evergreen forest (Turner,
2005, p. 159). Open prairies were also important for grazing animals including deer and
elk. Harvesting methods often promoted the growth and production of plants. As
Europeans settled the Northwest they banned burning and other land maintenance
practices. Due to this, many of the traditional foods that were common are now rare.
Without access to traditional foods, Indian people became more dependent on
government commodities. As part of the treaties, annuity foods including pig fat, beans,
flour and sugar were distributed. According to Ryser, “The strategy was to wean people
away from reliance on the land. Then they would not need access to deer, fish and other
traditional foods. They could become ‘civilized”’ (personal communication, January 3,
2007). These foods were used in the creation of things like fry bread. Unfortunately, the
lard that was provided came off the back and belly of the pig, instead of the most healthy
and nutritive fat around the kidneys. It was far inferior to customary sources of fat from
wild animals and fish. Nabhan (2004) says that carbohydrates including wheat were
refined in a way that removed most of the fiber and made them into quick digesting highgluten cereal and flour. “This results in blood-sugar and insulin responses two to three
times higher than those reported from whole grains or coarse-milled products like bulgur
wheat” (p. 180). Because milk and grains were absent from Northwest Coastal People’s
traditional diets, they did not have the ability to digest lactose and high-gluten wheat
(Ryser, personal communication, January 3, 2007). All of these may be factors in the
subsequent development of chronic diseases including diabetes.
When researcher and nutritionist Weston Price visited Alaskan and North
American Indians in the 1930s, he found that Indian people who were eating their
traditional high animal fat diet had healthy teeth and no evidence of chronic diseases.
Those who subscribed to the modern diet of refined foods were in poor health and many
had “been driven by the pain and misery of progressive tooth decay to take their own
lives” (Schmidt, 1987, p. 12). The children of those who ate refined foods were born
11
with narrower dental arches and crowded teeth. Price also witnessed that those who
began to eat refined foods developed arthritis within only a couple of years (Schmidt,
1987).
The U.S. government created the formal commodity food program in the 1930s to
help farm workers who were suffering from the upheaval of the Great Depression.
Surplus grains and other foods were bought from American producers to keep prices
stable. Commodity foods would therefore change over time based on what surplus was
available. These surplus foods were distributed to Indian communities. Ryser
remembers growing up with commodity foods including powdered milk that would not
dissolve, poor quality meat and processed cheese (personal communication, January 3,
2007). According to Welty (1991) the introduction of refined foods plus a decrease in
physical activity caused Indian people to develop “obesity in less than a generation. The
term Comod Bod, linking commodity foods to body weight was coined to capture the
essence of the changes that occurred” (pg. 1). Doctor Michael Eades (2000) says that:
Thousands of American Indians depend on the Food Distribution Program on
Indian Reservations (FDPIR). What do participants receive? It should come as no
surprise that the commodities are loaded with carbohydrates with very little protein
on the menu and even less fat. And the fats Indians do receive are loaded with trans
fats. These foods are cheap and the multinational giants that produce them are
equipped with lawyers and lobbyists to ensure that their products are the ones our
government buys. The federal government feeds 53 million people per day. Is it any
wonder they're out to cut costs, whatever the consequences to our health? (2000)
It is an unfortunate truth that what Americans eat is based more on economy and politics
than on what is most healthy.
While commodity foods are not always nutritious, they are what is available. Fry
bread was originally created from commodity foods but it has become part of cultural
identity and is considered traditional. Cookbooks including The Fry Bread Queen are
embracing this by offering healthy recipes for cooking commodity foods.
The aforementioned examples of the effects of colonization barely scratch the
surface of the history of oppression Native American People have faced. Other areas
such as the loss of religious freedom are scarcely mentioned. But this should suffice to
illustrate some of the key factors that might have led to the epidemic of diabetes.
Healing the Trauma
What legacy does the history of colonization in the Northwest create for Indian
people? There can be little doubt that it includes depression, chronic disease and intergenerational trauma. A study on adult offspring of holocaust survivors showed that they
have increased vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric
disorders, even if they did not experience traumatic events in their lifetime (Yehuda,
Schmeidler, Wainberg, Binder-Brynes, Duvdevani, 1998). This illustrates the damaging
long-term effects of colonization on subsequent generations.
