A Brief History of the Mi’kmaq

Additionally, Royal gives clarification for Native Americans’ positive stereotypes. He explains, “ But this is far from modern concepts of ecology. Native Americans in fact overhunted deer and beaver even before the arrival of the white man, and did not seriously try to preserve the resources in the vicinity of their villages. As a result, the typical woodland village, having exhausted local soil and game, had to move on average every eight to 10 years” (Royal 47). Although the Native Americans did not destroy the environment like Europeans on such a large scale, they are not trying to protect the environment either. This opposes the stereotypes that Native Americans are model ecologists. Royal also examines the inhumane sides of Native American tribes. Royal reveals, “The

With globalization and colonization taking over almost the entire known world, native tribes who are indigenous to their lands are losing control of the lands that their people have lived in for ages to the hands of foreign colonizers who claim the land as their own. Now, indigenous people all around the world are struggling to reclaim the lands and rights that were taken away from them through non-violent social relations with national governments and large corporations. Anthropologists have recorded how indigenous people across the globe attempt to create relations with national governments to reclaim rights and lands that they once had before the colonization of their ancestral homeland.

A recent article shares a story of two boys in an emergency room in rural Nova Scotia. The first boy is Caucasian and is seen immediately, as his pain is apparent due to constant crying. While the second boy who is Mi’kmaq waits because he is quiet and shows no signs of distress. Yet they both are in similar amounts of pain. Recent research has shown that demeanor is not a reliable indicator of the intensity of the Mi’kmaq child’s pain due to cultural traditions such as sweat lodges, which teach that pain is to be endured (Vibert, 2013). However, because health care workers are likely unaware of this, it causes discrimination towards the Mi’kmaq boy, due to a bias rooted in ignorance of the culture and traditions of his heritage.

In the chapter Saving Clayoquot: Wilderness and the politics of Indigeneity, author Bruce Braun argues that although indigeneity is one of postcolonial environmentalism's most privileged terms, it risks indigenous peoples becoming subsumed within the “natural history” of being saved. The image I chose symbolizes how indigeneity in contemporary eco-politics simply inserts indigenous people into a pre-existing natural landscape. It paints an image that indigenous people are only an element in nature to be objectively ordered and described. We see this type of cultural objectification in many mainstream environmental advertisements that celebrate indigenous culture by banishing it to the past or mourning the loss of wildlife in association to

R. Anthony Kugler defines globalization as “the ways in which technology and trade are making the world a smaller, more interconnected place than it used to be, and to the economic and social changes that are occurring as a result.” (Kugler, 2006). While this widespread ideals of speed and efficiency work in dominant, “first world” cultures, minority cultures and indigenous peoples often suffer from its results. It isn’t uncommon for indigenous cultures to be stripped of their traditions in the name of “development.” Because of this, the struggles these native peoples face often lead to a decrease in overall happiness and wellbeing. In order to improve the conditions these indigenous peoples face, action must be taken by dominant Western cultures to preserve and protect minority cultures and identities.

The article we read over the Inuit tribe in Alaska was about this group of people and how the chances of them getting cancer are so little, it almost never happens. “1 in 1000 chances” as it says in the blog. The author of the blog is arguing that the reason the Inuit tribe’s chances of getting cancer are so rare because of the vitamin B17, which is in grass, which is what caribou eat, which is what the Inuit people eat. According to the author, vitamin B17 (or Laetrile) causes cancer prevention. While I agree that the theory does make sense, I don’t necessarily agree with it due to my own amount of research. I agree that most of the facts do hold up, such as the one mentioned earlier about the “1 in 1000 chances” and the fact that the Inuit people’s diet consists of caribou, seal, salmon, bears, and others. But as a whole, I feel that it may be other factors that are contributing as to why the Inuit people’s chances of getting cancer are so low.

