Top News - September - 2004
Unity ride completes marathon trip at Six Nations
Workplace health and safety an emerging priority
Toronto martial arts group visits North Korea
This is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the September 2004 issue of Birchbark. If you are not receiving your own copy of Birchbark, then you have missed out on a lot.Click here for Birchbark subscription information.
Unity ride completes marathon trip at Six Nations
L.M. VanEvery, Birchbark Writer, Six Nations
A 2,200 km journey that began in Sioux Valley, Man., ended Aug. 27 when the Unity Ride and Run entered Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. The Interntional Indigenous Elders Summit opened there that same day.
The Unity riders travelled the width of Six Nations land along Chiefswood Road, and reached their destination at the banks of the Grand River within Chiefswood Park just after noon.
From one end of the reserve to the other, community members lined the roadway to greet the riders and runners. Homemade signs were posted on telephone poles in front of their houses.
Six Nations Police and Ontario Provincial Police vehicles escorted the procession from Little Buffalo to Chiefswood Park and blocked off sections of the road as the procession moved across the territory.
Six Nations youth and others joined the procession and carried the Hiawatha Belt flag to represent the Haudenosaunee people. The procession numbered about 100. An additional few hundred people waited inside the park.
Once at Chiefswood, chiefs, clan mothers and faith keepers of the Iroquois Confederacy greeted the Unity Ride and Run. The Ganohonyohk (Thanksgiving Address) was given by Leroy Hill, confederacy faith keeper. Once that concluded, Hill remarked, "This is something you don't see everyday. This is something you don't see often enough." Photographs of the greeting between the confederacy and the Unity riders were banned.
Tom Deer, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, welcomed the Unity Ride participants in the Mohawk language and later translated his words into English.
"When people come into our territory carrying a message, we will caress your from your long journey. We will begin from the top of your head to your feet," he explained. "We will remove any barriers from your bodies and we will offer you a drink of cool clear water. This community is open to you and we welcome you and we will provide you and take care of your needs while you are here," he added.
Using "the words the ancestors have left us," Deer concluded the welcome and invited the people of the Unity Ride to give the message they had brought.
Arvol Looking Horse, who identified himself as the spiritual leader of the ride, then addressed the people gathered.
"Today we gather because we have many prophecies among our nations," he said. Looking Horse, a nineteenth generation keeper of the sacred buffalo calf pipe, explained how the pipe led them to the people of the Eastern Door.
"We are very thankful that you have opened your door for us."
The opening ceremonies included blessing the horses and singing of the Horse Song to honour them. A horse was given to the confederacy chiefs as a gift from the Unity Ride. The opening ceremonies concluded with shaking hands between the people of Six Nations of the Grand River and the Unity Ride participants.
The six-day Elders Summit 2004 continued until Sept. 1.
Topics discussed included preservation of languages, preservation of traditional medicine, South and Central American issues of survival, and women recovering from colonialism and historical trauma.
The primary aims of the Elders Summit were to provide a forum for Indigenous youth, women and Elders to share visions, knowledge and concerns for the future. Haudenosaunee knowledge of the Great Law and the Code of Handsome Lake was shared with all Indigenous people in attendance.
On the last day, the Ending of the 500-Year Cycle and Beginning of a New Cycle was discussed by Elder Leon Secatero, who has studied this topic for much of his life.
Nations represented at the summit included Haudenosaunee, Inuit, Lakota, Cree, Anishnabek, Algonquin, Innu, Kogi, Navajo, Okanagan, and Inago, Kofan and Siona from the Amazon.
A social at the community hall in the village of Ohsweken marked the conclusion of the Summit. An Elders Declaration and a Youth Declaration developed there will be carried to the United Nations along with a strategy for implementation at a later date.
Workplace health and safety an emerging priority
Joan Taillon, Birchbark Writer, Six Nations
Six Nations of the Grand River has been proactive in the area of employee safety since 1993. Their health and safety council developed a health and safety policy manual for the band and has implemented that since 1995.
This year for the first time, the band council's health and safety committee plans to hold an All First Nations Health and Safety Conference at their newcommunity hall in Ohsweken.
The seminars and workshops will be held from from Oct. 19 to 22.
With 500 employees in their organization working under the auspices of the band council, they take the issue of employee health and safety seriously and do all they can to keep abreast of safety concerns and changes to work regulations, Cheryl Bomberry, a spokeswoman for the health and safety committee, said. Their 16-member health and safety committee most recently updated its long-standing policy manual in January 2004, she added.