A frequent response toward Indian people naming their trauma is “it’s in the past,
get over it!” This may be perpetuated within tribal communities. It is important to
understand that a part of cultural training is self-discipline. Dwelling on past trauma may
not be respected. There are certain contexts like funerals that are seen as appropriate for
grief and others that are not. By not acknowledging past trauma, even if it was in the
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generations of one’s ancestors, people may be internalizing pain and stress. As
mentioned earlier, this has a negative impact on health and may contribute to chronic
diseases like diabetes.
Gatherings like the Healing our Wounded Spirits Conference at Nisqually
reservation in 2006 are holding a safe space and are giving permission for tribal
communities to acknowledge the trauma and oppression that they have historically
experienced and continue to experience. This strategy of creating a context for the
expression of grief may be the first step to healing it. Tribal leaders including Tom Ball
(2006) are naming the importance of acknowledging the past. In his words:
The most damaging thing is that we have lost the ability to tell our own story. This
is therapeutic. Naming the hurt is healing… Trauma is stored in places [locations
where trauma occurred], it can catch you. Maybe those places need to be cleaned
up. That is picking up our tears. In the canoe we are retracing the steps of our
ancestors. That is wiping up the tears. As we do this work we are healing our
ancestors. We need to go back and take care of them. Back then we did not have
the tools or know how. We need to go back and heal those wounds. (Healing our
Wounded Spirits Conference, October 10, 2006)
In the past, silence may have been a form of protection because the tools to deal with the
pain and anger and grief were not available. There is an increasing amount of support for
Indian people and communities to “pick up the tears.”
At the ceremony acknowledging the 175th anniversary of the establishment of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs on September 8, 2000 Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs
Department of the Interior Kevin Gover made this statement:
This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct of
traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and made Indian
people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of Indian Affairs
committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools,
brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Even in
this era of self-determination, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs is at long last
serving as an advocate for Indian people in an atmosphere of mutual respect, the
legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has
passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant
alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country… So
many of the maladies suffered today in Indian country result from the failures of
this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and disease have been the product of this agency's
work… These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin. (Keohane,
2005)
It is promising to hear that agencies like the Bureau for Indian Affairs are taking
responsibility for their former actions. In recognizing that trauma and oppression are a
part of Indian People’s health problems, institutions like Indian Health Services have the
power to implement positive change through supporting culturally appropriate programs.
Community Wellness
Through Cultural Revitalization
Thankfully, a fair amount of traditional knowledge has been passed down through
the generations. Culture has continued to have powerful meaning. This is illustrated by
13
basket makers, hunters, carvers, cooks, healers and others (Ryser, personal
communication, January 3, 2007).
Cultural revitalization came for the Lower Elwha tribe from an unlikely place. In
2003 Tse-whit-zen, a 2,700-year-old village, was accidentally unearthed in Port Angeles.
Frances Charles, tribal chairwoman said:
A gap had developed in the tribe's cultural knowledge because elders didn't pass on
their language and traditional practices. Beaten, punished and shunned for
clinging to their traditions in boarding schools and during the period of forced
assimilation, many Indian people stopped practicing their culture. Many tribal
members had long been told by their relatives that, unlike other Indians, the Lower
Elwha Klallams didn't rely on traditional medicines, use a longhouse for the winter
dances or wear red paint for spiritual protection. [Evidence at the site proved that
they did]. The ancestors themselves rose up and spoke. (Mapes, 2005, Part 4,
Rebirth of a Culture)
According to the author, “the tribe is already putting its regained knowledge to work”
through language and cultural programs (Mapes, 2004, Part 4, Rebirth of a Culture).
But culture does not only come from the past. History is a powerful tool for
cultural identity, and it becomes a living history when it is brought into the present.
Jamie Valadez, a Klallam tribal member said, "It's that mentality: Why don't you be like
everyone else now; why do you live in your past? It's not the past. It's a living culture”
(Mapes, 2005, Part 4, Rebirth of a Culture). Culture is fluid, ever changing. New
traditions are always emerging. In the words of Bea Nix, a Yurok elder:
Some people say because an idea is “old,” it is valuable. I don’t think so. There
are ideas that have survived because they are based on knowledge, and ideas that
are based on feeling. Culture is a blend of both. If knowledge changes, if
feelings change, culture changes also. (Ferriera, 2006c, pg. 466)
In the view of Raymer (2006), as more cultural traditions are brought into the
contemporary lives of Indian people, a greater sense of belonging and spirituality will
emerge to restore people’s health in body, mind and spirit.
