A team of UNM researchers is exploring the impact of historical events on the collective and individual memories of Native American tribes.
The research project, titled “Historical and Current Trauma: Examining Community Memories for the Health of a Nation,” is a community-based participatory research study conducted by the Seneca Nation and UNM’s School of Medicine and Department of Family & Community Medicine, according to a UNM press release.
Dr. Tassy Parker, director for the Institute of Indigenous Knowledge & Development, is the principal investigator on the project.
“Seneca Nation went through a lot of hardships and had to face the worst kind of colonization,” she said.
Parker said that the Senecas lost their land and water to the colonizers.
“Their kids were sent to boarding schools for socialization,” she said.
All these historical events have impacted the lifestyles and histories of the Seneca nation, she said.
“The Seneca tribe was the largest of six Native American nations which comprised the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations, a democratic government that predates the United States Constitution,” according to the Seneca Nation’s official website. “The Seneca Nation of Indians currently has a total enrolled population of nearly 8,000 citizens. The territories are generally rural, with several residential areas. Many Seneca citizens live off-territory, some are located across the country, as well as in other countries. Off-territory residents comprise nearly half of the citizenship.”
Historically, Seneca-occupied territory lay throughout the Finger Lakes area in Central New York, as well in the Genesee Valley in Western New York, living in longhouses on the riversides.
Parker said members of the tribe face an abundance of mental, physical and emotional problems due to the historical injustices they faced at the hands of their colonizers.
“The trauma of those events haunts them to this day,” she said. "Even the younger generations know what happened to their elders and their lands. That results in depression and rage."
Parker did focus groups with the members of the Seneca tribes, and then based on those questionnaires she developed a survey to measure the factors associated with historical trauma and the health outcomes.
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“When they think about loss of land, language, experience of boarding schools, loss of self-respect, loss of trust in whites from broken treaties and loss of people through early death, they feel like it’s happening again and they feel isolated,” she said.
Dr. Magdalena Avila, associate professor of health education, said that involving communities in the research process and community activities empower them and provide them the opportunity to look at their problems through their own unique lens.
“With the community or traditional knowledge, the native tribes can resolve many issues that we as outsiders cannot,” she said.
Parker said the healing process of the historical trauma starts when the tribal members start sharing their feelings and stories openly without any fear of rejection.
Based on her findings, she is planning to introduce an intervention with the help of the Seneca tribal elders to enable the members of the tribe to deal with the historical trauma.
“We are trying to find out what they can do to cope with the historical traumas [they have endured],” she said.
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
