An Introduction to Indigenous Medicine Stories

[Music] Welcome to the first episode of Indigenous Medicine Stories, Inishinabem, Shkeken, and we've done. In this initial episode here, I'm going to talk about the background to how this all came about, what everything that you will hear means and what I'm referring to. So, this is a bit of a behind the scenes before you are exposed to the content of what we're going to cover. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about myself. My name is Darrell Manitwabi. I'm from Wequem Comenci de Territory on Manitulin Island. I live in Whitefish River First Nation, which is just north of Manitulin Island. Whitefish River First Nation is also known as Wequaskinaga. I live there with my family. I also work at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University at the Sudbury campus. What we call that place a Nazim U for short. At Nazim U, I have and hold the inaugural Hannah Chair in the history of Indigenous Health and Indigenous Traditional Medicine. The Hannah Chairs are present in medical schools in Ontario, and I hold the one at the Medical School at Nazim. Part of my role in this position is to educate the public about what traditional healing is. I see my role as being in line with the social accountability mandate of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University. A social accountability mandate in medicine is to make relevant the practice of medicine to the people that it serves, and it reflects the people that it serves. And in Northern Ontario, we have a significant Indigenous population, a Francophone population, and filled with rural life and landscape and all that sort of thing. And so, in essence, then, this podcast is reflective of that context of things. And the purpose for educating about traditional healing is for the reason that there's very little known about what that means. There's a lot of confusion about what that means. There's a lot of misunderstanding, especially in the context of the practice of medicine. There's often what could be described as a schism that exists between the two healing systems. Despite this, the reality is that there continues to be Indigenous healers in Canada, in Northern Ontario and elsewhere, and they practice alongside biomedical doctors. So, in spite of this division, it exists. There still is this relationship that is there. So, I explore that in this podcast. The reason for educating is to really shed light on what it all means. Because of the division, there's very little that is known. It's quite often excluded from conversation or dismissed. And in doing so, we preserve a lack of knowledge and awareness of what that means. So, in many ways, this podcast goes against that idea or that current situation that we're faced in. So, you might be wondering, why a podcast? Why not a traditional research approach to this subject matter? The idea of a podcast came about through a conversation I had with Ann Avery at the Socied Medical Services in Toronto, the AMS, as it is known. Also has a podcast that podcast is called Good Tech, Compassionate Healthcare. I shared my ideas around research with Ann Avery and had shared with me their podcast and spoke about it. And at that moment in our conversation, it came to mind to me that I could blend some ideas around engaging with elders, public education, and the podcast. And it seemed to be an ideal method of exploring this as I thought more about it. It resembled what I would characterize as a form of digital storytelling. We're now confronted with a digital world, and we no longer engage with one another in human to human settings, such as around a kitchen table or around a campfire. Our technology is all about us, and I thought, you know, maybe this is a way to reach new audiences, and you can listen to these ideas while you're driving to work, or whether you're going for a walk, or you're sitting around a campfire. So, this is where the idea of a podcast came about. As it relates to the work that I'm doing, I thought that it's important to tell the stories of elders, healers, and knowledge holders, and helpers. The reason being is that quite often we call upon elders and those who have this kind of knowledge to do openings, that events, or to conduct ceremony, or to do a teaching. But we never ask them about their story, but where they come from, about the ideas of who they are, or what made them who they are, or what other significant events that really characterize who they are, and made them who they are. And this podcast isn't only limited to what we know as elders, so within an indigenous context, we think about elders as being those who lead community, socially recognized. I engage with elders in this podcast. I specifically reach out to those who have knowledge of healing. Also, I engage with knowledge holders themselves, so there may be those individuals in the communities who don't recognize or don't identify as elders, but they have something to share. And those are those individuals who we call knowledge holders. There's also helpers in the community, those who are who may be mentoring with healers or elders, and they're learning. And so they're there to help with ceremony, they're there to help elders, they're there to help with gatherings, and the process of doing so, they're on their way to becoming a future healer