Cutting edge diabetes programs are coming to life on reservations throughout the
United States and Canada. Rather than treating diabetes as an individual issue, it is being
addressed as a community issue. The following programs are current examples of this.
Culture, Food and Medicines
The Center for World Indigenous Studies started running workshops for
Northwest Indian Tribes on culture, foods and medicines in 2000. The workshops are
usually 3 days long and participants learn through many vehicles including visual
documentation, stories, tasting, smelling, touching, harvesting and processing. In the
words of Ryser:
Culture, Foods and Medicine sprung from the notion that the engine of
community ritual needed to be restarted and validated. Family coming together,
gathering foods, preparing them and speaking to each other was missing in the
Northwest. This connected to a need to reclaim knowledge of their traditional
place [locality] through gathering traditional foods and medicines. Our job was
to mirror, “Your culture is valuable and your culture can reverse chronic disease,
not an injection of chemicals.” This is a whole process, and the whole community
14
is necessary to bring the remedy for chronic disease. (personal communication,
January 3, 2006)
Knowledge that is presented in workshops is specifically tailored to the community
including historical contexts and what is available in that area. Emphasis is on learning
and validating through doing. As people process foods and medicines together they learn
from each other; they transfer knowledge. According to Ryser,
I have heard people say, “I need this, it is good for my spirit.” Their value was
missing and they are reclaiming it by controlling what is around them. Families
have seen consequences. There is no need for money or an instituted structure,
they simply go out and pick berries. In doing so, people become spiritually and
physically active in their own culture. (personal communication, January 3,
2006).
Native nutrition is taught through the “Salish Food Mound” as opposed to the food
pyramid. This addresses nutritional differences between indigenous foods and introduced
foods and offers dietary guidelines specifically for Salish people (Center for World
Indigenous Studies, 2004). Assessing what a healthy diabetes-preventative diet is can be
confusing for Indian people, especially since there have been so many mixed messages
from nutritionists and doctors over the years. Commodity foods were pushed, then
nutritionists have said refined foods are detrimental to health. Soy was introduced as a
health food and now it has been found to lower thyroid function and inhibit digestion of
some nutrients (Center for World Indigenous Studies, 2004). It becomes hard to know
who to trust. The Culture, Foods and Medicines workshops tries to demystify this. It
uses both traditional knowledge and scientific research to acknowledge the healthy
benefits of native foods and medicines.
Diabetes Prevention Through
Traditional Foods and Medicines
The Diabetes Prevention Through Traditional Foods and Medicines Program is a
two-year training that was developed in 2005 by the Northwest Indian College. The
program sprang from a strong interest in revitalizing traditional foods and medicinal plant
knowledge among tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest. The goal of the program
is to train 20-30 people from 10 tribes in topics around traditional foods and plant
medicines so they can return to their own communities and serve as knowledgeable
resources. This might happen in multidimensional ways including starting healing
gardens, teaching cooking or medicine making classes, or implementing other kinds of
cultural programs. Through this, tribal communities might experience a general
improvement in health, a decrease in the incidence of diabetes, increased exercise
through harvesting and gardening and also increasing a sense of cultural pride and a
connection to place.
Another goal of the program is a revitalization of plant communities and
traditional foods sites. By increasing access to healthy food through gardening projects
and wild foods restoration projects, tribal communities become more empowered to be
self-sufficient and less dependent on subsidized foods. As people are educated about
their environment, they become better stewards of the land.
Classes take place once a month on different reservations and are usually based
around the seasons and the specific locality. For instance, in late summer participants
15
gathered berries at Quinault Reservation. An autumn class at Swinomish Reservation
focused on remedies for the cough and cold season including rose hips and licorice fern;
plants that are common in that area.
Elders have come from the hosting tribe and other tribes to share knowledge,
stories and visions for creating healthy communities. The program is sensitive to cultural
property rights and protected knowledge. It focuses on information that is appropriate for
the broader community and encourages participants to go back into their own
communities and apply ways of preparing foods and medicines to local knowledge.
