Loss of Canadian elders due to coronavirus threatens indigenous culture Morung Express

Indigenous cultural event in Heilsk, Canada. Handouts of photos by Tabish Campbell

Indigenous elders, particularly vulnerable to coronaviruses, play important roles as holders of cultural knowledge

Toronto, June 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation)- When Diane Jean Biedougan’s mother was born in 1929, there were no roads or shops in the indigenous villages of northwestern Saskatchewan.

“I’m starting to realize how much I know my mother is Dane,” said Dugan, a teacher living in Saskatoon, Canada. “Few people like my mother anymore.”

Her mother’s village, La Roche, was the epicenter of the first COVID-19 outbreak in indigenous Canada. To date, more than 200 people in the community have been infected by the virus, killing two residents of a nursing home.

The most vulnerable are the elderly, who are frequently exposed to conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, putting them at risk.

In some areas, more than 85% of older indigenous people have been diagnosed with at least one chronic disease, according to a survey by the Statistics Canada and the Association of American Friendship Centers.

Chris Scribe, director of the Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan, said the elders have played an important role as guardians of the cultural knowledge, history and traditions of the next generation for thousands of years.

“If they leave the earth, the textbook will leave,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Dugan remembers that his mother spoke during a family’s berry-hunting journey and worried that she might not have the time to gather all the knowledge and pass it on to her child.

“Being raised as an indigenous person, you listen to it over and over again, which is a way of telling oral history,” Dugan said.

Health effects

Due to strict travel restrictions, Canadian indigenous people, who make up about 5% of the population, have so far avoided the worst effects of pandemics.

Overall, Canada reports about 92,000 and more than 7,000 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University, but at least 613 cases and 11 indigenous cases, according to the Yellowhead Institute, an indigenous-led think tank. Deaths have been reported.

Medical experts warn that COVID-19 can have devastating effects if it occurs in an indigenous community.

Unlike Dugan’s mother, many older people were forced to head their communities to urban centers as they grew older due to lack of health and care facilities.

According to the National Institute for Aging, a Ryanson think tank, more than 80% of Canada’s COVID-19-related deaths occur in nursing homes.

John Cutfeet, a researcher at the Yellowhead Institute, said: “This is very traumatic and detrimental to the community as knowledge and corporate memory are significantly disrupted.

He started it in the late 1800s and compared it to the housing school system, which forced the separation of indigenous children from their families and exposed them to horrific abuse at housing schools.

“It’s a continuation of removing people from our land,” Katfeit said in a comment in an email.

“Blindfold”

In response to COVID-19, the federal government in March allocated $ 305 million to the needs of the indigenous community for food and medicine, with an additional $ 130 million allocated to Canadians for indigenous people. Prepared to support the Northern Territories.

Last week, we pledged another $ 650 million to help indigenous communities respond to COVID-19.

But these funds cannot fill a large gap in health care infrastructure, local experts say. In British Columbia, an alliance of indigenous chiefs whose communities form the Central Coast First Nation sent an open letter to the provincial government in May responsible for the protection of indigenous health. Shared data.

One of the signatories was Marilyn Threat, the highest member of the Heilsk Tribal Council. In her remote community, only 30 speak fluent Hailitsk and are over 75 years old.

Slett told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the community has a very limited capacity to deal with outbreaks and there is only one ventilator at the health center, which raises concerns about mental health.

“One of our patriarchs told me she didn’t feel this way about isolation and amputation because she was at a residential school,” she said.

But Threat said he had hope. “We are 700 generations of Heiltsk,” she said. “We are resilient people.”

In Clyde River, an Inuit settlement of 1100 people in Nunavut, non-profit Ilisaqsivik Society maps COVID-19 locations to 84 local elders, sends care packages, and creates educational radio shows. Is preparing.

“The community is very culturally related and there is a great lack of linguistically related health resources,” said Malcolm Lanta, a director of the Irisa Cubic Association.

The Nunavut Territory, which is endemic to the majority, is the only region or province where no cases have occurred so far. “It would be a miracle if this was a corner of the world where the COVID-19 didn’t creep in,” Lanta said.