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Diversity of Aboriginal People in Canada and British Columbia

There is a rich cultural diversity of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples in Canada. Each Aboriginal culture is distinct and unique and has evolved over time in a direct relationship with the land (Manitoba Education, 2009). For example, an Aboriginal community along the river in a mountain range will have different ceremonies, traditions, dance, stories, song, languages, sacred land, and seasonal food gathering practices than an Aboriginal community that lives in woodlands, in desert valleys, near the ocean, or up north. There is even a rich diversity in languages, lifestyles, beliefs, and traditional laws among communities living within similar geographical regions (Manitoba Education, 2009).

 

Relationship of Aboriginal People to Canada

The 1982 Constitution Act recognizes three groups of “Aboriginal” peoples: “Indians,” Métis, and Inuit. The term Indian is widely regarded as inaccurate and inappropriate, and, outside of legal and governmental usage, is often replaced by the term First Nations in Canada. Other terms, such as Native Americans (used mostly in the USA) and Amerindians, are used by some writers. In this course, the terms Indigenous and Aboriginal are preferred. 

The term Aboriginal came into general usage in Canada following the 1982 Constitution Act as an umbrella term for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. While the use of the term Aboriginal is widespread, there has been an increasing trend towards the term Indigenous to describe these groups. In this course, both terms are used. Teachers should be aware of the connotations of these terms. The term Aboriginal is increasingly regarded as having been imposed on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples by the Canadian government, connoting a minority within the nation state. Among First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada engaged in the process of decolonization and the struggle for rights, there is an emerging consciousness of and identification with the global struggle by other colonized peoples to assert their identities as peoples with unique cultures and rights of citizenship.

Lenape-Potawatomi scholar and educator, Dr. Susan Dion, defines the term ‘perfect stranger’ as it relates to non-Indigenous teachers and how they construct their knowledge of Indigenous people and understanding of Indigenous histories and current issues. She explains how non-Indigenous teachers can disrupt this positioning by thinking through the biography of their own relationship with Indigenous people.

Click "Watch on Vimeo" to view the video below.

01 04 Introducing and disrupting the perfect stranger HD Links to an external site. video by IndEdu 200x
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▼ Click on the arrow to view transcript.

• Dr. Susan D. Dion:

  Teachers would often say to me - when they'd call me to ask me to come in an speak with their classes, they'd say, oh, I don't know anything about Aboriginal people. I didn't grow up near a reserve. I didn't have any Aboriginal friends. I don't know anything about Aboriginal people. And this refrain became quite familiar.

  Teachers quite often seem to want to tell me that they didn't know anything, and position themselves in this way of saying, I don't know anything and that has— Aboriginal issues, that's between Aboriginal people and the government. It doesn't have anything to do with me. And there seem to almost be this kind of urgency that I understand and appreciate that this had nothing to do with them. And this became such a familiar refrain from teachers that— I had to do some thinking about this, and thinking about what is this and why is there this desire to position the self as distant from Aboriginal people? And I came to recognize this positioning as— and I named it the position of the perfect stranger.

  This position, a perfect stranger, allows teachers and actually all Canadians to be off the hook when it comes to thinking about Aboriginal issues, thinking about Aboriginal people, or the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. There was a desire to distance themselves from the issues and to say, this has nothing to do with me. I find it a very useful term to be able to talk about that desire to be off the hook. If teachers have this desire to be the perfect stranger, then how do you I disrupt that positioning? How do I engage teachers in learning experiences that will allow them to see the ways in which they are in fact in relationship with Aboriginal people?

  Approach that I have, is really asking teachers to investigate the biography of their relationship. And I've come to understand that the significance of this in doing and accomplishing decolonizing education to have teachers think about, what do I know about Aboriginal people and importantly, what informs my knowing? Where did this knowledge that I have about Aboriginal people come from?

  So in many of my workshops and courses and talks with teachers, I start with an images exercise. And I lay out on a table just a range of images of Aboriginal people. And then I invite participants to choose an image and write about what's their connection to that image. And what this exercise does is it allows people to just begin to think about what's my connection with Aboriginal people? There's such a range of discourses that circulate that inform Canadians' understanding of Aboriginal people. And it really just takes a few minutes for people to look at these images and choose something and write about it. The images exercise is a way to start involving teachers in thinking about the biography of their relationship. So we start with those images and people start to talk to each other about the stories that they've heard. Maybe they remember passing a sign on their way to the cottage-- you know, "This is Mohawk territory" or "This is an Indian reserve." And then they start to think about what do they know, what do they not know, and what informs their knowing. And so that's the project of the investigating the biography of relationship that is a way to engage teachers in thinking about and beginning to question, well, if I'm not a perfect stranger, then what do I know and what's the significance of what I know, and what do I need to know?

