Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Introduction

[A] healing ritual changes a person from an isolated (diseased) state to one of

incorporation (health) … In the transformation from one state to another, the prior state or condition must cease to exist. It must die (Allen, 1986:80).

We have been witnessing a revival of Aboriginal strength and determination across Canada in recent decades. The impetus behind this revival takes many forms:

• the restoration of traditional systems of belief and practice;

• the resurgence and reclamation of languages;

• the growth of an Aboriginal sense of national identity; and

• the reconstruction and deconstruction of Indigenous people’s history.

There are many factors contributing to the renaissance of traditional Aboriginal values and mores and the growing conviction that Aboriginal people are much more than victims of non-Aboriginal invasion and colonization. At least one of those factors can be traced to declining pressure within the last fifty years of active and aggressive colonization processes. Within the last several decades, Aboriginal people have been able to create enough cultural space and freedom to analyze and integrate concepts of “loss” and “impermanence” on their terms. They have taken opportunities that have been presented to inscribe a new relationship between themselves and the dominant culture, and to create new and renewed links between themselves and their immediate world. This has the effect of bringing Aboriginal people

together to work on issues that have long been dormant and hidden, even from their own view, and allows them to confront other issues that have run rampant in their social structures for far too long.

The growing, self-directed shift in Aboriginal communities from social and cultural disintegration to healing and community well-being provided the impetus for this research. The telling of this story can best be regarded as an effort to remind people that Indigenous social and cultural devastation in the present is the result of unremitting personal and collective trauma due to

demographic collapse, resulting from early influenza and smallpox epidemics and other infectious diseases, conquest, warfare, slavery, colonization, proselytization, famine and starvation, the 1892 to the late1960s residential school period and forced assimilation. These experiences have left Indigenous cultural identities reeling with what can be regarded as an endemic and complex form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This concept is not new to Aboriginal people. The following quote by Luther Standing Bear, in reference to the residential school experience shared by Aboriginal people in Canada and the United States, articulates an understanding and recognition of this type of disorder and highlights a question of what Aboriginal people have been left with: “By and large the procedure was successful, although the legacy of damaged minds and crippled souls it left in its wake is as yet untold. Psychic numbing, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, battered wife syndrome, suicide, alcoholism, ennui - are there any names for psychecide?” (cited in Allen, 1994:112).

PTSD is a syndrome that can occur following all types of extreme stressors. However, significant to this research is that: [I]t is not only the event itself that causes the characteristic symptoms. The psychological atmosphere in a society [culture] is clearly a factor that facilitates or hinders the process of coping with stressful life events. It may be precisely this climate that will enlarge or even cause the problems of victims and survivors (Kleber, Figley and Gersons, 1995:2).

As noted above, Aboriginal people have identified this disorder themselves. Many communities have requested that PTSD be considered a diagnostic tool in the newly created healing centres across Canada. More importantly, and in a more immediate sense, there continues to be compelling evidence of a

negatively altered and unhealthy psychological atmosphere in Aboriginal culture that must be addressed and healing support must be made available. PTSD plays a role in the influence of historic trauma transmission (HTT) that will be discussed in a proposed model for healing (see Part III).

For many years, psychologists and social workers have directed their attention to continued dislocation and the social and cultural disintegration of Aboriginal people and their communities, while anthropologists have focused on specific cultural questions and chronicling ethnographic detail. There has been an understandable emphasis of researchers on the negative aspects of colonialism and historic hegemonic influences, such as the residential school experience. Most of these experiences have been viewed as “outside” influences impacting cultural mores and development. However, a hard look has not been taken at the “inside” influences of long-term psychological response and emotional impairment on community development and cultural sustainability. It has taken time for it to be generally accepted, even in mental health care circumstances, that traumatic situations may produce long, enduring changes in adjustment and personality.

During the past decade, Aboriginal people on the inside of these anthropological, psychological and social welfare studies have identified a phenomenon termed “generational grief” (a continuous passing on of unresolved and deep-seated emotions, such as grief and chronic sadness, to successive descendants).