Now the committee wants to trade knowledge and expertise around issues of employee safety with others, so it is inviting First Nations to their reserve next month to share what they know. Bomberry said Six Nations wants to assist other band organizations to form their own health and safety committees, which she said is becoming recognized as an urgent priority as the laws surrounding occupational safety and health are increasing and changing rapidly.
"Even on the reserves, you still have to follow the Canada Labour Code. So we're just trying to keep up to date and then help all the other reserves too."
For this reason they have dedicated a workshop to the topic of developing a joint health and safety committee.
A number of other agencies are participating in putting on the workshops and seminars and helping with the conference organization, including the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. A turnout of 200 is expected, but they can accommodate 600 in the hall built last year, Bomberry said.
One of the key presentations at the conference will be about the roles and responsibilities of chief and council as an employer. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada is providing a facilitator to discuss the implications of federal Bill C-45, which concerns the criminal liability of organizations.
Another presentation on workplace well-being will deal with the workplace environment, including stress, ergonomics, communicable diseases and employee assistance programs. Another will deal with the other side of the coin-workplace violence.
One other area that is getting more attention than formerly is emergency preparedness. Six Nations Fire Department, Police Services and Ambulance Services will lead discussions on the roles and responsibilities of the band council in managing community emergencies.
Afternoon and evening social activities are also planned for registrants.
Bomberry pointed out that the logo on the conference brochure was conceptualized by a Grade 6 student from Oliver M. Smith-Kawenni:io Elementary School. Tyler Hill won the spot in a design contest held last May.
Conference information will be posted on the Six Nations' Web site at www.sixnations.ca under Bulletins, Bomberry said.
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Toronto martial arts group visits North KoreaJoan Taillon, Birchbark Writer, Toronto
It is the trip of a lifetime.
For at least one man, it will be the second trip of a lifetime when the Oki Chi Taw Indigenous Martial Arts demonstration team heads to South Korea at the end of the month.
Team manager George Lepine is as pumped at the prospect of his seven teammates showing off their distinctly Aboriginal combat techniques before the world as he was last year when he travelled solo to earn a gold medal in the category of Martial Art of Uniqueness at the Chungju World Martial Arts Festival.
This year's festival, the seventh, takes place Oct. 1 to 7. More than 1,000 martial arts practitioners from 36 countries will be in the city of Chungju in North Chungchong Province to showcase their athletic prowess and the specialties of their respective countries.
The Canadians, who leave for this hub of world-class martial arts on Sept. 28, are looking forward to an all-expenses-paid trip made possible by Korea's Foreign Affairs and Trade ministry, their Culture and Tourism ministry, and the Korea National Tourism Organization, which brings in at least seven team members from every country it invites.
"It's grown now so much, that they're having 700,000 people coming out to see this thing," said Lepine.
Lepine, a Métis from Manitoba, is vice-president of the North American Indigenous Games Council. He has been teaching the Tae kwon do program at Toronto's Native Canadian Centre for five years. Lepine explained that his name came up "in a variety of different applications to do with Aboriginal sport in Canada," resulting in him being approached by officials of the Korean embassy who offered his group the trip.
"They know me, because I trained under Grandmaster Cho, who is one of their dignitaries from Korea that now teaches martial arts in Canada," said Lepine.
Last year, the 42-year-old demonstrated the Oki Chi Taw (meaning "fighter" or "worthy men" in Plains Cree) art to bring an awareness of the Aboriginal combat skills and techniques that all of them will demonstrate in South Korea this year. Oki Chi Taw, Lepine explained, keeps alive the skills of the warrior lifestyle of days gone by.
In Chungju, they will demonstrate three kinds of North American Indigenous weaponry: the tomahawk, of which there are "numerous kinds"; the short lance, just slightly shorter than the height of the person who carries it; and the long lance, which is eight to 12 feet long. Mock weapons are used for training.
Five of the seven martial arts practitioners travelling with Lepine are Native. They train with him at the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto where he runs the martial arts program for a much larger group. Elder Verne Harper also is accompanying them to South Korea.
Lepine said his group consists of "members who showed outstanding performances in their martial art in the school.
"I don't just take junior belt members, because they have to have a good understanding of balance and what I call ... respect and honour within the Cree culture, of ensuring that they have the discipline to know that the things I'm about to teach them, they can't abuse them or use them incorrectly.
"So usually we start seeing a change in a student by the time they are about blue belt or red stripe level in Tae kwon do ... where they're really starting to mature as a martial artist."
That takes at least a year to a year-and-a-half.
"I don't look at gender, I don't look at race. I look at what they've done and what they can contribute and how much of a good martial artist they are."
