Preservation of Culture and Identity
Dynamic and Renewing - Ever Evolving
1 - Click on the link to hear the Elder narration.
1Four Directions Teachings.com
Dynamic Culture
It is impossible to describe a common cultural reality for all First Nations people. The various nations traditionally manifested cultural practices, symbols, and belief systems coloured by their unique experiences on the land and with each other, always conscious and connected with the Spirit world. Thus, culture expressed by sea people such as the Haida is unique compared to the culture expressed by the grasslands people of the Secwepemc. Still, all First Nations people from all over Mother Earth share the critical tenet of Relationship as central to their expressions of culture.
Culturecide
During the past two centuries, a serious disenfranchisement was forced on First Nations peoples, where the annihilation of their culture was a common and merciless goal of colonizing nations. This disenfranchisement was widespread and sinister - aimed to extinguish the power of the First Nations people. Due to the resiliency of the peoples' Spirit, cultural practices have endured, although the time-honoured oral transmission method was interrupted for more than two generations. The displacement that resulted from forced reservation relocation also had a serious influence on the cultural propagation and transfer to the next generation. Cultural practices were often forbidden, resulting in some becoming lost or forgotten, while others were adopted as nations came into contact with other nations.
Renewed Culture
Ultimately, to the Indigenous peoples of this planet, culture is living, growing, and ever evolving. The resiliency of the aboriginal peoples has enabled them to preserve the best of their traditional culture, despite generations of oppression, and to combine their own ingenuity to the knowledge of the mainstream to create new cultural rituals, artifacts, tools and objects of art.
Thus, for many aboriginal people, culture is expressed with a foot planted in the world of today and the world of yesteryear - presenting new ways of expression for the seven generations to come, yet honouring the seven generations of ancestors that came before them. There are also many First Nations peoples dedicated to restoring ancient cultural objects and art to the people - many are currently "owned" by museums, cities, and private collectors.