Beat Nation: Art, Aboriginal Culture and Hip Hop

I have been traveling around Vancouver Island for the last two weeks seeing and learning about the Culture in British Colombia. It is very different to anything I have experienced anywhere I have traveled. It is hard to adapt here, I can’t seem to connect with their ways of doing.

One aspect of Canada that particularly interests me is Aboriginal Culture and their history. However I find it hard to access. They have gift shops selling traditional jewelry, masks and paintings, but I feel their deeper cultural traditions and current situation is a bit taboo. The white society dominates here and often when I begin a conversation about the First Nations people I get a slightly negative or defensive attitude.

‘Yes but, we give them so much money and they don’t even buy clothes for their children, just spend it all on alcohol’. No one really knows enough about their history or seem that interested to continue a conversation.

If you are not familiar with aboriginal culture here is a brief summary of what happened when the settlers arrived.

A couple of hundred years ago when the Europeans, mainly British and French arrived they naturally brought foreign diseases which killed a lot of natives as they were not immune, however they also intentionally murdered thousands of innocent. In total they managed to wipe out 90% of the population. As well as this they traded cheap alcohol for the native’s buffalo which quickly made them addicted and the beginning of a road to self destruction. They forbid them to practice traditional ceremonies, to practice their religion and speak their own language. They set up churches and started residential schools. All the children were taken away from their families and educated there. The aim was to ‘kill the Indian in the child’ but often than less they just ended up killing the child completely. In the schools they abused them sexually, physically, mentally and even exposed healthy children being to children with tuberculosis. The mortality rate was estimated at 30% to 60% after entry to the school, but this is much lower than the real figure as many deaths were never recorded and there still hundreds of children missing.

The Europeans stole the land from the natives calling it their own and set up ‘reserves’ for them ‘promising’ financial help and housing. However the reserves were often on infertile lands, in isolated places with hard access to rivers etc. Most of the treaties that were signed between the natives and settlers were broken within a year and food was often not supplied. Nowadays they do receive money to live from the government, but what kind of a situation is this? Canadians pay taxes to provide the natives the money to live which is part of the agreement. However this is such a handicapping set up. They have become so dependent on the state and lost touch with their cultural traditions. Their reserves are built separate from towns on often difficult locations to access, hidden away. One woman I spoke to recently told me it was like going to a third world country with roads you cannot drive down even in a big jeep, yet we are still in Canada.

Today there has been a lot of changes made and first nations are starting to revive their lost traditions and ceremonies, but change is slow more should be done to integrate them into society. At schools ‘Aboriginal Studies’ is offered but it is just a small class of First Nations and Métis. A lot of students in the school don’t know it is even offered. I think we really need to honor the First Nations and their culture more and make Aboriginal studies a proud and required course in schools.

I had the honor of going to - Beat Nation: Art, Aboriginal Culture and Hip Hop – an exhibition at Vancouver Art gallery. Probably the best exhibition I ever saw. This empowering exhibition plays an important role for the future of the first nations people, knowing they can express the racism and their voices in this society without being prosecuted.

http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/the_exhibitions/exhibit_beat_nation.html

WATCH VIDEO: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Video+Music+inspires+aboriginal+artists+Beat+Nation/6210777/story.html