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The following contains
excerpts from a dialogue on the topic of Pre-conceptual health
in Native society that took place between the interviewer, Lylee
Williams and Wanda Gabriel, a Mohawk woman from Kanehsatake,
Quebec. Wanda is the Community Support Coordinator, Ontario Region,
for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and possesses a Master's
degree in Social Work from McGill University, Montreal.
Linking the past to the present:
"I ask myself, ‘Why are our societies the way
they are?’ There are high rates of alcoholism, high rates
of children with learning disabilities. A lot of our children
are being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and being
put on Ritalin. Sometimes this is a ‘quick fix’ without
looking in depth as to what is really happening. Why do we jump
to quick fixes? It requires a lifelong treatment. There are several
things that are going to fix it and I look at it as the ‘Three
R’s’; in other words, Roles, Rights and Responsibilities.
We cannot have rights without responsibilities. The rights of
women, the rights of men, but we forget what our responsibility
is. Responsibility is to uphold our rights and to maintain a
balanced lifestyle within ourself, physically for our own health
and the health of our families and communities.”
It takes a community to raise a child:
“We hear the
expression ‘it takes a whole community to raise a child’,
but we’re really paying lip service to it today because
we don’t apply those things. In a school course I took on
Child Welfare, I looked at the case in Canada where the authorities
wanted to enforce treatment on a pregnant woman, an Aboriginal
woman who was abusing alcohol and drugs. I talked to several
men and women from different Native nations and asked them what
their perspective was on the rights of a fetus because the law
in Canada is such that the fetus does not have rights. So, I
asked these men and women, ‘What are the rights? How would
we deal with a situation like this in our community?’ What
I was told by the Mohawk persons is that in the language, there
isn’t a word to separate the mother from the child. There
is one word to represent the woman carrying a child. Her state
of being while she’s pregnant, there’s no separation.
They are one."
Responsibilities towards the new life:
“In terms of
this case of the woman who was abusing her body while carrying
a child, a lot of the men and women said that had we followed
the norms of our ancestors, the woman would have never gotten
to that state of abusing herself. The community and family members
would have been involved as soon as they saw her going off balance,
getting away from her roles and responsibilities as a woman carrying
a baby. In regards to code of conduct, when a new life was coming
into the world, it was a sacred time for the family and everybody
assisted the couple to take care of and nurture that new life
coming into the world from beginning to end. There were different
teachings from both sides, male and female, preparing them for
what was to come.”
Communal attitude of caring:
“We see a lot
of efforts happening to bring our ancestors’ values to today.
It’s a struggle because we still have a high dependency
rate on governmental assistance programs. In other words, the
views and values are mainstream. We’ve bought into the view
of individualism. You know, it happens in my house, in my yard,
it’s nobody’s business. Whereas before, everybody naturally
took care of each other. I think that attitude of caring is coming
back, though. We see it happening more and more. In my work,
I do a lot of travel to Native communities throughout Ontario.
I’d see a group of children playing outside and if they
are getting out of line, an adult will be passing by and will
comment and say something to them to get their behaviors back
in order. To me, that is the true meaning of ‘It takes a
community to raise a child.’ Hopefully, we won’t just
pay lip service to it.”
Teachings on health:
“It’s really important that we get back to understanding
our roles regarding pre-conceptual health. What is it that we
need to be doing so that the child and the mother are nurtured
to bring a healthy child into the world? They should be taken
care of physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Those
are the four aspects that keep us balanced. Working those, we
can bring children into the world who are healthy. There’s
teachings, ceremonies and foods that were given to a mother who
was pregnant that were specific to nurture that new child coming
into the world. There were specific foods she had to eat and
specific foods she had to stay away from that could cause harm
to her and the unborn baby. The support of other women, talking
to her, mentoring her. There are teachings that happened with
the men and the women from the community that helped prepare
them for that moment when that sacred being came into the world."
Teaching youth today:
"In today’s society, I think it’s really important
that we give our children as much information and teachings as
possible so that they can make informed choices. If parents cannot
do that, then there needs to be a formal mechanism in place that
gets that information to the youth. If it’s in the school,
then it has to be in the school. We have a lot of taboos and
when you look at it, you would think it is contrary to how we
are living. We see so many things in the media, television, music
and radio that are sexually explicit and objectify women. Then,
society becomes freaked out about teaching our youth in the schools
about healthy sexuality! It doesn’t make sense. Teaching
youth about caring for one’s body is part of prevention,
preventing people from going down that road to abusing their
bodies."
Preventing FAS and FAE:
“If you look
at FAS and FAE, it starts from age zero until they are adults
and that affects all the systems, every single one of them. I
heard a comment that still sticks with me that goes something
like this: "If we don’t really start dealing with the
problems of alcohol abuse in our communities and the effects
of FAS and FAE, the question in the future is not going to be
Who is going to lead our people? Rather, the question will be,
Who CAN lead our people? Who can lead our people because the
mental and emotional capacities just won’t be there. That’s
scary when you think about it."
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