This research will examine the effects of psychogenic (of mental origin) trauma and unresolved grief, both historic and contemporary. The effects of unresolved psychogenic trauma on Aboriginal people, termed generational, intergenerational or multigenerational grief, has been described by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation as: Intergenerational or multi-generational trauma happens when the effects of trauma are not resolved in one generation. When trauma is ignored and there is no support for dealing with it, the trauma will be passed from one generation to the next. What we learn to see as “normal”, when we are children, we pass on to our own children. Children

who learn that physical and sexual abuse is “normal”, and who have never dealt with the feelings that come from this, may inflict physical abuse and sexual abuse on their own children. The unhealthy ways of behaving that people use to protect themselves can be passed on to children, without them even knowing they are doing so (Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 1999:A5).

This concept involves physical, mental, emotional and spiritual trauma, which can be understood within a similar framework. In Sandy Johnson’s The Book of Elders, Carol Anne Heart Looking Horse discusses “the historical grief we bear [as a people] and its relation to not only the attempted eradication of our

cultures, but also the trauma our parents experienced as they were forced through this (residential school) [experience]” (as cited in Morrison, 1997:65). She observes that: As tribal nations regain control over the education of their own children … Indian teachers have been able to teach our young people about the relationship between this history and our parents’ personal experience (as cited in Morrison, 1997:65).

It is proposed that this history and its impacts go back further than is commonly acknowledged and begins with the infectious diseases that were brought ashore with the first European arrivals to this continent. The experience of historic trauma and intra-generational grief can best be described as psychological baggage being passed from parents to children along with the trauma and grief experienced in each individual’s lifetime. The hypothesis is that the residue of unresolved, historic, traumatic experiences

and generational or unresolved grief is not only being passed from generation to generation, it is continuously being acted out and recreated in contemporary Aboriginal culture. Unresolved historic trauma will continue to impact individuals, families and communities until the trauma has been addressed mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Research completed by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has already demonstrated that as abused children grow up in our communities, they learn specific behaviours and build defense mechanisms to protect themselves. These behaviours and defense mechanisms can be seen as healthy and dysfunctional at the same time. They are healthy because they help the individual survive untenable situations; and unhealthy because the individual invariably ends up imbalanced and/or continues to blame himself or herself for the abuse experienced, may lack trust and may act out the abuse experienced in a variety of dysfunctional ways. Judith Herman (1997) developed a theory of individual responses to psychogenic trauma she termed

complex post-traumatic stress disorder (Appendix 1). Following Herman, a theory has been developed that examines the role of post-traumatic stress disorder in what is termed historic trauma transmission (HTT). This stems from the impacts of epidemics immediately after contact during the 1400s, followed

by the transmission of overwhelming and unresolved emotions to contemporary generations. Aboriginal people are not only suffering from the impacts of generational grief, they are acting it out at personal

and cultural levels and recreating trauma as a way of life. Not every single individual manifests overt PTSD symptoms in their lifetime, but the expression of latent symptomatology can be extrapolated from the high incidence of lateral violence, family breakdown and community dysfunction.

Over time, the experience of repeated traumatic stressors become normalized and incorporated into the cultural expression and expectations of successive generations, while trauma manifesting as culturally endemic will not be necessarily and readily identifiable as a specific or individual disorder. It is accepted, however, that “traumatic events often have widespread and devastating impacts on health and national and community stability, even when only a few individuals are primary victims” (Ursano, McCaughey

and Fullerton, 1994:3). It is equally important to consider that “the meaning of any traumatic event is a complex interaction of the event itself and the individual’s past, present, and expected future as well as biological givens and social context” (Ursano, McCaughey and Fullerton, 1994:5). For the past five

hundred years, entire Indigenous communities have been traumatized by multiple deaths from disease, expulsion from their homelands, loss of economic and self-sufficiency, removal of children from their homes, assimilation tactics and incarceration in residential schools. Historic experiences of trauma were compounded by a loss of ceremonial freedom, dance, song and other methods that would have helped Indigenous people express and grieve their losses (Kehoe, 1989; Sullivan, 1989; Ross, 1992). It is understood today that massive suppression, when it is resorted to because of imposed hegemony, is particularly important to address, since it predisposes individuals to repeated traumatization in very specific ways (Freud, 1985; Furst, 1967; Figley, 1985; Wilson, 1989), as defined in Herman’s (1997) Trauma and Recovery. Psychologists have stressed that no traumatic event is ever wholly assimilated and, to some degree, an increased vulnerability invariably persists, if only to create repetitions of the original trauma (Freud, 1985; Greenacre, 1958).