or elder, and they also have something to share as well. So these are the individuals that are featured in this podcast. And you might be wondering why the name, there is a specific reason for using the word stories, and also medicine. And specific to this context, I'm going to talk about story from Anishinaabe perspective, and Anishinaabe is also the word that we use for, you know, tribal names, such as Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and others. For those tribal groups, Anishinaabe is their indigenous word, and Anishinaabe has various definitions, one is being a good person, there's also a concept of being descended from above as one definition. However, it's a word that is used in the vernacular in communities, so that is the indigenous word. Why stories? Stories are an indigenous form of telling of history, of engaging with history, and within an indigenous context, or Anishinaabe context, the word onsolkan, or debajima when are two types of stories. And so onsolkan can be animate or inanimate, and they refer to those sacred beings that existed in the past, those sacred beings that led to creation of this world, and they refer to those beings that teach us things about how to be a good human being in this world. And they're often told at particular times of the year, such as in the winter when the snow starts to fall, when the ice has formed, and so there's quite often protocol around those kinds of stories. And so this podcast doesn't engage with those kinds of stories, but it recognizes the power of stories in themselves, and how there are beings that preceded the Anishinaabe in this part of the world, and we must recognize them. And for Anishinaabe, that is a true land acknowledgment by acknowledging the beings of the land, and the history of the land, and the place of the land, and being situated within the land, which is a storyteller. The land in itself is a storyteller, because quite often it's a device, it's an demonic device that generates memory over generations about place and connection to that area. Another form of story is the Batchemowin, and the Batchemowin are inanimate stories. So those are the stories of every day events of the past, and so we engage with the Batchemowin stories that exist, and we do so through the live lives of individuals. So in many ways this podcast engages with the lived history through the lives of elders, helpers, healers, and knowledge holders about what indigenous medicine means. And quite often there's a challenge in translating, and the challenge in translating exists within the title itself. So in English we came about the title of indigenous medicine stories. However, when you translate that to Anishinaabe, or the language of the Anishinaabe, it's very difficult to have a precise translation on myself. Can speak a little Anishinaabe, I understand more than I speak, but I'm not a fluent speaker, so I quite often rely upon those who are fluent speakers to ask for some advice on these kinds of things. I asked the question, how would you translate indigenous medicine stories? And it was almost as though it was a riddle that I was asking, because it wasn't possible to do a precise translation, because indigenous medicine stories is a title, it's like a noun, it stands for something that encapsulates. many things. However, within Nishnabe, way of thinking, everything involves movement. It's a verb-based language. So, the closest word that we were able to come up with is Anishnabe, Pshkke, Nuib, Bad, Don. And so, what I've just said, there is Anishnabe. I've already described what that means. Pshkke is the Indigenous word for the Anishnabe word for medicine. It means strength from the earth. It's quite often what we use to describe material medicines, that kind of speaks for itself. The second part of that is Nuib, Bad, Don, which means I'm going to tell a story. I'm going to talk about or tell about Indigenous medicine. This is the closest that we can find in terms of a direct translation, which is not precise, but it is in many ways an app metaphor for what this is all about. It's not possible to do a precise translation of what Indigenous healing means within the dominating biomedical framework that we have and understand in Canada today about what medicine is all about. Quite often, when an individual goes to meet an elder or a knowledge holder, they'll often respond with story. And when they respond with story, it's not always a direct, obvious answer to a question you might be asked. Quite often, you're left with the need to think about what was told, and it's not always a direct answer to what you're asking about. As we ask questions and this podcast will hear stories in the same way, we're given answers that aren't always direct. And this speaks to an Indigenous pedagogy of understanding where in the listener is given the autonomy to take from a story what they think is important. And the storyteller also practices autonomy or more specifically an egalitarian or non-intrusive relationship with the receiver in the sense that they are talking about an idea in an abstract way and as up to the listener to know what they are talking about. So this is the importance of medicine stories in themselves and how it's an Indigenous pedagogy of understanding of history. Also, it speaks to contemporary relationship and we'll hear more about