Meeting with the Community Elders of Kangirsujuaq
The next step, over the next day or so, was to consult
with the community elders, and to take the time to hear their stories. They have been around the longest, and have
seen the changes that have come into the community, some for the better, but also changes for the worse.
They were able to identify the roots
of some of the changes, some resulting in good
fruit, but also roots buried in previous years that were and are bearing bad fruit today.
It was said of John the Baptist, who prepared
the way for the First Coming of Jesus that he “laid the axe to the root of every tree” (Luke 3:9).
These elders have lived through the transition of the
Inuit way of life all of the way from traditional
Inuit society to the contemporary
Inuit way of life. They have seen
changes in the modes of transportation…
from travel by dogsled
to travel by snowmobile,
from hunting with spears and harpoons,
to hunting in modern boats and with modern weapons.
The North's most ancient, dangerous hunt was the pursuit of the bowhead whale. This tradition fell silent due to the overhunting of the Scottish whalers in the 19rh and early 20th century, but the bowhead whale hunt has recently been reborn in Kangirsujuaq.
From living in igloos (this photo was taken in Kangirsujuaq in 1910),
to living in houses,
from living exclusively on country food, with berries,
fish
and animals
to living on a diet that also includes food shipped and flown up from the South at great expense, and with it a high cost of living.
As the Kangirsujuaq elders shared their hearts, their stories, and the changes that they have experienced over the years, they pointed out two outside agencies which, on the one hand, brought some good things into the community such as medical aid and better protection, also brought in a legacy of pain and mistrust. These were: 1) the Roman Catholic missionaries,
and 2) the RCMP, whose work in Nunavik since 1996 has been taken over by the Kativik Regional Police Force (KRPF).
The heart of these elders was not to reflect shame on
others from the past, or to lay blame or to make others look guilty, but simply
to bring some areas to the light where succeeding generations have been in the
dark so that these things could be healed, and have the blood of Jesus applied
to past injustices.
There is both the good
and the bad, the precious and the worthless, in the history of the community. When the Roman Catholic missionaries came to
Kangirsujuaq in 1936 they did many
charitable, medical and beneficial things for which the elders were
grateful.
On the other hand, some of the
elderly women themselves testified to sexual abuses having taken place, and a
spirit of sexual promiscuity that began to pervade the entire community through
some of the earliest missionaries. This
was and is in no way intended to impugn all
of the earliest missionaries, but in the elder’s experience, things like
this had happened, at least with some Inuit women who are still alive today.
Once the Anglican missionaries came in as well, the
Roman Catholics and the Anglicans were divided,
bringing division into the community, each trying to win converts to
their denomination rather than to the Headship of Jesus Christ.
Another historical event that left a legacy of pain in
Kangirsujuaq took place in the 1960’s
when the federal Government of the day ordered the RCMP to shoot all of the
Inuit dogs so as to keep the men in the communities, and from being able to
travel outside of the community where the Government was trying to insist that
they settle. Inuit were not consulted,
nor given any explanations for the killings, nor given any help in dealing with
their losses.
The impact of the dog slaughter was profound. The people in the small and isolated village
of Kangirsujuaq were left traumatized to lose such important companions to
their traditional way of life. Yet few present-day police officers in Nunavik know anything about this historic event from the past, but the fact is that the mistrust that nobody talks about has made their job even more difficult and challenging as they seek to build good community relationships.
From the standpoint of the present-day Inuit elders, the
affect of this dog slaughter in Kangirsujuaq in the 1960’s was devastating. Not
being able to get out on to the land, and hunt for a living, the men were
confined to the community. Most, if not all
of the men turned to alcohol, and became alcoholics in an effort to medicate
their pain, and the cultural and spiritual void that was inside of them.
As a result of this, children were neglected and
abused, and the children raised in these dysfunctional homes eventually turned to suicide
as the way to escape from their pain.
It is worth noting in this report that the beginning of the Canada Awakening Ministries Healing the Land's Team's time in Kangirsujuaq began with meeting the elders, but it ended with ministering to the children. The generation gap was bridged in that while the elders were dealing with past hurts, the ministry to children released much joy and hope for the future.
The Island Breeze portion of the Canada Awakening Healing the Land Team (Rona Malama, Jone Mawa and Joshua and Janelle Orcherton) spent all of Monday morning, October 15, and all of Tuesday morning and afternoon, October 16 being invited and welcomed into the various classes of the Arsaniq School in Kangirsujuaq.
One needs to understand that while organized churches of all denominations did many good things, there were also many times when they misrepresented God, and were also complicit in the residential school system in which most (but not all) Indigenous people had a negative experience. The gospel was a liberating and a freeing message, but where the church went beyond the gospel, and tried to assimilate indigenous people into the whiteman's culture and lifestyle, great harm was done. We need to learn from the past as we yearn for the future.
