When I speak about female indigenous veterans, the way that we do our ceremonies and the way that we do things culturally are a little bit different. When we're in sweat lodge ceremonies, female veterans—females, period—do not go into the sweat lodge. Because when we're on our moon time, we're considered to be very powerful, we don't take part in ceremonies and we don't take part in smudging ceremonies. These are the teachings that these indigenous women veterans need to get from female elders. The teachings are very different from what male elders would give to women. In order for female indigenous veterans to have access to culturally appropriate and spiritual...moving ahead, they need to have that ability to have one-on-one with an elder from their community.
I live in Halifax now, but I'm from Anishinabe territory by Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. If I was having difficulty and I needed to speak to an elder, I would need to speak to an Anishinabe female elder. I can't do that in Mi'kmaq territory, even though I respect the territory. I need to go back to my own territory to speak to Anishinabe women elders.
The way that our teachings come is very different, and I think that this is not an easy path to go down, what we're saying to you. It's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of understanding, and it's going to take a lot of self-reflection on how Veterans Affairs normally does things. It's looking from a two-eyed seeing approach—from the western eye in the way that you would normally work with veterans, but then from the indigenous eye in how indigenous people would work through issues and through problems. Elder Albert Marshall from the Mi'kmaq Eskasoni was the one who talked about the two-eyed seeing approach, and it's something that I've worked with my whole career, being able to move forward with that.
They are the teachings that we have to go with from the woman's perspective, and that's why it's so different.
Meegwetch. Thank you.