As she spoke, it became clear that one of the overlooked impacts of residential schools was the message sent to all the adults left behind. It said that their languages were no good. It said that their parenting was no good. Those messages were reinforced by secular laws like those which made the possession of medicine bundles a criminal act, and by church pronouncements like those which declared the Sun Dance a sinful relic of a pagan past. The taking of the children was, in a way, only an exclamation mark to that larger declaration.
Substance abuse escalates dramatically, followed by family violence and sexual abuse.
Clearly, it is the latter, and nowhere is this more evident than in community efforts to return to traditional healing strategies to stem the tide of substance abuse, suicide and family violence that threatens to swamp so many of them. As I said at the outset, understanding those strategies requires first gaining some insight into the visions which both shape and power them. I ask for each reader's patience. To begin this section, I return to the Ojibway woman who is now Program Director of a substance abuse treatment centre. She gave me a tour of the centre one day, and showed me into the ceremonial room.