Cultures should be preserved so that they are able to be passed down throughout different generations, especially as passing down information is one probable and important key to the survival of any culture. To accomplish the preservation of culture through transmission, change seems like an essential to cultural survival, instead of a potential enemy. In his TED talk, Davis (2003) asserts that “The Sioux Indians did not stop being Sioux when they gave up the bow and arrow anymore than Americans stopped being American when they gave up the horse and buggy” (14:46 – 14:54). Davis’s statement highlights the idea that change is always occurring, especially with the introduction of new technologies, and that specific individual traditions or ways in a culture do not make up the entirety of the culture. Rather, I think that culture revolves around the spirit and collective traditions of a group of people. For example, Davis (2003) mentions the story of a man’s grandfather creating a sleigh and weapons out of little material and describes the story as an example of the people’s “resilience” (18:50 – 19:56). Davis uses the practices of a people to explain their values, and in turn, to communicate their

It appears that humanity has been detrimental to its host for quite some time now, particularly in the last hundred years or so. The subjugation of fellow man and earth stems from a central theme; the idea that humanity seeks to conquer, categorize, and control whatever is in their sights. There are exceptions, of course. This idea does not apply to all people, but can be seen in instances such as the aforementioned subjugation and slaughter of the Jews during World War Two, in the form of the Holocaust, and the continued destruction of the natural world for profit. “Nature” also touches upon a similar idea, posed by theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno,

myth that had been around for years on how the catlike panther used to be a beautiful native woman.

Keal, Paul. European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

One day the Inuits and the Mi'kmaq people wink at it again, but this time in facts. I will tell you about the facts of each of them, which is going to be about the housing what they eat and saw one.

Particularly in conflict situations where there are indigenous activists and stakeholders there are often profound differences in belief and ways of viewing the conflict situation by virtue of different cosmologies and schemas for relating to the natural world. Similarly, under these conditions the barriers to conciliation based on a history of oppression and exploitation must be respected and strategies for facilitating productive dialogue would need to be established. In order to address some of the ways in which the law, environment and the rights of First Nations people intersect, it is essential to begin by examining the colonial mindset and to contrast this framework with the attitudes towards and ways of interacting with the natural

United Nations (2009) found that in the past the Indigenous culture began to be endangered, through the heavy Westernization threatening to make these cultures extinct, however, globalization is also seen to the Indigenous people as an opportunity for empowerment, to raise funds and be able to have some recognition for the thing their people have done. In the report the United Nations (2009) stated that the Western culture is a modern civilized way of living, we do not value the same things as what the indigenous do and we are not expected to, however, the indigenous do expect us to be respectful of the land in which we are associated on. The Indigenous culture is rich and incredibly strong, they value the land they are associated on and then the spiritual value that the land possesses. The western culture is sustained by the large percentage of the population who live by the Western culture, it is not a very dense culture however, it is how many of us in Australia are brought up in. The western culture will survive as it is the Westernized people who are in an authoritative position meaning that the culture will be sustained into the future. By writing this journal it was brought to my attention that the western people treat our indigenous very poorly, it shows how heavily westernization

Ecuador’s quest for environmental justice, subsequent to oil extraction, is a noxious consequence of colonialism. Through principles and the aftermath of colonialism, a dependence on resource extraction has proven detrimental to Ecuador’s indigenous population, only profiting a select few. This very act demonstrates a need for ecological democracy, a demand for the just treatment of the indigenous, and an inherent disfunction of capitalism. These conditions have nurtured, and validated, the idea of a resource curse; as resource-rich Ecuador is “worse off” than countries without commodities like oil. Specifically, this

Indigenous people have been at loss with almost every change that has taken place. Beginning with the discovery of the New World and the conquest that proceeded, indigenous people, who are by definition “people who inhabited a land before it was conquered by colonial societies and who consider themselves distinct from the societies currently governing those territories” , have been oppressed, enslaved, robbed, and displaced. Their history of injustice has resulted in many cases of them being killed, tortured, enslaved, and victims of genocide.