In the Americas, Indigenous people across the continent were subjected to severely depressing experiences, generation after generation, beginning in the late 1400s. Current reawakening and rebuilding of Indigenous cultural institutions can be regarded as a direct result of Indigenous people shaking off the yoke of endemic social-cultural depression and what is being termed complex and/or endemic post-traumatic stress disorder (Herman, 1997). The title of this paper suggests this complex is a direct result of what is termed historic trauma (HT) and historic trauma transmission (HTT), with one (PTSD)

being the result of the others (HT and HTT); all of which are a result of unmitigated stressors. In the past, the bulk of studies and research on post-traumatic stress disorder has been directed towards the consequences of war, violence, disasters, genocide, etc., on individual victims. Practitioners note:

“Trauma destroys the social system of care, protection, and meaning that surrounds an individual [victims are set apart and] “[i]mpaired social relations are the result” (Kleber, Figley and Gersons, 1995:299).

There is a belief that the meaning of trauma goes beyond the individual level and can be applied to a broader social and cultural context. As noted in Judith Herman’s book, Trauma and Recovery: “Studies of war and natural disasters have documented a “dose-response curve,” whereby the greater the exposure

to traumatic events, the greater the percentage of the population with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder” (1997:57).

In order to create and define clear models and best practices to continue strengthening and reinforcing Aboriginal capacity for social resolution and social action, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms put in place by colonizers to marginalize and downgrade Aboriginal people’s personal roles and life ways. These mechanisms served to destroy Aboriginal culture and social domains, to restrict their social mobility, to disfavour them in access to resources and to create or accentuate inequities within and between Aboriginal communities. Some of these mechanisms were not entirely or consciously deliberate; nevertheless, they had the same effect on Aboriginal identity and social capacity. Other influences included: waves of disease resulting in death and dislocation of healers, teachers and spiritual leaders; greed for lands and resources; and unwanted or forced interpersonal interactions between invaders and Indigenous people across the continent.

Contact with colonizers changed everything for Indigenous people. The epidemics caused severe social disorganization for Indigenous societies. Traditional social structures, alliances and kinship ties were disrupted. Confidence in traditional leaders and healers was undermined. Those left alive in the aftermath of war and disease lost hope and social disintegration followed. This “disease factor” differentiates the history of colonization of the Americas from other regions of the world. It explains why Europeans were successful in destroying civilization after civilization in the New World. As Wright proposes: Europe possessed biological weapons that fate had been stacking against America for thousands of years. Among these were smallpox, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, yellow fever, cholera, and malaria - all unknown in the Western Hemisphere before 1492 (1992:13-14).

Aboriginal people were separated from their land, which was always sentient to them and affected people’s lives and their social constitution through time. The introduction of non-traditional coping mechanisms damaged families, altered gender roles and diminished cultural values. Indigenous people,

before contact, lived in a complex socio-economic system that required co-operation to maximize the productivity of the landscape. After contact, Indigenous people were disfavoured in access to resources and social opportunities and killed by diseases. Colonial powers introduced sharp status distinctions, imposed strict rules for governing conduct, controlled the system of social rewards and punishments, and manipulated power and status symbols. These alterations are generally discussed in reference to past events, but it can be readily argued that the impacts have contemporary and generational application and effect. According to many, colonialism belongs largely to the historical past and was replaced by inequality and domination in other forms. This study is based on a proposition that the historical

experiences of First Nation people, which disrupted the process of Aboriginal cultural identity formation, continue to resonate in the present and that the harm done in the past continues to manifest intergenerationally into the present.

The Scope of the Study

This study investigates the issue of generationally transmitted and universal historic trauma to which Indigenous people of the Americas were exposed during centuries of colonization. Intolerable, unresolved and cumulative stress and grief experienced by communities and nations became translated, in time,

into a collective experience of cultural disruption and a collective memory of powerlessness and loss. In turn, this was passed on to successive generations as a collective contagion, manifesting itself in a variety of social problems that Aboriginal people across the continent continue to experience today. To

substantiate this thesis, an historical background is presented, drawing on examples from Indigenous cultures that came in contact with forces of colonization and assimilation. These examples, which include Indigenous nations of South and Central Americas, help explain how First Nation people were traumatized in a global context and that this global context of trauma and suffering produces similar psychological and social reactions in trauma victims, regardless of their cultural background or direct experience with the original source of the trauma.

