Trauma Intro | Iethka

Introduction

This is about a path towards recovery from historical trauma that most Indigenous People have endured the past 500 plus years. It is a compilation of knowledge that I researched to in order to regain balance within my-self of what had happened to me to be the way I ended up at the age of 30 years old. Destitute, fearful, single, uneducated, unemployed, angry, remorseful and ashamed. It is about a journey of self realizations that led me to being able to become “functional” in this society. It is a look at history through eyes and hearts of the people that had been subjected to many atrocities in the name of progress and “civilization”. It is not a good story but it is a story that needs to be told so that North America can reconcile from it’s past and move forward to a better relationship with all it’s inhabitants and environment.

Ancient & Early History

The following is a chronology of some findings and events in the past that have effected us. It starts off with some general history and then more into specifics in regards to us as Indigenous People of The Northern Plains and Boreal Forest area.

30-34 million yrs. BC - Anthropoidea was found in Africa and South America

2.5 million yrs. BC - Author:Henry Ogg Forbes; In the Pleistocene, remains of many still living species have been brought to light both in the New and the Old Worlds, and unmistakable osseous remains, as well as abundant evidences of his handiwork, prove the existence of Man at that remote epoch.

130,000---Prehistoric humans - perhaps Neanderthals or another lost species occupied what is now California some 130,000 years ago, a team of scientists reported. If humans actually were in North America over 100,000 years earlier, they may not be related to any living group of people.

33,000yrs BC - Remains of people found together with extinct giant sloth remains in South America at Monte Verde, Chile, a human footprint was discovered not far from what appeared to be three hearths dating to about 33,000 years ago. 7,000 years before anyone could have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge into modern Alaska. In November, the 30,000-year-old bones of apparently human-butchered giant sloths showed up in Uraguay, Soth America. And in March 2016, researchers found possible stone tools in Brazil that date back to about 22,000 years ago.

13,000 yrs. BC - Remains of a body is found in an underground cave in the Yucatan jungle. Based on carbon-dating and other chronology testing, the researchers estimate “the small, slight” girl lived between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago.

13,000 yrs. BC - Findings of human activity in Lake Minnewanka (Banff).

11,000yrs. BC - Siouxian spear pts found near Sundre, James Pass digs

11,000 yrs. BC - Fluted pts found near Banff (Vermillion Lakes)

10,000 yrs. BC - Mastodon remains found with a spear in it in the North.

10,000 yrs. BC - Horse and camel remains were found in North America.

Thousands of years - Lived independently on Turtle Island(North America).

Early in their encounters with Aboriginal peoples, European newcomers struggled to conceive of and understand a continent teeming with (what was to them) mysterious peoples with highly unusual ways of doing things. Often the Europeans rejected the possibility that these civilizations could have arisen independently of Europe or Asia. Where the evidence to the contrary was inconvenient to their own worldview, Europeans sometimes simply stopped seeing it. Consequently, the myth developed that pre-contact Aboriginal societies were unsophisticated, unchanging, and primitive. This suited the newcomers’ agenda, but it was nothing like the truth.

More than 500 identifiable groups emerged in North America during the pre-contact era (that is, from 1000 to 1492 CE). Although tremendously diverse, the groups within each region of the continent shared many common features, including civilizations, survival strategies, kinship relations, political structure, and elements of material culture. And although there were common economic and cultural features across North America and some that were shared in Meso-America and South America as well, this does not in any way indicate a single monolithic Aboriginal culture. In the northern half of North America alone the number of tongues spoken, artistic techniques perfected, songs and dance styles, architectural and engineering experiments, and systems of government can barely be calculated.