The issues
Since the “Opening of the West” to European and North American settlers, Aboriginal culture and identity have supposedly been on the brink of destruction or collapse. Anthropologists, historians, historical photographers like Edward Curtis; historical artists like Paul Kane, Peter Rindisbacher, Henry James Warren, William George Richardson Hind and Frederic Remington, lamented over the disappearance of Aboriginal people, their culture, art, values, nomadic lifestyle and stylish ceremonies. In recent times, elders living on reserve and in Métis and Inuit communities have expressed similar concerns. The biggest concern today appears to be the loss of identity through language attrition, culture and fading traditional knowledge and art.
Joe Deschamps, a Cree ceremonialist and elder from the Louis Bull Reserve in Alberta, expressed concern over the fact that many youth on his reserve now speak a language their parents don’t understand. They’ve adapted the Hip Hop culture learned from the television. “Today’s reserve youth don’t speak Cree or English. So many of the youth mimic the LA, Chicago and Detroit Hip Hop culture despite the fact that they never left the Reserve!”
Urban elders and many first and second generation urban, Aboriginal people bemoan the fact that they are losing their language and culture. For so many Aboriginal people new to urban centres, reserves are the homeland of culture, language, identity, Aboriginal knowledge, art, music and ceremony. However, for others, the city is seen as a land that was once their Aboriginal territory where sacred gatherings, trade, ceremonies, hunting and trapping and living in general once took place. For them, this land which cities occupy is their traditional homeland too!
Today, many urban Aboriginal people challenge the quality of life back home on the reserve as well as the notion that everyone living on reserve is more culturally or intellectually knowledgeable about their heritage. They point out that many people in the community “back home” don’t take part in traditional ceremonies, or live off the land, or follow any form of Aboriginal spirituality and because of the impact residential schools and Christianity have had on the community. Some urban people have argued that many people living on reserve either don’t know what Aboriginal spirituality is despite a growing awareness of Native spirituality and participation in the Sundance, healing circles and sweat lodges. They point out that very few people living on the reserve speak their language and question how many people today tan hides, gather porcupine quills, trap or hunt and use what they’ve taken from the land to make functional clothing or crafts and wear traditional clothing outside of pow-wow and special gatherings. Some do, but for the most part, very few do.
“What does it mean to be Aboriginal today? Does speaking one’s language, dressing “Indian”, making moccasins, doing traditional art, singing, dancing, following a traditional spirituality make you Indian? Are people who live on reserve and do none of these things “more Indian” then those who live in urban centres and struggle to keep Aboriginal heritage alive? Can you live in urban centres among hundreds of other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures and peoples, languages, unusual foods, foreign traditions and still maintain your identity as an Aboriginal person? How does one do this, generation after generation, particularly when the “homeland” is not close-by? Do Aboriginal people cease to be “Aboriginal” after moving to urban centres as so many people on reserve seem to think so?
