Suicide and Domination: Intergenerational Trauma of Original Nations and Peoples
Suicide among Native Peoples is linked to colonial domination of their territories and traditional ways of life
Native Suicides: Intergenerational Trauma
In 2016, I wrote a column in Indian Country Today, “Native Suicides: Intergenerational Trauma Erupts”. I discussed the 2015 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Final Report of its 14th Session {UN Doc E/2015/43 and E/C.19/2015/10}
Among the issues the Forum addressed was “Self-harm and suicide among [Indigenous] children and young people”. The Report said:
The lack of recognition of and respect for the right of self-determination of
Indigenous peoples…can lead to desperation and hopelessness, with
Indigenous communities frequently seeing [high] suicide rates.
Suicidal behaviour, suicide and self-harm are directly related to …the loss by Indigenous peoples of their rights to their lands and territories, natural resources, traditional ways of life.
In October 2023, Indigenous Corporate Training issued a report listing suicide as one of eight key issues facing Indigenous peoples dominated by Canada:
The complexity of the factors that drive Indigenous youth and adults to take their own lives relates to colonialism and … assimilation policies ….
The deep shadow of residential schools, arguably the most devastating of all the assimilation policies, continues to shroud survivors and their families with despair and socio-economic inequalities.
CAUTION
Quoting “rates” of suicide amongst Indigenous peoples …[promotes] the concept that suicide is a “pan-Indigenous” issue.
Not every community struggles with suicide.
What makes the difference?
The Indian Corporate Training report said:
…A study of Indigenous communities in [British Columbia]…. found that there was a low rate of suicide in those with higher levels of “cultural continuity factors” such as self-governance, land claims, education, health care, cultural facilities, and police and fire service …compared to those with fewer of these factors.
My 2016 article explored the problem:
In April 2016, Douglas Quan, a reporter for the National Post in Toronto, described Aboriginal communities as being in "A state of perpetual mourning" and asked, "What’s behind the 'clusters' of suicide attempts in aboriginal communities?"
Quan’s article was sparked by a "suicide cluster" in the community of Attawapiskat, which declared a state of emergency after 39 suicide attempts, mostly by young people. The Guardian reported the same month that this “cluster” was only the latest example: Between Autumn and Spring, more than 100 suicide attempts occurred in Attawapiskat which has a population of just 2,000.
The evidence that intergenerational trauma is rooted in colonial domination is overwhelming.
Quan quoted Gerald McKinley, an aboriginal health expert at Western University in London, Ontario, who said suicide clusters "are typically triggered by a variety of social stresses: substance use, changes to family structure, intergenerational trauma, violence, food insecurity, and low employment."
The Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal studied an earlier "suicide cluster" on Manitoulin Island in 1974-75, and linked it to "an absence of self-esteem, an absence of any intimate personal relationships, family discord and heavy alcohol use in the family."
John Berry, a psychology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, linked suicide among Native youth to "the situation of being caught between two cultures and being unable to find satisfaction in either."
Carrie Bourassa, an Indigenous health studies professor at First Nations University of Canada in Regina, said,
"We don’t even have a word for suicide in our languages. Do you know what that tells me? It tells me that it did not exist in our communities before contact."
The "past" exists in the present.
These explanations of suicide all emphasize that humans exist in communities and that communities are intertwined in history:
Humans are social beings.
Societies consist of human relations through space and time.
In 1996, Harold Napoleon (Yup'ik) wrote Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being, a powerful exploration of human social reality. Napoleon was examining alcoholism and alcohol abuse among Alaska Native People.
The title of his book, "Yuuyaraq", means correct behavior — not only among people, but among all relations: lands, waters, animals. Yuuyaraq encompasses the physical and spiritual world.
As Napoleon explained:
Traditional Yup'ik lived in deference to [the] spiritual universe, of which they were, perhaps, the weakest members. … They knew that the temporal and the spiritual were intertwined and they needed to maintain a balance between the two.
Napoleon focused on the "cataclysm of mass death" that followed the arrival of the colonizers:
It changed the persona, the lifeview, the worldview, of the Yup'ik people.
A new generation of Yup'ik people was born into shock… to a world in shambles. … From their innocence and from their inability to understand [what was happening], guilt was born into them.
Napoleon wrote his book to provide context for understanding the dysfunctions of modern Yup'ik life.
The children [of the survivors] were led to believe that the ways of their fathers and forefathers were of no value and were evil.
They gave up all governing power of the villages…. In their heart of hearts the survivors…felt angry, bewildered, ashamed, guilty, but all this they kept within themselves.
Napoleon described the aftermath and consequences of Yup'ik devastation in terms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which he called "an infection of the soul." This soul infection, he said, leaves more traumas in the wake of each sufferer, as the children inherit the "disease of silent despairing loneliness, heartbreak, confusion, and guilt."
The descendants of the generations who experienced colonial invasions first-hand carry the effects into their lives today.
The continuity of colonial domination of Native communities — despite the rhetoric of “respect”, “reconciliation”, and “trust”— exacerbates the causes of despair and suicide.
The present generation carries in their souls the ache of the original trauma and blame themselves for a historical legacy that continues.
Douglas Quan quoted Carrie Bourassa:
"The youth in Attawapiskat made a list of what they need: YWCA, swimming pool, hockey rink, new school, more teachers, no alcohol on reserve, parenting classes. They want supports and they want healthy things to do."
This youthful wish list tears at the heart. Social welfare programs may improve material conditions, but this does not translate into healing the soul.
Suicide clusters are not caused by a lack of swimming pools and hockey rinks. New schools and more teachers and parenting classes will not reduce suicide if the curriculum still focuses on "civilizing the Indians."
HEALING HISTORICAL UNRESOLVED GRIEF
And that brings us to the point where souls meet history. This requires facing and speaking about historical trauma that lives on. It requires dealing with the holocaust of Original Nations and Peoples.
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart and Lemyra M. DeBruyn put it this way in 1998, in the journal American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research:
Major social problems challenging American Indians today can be better understood and resolved by incorporating the concepts of historical unresolved grief and historical trauma into any analysis of present social pathologies.
Birgil Kills Straight and Steven Newcomb, founders of the Indigenous Law Institute, proposed "Historical Unresolved Grief Seminars":
Through traditional healing methods such as the "wiping of the tears" ceremony and the purification lodge, our peoples can be assisted to work through and release their grief and pain and re-channel that energy in productive ways.
Accordingly, we must broadly define the "recovery process”. … Recovery must include the active retrieval of our languages, cultures, and traditions, including Traditional Native Law, to assist our communities to one day have "recovered" a sovereign spiritual way of life, based on community and environmental health and well-being.
The difference between “traditional” Indigenous societies and “modern” industrial, capitalist societies is that the former are focused on living in balance with Earth and among “all our relations”, while the latter are on a suicide course of greed, accumulation, and imbalance.
As Earth is cleansing Herself of destructive, unbalanced ways, our way is, as always, to walk in balance with Her. Our lives and Hers are inextricably the same. No matter what is ahead, we will make life good.
i suspect that this body of work could be turned into a kind of telecsope
and that telescope could in turn be turned to look at the whole world
because once i saw what was going on
once i saw that the elephant was not an elephant
i became a native of Earth
without rights
or land
or clean water
or a place place to live
or a street i could walk down without hearing
die
die
die
or neighbors
that were not the random leavings
of the wind
on this demon hanted world
In my bones, I suspected this.