Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
First Nations only too familiar with pandemics
The swine flu panic sweeping across North America and the rest of the world is the latest in a long series of battles that mankind as had with microbes over the years.
The things keep evolving and we have to react with stronger immune systems. The potential swine flu pandemic could be an over-hyped story or the real thing. Only time will tell.
First Nations people have had a long history with epidemics. The past 500 years have been disastrous, with smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, measles and bubonic plague sweeping through the indigenous population of the Americas.
The first people of the Americas had no history of these diseases and consequently their immune systems were not responsive. The result was widespread suffering and death. This disaster was repeated wherever indigenous populations previously had lived in isolation from European contact. Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, the South Sea islands, New Zealand and Australia all would suffer the same fate as the peoples of the Americas.
The Spanish brought smallpox to Mexico in 1520, and over the next several centuries the disease would spread across the continent and ravage the aboriginal population. It then spread across the Caribbean to kill more than a million Arawak people, effectively wiping out the population. From there it moved on to Mexico and the Yucatan, and into South America. It is estimated that 200,000 people in the Inca Empire died of the disease.
In Canada, early fur traders reported whole villages reduced to a few people. In most cases the mortality rate of the disease was estimated to be 95 per cent.
Indian Head in southern Saskatchewan takes its name from a camp that was destroyed by smallpox. All the people had died and their remains were scattered around by coyotes and other scavengers. Among the grisly remains were a number of disembodied heads.
The conquest of the Americas was not really a conquest, but rather a trip into an empty land. Historians call the Americas virgin territory. The land was not a virgin, it was a widow. Disease depopulated the Americas to the point that the Spanish were forced to look to Africa for slaves.
People today are comparing the swine flu from Mexico with the "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918 -- the worst in history. It was a global disaster that claimed more lives than the First World War. It is estimated that between 20 million and 40 million people died as the result of the pandemic. It took three years for the Black Death to do as much damage in Europe.
The Spanish flu took a terrible toll on the aboriginal population in Canada, leaving in its wake only 105,000 Indian people -- the lowest population in our history. Today there are more than 750,000 First Nations people in Canada.
My Dad was born in 1918, during the height of pandemic. His birth date is not known, although his mother told him he was born after the war and before Christmas. In any event, he was whisked away to the church and baptized on the same day he was born because the flu epidemic was raging at the time.
Rev. Edward Ahenakew, an Anglican minister from the Ahtahkakoop Reserve, was living at Onion Lake during the pandemic. His journal describes the devastation: "The church was piled high with bodies. On the reserves so many people were dying that mass burials and funerals were being held."
The experience so touched him that he moved to Edmonton and studied medicine at the University of Alberta. Unfortunately, poor health got in his way of completing the program.
About a decade ago, a crew excavating to place a tank at a gas station in La Ronge unearthed human remains. The contractor informed the elders and they discovered a mass grave from the 1918 pandemic. There were about 30 bodies, some in caskets and others wrapped in blankets, indicating the haste in which the bodies were buried. It was another sober reminder of the flu pandemic and its impact on our people.
Our people still remain susceptible to diseases at abnormally high rates. Diseases such as diabetes and AIDS, called modern day epidemics, have a devastating effect on our comparatively small population.
Swine flu is now on the rise across the world, and indications are that it might be a pandemic. But we must keep in mind that this is not 1918. We now have tools to fight back; antibiotics, vaccinations and other treatments will lessen the negative effects. However, those in the developing world have little access to modern technologies and the impact of the flu could be greater on them than us.
Many indigenous people live in crowded conditions, where poverty and disease are a way of life. The results of this potential pandemic may well have a greater effect on our people, as did the pandemic of 1918. Let's hope the disease is being over-hyped and will have a limited effect. But if it does take off, we must remember that we've been down this path before and we will persevere.
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/story_print.html?id=1552715&sponsor=
The swine flu panic sweeping across North America and the rest of the world is the latest in a long series of battles that mankind as had with microbes over the years.
The things keep evolving and we have to react with stronger immune systems. The potential swine flu pandemic could be an over-hyped story or the real thing. Only time will tell.
First Nations people have had a long history with epidemics. The past 500 years have been disastrous, with smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, measles and bubonic plague sweeping through the indigenous population of the Americas.
The first people of the Americas had no history of these diseases and consequently their immune systems were not responsive. The result was widespread suffering and death. This disaster was repeated wherever indigenous populations previously had lived in isolation from European contact. Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, the South Sea islands, New Zealand and Australia all would suffer the same fate as the peoples of the Americas.
The Spanish brought smallpox to Mexico in 1520, and over the next several centuries the disease would spread across the continent and ravage the aboriginal population. It then spread across the Caribbean to kill more than a million Arawak people, effectively wiping out the population. From there it moved on to Mexico and the Yucatan, and into South America. It is estimated that 200,000 people in the Inca Empire died of the disease.
In Canada, early fur traders reported whole villages reduced to a few people. In most cases the mortality rate of the disease was estimated to be 95 per cent.
Indian Head in southern Saskatchewan takes its name from a camp that was destroyed by smallpox. All the people had died and their remains were scattered around by coyotes and other scavengers. Among the grisly remains were a number of disembodied heads.
The conquest of the Americas was not really a conquest, but rather a trip into an empty land. Historians call the Americas virgin territory. The land was not a virgin, it was a widow. Disease depopulated the Americas to the point that the Spanish were forced to look to Africa for slaves.
People today are comparing the swine flu from Mexico with the "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918 -- the worst in history. It was a global disaster that claimed more lives than the First World War. It is estimated that between 20 million and 40 million people died as the result of the pandemic. It took three years for the Black Death to do as much damage in Europe.
The Spanish flu took a terrible toll on the aboriginal population in Canada, leaving in its wake only 105,000 Indian people -- the lowest population in our history. Today there are more than 750,000 First Nations people in Canada.
My Dad was born in 1918, during the height of pandemic. His birth date is not known, although his mother told him he was born after the war and before Christmas. In any event, he was whisked away to the church and baptized on the same day he was born because the flu epidemic was raging at the time.
Rev. Edward Ahenakew, an Anglican minister from the Ahtahkakoop Reserve, was living at Onion Lake during the pandemic. His journal describes the devastation: "The church was piled high with bodies. On the reserves so many people were dying that mass burials and funerals were being held."
The experience so touched him that he moved to Edmonton and studied medicine at the University of Alberta. Unfortunately, poor health got in his way of completing the program.
About a decade ago, a crew excavating to place a tank at a gas station in La Ronge unearthed human remains. The contractor informed the elders and they discovered a mass grave from the 1918 pandemic. There were about 30 bodies, some in caskets and others wrapped in blankets, indicating the haste in which the bodies were buried. It was another sober reminder of the flu pandemic and its impact on our people.
Our people still remain susceptible to diseases at abnormally high rates. Diseases such as diabetes and AIDS, called modern day epidemics, have a devastating effect on our comparatively small population.
Swine flu is now on the rise across the world, and indications are that it might be a pandemic. But we must keep in mind that this is not 1918. We now have tools to fight back; antibiotics, vaccinations and other treatments will lessen the negative effects. However, those in the developing world have little access to modern technologies and the impact of the flu could be greater on them than us.
Many indigenous people live in crowded conditions, where poverty and disease are a way of life. The results of this potential pandemic may well have a greater effect on our people, as did the pandemic of 1918. Let's hope the disease is being over-hyped and will have a limited effect. But if it does take off, we must remember that we've been down this path before and we will persevere.
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/story_print.html?id=1552715&sponsor=
