Wrong Way of Thinking: Search for Missing Indigenous Women.

There our Indigenous Women buried in a land fill in Winnipeg Manitoba. They were killed and put in the big blue dumpsters. The big blue dumpsters are emptied into big garbage trucks. The garbage trucks drive up the big blue bins, lower the hydraulic forks and position them into the slots of the big blue The contents of the big blue bins are compacted under great pressure from hydraulic squeezers, moveable walls to make room for more contents of big blue bins. The garbage trucks then take the full hoppers and go to the local land fill and empty the contents. Big Caterpillar machines like a Compactor move the contents by flattening them and covering them with mud, earth. 

There are known to be four Indigenous Women currently buried (if you can call it buried) under a mountain of compacted trash, rotting produce, mud and earth. The current government body in the Province have made it an election issue. They have polled the voters and see their base of voters, old white people and rural voters, are against searching for the Indigenous Women's remains. I guess it is part of their value system. They are not citing the costs, but instead are saying it is a health hazard to dig around the land fill. Despite the analysis of various experts which proclaim it can be and has been done safely in other cases. For me, I think this, it has nothing to do with safety but it is part the costs, but mostly the lack of will. For this governmental political party they have no empathy, no regard, no care for the family, the community of First Nations.  For them it is a given, the Indigenous population is not worthy of their voice, their thoughts, their will.  I feel this is a wrong way of thinking. I will never understand people who begrudge others, hold others in distain, and have contempt just because those are not like them. What a way to live. In my mind, there are so many who have a skewed, ugly and wrong way of thinking. The way of thinking is not political, it is a societal thing; "we don't like them", essentially they (white society and conservative don't like us). 

We all have some ways of thinking which may be wrong. I have thoughts that are plain wrong, but still think that way, no matter if I know it is wrong.  So I guess it is the same with people who are not in favor of searching for the Remains. I was not overly surprised but sadden to see that only 60% of Indigenous people who were asked about the search, supported the search. So 40% of our own people did not agree with looking for the Women, in the garbage dump, aka the Land Fill. Now that is really wrong thinking. Do they not realize the significance of Women? How important Women are in our communities, our families and in the whole World? It goes beyond the question, "what if it was your mom, your sister, your daughter, your auntie, your cousin." It is a way of life, the importance we place on all living beings and the importance of the Life Givers. These 40% Indians are lost. They have become thinkers of dollars. They are putting dollars as important, even more important than the Lives of Beings, of Women. They see the Tree as a potential for dollars, the water as potential for dollars, the minerals only as what they can bring in dollars. Such a sad way and wrong way to think. I bet they think men, the male is more important than the female, the Women. 

Let's use this moose illustration put out by the Manitoba Department of Sustainable Development and the Nisichawayashik Cree Nation. It shows the importance of the cow moose and the bull moose. It demonstrates the long term affect of killing the female. Of course I'm not comparing the Indigenous Woman to the Cow Moose. It is a value illustration on Life Carrying Beings. 

To put it in Cultural Context of Indigenous thinking consider this: 

"A friend of mine from Hazelton British Columbia (home of the Gitxsan) told me about their Clan systems and how they are still very strong in their Bands (called Tribes in the U.S. and called communities elsewhere) over there. The Women carry the Clans. So they are very important in keeping their Cultural ancestry.  Over in the BC area the Indians there have a system in their governance, their Clans of using the Feast Hall (Give-Away system), you may know it as the Potlatch. If there is something horrible that happens, the Feast Hall would be the place to address the issue. Take for example if someone runs over a young girl while intoxicated-drunk.  Well how can there ever be peace with for the person and how can they make amends? You can never ever bring a life back or replace her life. In the Gitxsan the repercussions are even far reaching than immediate family and extended family (in the Native community our families are huge, not only by biological but by extended, not by blood). So the young girl was a carrier of Clan members. She is not able to carry Clan member because her life was taken.  How can you make up for that as well?  So the man can try the Feast Hall or the Potlatch, to try make some kind of peace and amends. The family of the Girl and the Clan do not have to accept his Potlatch attempts. And that is their choice ( I would most likely never accept apology but who knows). So the family may never ever accept the acts by the person, but the person may try every year to provide the Potlatch for the community and family."

The story from Ardythe of Hazelton shows us Indigenous thinking is significantly different from the wrong thinking of those who don't support the Landfill Search. They have a wrong way of thinking.