In his analysis of the Buffalo Creek disaster in southern West Virginia of the United States, which was a devastating flood, Erikson (1976) spoke of two traumas: first, the occurrence of the event itself; and second, the destruction of community life and the loss of social contacts. It has been repeatedly

demonstrated, in the case of Aboriginal people, that traumatic impact was widespread and profound, and involved a shattering of family and community life. Alan Young (1995) argues the particularity of trauma being a disease of time in the etiological sense. That is: “the pathology consists of the past

invading the present in re-experiences and re-enactments, and of the person’s efforts to defend himself from the consequences” (as cited in Antze and Lambek, 1996:97). Young further notes that: [O]ur sense of personhood is not only shaped by our active or conscious memories, it is also shaped by our conception of “memory” which means that it is not only direct traumatic

experiences that can create negative effect, it is also present interpretations of events that can continue to impact our lives (Young, 1995:4).

To back up the contention of effect and transmission of trauma and unresolved grief, examples are drawn from European history of disease and epidemics. In order to highlight the multiple layers of the process of colonization and historic trauma that influenced and keeps influencing lives of Aboriginal people in North America, the effects of colonization on five areas of impact have been identified:

1) Physical: associated with the first stage of colonization (cultural transition) and the introduction of infectious diseases that decimated the Indigenous population and resulted in an intergenerational and culturally propagated (endemic) form of complex post-traumatic stress disorder;

2) Economic: associated with the first stage of colonization (cultural transition) and a violation of Native stewardship of land and forced removal of people from their natural habitat and life ways;

3) Cultural: associated with the second stage of colonization (cultural dispossession) and the wave of Christian missionization intended to bring about religious transformation and cultural destruction through prohibitions imposed on Aboriginal culture and belief systems;

4) Social: associated with the second stage of colonization (cultural dispossession) and the stages of Aboriginal displacement through colonial settlement, which brought alien social structures, introduced non-traditional coping mechanisms and silenced “knowledgeable subjects” within the

Aboriginal population; thereby, damaging families, altering gender roles, authority and diminishing cultural values and mores; and

5) Psychological: associated with the third stage of colonization (cultural oppression) and the marginalization of Aboriginal people, as their social selves became largely diminished and impoverished. As well, any perception of control that they had over their lives became reduced and badly undermined and, ultimately, placing perceptions regarding locus of control on the colonizers.

Findings have been organized chronologically according to the waves of colonization: cultural transition (early period), cultural dispossession (middle period) and cultural oppression (late period). It must be stressed that, for the sake of structural clarity, the five areas of impact have been categorized into three temporal stages. At each historical time, all five areas were being affected and altered, as rapid external changes kept altering Aboriginal cultural identity and eliminated the boundaries between the areas of

impact and private and public spaces. Once the physical make-up of the colonized society was changed through the devastating effects of

infectious diseases and restricted access to economic resources (cultural transition), both cultural and social structures became vulnerable to changes, modifications and, ultimately, deterioration and disintegration (cultural dispossession). Consequently, the destruction of cultural autonomy, social

integrity and cultural identity, as well as hundreds of years of relentless cultural oppression caused profound changes in the psychological make-up of Aboriginal people, discontinuities on interpersonal and communal levels, social and interpersonal conflicts, psychological dissociation on cultural levels,

and mental anguish on individual levels (cultural oppression). It is further proposed that what was done to Indigenous people in the Americas had all the characteristics of genocide and, as such, evoked similar responses to trauma that researchers observe not only in people who survived genocide, but also in their children and grandchildren. To provide evidence for the theory of trauma response and transmission and to confirm the similarities, the issue of genocide is discussed.

