Is Nativity Threatened by Drugs, Alcohol and Prostitution? A Retrospection of ‘Native-Girl Syndrome’ in Select Canadian Works

Abstract

Canada, the land of wilderness, has a history that is rich in culture, heritage, tradition, and spiritual practices. The indigenous people who have lived there for several centuries have been uprooted and alienated from their lands post colonisation. Outsmarted by technology and the ‘civilization’ of the colonisers, the once-majority of the indigenous people become minorities in their own country. Among the natives, indigenous women are subjected to all forms of violence and are left highly vulnerable at the hands of vicious colonisers. The native women have been forced to endure physical, mental, and sexual abuse, all of which goes against the values associated with them in a native community. The majority of the native women go through what is called the ‘native girl syndrome’ that draws attention to the aftermath of the above-mentioned malicious acts of subjecting them to drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and finally suicide. This concept is further illustrated by analysing three Canadian works of different genres – a novel named In Search of April Raintree, an autobiography named Halfbreed, and a play named In Care. The paper addresses how these literary works are representations of Native women who have endured all of these and more at the merciless hands of the colonisers, and questions whether the colonisers have succeeded in disrupting the nativity with their new interventions such as drugs and alcohol.