Knowledge is wealth, and through revitalizing cultural traditions communities may find
greater health, strength and a sense of connection to the place they live.
D3WX bi Pa lil
Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center
D3WX bi Pa lil is a Lushootseed word meaning a rising up from the dark waters
into the light or a return home after a long and difficult journey. It is the spiritual name
of the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center (NWITC), which mainly
serves Indian people from Washington State. This 45-day inpatient program is
recognized as a national leader in cultural competence among behavioral health
programs. Many tribes refer into NWITC because it is culturally based. Patients are
treated from inside their own cultural frame of reference, rather than from a
superimposed model that does not fit who they are. June O’Brian, the director of the
treatment center acknowledges that Indian people may have a different mental, physical
and spiritual orientation in the world than the dominant culture. Indigenous
consciousness is different from standard ideas of consciousness, she says, and the more
traditional a person is, the more that standard therapeutic approaches to do not apply
(personal communication, January 8, 2006).
O’Brian believes that most of the patients at the center are very sensitive
psychologically and spiritually. She says:
In some ways, they take on the pain around them and live that out. Community
healing comes through them. When you have been into that kind of darkness and
come back, you return with medicine that other people do not have. That
medicine is their story, and to stand daily on the right side of that story, that
addiction, demands a kind of integrity. So I think that if you look at where the
suffering is at, you look at where the medicine is at. (personal communication,
January 8, 2007)
The program affirms patient’s cultural identity. There is a sweat lodge, a medicine wheel
garden and a traditional foods garden. The Shaker Church visits every two weeks and
regular classes include traditional plants and medicines, nutrition, drum making and
beading. Tribal elders, storytellers, master weavers and drum groups have come to work
with patients. O’Brian says, “Indian people have to be able to see themselves; their
identity is affirmed by their environment. They have to have their history affirmed.
They need a different experience that the one they usually get, which is that they are
invisible” (personal communication, January 8, 2006).
One of the important ways that patients are seen is that they are given all the time
they need to do their inner work. Staff works with patients to help shut down the places
addiction expresses itself so that they can access their feelings. The treatment center is
16
spiritually awakened so that there is a larger presence to hold patient’s pain, grief or loss
and to help transform it. Patients are told that their cultural leaders have accepted the
treatment center as a place to grieve. They are given permission.
O’Brian believes that this is the first generation that is able to heal from the
history of trauma and oppression in Indian country. Generations before were only
surviving and they could not afford to do it. She says that if patients can access their
feelings and have them framed in a way that diminishes shame, the person will
spontaneously heal. “There needs to be a person present who can redefine the impact of
trauma on a person in a way that relieves shame. It is too much for the individual to carry
the weight of the loss of a culture” (personal communication, January 9, 2006).
According to O’Brian, patients might feel personal shame for the loss of the people, for
the children who have run amuck or the elders who are unsupported. It becomes the
individual’s load, when it is actually the result of the oppression of a whole group.
O’Brian reflects that:
The temptation is to go straight from shame to rage and skip the grief. If you do
not do the grief, it limits the ability to celebrate what is actually here, what is left,
and pick it up. If the loss is too huge, it is too difficult to learn songs or get in a
canoe or learn about plants. Grief slaps you with what is gone. (personal
communication, January ,2007)
If patients can get beyond this and pick up cultural tools, those tools become like
inner pillars that help to hold them up in hard times. The native plant nutrition classes are
intended to help patients remember where they came from and to feel a sense of
connection and pride in their culture. Most of the plants, although not all, are native
herbs and foods that the patients may be familiar with. As they smell and taste the plants
they often remember relatives who gathered them or the Indian names and uses. They
remember their family stories and they feel affirmed about who they are. They can see
their own wealth.
In 2005 and 2006 patients created a medicine wheel garden and a traditional foods
garden at the treatment center. They designed and directed the project as a community.
Native berries and herbs that prevent or treat diabetes were planted. Many participants
felt pride in leaving behind a legacy of knowledge so that other patients down the road
could learn from the plants. In this way they were a part of something bigger; they
received and gave back. They recovered a part of themselves and brought this back to
their own communities. Fighting diabetes requires self-efficacy. Patients find this as
they are strengthened by their culture and their own story of healing.