that as we go along. So as you can see in the cover, it's a bit of an abstract painting of a ceremony and I'm going to use my own interpretation here. I did not seek the story of the painting itself, but I can say that it's a painting by a young Indigenous artist emerging artist by the name of Nevada and Watten who also lives in the community that I live in. We've got to wait for sure for a first nation. Nevada also has connections to Wequem Kong on Manitul in Ireland. And Nevada is an emerging artist when I saw this artwork, I was connected to it. I was connected to it because it was also a metaphor for what we're going to talk about. And there's a lot of symbolism around just that state of being, being a young person reconnecting with an art form and illustrating that by way of engaging with ceremony. So there must be a powerful story about what that painting means, but I don't know what that story is, but I've just shared what I think that that story might mean and why I was drawn to that is this for that reason. This is a type of artwork in the sense of telling stories. There's this idea of story work that Joanne Archibald talks about from British Columbia who presents this idea that stories can be an education, a form of education. But they also engage with a worldview. This is what we will be doing in this podcast. What's most important about this podcast is really delving deep into the concept of indigenous health and healing. And in my travels, I've come to know that there is a misconception of what indigenous traditional healing is all about. Quite often, there's the Hollywood and I'll use this word because this is how it's framed and the literature, the Hollywood Indian and what I mean by that is the presentation of Indigenous peoples as the stoic being that's in harmony with nature, that's unchanging and that represents a timeless symbol of the past. That is incapable of change. And within that idea, we think of those materials, those material medicines or perhaps it could be a pipe or ceremony and we often equate healing or indigenous healing with that idea, with that preconceived notion of what that is that's been bestowed upon us through this process of constructing an image of who indigenous peoples are. But in this podcast, we'll come to know that that's actually not accurate, that indigenous peoples are complex, they're diverse, they have different kinds of stories, and also we will come to know that health is complicated and healing in itself is complicated. I haven't come across a single definition of what that means within an indigenous context, but what I often come across is a common theme of colonialism. And what I often come across is our stories of how colonialism in itself is ill health for indigenous peoples. It's taken away land, it's taken away autonomy, it's taken away sovereignty over education, it's taken away sovereignty over family connections, and it's an ongoing process. And quite often I hear stories of how that has generated ill health and indigenous peoples. And conversely, I've often come across stories of how indigenous peoples seek healing from colonialism in ways that we might not understand, it might mean relearning a language that wasn't taught to oneself because of the process of colonization by not including it in education systems for instance. It might be reconnecting with culture, identity, ceremony, these practices that were outlawed through the interactive Canada, for instance, it might be seeking refuge from discrimination, racism, and exclusion, and it might be seeking community within a supportive network of individuals. And it's possible to see how this is generates ill health and from a biomedical framework those who have that specialization can begin to think about how that generates ill health and indigenous peoples. Healing is more complex than we think it is, it means more than the material medicines that we quite often are exposed to and the ideology of what this all means. And so we explore that. That's one of the things that's important to emphasize as we move along in this journey is that healing is complex and it means more things than we think it is, and this is an opportunity to learn more about this. And so what to expect then in indigenous medicine stories, we're going to hear stories of individuals of their lives lived, how they came about to be where they are now, how they learned about the teachings that they received and what teachings means to them. I try to reach diverse indigenous voices in a variety of contexts, in practice, for instance, we'll hear from indigenous psychologists, we'll hear from indigenous educators, we'll hear from healers themselves, those who identify as helpers and in knowledge holders, we'll travel to different communities, different settings. Some instances will be ceremonial spaces and places, and other places will be at institutions, places of work or in one's home, and join us in this journey, it's a journey of learning, sharing, education, I frame it as a journey of decolonization, reconciliation, and education. I think the first step in trying to rid ourselves of the destructive legacy of colonialism is to engage in conversation, is to listen, to hear these voices, and begin the process of a better future that does not involve generating the ill-health of colonialism on indigenous peoples. We watch.