Foreword

From my perspective as an Indigenous person and as an Elder and Indigenous scholar, this book is a means of learning how non-Indigenous Canadians view Reconciliation.Reading it has been a great learning experience for me.My usual perspective is rooted in the Indigenous concepts of healing, wholism, transformation, and sacredness.Notions of medicine and ceremony guide my perspective.It is rooted in notions of the Creator, in our relationship to the Universe and to our Ancestors, and in our connection to the land.Also, this world has two aspects, the physical and the spiritual, which coexist and constantly affect each other.Using mainstream terms, we might call these aspects the temporal and the ontological.When we consider our relationship to non-Indigenous Canadians, we view it through these lenses.Is there a sacred aspect to the relationship?Does there need to be a sacredness to the relationship?The answers are rooted in the direction that the Creator gives us, in what the Universe tells us, in what our Ancestors tell us, and in refection on how healthy the land would be without our human efforts to keep it healthy.Healthy relationship, healthy Creation.Unhealthy relationship, unhealthy Creation.The importance of a healthy relationship best explains the need for Reconciliation.When do I view this relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples as having begun?The beginning was the arrival of the newcomers and the arrival of God in the land of the Indigenous and the land of the Creator.At that point, if no distinction had been made among us, we would have lived in the realm of the caretakers of the health of the Creation that we shared.Today, we are manifesting the history of the difference that began at the beginning.