Back to Index

Gilbert Oskaboose Watch out for some elders!
by Gilbert Oskaboose

 

Respect all of the white-hairs, but select your elders carefully. All have travelled the Sacred Hoop of Life - but many are none the wiser for the trip!

You have to keep an eye on some of these old-timers; many of them are just plain full of shit. I know that's not going to sit well with those into elder worship, but that's just the way it is.

Most of them spent their own lives drunk, abusing themselves and their children. Now they have snow on their heads, have sobered up and have mysteriously turned into "all-wise and all-sacred elders," dispensing good, bad and irrelevant advice to people who didn't know them back in the old days.

They consistently stand in the way of change. "That's not the way things were done in our time" they whine.

We accord them too much respect, hanging on to their every word, and placing them on pedestals and Elder's Councils to "t'ink about" and rule on matters far beyond their limited understanding.

Indians in Canada are abandoning mainline churches in droves, seeking their own spirituality. Standing in the way are the old-timers. They were told by the Church, decades ago, that all Indian religions are bad and they believed the priestly bullshit. Now they are the strongest supporters of established churches.

They were part of the generation that stood by, hat in hand, and allowed the federal government and missionaries to take away their children for the horrors of residential school. "Taked good care my kids, eh Fadder"

They were the ones that ridiculed and rejected us when we came home - without our languages, our customs and our ways. They called us little brown whitemen because we no longer knew how to speak the language, or make a fire or track an animal through the woods.

They bragged of their "oral traditions." The down side of having an oral tradition is that nothing ever gets written down, nothing is recorded for posterity. So now the people are left to reinvent their born-again spirituality as they go along. People are just making up the ceremonies and the words as they go along. No record was ever kept.

People are just doing their own thing. With this new born-again spirituality infesting Indian Country people are becoming pipe-carriers overnight. They're becoming teachers and visionaries and medicine people overnight. They are loonies out there prescribing medicines they know little or nothing about. One girl faithfully followed one old guru until she caught on that the only way she was going to get an eagle feather was horizontal on his bed. There's elders out there abusing children in sweat lodges. Heading up this motley assortment of New Age Indians heading into the 21st century are these self-proclaimed, self appointed and self-anointed "elders."

 Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

And don't criticise what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend a hand

For the times they are achangin'

Bob Dylan - social critic and poet emeritus of the 60's

Seems to me that there should be more to becoming an elder than simply aging chronologically. If you were brain dead with nothing to offer your community when you were 18 it's unlikely anything changes when you turn 81. ...Think about it.

Gilbert Oskaboose, a retired Ojibway journalist from the Serpent River First Nation in Northern Ontario wrote a weekly column here on FirstNations.com. With the permission of his family, we are privileged to continue to present Gib's words and stories, many of which are still relevant today.

Gib is a residential school survivor. During his retirement, Gib was engaged in a class action law suit against the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the federal Department of Indian Affairs for their respective contributions to a residential school lost childhood.

In 2000, Gib suffered a stroke and he was no longer able to continue writing.. He his mind and spirit are still strong though his body is now weak. Gib is currently living in an nursing home in Ontario. Thanks and well wishes go out to him and his family.

As Gib would say, "Write on, young native writer, write on...." His hope is that young writers will pick up their pens and use their voice to comment and describe the world we live in.

The pen has been now been passed to you, the next generation.