The People of the River Healing Garden
At Skokomish reservation, the People of the River Healing Garden flourishes
around the Tuwaduq Family Services Building. It was started in the spring of 2005 and
was inspired by Bruce Miller’s ethnobotanical garden. Mr. Miller had diabetes and
believed that it was medicinal plants that kept him alive in his later years. He frequently
taught about herbs and traditional foods that balanced blood sugar including devil’s club
and huckleberries (Jennings, 2006). The garden was designed to affirm and hold
Skokomish traditional knowledge that elders like Mr. Miller have passed on.
Thematic areas in the garden include edible wild foods, berries, Northwest
natives, prairie plants, sacred herbs, basketry plants, natural dyes, medicinal herbs, and a
17
scent and touch garden for children. A gathering shelter in the middle of the garden is
used for outdoor cultural classes and community gatherings. There is also a smokehouse
and a fish fillet shed where Skokomish people can be taught how to skin, dress, fillet and
cook traditional foods including deer, elk and salmon.
Plants from the garden have been gathered and made into cosmetics, nutritive
teas, healing salves and remedies for diabetes, arthritis, indigestion and coughs and colds.
Cultural classes offered through Tuwaduq Family services often incorporate the garden
into the curriculum. In the summertime tribal youth work in the garden and learn about
planting, growing, harvesting, garden maintenance and medicine making. Throughout
the summer of 2006 youth and class participants made giveaway products from plants in
the garden. These were given as gifts to elders and community members at the grand
opening of the garden in September. Artist Pete Peterson and tribal youth collaboratively
painted Skokomish art on old growth cedar boards. These were placed on the gathering
shelter and were blessed along with the garden at the opening. The garden project has
brought together people of all ages to share and pass on the cultural wealth of the
Skokomish people. As the community reclaims this they are also reclaiming tools to
combat diabetes including medicinal plants, traditional foods, exercise and cultural
identity.
The Canoe Journey
For Northwest Coastal People, waterways were freeways for trade and cultural
exchange and the canoe was the primary mode of transportation. The canoe, with the
cultural significance it carries, had almost disappeared after colonization. In 1989 an 89year-old elder from Quinault named Emmett Oliver recognized that her community and
the Earth needed healing. She and others organized the Paddle to Seattle in conjunction
with the Washington State centennial. A canoe from Hoh River and two from La Push
paddled to Golden Gardens outside of Seattle, where they were joined with Suquamish,
Tulalip, Lummi and Heiltsuk canoes. An official message was extended from the tribes
to the people of Washington State:
The bones of your ancestors are now under your feet as ours have been for
millennia. We ask you to become true Americans, caretakers of our good Mother
Earth and the great waters flowing within, no on, this place now called
Washington State. We lived and died here for hundreds of generations, and we
offer our assistance in your coming to balance as an adult. (Neel, 1995)
During the gathering, a member of the Heiltsuk canoe invited all the other canoe nations
to gather in Bella Bella in four years. This became the birth of the Qatuwas (people
gathering together in one place) festival. Since then the Canoe Journey or Tribal Journey
has been hosted by different tribes each summer and the number of people involved is
now several thousand strong.
The canoes entered ancient waterways for the first time in over 100 years.
Colleen Jollie comments that, “It is a surge of hope and relief that we are not gone, we
are not dead. For these canoes to be seen by non-Indian people is a strong statement of
resilience, strength and goodness” (personal communication, January 14, 2007). David
Neel (1995), a member of the Fort Rupert Kwagiutl Nation, says:
The canoe is a metaphor for community; in the canoe, as in any community,
everyone must work together. Paddling or “pulling” as a crew over miles of
18
water requires respect for one another and a commitment to working together, as
the old people did. All facets of the contemporary canoe experience – planning,
building, fund raising, practicing, traveling – combine to make our communities
strong in the old ways… I have never before felt the level of brotherhood and
sisterhood that comes out at our canoe gatherings. (p. 2)
All aspects of cultural revitalization are demonstrated in the canoe journey. Pullers must
train for months ahead to learn safety and to build physical endurance. Many people
weave traditional cedar hats and other regalia. Traditional foods and herbs are used
throughout the journey. Native languages are spoken and traditional songs are brought
out. As old words and phrases are remembered Indian ways of thinking, stories and
functions resurface. Jollie comments:
I have studied the Coastal Salish cultural arts and seen language in the
classroom, songs in events and baskets in museums. This was all disjointed and
disconnected, each a deal of its own. When I saw the landing of the canoes into
Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles [in 2005] I saw all it come together in a living
culture. It all made sense. For me, it was a big Ah ha. The canoe journey gives
meaning and is a unifying force to all the elements of culture. (personal
communication, January 14, 2007)
The canoe journey is a place where people from all the Canoe Nations can come together
and learn who they are as individual communities and as a broader tribal community. It
builds cultural pride and a sense of belonging. In doing so, the tribal journey has the
ability to heal the trauma of genocide. It can also teach non-Indian people cultural
competency.
