Herb Nabigon - Hollow Tree: Fighting Addiction with Traditional Native Healing

Fighting Addiction with Traditional Native Healing

Herb Nabigon

McGill-Queens University Press 2006
Drawings Leo Yerxa 2006

ISBN-13:978-0-7735-3132-1
ISBN-10:0-7735-3132-7

Legal deposit third quarter 2006
Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest
free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free.

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also
acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Nabigon, Herb
The hollow tree : fighting addiction with traditional native healing /
Herb Nabigon; illustrations by Leo Yerxa.

(McGill-Queens native and northern series; no. 49)
ISBN-13:978-0-7735-3132-1
ISBN-10: 0-7735-3132-7

1. Nabigon, Herb Alcohol use. 2. Alcoholism Treatment
Canada. 3. Indians of North America Canada Religion.
4. Indians of North America Canada Rites and ceremonies.
5. Indians of North America Canada Biography. 6. Spiritual
healing. I. Title. II. Series.

E78.C2N23 2006 362.29208997071 C2006-902159-7

This book was designed and typeset by
studio oneonone in Sabon 10/14.5

This book is dedicated to Sheila, the mother of our
two children, Clem and Alana, and to my youngest son,
Danny Jones. It is also dedicated to all my brothers and
sisters who still suffer with substance addictions. I pray
the latter will find guidance to walk the red path.

We often hear or read the words: It is both an honour and a pleasure to be asked by so and so to say (or write) a few words because he/she did such and such valuable thing,etc. Well, this foreword that my great friend Herb Nabigon asked me to write for his book, The Hollow Tree,comes with an extraspecial feeling. At some very important turning points in our respective lives, Herb and I walked side by side as the brothers that we are. As Herb amply and eloquently explains throughout his book,our revered Elders and Mushums (Grand-fathers), Eddy Bellerose, Abe Burnstick, and others, used all the love contained in their hearts to make us see and be thankful for the great beauty of our Ancestorsspiritual legacy as well as for our responsibility to share these gifts with our sisters and brothers who have come to live with us on our land.

This book is destined to shine as an example of the power of our Elders to use their spiritual gifts to turn their people away from unbalanced life ways and self-destructive feelings such as hate, resentment, inferiority, and jealousy towards a life guided by kindness, honesty, courage, and humility. At a time when I was confused and needed a helping hand and a voice of wisdom and love from one of my own people, Herb gave me his hand and led me to our Elders. I will always recall the brotherly care he used in enticing me to take those very important first steps against my own foolish will (I thought that I knew almost everything about my culture when in fact I knew very little; besides, I could not imagine then a life without alcohol).That time, in March 1980, Herb made me listen, and,along with our other great friend Roy Thomas and several others, we went to a week-long cultural awareness workshop given by the Alberta Elders whom I have already named. Why I have never touched alcohol since I went to that workshop I will never really be able to explain. I can only give thanks for the beautiful gifts I received from the Great Spirit through the Elders and Herbs hands.

Now, I would like to give one other especially convincing proof of the far-reaching power of recovering our spiritual traditions. This is a true revelation about a very well-known legal case, the Sioui case (Sioui vs Regina,Supreme Court of Canada, May 1990). Herb and I have not disclosed until now that our eviction in May 1982 from the Parc des Laurentides in Quebec, on the third day of our spiritual fast, was the genesis of the Sioui case, an important legal victory for my four brothers and myself on behalf of our Huron-Wendat Nation. As ordered by the park authorities, we left the site of our fast that day, but the legal defence we undertook, which lasted for the next eight years, led to a unanimous decision by Canadas Supreme Court in our favour, a momentous victory for all of Canadas Aboriginal Nations and their citizens. And the essential truth of the matter is that without the teachings received from our Elders three years before, in the Kootenay Plains in Alberta, we would not have had the ability to infuse new life into an old document, long since considered obsolete, that our Nation had preserved for the past 230 years and that was now (thanks to the Elders teachings)finally recognized by Quebec and Canada as a treaty!Without our learning from the Elders (our Holy People), we would not have undertaken, let alone won that legal-spiritual battle.

(Not being a resident of Quebec, Herb was not prosecuted, but we, the Sioui brothers, jokingly explain his absence from the legal picture by saying that there was an Ojibway there with us, but as soon as he saw the Conservation officers coming, he took off through the woods,making a beeline for his northern Ontario home and apparently was never seen again!)

In the twenty-five years of friendship that we share, I have seen my Neechee Herb Nabigon walk away from the doom of alcohol, hurt, and despair to the place of high respectability, personal balance, and collective hope reflected in his status as a university professor and his recognition as an Elder among his Niishnaabe people and our Aboriginal nations. When I think of the strong, beautiful,fun person that my friend is, I feel deep gratitude and love for the Elders (including Herbs parents and forebears)who have salvaged him from alcohols unforgiving grip and given him back to us, his relatives, as a brother and a teacher. Herbs experience and salvation through Aboriginal spirituality are a powerful illustration of the grave lossincurred by First Nations people every time one of their own is annihilated through addiction to alcohol and other substances. Herbs cruel alcoholic ordeal and his return to wholeness through reconnection with his own Aboriginal spirituality are also evidence that the simple nature-based spiritual beliefs and practices taught by traditional spiritual Elders possess important healing power for all people,because all people have and need the same connection to Nature.

Herb, I will always be your affectionate friend.

GEORGES SIOUI
Coordinator, Native Studies Program
University of Ottawa

First Nations people of this country, and indeed many people from various other cultures, have countless stories to tell of their own personal struggles in breaking free from addiction. For some, the decision to stop using came the hard way, in a jail cell or through an accident. For others,healing arose from the ultimatums given to them by their family members who threatened to leave or by their employers who threatened to take away their job. Whatever the circumstances may be, the process of recovering from an addiction is a personal decision a choice.