Once You Were Warriors

First Nations in Nuu Chah Nulth Territory

Hashilthsa.com photo

Once you were warriors,

free and brave upon the land,

living with the forest and the sea

in harmony.

Now I drive through the reserve

where the government put you,

see the imposed poverty,

a landscape that makes it hard

to dream.

In the eyes of your elders,

I see pain:

the memory of residential school,

the worry that your language 

and your culture might die out.

They have lived one hundred years

of painful history.

They have suffered much.

In the next generation,

I see the defeat

visited upon some of your people

by poverty, addictions, generational trauma.

Yet also, I watch, with joy,

a spirit rising,

that says

"Our culture is our greatest strength,

and we will honor it."

In the eyes of your children,

starting the day with strength and pride,

drumming the sacred drums,

holding the feathered wing,

chanting the prayer to the Creator 

for a good day,

the pride of heritage will live

into another generation,

one in which hope and dreams are strong and limitless:

that you will rise up

and be warriors

- with your message for living 

in peace and harmony with the land -

once again.

This morning, my friends, I drove Sebastian to school and waited to hear the drumming and singing with which the Haahuupayak School begins their day. I am happy to see a strong love for culture surviving the abuses heaped upon First Nations people since Europeans arrived on these shores. In the shining eyes and smiles of the children, in the leadership and strength of the teachers, I see great promise of a day when First Nations truly will rise again, proud and free upon the land. They are rising now, all across Canada in the Idle No More movement. For they know the way we have used the land is not sustainable. They have much to teach us about sustainable living, if we only listen.