A common saying at the tribal journey is “If the tide is out, the table is set.”
Traditional foods are a big part of the event. During the journey canoes camp at different
sites including reservations. According to Mari Stone and Bear O’Lague from the
Squaxin Canoe Family, there are local wild foods at almost every camp. Salmon is
cooked on sticks over the fire at Quinault, clams and oysters are cooked in pit ovens at
Little Boston, crab is cooked at Suquamish and there is halibut chowder at Neah Bay
(personal communication, January 4, 2007). Good food is essential so that pullers and
ground crew can keep up their energy for strenuous activity. It is also an important part
of the transference of culture.
Environmental education and restoration is also part of the canoe journey. Many
canoe families clean up beaches as they travel. In 2005 the Potlatch Fund sponsored the
Native Ecosystems Project. Cedar saplings were given to the Makah, Saamish, Lower
Elwha and Muckleshoot canoes to plant along the way to Port Angeles. The Blue Heron
Canoe had watershed and plant identification classes during the journey. Storytelling, a
backbone of native culture, was used as a teaching tool. Brigit Ray, the coordinator for
the Native Ecosystems Project, said that:
People were very interested in the connections of the ecosystem and the
importance of a healthy environment. There is an imbalance in the food chain
that affects Indian people. Runoff from our cement world including wastewater is
running into Puget Sound. The shellfish are suffering and Indian people eat three
times as much shellfish as the rest of the population. There is almost no
environmental health support on reservations. I consider it environmental
racism. (personal communication, January 14, 2007)
19
The tribes are taking environmental matters in their own hands. Some tribes like
Swinomish are taking toxicology and shellfish head on. Others like Tulalip are starting
to generate biodiesel, and Skokomish has started a compost program (Brigit Ray,
personal communication, January 14, 2007). As mentioned earlier, cleaning up the
environment is an important act in diabetes prevention.
The tribal journey is a multidimensional teaching and learning experience.
According to Ray:
Through being in a canoe, you get appreciation for the creatures of the land and
the sea. You can see where your place is in the world. Everyone is learning
multiple lessons in the journey; how to work with other people, how to ask
permission to land, how to eat right, how to be disciplined, what songs are OK to
sing, when it is OK to laugh and have fun, and when you are in a dangerous
position. (personal communication, January 13, 2007)
The canoe journey embodies all facets of diabetes prevention including exercise,
discipline, knowledge around healthy food choices, environmental stewardship, and,
cultural revitalization.
Conclusion
It will take a whole community effort to heal the epidemic of diabetes, but the
tools to accomplish this are resurfacing. In the midst of the cultural renaissance that is
currently taking place in Indian Country, healing medicines are sprouting and growing.
Whether medicine is in the form of traditional foods, herbal remedies, native art, the
canoe journey, spiritual practices or culturally appropriate methods of healing trauma,
they will touch and strengthen the heart of the people. By moving beyond the view that
diabetes is simply a metabolic disorder and taking a holistic perspective, true prevention
and treatment can occur. In the words of Bruce Miller:
We could have, as a race of people, given up our language completely, given up
our culture, given up our oral tradition, given up our teachings and become part
of mainstream America with no background and no history. But we chose to
persevere against all the traumatic obstacles before us as a race of people…
When we hold on to our ancient traditional customs and language we remain
intact like a rainforest that has all kinds of things to offer, and the roots that hold
us together are our knowledge in practicing the ways of our ancestral teachings.
(Jennings, 2006)
20
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*Personal interview consent forms available upon request.
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