Reservationization: After This Nothing Happened.

Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux,Steven Koptie

doi:10.54127/hsjo6821

Abstract

There are many answers to why Indigenous youth take their own lives; research is showing us that when we look back, we can find our way forward. Plenty Coups was born in 1848, and although his “life ended” in his early twenties after the buffalo died, he went on to garner many achievements and lived to be 84 years old. After the buffalo died, the lack of understanding and honest empathy between Euro-Canadian and Indigenous peoples, the steady decline of deep community connections, the loss of multiple generations of children to social services, and the ensuing violence, generated what Michael Lerner termed, “surplus powerlessness” across many territories, leaving next generations bereft. A decline caught and sometimes exploited by anthropologists like Abraham Maslow. Today, Indigenous peoples are healing the trauma, resolving their grief and reclaiming their cultural and ceremonial practices in day-to-day life. Indigenous children are being raised at the drum, singing the songs of their ancestors, correcting anthropological narratives, and telling their own stories. Something is happening, and the reclamation of our languages, values and cultural knowledge is restoring positive meaning to the lives of our children, and they will live, and Indigenous peoples will be here to fight another day.

Highlights

Plenty Coups refused to speak of his life after the passing of the buffalo, so that his story seems to have broken off, leaving many years unaccounted for
Our focus on understanding the reasons behind youth suicide was re-galvanized while reflecting on Indigenous mental health work in remote fly-in reserves, and reviewing a paper entitled, “After This Nothing Happened: Indigenous Academic Writing and the Chickadee Peoples’ Words” (Koptie, 2009)
For Indigenous post-secondary students, Koptie (2009) had described the graduate studies experience as a “Dickenish” tale: It is a tale of two extremes; the best of times and the worst of times mostly simultaneously, as each glorious lesson learned carries the lonely burden of responsibility to challenge the shame and humiliation of each racist, ignorant and arrogant colonial myth perpetuated

Summary

Introduction

Plenty Coups refused to speak of his life after the passing of the buffalo, so that his story seems to have broken off, leaving many years unaccounted for. These myths have led to Indigenous youth choosing death, drug addiction, or gangs and jails over living in communities where that “nothing” continues to happen.

Results

Conclusion