In my perspective, secular humanistic governments, both
at the federal and provincial
level, are still trying to control the agenda of the indigenous people at the local level, imposing upon the
schools of Nunavik, the secularist notion that all religions and belief systems
are essentially the same, and they make no distinction between a religion based upon fear, control and the love of power and a faith
based upon joy, peace and the power
of love.
Since the majority of the leaders and people of
Kangirsujuaq have a Christian faith that respects their traditional way of life
and language, in the past the governments from the South have pretty much left
it to the local people to decide what is taught in the “religion class” in school, and that meant that the Bible is what
was generally taught in schools like the Arsaniq School in Kangirsujuaq.
In more recent years, however, the secularized
bureaucracies from the South have insisted that the Christian faith can only be
taught in the school within a context that makes no distinction between all
religion, thus imposing its own secular religion based upon metaphysical
assumptions that all spiritual belief systems are equally valid. This is an assumption that cannot be
scientifically proven; therefore, it is a
faith, a belief system, a religion
if you will.
Having said this, it can be freely acknowledged that
there is at least some element of truth in all religions. Most religions have a place for some form of
the “Golden Rule” in their essential
teachings: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a fundamental
truth which is precisely what Jesus taught.
Yet, to actually experience this, we have a need for more
than teaching. We need the power and the grace to
fulfill these teachings, and this is where the Gospel comes in with a message
that gives us access to a power that is much greater than our own, and that is
to rely upon the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives rather than upon
self-effort.
It is also true that whenever the Bible is taught as
mere external laws, rules and regulations which require self-effort to fulfill, it differs little, if at all, from other
religions of “dos” and “don’ts” where the law is merely external, without the law being written
upon the table of our hearts by the Holy
Spirit.
My point is that a distinction needs to be made between
external rules which burden
one, and an internal relationship which empowers
one. Are the standards going to be
upheld by external control and the
fear of the consequences, or by an internal
law of the Spirit that gives life.
Is one’s belief motivated by a burdensome set of rules and regulations
that self-effort cannot fulfil or is it inspired and enlivened by a life-giving
Spirit?
The Arsaniq School in Kangirsujuaq
So when the vice-principal of the Arsaniq School in
Kanirsujuaq wanted to bring the members of our team into the local school, she
was under the constraint of the provincial
and federal authorities, and there
was some hesitancy at first as to whether all of the teachers would buy into having
a Christian group come into the local school.
The external law and the external jurisdictions from the South said that
all religions were to be considered as equally valuable.
In addition, some of the teachers are qallunaats (non-Inuit) from the South,
and there was concern that some of them might not approve if the school
principal and vice-principal were to have one general assembly for the whole
student body from grades 1 to 12. They
were concerned that there may be some complaints.
So the decision was made to have the team do a program
of songs, dances and sharing only with classrooms where the teacher was open,
and gave an invitation and a welcome.
This ended up taking 1 ½ days to cover all of the classrooms where
an invitation was given.
Once the other teachers began to see how exciting and
life-giving the program was, they began to ask if it was not too late for them
to get in on the program. They did not
want for the students in their classroom to miss out. Some even asked to join the program in other
classes where the teacher had scheduled a program if time did not permit to
have a program right in their own classroom.
What this tells us is that the local leaders and
authorities still carry a greater degree of influence and relational authority
if they really want something at the local level other than what any outside bureaucracy or external policy from provincial or federal authorities in the South could impose non-relationally.
The law has no power to give life, but when local people see something that is alive and uplifting, they will want
it, and that will carry more weight than any attempt of outsiders to impose
choices on a community that are not the wishes of the local people. Belief, by is
very nature, is a personal choice,
and this is why no government, whose sole agent of change is external law, can establish
a belief without imposing it. All the while, true faith is a matter of the heart that must be freely and voluntarily
embraced and received. A true faith cannot be imposed by the
coercive powers of the state.
On the final evening that our team was in Kangirsujuaq,
there were more children than usual in the church facility who wanted to be a
part of the action, and to welcome the Presence of God into their
community! Adding to the sounds of joy
that were released during the week were the sound of the Inuit drum and of Inuit
throat singing, all coming from a deep place of surrender, and all to the
glory and praise of God alone!
So while the elders have experienced much darkness from
the past, there is growing evidence
that communities like Kangirsujuaq are experiencing the dawn of a new day as the light of God’s glory shines
into hidden places that have been concealed, and have kept people in the dark
for years.
While the elders are bringing the light of grace and forgiveness into dark areas, the true light of the Creator is now
shining into these dark areas, and the children of this generation are being
given a head-start on previous generations in families where the light of the
gospel is welcomed and invited.
The way forward is not to keep looking back into the past, but to look to a future that will be different from the past through the power of God’s grace and forgiveness! A new day is
dawning!
Roger and Marge Armbruster are bridge-builders and advocates of reconciliation and social justice between people groups and cultures. They both minister cross-culturally -- Marge by teaching English to new immigrants in rural southern Manitoba, and Roger by helping to build relationships between various indigenous groups who understand the connection that there is between people and land, with a special focus on the Inuit of Canada's North.
