Traditionally, within the Indigenous way of life, women were honoured. They were matriarchs, respected within the community, playing an important role in the self governing, they were central to the family's way of life, and they had significant roles within the spiritual ceremonies and belief systems.
While all communities and tribes were unique and varied in the ways they functioned, one thing was certain, they were self-sufficient. And women were revered.
When we talk about Indigenous women today, what do we know and what do we hear? Stories of abuse, trauma, abduction, pain, sorrow... murder. The vast number of women who have gone missing and/or have been murdered is both shocking and heartbreaking. So where did this all begin? Why does this continue to happen? Why are Indigenous women still being attacked?
The dissolution of the stature and respect of Indigenous Women didn't happen over night. It hasn't always been this way.
Travel with me back to 1867 when the the Indian Act was created. This piece of legislation sought to not only assimilate and/or annihilate all Indigenous people, but it specifically dehumanized and discriminated Indigenous women. It undervalued, undermined and disrespected Indigenous women in every way possible.
Control. Power. Authority. When the Indian Act was enacted in 1876, it obliterated Indigenous people's entire way of living. Even though, each tribe was unique. Even though each tribe had its own economy and way of trade with the europeans. Even though each tribe was surviving on its own. The Act then told all Indians where to live, what/where they could hunt, how they could live, and perhaps most devastating of all, just exactly HOW Indian they were. Blood quantum and status serves one purpose, and that is to assimilate the Indian - to rid our country of the Indian problem.
Being an Indigenous woman present day, this piece of legislation still determines how Indian I am. I have a card that determines how much Indian blood runs through my veins. Today, I have made peace in my mind, by not allowing the Indian Act to determine how Oji-Cree I am. But for all the Indigenous women who came before me, my heart aches for them. The Indian Act changed everything for them within their communities, within their families and within their hearts. Lowered from her place of honour, she was now diminished, targeted as a problem, and destroyed.
The women in my family have experienced the pain and effects of the Indian Act. Losing your status because you marry a white man, having your children taken from you because someone else was better fit to educate them, your traditions being called savage, your mind determined incompetent, and your skin an indication of how "dirty" you were.
And now 144 years since its enactment, I bet you've started to notice Indigenous women. We are rising up. 144 years of being told how dispensable we are, how unimportant we are, of experiencing broken relationship with the government, of being targeting and murdered for the colour of our skin and the blood in our veins, we're now healing ourselves and our children. 144 years since the Indian Act became law, and many people don't know it exists, many don't know what purpose it serves or why it matters. 144 years since the enactment and maybe today, now, you no longer have to say "this doesn't affect me", maybe you can say "I see how this has impacted you, as an Indigenous woman, and that matters to me."
