Mi’kmaq spirituality, like so much of various First Nations’ spirituality,  is deeply  influenced by and closely connected to the natural world. In fact, that connection to the natural world is the fundamental basis of their spirituality. The Mi’kmaq believe that living a good, balanced life means respecting and protecting the environment and living in harmony with the people and creatures that live on the earth.

Mi’kmaq culture and traditional religion is based on legendary figures like Glooscap who is said to have created the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia where we travelled by sleeping on the land and using the island of what we now call Prince Edward Island as a pillow. The Great Spirit is the creator of the world and all its creatures and they never lost that spirituality when Eastern Canada, as we now call it was not lost when Catholic priests and settlers arrived and often did their level best to destroy everything in their spirituality. Of course, the ideas of Creator and God are very similar.  Christians though often resist the similarities. They want to be different, because they expect to be superior. Sometimes the new adherents to the new religion managed to nearly wipe out the ancient spirituality of the so-called new world. Often it kept bubbling up again, sometimes in hybridized ways.

The spirituality of the Mi’kmaq people is often communicated by stories. Not really unlike the Christian stories told in the Bible. One of the Mi’kmaq origin stories told about how the world was created in 7 stage including the sky, the sun, Mother Earth and humans. I’m not sure who or what fell into the remaining stages. There are many other origin stories that describe how things came to be and how to live a good life.

As Olive Patricia Dickason and William Newbigging, explained in their book A Concise History of Canada First Nation, among the Mi’kmaq, a chief could attract followers, but the people were not subordinated to their leader’s will, except perhaps in time of war or emergencies. Even in warfare however, among many groups each individual was essentially his or her own leader. Perhaps most important of all, chiefs were expected to set an example for their people, in particular by being generous. Instead of gaining wealth through their positions, they could end up the poorest of the group because of the continual demands made upon their resources. This also happened among First Nations on the west coast as well, particularly during a Potlach.

Clearly a leader like Donald Trump would have had no interest in being a leader under such circumstances. He would not have been viewed as leadership material. I keep asking this question: who is civilized again?  Tell me again why I should think Europeans were less savage, more civilized, or more superior! It makes no sense to me.

As we were driving through eastern Canada on this trip, I kept thinking about the original human inhabitants of this wonderful country. The Indigenous people of what we now call Eastern Canada. I kept thinking about a television series I saw on CBC Gem, called Telling Our Story. 

For over 500 years the lives of the people who occupied Eastern Canada, particularly in what we now call Quebec, were disrupted, but they survived. As the narrator of The CBC series Telling Our Story said, “History with a capital “H” was told from a single point of view, but those days are over.” Thank goodness for that. The European/Canadian point of view has been dominant too long. It’s time for a fresh look.

I know some of my friends are tired of hearing indigenous stories. They’ve heard enough they say. But those stories from an indigenous perspective are only very recently been available to us. The story of white settlers have been around for hundreds of years while the indigenous stories were not listened to. I think it is time for a change and we can hear these stories for a few years more.

Spiritual colonialism of Indigenous people was as disruptive as the political kind. Until deep into the 20^th century and even beyond, Canada has tried to impose its religion on the Indigenous People of North America.  The indigenous people of Eastern Canada want to speak out and tell their story. This time, we really should listen to it. We could learn something.

As one of the Indigenous artists said on the show, “People don’t even know us.”  That is true. What a pity.

So, I am trying to tell their story to my friends. I am not appropriating their story. But as Niigaan Sinclair once told me what I could do to assist reconciliation, was to talk to my friends. So that is what I do. Many of them, no doubt, are sick of hearing me. But as Sinclair said, “they won’t listen to me, but maybe a few will listen to you.” Probably not very many but I think he has a point.

As one of the young Indigenous girls on the series said, “spirituality for me is a sense of connection to the land which makes me feel whole.”  I think I could stop right there. She summed it up. And amazingly, these words echoed ancient words of a culture from the other side of the world, India. The word “religion” is derived from an ancient Indo-European word religio, which means connection or linkage.  And that is what she was saying. It is a powerful message. It doesn’t need any supernatural beings either. Though it does not deny the possibility of the supernatural. Religion is about connection. The connection of people to each other and to the land.

Another man on the show, much older, said, “spirituality is totally different from religion.” I think he meant religion of the western colonial kind. There is another way and we can learn from it. This is not a call for anyone to abandon their own spirituality or religion. It is merely a call to open eyes.

As Alexandre Bacon, an Innu from Mashteuiatsh, said,

 “If you read the Book of Genesis it says that God created man to rule over everything that flies, that crawls, that swims. Man stands above all other animals. He is meant to dominate nature, to control it. Whereas from an Indigenous point of standpoint, we are an integral part of nature. There is no hierarchy. The bear is our brother, the moose is our brother. And when an animal  gives its life it deserves our gratitude.”

No part of the land rules any other part.  Humans are not put on this earth to rule it. They are put on earth to be a part of it. That is the indigenous perspective.  Not the indigenous perspective. One of perspectives.