The B. C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres is inviting men to stand together to end violence against Aboriginal women and children.
The Fourth Annual Moose Hide Campaign’s Gathering of Men will take place at the Hotel Grand Pacific from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Feb. 12.
The event will be followed by a press conference on the front steps of the B.C. Legislature at 1 p.m.
First Nations chiefs and elders will be joined by MLAs, senior RCMP officials, government employees, university students and representatives from the White Ribbon Campaign.
As part of this day of action, men across Canada are being encouraged to take part in a one-day fast, refraining from eating or drinking from the time they wake up till the time they go to sleep.
“We introduced this new approach last year. We had a large number of men at last year’s gathering who fasted,” BCAAFC executive director Paul Lacerte told Ha-Shilth-Sa.
Lacerte explained that violence inflicts trauma upon its victims, and in Indigenous culture, ceremony and fasting are part of the healing process. By fasting voluntarily, men can demonstrate their commitment to ending the violence.
“But I should make it clear: fasting is totally optional. There are all kinds of reasons, including health reasons, why somebody may choose not to fast,” he added.
Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council Vice-President Ken Watts has taken the Moose Hide Campaign to heart, although he will not be able to attend this year’s Gathering.
“I have attended the past two years, but unfortunately, I will not be able to this year. I will be attending a meeting with the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs, talking about a number of issues that affect our Nuu-chah-nulth people, starting with the herring fishery,” he said.
Lacerte, whose wife Asma Antoine is a member of Toquaht First Nation, came up with the idea for the Moose Hide Campaign in August 2011. He and his daughter Raven were cutting up a moose harvested near the infamous Highway of Tears between Prince George and Prince Rupert when it occurred to him that the moose hide could be used as a visible token of support in the campaign to end violence against Aboriginal women and children.
Lacerte said there’s no contradiction in linking hunting with the protection of women and children.
“It’s a foundational part of our Indigenous communities since time immemorial. So much of the transmission of intergenerational knowledge takes place during these activities.”
One especially critical part of the training is developing respect for the animal being harvested, as well as learning the most effective practices for preparing and preserving the various foods and byproducts such as the hide.
Following that hunt, Lacerte and his family cut up the hide into small squares and the Moose Hide Campaign was born.
Watts said the moose hide square he wears has become a great conversation starter in his dealings with people across the country.
“A lot of people see it and ask what it’s all about. It’s my way of telling people that I am standing up to end violence against women and children.”
One fact that the Moose Hide Campaign emphasizes is that violence against women and children has never been a part of Indigenous culture in Canada. The practice would threaten the survival of any hunter-gatherer peoples living in small remote communities, Lacerte said.
“There are very specific protocols in aboriginal culture. These protocols are very much about protection and about safety,” he explained.
The use of violence against children as part of the rearing process is very much an introduced concept, coming mainly, but not exclusively, through five generations of residential schools, Lacerte said.
Gender based violence flows, in part, from that multigenerational trauma, but Aboriginal women have been hit hardest.
In Canada there are nearly 1,200 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, while in B.C., the Highway of Tears has become a corridor of death for women of all ethnicities, although they have been predominantly Indigenous.
“One of the questions we’ve been asked is, ‘Why are we just focusing on Aboriginal women? Why isn’t it a campaign just to end violence against women’?” Lacerte said.
“The answer is that Indigenous women hold a very unfortunate and very unique place in our society. They are disproportionately represented in all the wrong places: the prison population, the education system, the child welfare system, the justice system… you name it, and Indigenous women are on the bottom level of every social and economic indicator in this country.”
Lacerte said there is a need for targeted strategies to deal with what has become a systemic lack of respect for Indigenous women in Canada. People need to think and to be challenged about the assumptions they hold about aboriginal women, or Indigenous people in general, for that matter.
When policymakers operate under false or racist assumptions, they perpetuate racist and, more tellingly, ineffective policies, Lacerte said.
Once launched, the Moose Hide Campaign attracted attention across Canada. The Gathering of Men was a natural evolution, Lacerte said.
“When we started the campaign four years ago, we decided it would be important to have some kind of an annual event. So many of the women’s events happen on or around Valentine’s Day—the Stolen Sisters marches, the Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women’s marches. You attend those events and it tends to be 90 to 95 per cent women. So we thought it was important to position our Men’s Gathering right before Valentine’s Day, as a sign of love for our women—never mind the Hallmark Cards.”
The timing also coincides with the return of the B.C. Legislature, Lacerte noted. The Moose Hide Campaign has earned the support of MLAs on both sides of the legislature. Having these elected representatives, whose legislation has direct effects on Aboriginal communities and people, has been critical, he added.
For too long, women have had to shoulder the burden of advocacy, Lacerte said. Now it is time for men to take their place in the fight, and the Men’s Gathering is one place to start.
“For men, we’ve just been silent on this issue for too long. There was a time when, if there was a case of domestic violence, the story was, ‘That’s none of your business.’ And that was never the philosophy in the Indigenous community, because we’re so communal in nature… The entire construct of Indigenous cultural theory and community development theory is dependent on pure support and pure accountability.”
Watts said his goal now is to increase the visibility of the Moose Hide Campaign in Nuu-chah-nulth territory.
“I’ve brought back the Moose Hide squares to our chiefs and to our members. Now I’m thinking about starting a new campaign here, using deer hide.”
Former NTC president and Nuu-chah-nulth statesman Cliff Atleo, through the auspices of the First Nations Health Council, has recorded a short YouTube message in support of the Moose Hide Campaign. It can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPNz1Ypj430 .
The Hotel Grand Pacific is located at 463 Belleville St. on Victoria Harbour. For more information about the Feb. 12 Annual Gathering of Men, contact BCAAFC at 1-250-388-5522. To learn more about the Moose Hide Campaign, visit the website at www.moosehidecamapign.ca.