A variety of stories about Australian Aboriginal societies, detailed psychological research that deals with genocide victims’ reactions to their terrible experiences, as well as current studies on post-traumatic stress disorder are presented. The myriad effects of historic trauma, known as a “complex or cultural post-traumatic stress disorder” have become deeply embedded in the worldview and collective consciousness of Aboriginal people, together with a sense of learned helplessness. A cognitive social theory of learned helplessness and of internal versus external locus of control are also discussed in the

broader context of social identity formation and cultural reactions to historic and social forces continuously influencing inter and intra group relations in an Aboriginal context. Next, based on comprehensive research that brings together information from a variety of disciplines, including history, anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and political science, the proposed model of historic trauma transmission (HTT) and discussion on possible implications it may have on Aboriginal communities in Canada, the general public and government institutions are presented. The study concludes with a few words from Aboriginal Elders whose experiences, narratives, wisdom and access to other spiritual planes and visions are the ultimate testimony of Aboriginal people’s resilience and strength in their continuous battle for survival. The argument is given that historic factors strongly influenced Aboriginal people’s locus of personal and social control, engendered a sense of fatalism and reactivity to historical and social forces, and adversely influenced their social relations. In the eyes of the non-Aboriginal population, Aboriginal

people became silent, powerless constructions of “otherness,” which is a representation bounded but never relational. These complex processes, located between the inscriptions of marginality imposed on Aboriginal people by the dominant culture and Aboriginal integrity translated into cultural propositions, were never fully understood by Aboriginal people or non-Aboriginal societies.

This study brings to light the social consequences of the brutal colonization of the Americas that are trivialized by many politicians in their official discourse of power, which maintains the marginality of Aboriginal people and perpetuates the particularization of Aboriginal people’s terrible experiences. Most

Aboriginal people and most researchers who work with them agree that the “present” Aboriginal communities are a direct legacy of their traumatic “past.” It appears that the “way” people remember their past and interpret those events as individuals and as a people is what contributes to continuing

“dis-ease” in their communities. As yet, no one has successfully identified specific factors that set the foundation for on-going and unresolved grief and trauma experienced by Aboriginal people. This research specifies historical agents and details social processes that changed Aboriginal social and

cultural environments over centuries of oppression, at the same time recognizing the resilience of Aboriginal people’s social and cultural knowledge, which is presently a vital and active component in the process of defining and redefining Aboriginal identity. Only by naming and deconstructing historic

trauma and remembering the past, will Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people be able to free themselves from the oppositional realms they occupy in existing dominant and resistant cultural structures. Rod McCormick (1995/1996), who examined the facilitation of healing for First Nations people in British Columbia, states that the goal of healing for Aboriginal people “is concerned with attaining and maintaining balance between the four dimensions of the person: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual” (McCormick, 1995/1996:164). He also adds that effective healing in Aboriginal understanding focuses

on inter-connectedness between family, community, culture and nature. Thirdly, “First Nations healing requires the individual to transcend the ego rather than strengthen it” (McCormick, 1995/1996:164). McCormick (1997) concludes that these three aspects: balance, inter-connectedness and intra-

connectedness, and transcendence are the most important means and ends of the healing process, suggesting an interesting healing model he calls “healing through interdependence.” It is beyond the scope of this study to outline specific healing modalities to be used in the Aboriginal context, as this

requires yet another extensive study. Brief references will be made to best healing practices throughout this paper and will include a chapter on Implications for Healing. Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that McCormick’s thesis of “balance, connectedness and transcendence” can (and should) be used as a starting point in an exploration of possible healing strategies for Aboriginal people. Many existing Aboriginal healing programs already employ the concept of inter-connectedness in their initiatives, using the symbolism of the Medicine Wheel or the Healing Circle that integrate different elements of Aboriginal philosophy of life. Just as the four elements (spiritual, emotional, physical and mental) in each person’s life must work in unison for the balance to be achieved, all fragmented parts of Aboriginal people’s past, present and future must be re-integrated again to facilitate healing on a communal level.

According to McGaa, “interdependence is at the center of all things” (1990:xv). With this concept of interdependence of all elements in mind, the model of historic trauma proposes that, in order to understand the present social conditions of Aboriginal people, one must examine how the various

dimensions of Aboriginal people’s lives became affected and changed during the process of colonization.

Colonization caused disintegration and fragmentation of Aboriginal reality:

The Government and Church were largely successful at separating First Nations people from their culture, language, religion, families, communities, and land. First Nations people have recognized the overwhelming need to be reconnected and to reclaim that which was taken, and now are acting to reconnect and strengthen these bonds (McCormick, 1997:178).

