Native families and traditional healing

This is the message being shared today at the Missoula Healthy Indian Families Consortium, a two-day event taking place at the Holiday Inn iin Missoula, Mont. We just spent the morning listening to Bea Shawanda who did a presentation titled “Beyond Bruised Bodies and Broken Hearts: Moving Towards a Vision of Wellness.” We heard Shawanda talk about multigenerational trauma and its effects Native communities and families.

Shawanda is from Odawa-Pottowottomi, Ontario, Canada. She has spent nearly the last four decades working on community, social and family development. She’s also a motivational speaker, an engaging storyteller and community leader who understands the cycles of oppression in tribal communities. Later this morning, she will spend time talking about how communities can live violence-free lifestyles.

Today, despite talk of sacred children and respecting women, our children and women are highly abused. The result of cultural oppression from the dominant society, which is something we then turn inward upon ourselves leading to lateral oppression. About 200 people are attending the conference. At 1 p.m. today, we’ll listen to Cindy Rutherford and Mary Ann Running Crane tell “Our Mother’s Story.” I don’t know what that story is yet. I will report back later with an update from the Holiday Inn.

For more information on the the “History of Victimization In Native Communities,” visit The Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. at the University of Oklahoma. If more people became informed on these matters, it would promote healing among our people. And it would help spread understanding among the dominant society, which still acts as an oppressor towards Native people. If you don’t think racism exits, your eyes aren’t open.

Also, a special thanks to Emily Salois, Blackfeet, for helping to organize today’s conference.

Jodi Rave