Indigeneity

"We the Dene of the N.W.T. insist on the right to be regarded by ourselves and the world as a nation. Our struggle is for the recognition of the Dene Nation by the government and people of Canada and the peoples and governments of the world. . . .” (Dene Nation. “Dene Declaration: Statement of Rights,” Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, 1975). 

There is growing recognition of Indigenous populations as distinct peoples by the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, and other world bodies. The definition of Indigenous peoples that follows has been adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights: 

“Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them, and, by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant or colonial situation; who today live more in conformity with their particular social, economic, and cultural customs and traditions than the institutions of the country of which they now form a part, under a state structure that incorporates mainly the national, social, and cultural characteristics of other segments of the population that are predominant.” (United Nations, 2007).

Within the UN paradigm of Indigeneity, McKinley (2007), a Mäori scholar and science educator, acknowledged different types of Indigenous peoples, including:

1. 1. those whose colonial settlers have become numerically dominant (e.g., Mäori of Aotearoa New Zealand, First Nations of Canada, the Quechua nation of Peru, and the Amei nation of Taiwan);
   2. those in Third World contexts whose colonial settlers never reached a majority but left a legacy of colonization (e.g., Africa and India); and
   3. those who have been displaced from the locality from which they once drew their cultural self-identity (e.g., immigrant Hmong communities in the USA and China, originally from Thailand).

In addition, McKinley warned, ‘‘Indigeneity is a heterogeneous, complex concept that is contextually bound’’ (2007, p. 202). The qualification ‘‘contextually bound’’ means there is no universal definition of Indigenous. Indigenous peoples worldwide tend to reject a universal definition for fear it might create an outsider-imposed Indigenous identity, thereby colonizing them all over again (Niezen 2003). 

In light of reconciliation, teachers who teach about Indigenous topics as well as those who teach Indigenous students need to be knowledgeable about Indigenous worldviews and cultural practices. Due to its pervasiveness, Western values and practices, including individual rights, domination over nature, and scientific method, are often taught as universal. Such values and practices are contrast to worldviews of Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, educators need to be aware of their own personal histories and worldviews. Such knowledge is a starting point in a process that occurs over time and requires a deeper understanding of diversity, equity, and social justice. Developing self-reflection is needed in order to examine one’s own values and attitudes to cultural differences and similarities. 

The Serious Business of Self-Indigenization 

Click the play arrow below to listen to the The Serious Business of Self-Indigenization Links to an external site.Media Indigena Podcast. 

Understanding Aboriginal identity in Canada is often a challenging task. Terms may have legal implications that often emerge in diverse ways. This section, explores the various ways in which Aboriginal peoples in Canada self-identify and are defined by the commonwealth state. 

Etah, a 17-year-old youth in Vancouver, stated “There is something my uncle said, you know, ‘You’re not a true Indian unless you…follow the culture, then you are an Indian.’ It’s not a status thing. It’s not a piece of paper. It’s a spiritual thing, an emotional thing, a mental thing, a physical thing” (Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996).

Identity can be complex for Aboriginal peoples in Canada. For example, the Indian Act defined and legislated the term persons as “anyone other than an Indian.” Although this language has unofficially been dropped from usage, the legislation has never been repealed. In addition, First Nations peoples were not enfranchised to vote in federal elections until 1962. [In fact, First Nations were granted the right to vote in federal elections in 1960.] This right to vote was conditional on being enfranchised by the province or territory of residence (Elections Canada, 2018). 

The other terms of identity used in the Canadian constitution include Inuit and Métis.

Inuit refers to Indigenous people who live across Inuit Nunangat that encompasses 35% of Canada’s landmass and 50% of its coastline (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, 2018). Nearly 60% of Inuit report an ability to conduct a conversation in Inuktut (the Inuit language). Inuit people harvest country foods such as seal, narwhal and caribou (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, 2018).

Métis is a term with a contentious history.  Broadly, the term Métis has been used since the eighteenth century to refer to people of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry, and particularly to those people with family roots deriving from Red River.  Métis uniquely weaved their Indigenous and European heritage to form their own culture and language. Learn more about the relationship between Métis histories and identities to Western histories and settler identities by listening to the podcast below.