Many historical facts from the Aboriginal past have been veiled by official discourses and sometimes by Aboriginal people themselves, because, as Neal says: “There is a tendency for the older generations to avoid talking about [the] experiences that were painful, while many members of the younger generations have little interest in [the] events that are now frozen in the past” (1998:x). Only by revealing what remains hidden and only by reconnecting people with their memories, one may achieve the inter-connectedness, interdependence and balance with the past that is so much needed or Aboriginal communities to heal at a deeper level. Once this balance of truth is achieved and all the painful elements properly connected, Aboriginal people will be able to transcend the pain and grief that has become embedded in their identity and in their social and cultural egos. Nwachuku and Ivey (1991) propose that the healing process in Aboriginal communities must begin with the exploration of people’s natural helping styles. In McCormick’s (1995/1996) study, First Nation people utilized several healing modalities to heal their communities and themselves. These included: exercise and the expression of emotion to restore balance; establishing social connections to create inter-

connectedness; and addressing spirits to achieve transcendence. All these modalities had one thing in common: they were intended to place an individual in the context of the community and were evolved around this concept:

Throughout the history of First Nations people, the definition of health evolved around the whole being of each person - the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of a person being in balance and harmony with each other as well with the environment and other beings. This has clashed with the western medical model which, until very recently, has perpetuated the concept of health as being “the absence of disease” (Favel-King, 1993:125).

There is no doubt that restoring balance is of the utmost importance to Aboriginal people. What effect is one to expect if this balance is destroyed; not only shattered, not merely damaged, but almost entirely decimated by the multiple effects of death and destruction from the early epidemics, the early mass de-population and the wanton and vicious killing that went on, especially under Spanish occupation. As Waldram, Herring and Kue Young say in their study on Aboriginal health in Canada: Epidemics were not simply medical events but had far-reaching consequences for Aboriginal societies … In some cases, whole communities were decimated … epidemics spurred on community break-up and migration … among the survivors, the loss of a significant number of community members altered leadership roles and disrupted the

existing social structures … Still, relatively little is known about the health and disease histories of particular communities or reserves, so that the picture of health and disease up to the Second World War can be drawn in only the broadest of strokes” (1995:260).

In this study, an attempt is made to draw in more subtle strokes in order to find, at least, some answers to the burning questions of why the process of healing in Aboriginal communities seems to be slowed down by apparently powerful forces that, to this day, keep people imprisoned in their troubled memories.

According to De Kerckhove, in an oral culture one only knows what one can recall, thus, “there is a heavy emphasis on memory, not merely the private memory … but the collective memory of the audience… This kind of memory is contained, not outside the rememberer, but in the words, rhythms, gestures

and performances of enacted recollections” (1991:82). De Kerckhove also says that, in oral cultures, sense is made and organized around vivid images acting in context: “the oral discourse is build around narratives” (1991:83-84).

It is proposed that early periods of colonization, during which Indigenous (oral) culture experienced ultimate death and destruction and during which the images of death became, in a sense, imprinted upon Indigenous people’s collective (non-) remembering consciousness, constitute the nucleus of

traumatic memory. This nucleus is so condensed with sadness, so pregnant with loss, so heavy with grief that its very weight constitutes a good reason why people often do not talk about it or, as one Aboriginal woman said, “it is probably too horrible to turn our gaze in that direction.” 1 Probably, “it” is so horrible because the trauma is now on the inside, as its images and grief became an unspoken internalized narrative of Aboriginal people. This study (including the findings and conclusions) may cause some uneasiness in the reader. Difficult issues are discussed and painful memories are recalled.

However, it needs to be done, together with a purposeful universalization of Aboriginal people’s experiences. Making someone’s experience (and his or her reaction to this experience) universal, means to make it available and understandable to everyone. The process of this universalization of trauma is in direct opposition to another process that has been employed so many times by researchers, government institutions and the general public: particularization. In this process, Indigenous people’s experiences and their memories have been turned into something unusual and exotic, something singled out among many “normal” lives, “normal” reactions and “normal” memories; something minute, specific only to “them” and not to others; and something encapsulated, something marginal (and “marginal” also means

close to the limit of acceptability). This study writes from these margins to which Aboriginal people were pushed by particularization of their suffering because, as McCormick says: “The time has come … to move beyond a culturally encapsulated view of the world” (1998:295).

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