skin for skin by gerald m. sider

8/13/2019 Skin for Skin by Gerald M. Sider

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skin for skin

G E R A L D M . S I D E R

D E A T H A N D L I F E F O R

I N U I T A N D I N N U


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skin for skin


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Narrating Native Histories

:

K. Tsianina Lomawaima Alcida Ria Ramos

Florencia E. Mallon Joanne Rappapor

:

Denise Y. Arnold Noenoe K. Silva

Charles R. Hale David Wilkins

Robera Hill Juan de Dios Yapia

Narraing Naive Hisories aims o foser a rehinking of he ehical, mehodological,

and concepual frameworks wihin which we locae our work on Naive hisories and

culures. We seek o creae a space for effecive and ongoing conversaions beween

Norh and Souh, Naives and non-Naives, academics and aciviss, hroughou he

Americas and he Pacific region. This series encourages analyses ha conribue o

an undersanding of Naive peoples relaionships wih naion-saes, including hiso-

ries of expropriaion and exclusion as well as projecs for auonomy and sovereigny.

We encourage collaboraive work ha recognizes Naive inellecuals, culural iner-preers, and alernaive knowledge producers, as well as projecs ha quesion he

relaionship beween oraliy and lieracy.


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Duke Universiy Press

All righs reservedPrined in he Unied Saes of America on acid-free paper Designed by Heaher Hensley

Typese in Arno Pro by Copperline Book Services, Inc.

Library of Congress Caaloging-in-Publicaion DaaSider, Gerald M.

Skin for skin : deah and life for Inui and Innu / Gerald M. Sider.pages cm(Narraing Naive hisories)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

---- (cloh : alk. paper) ---- (pbk. : alk. paper). Naskapi IndiansNewfoundland and LabradorLabrador

Social condiions. . InuiNewfoundland and LabradorLabradorSocial condiions. . Naskapi IndiansHealh and

hygieneNewfoundland and LabradorLabrador. . InuiHealhand hygieneNewfoundland and LabradorLabrador. . Tile.

. Series: Narraing Naive hisories.. .'dc

Cover ar: Cone drawing of Sedna by he Labrador Inui(Nunasiavummiu) aris Heaher Igloliore.


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For Francine Egger-Sideril miglior abbrohe beter maker


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The Lain moto on he Hudsons Bay Company coa of arms is

, which ranslaes roughly as a skin for a skin.

Explanation posted on the Hudsons Bay CompanysInternet site. The company traded for furs with the Native

peoples of Canada from to the mid-twentieth century.

This was their motto from the mid-s to .

And he Lord said uno Saan, Has hou considered my servanJob, ha here is none like him in he earh, a perfec and an uprigh

man . . . sill he holds fas his inegriy, alhough hou moves me

agains him, o desroy him wihou cause.And Saan answered he Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, allha a man hah will he give for his life. Bu pu forh hine handnow, [Saan coninued] and ouch his bone and his flesh, and hewill curse hee o hy face. And he said uno Saan, Behold,he is in hine hand; bu save his life. So wen Saan forh from he

presence of he Lord, and smoe Job.

Job : King James Version

I have made i my sudy o examine he naure and characer of heIndians and however repugnan i may be o our feelings, I am con-

vinced ha hey mus be ruled wih a rod of iron o bring, and okeep hem in a proper sae of subordinaion.

George Simpson, governor in chief of

Ruperts Land and the Hudsons Bay Company

in what is now Canada, , in


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C O N T E N T S

Preface xiAcknowledgmens xvii

Historical Violence

Owning Death and Life

Making Indians and Eskimos om Native Peoples

Living within and againstTradition,

The Peoples without a Country

Mapping Dignity

Life in a Concentration Village

Today May Become Tomorrow

Warriors of Wisdom

Noes References Index

Gallery appears afer page


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PREFACE

Labrador is he norheasernmos par of mainland Canadaa srech ofrocky and rough land along he norh Alanic coas. I has long been hehomeland of wo Naive peoples, he Inui and he Innu, who are a branchof he Cree Indian peoples. Saring in he lae s and inensifying relen-

lessly since hen, boh Naive peoples have been experiencing inerwovenepidemics of subsance abusemosly gasoline sniffing and alcoholplusyouh suicide, domesic violence, and high raes of children born damagedbecause heir mohers drank alcohol while pregnan.

During he fall semeser of I was living wih my family in S. Johns,Newfoundland, doing research on he declining Newfoundland fishery. Lab-rador is par of he Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, andhe Newfoundland media were hen full of repors boh abou hese epi-

demics and abou he mosly ineffecive measures ha Newfoundland andCanada, who had shared responsibiliy, were aking in heir atemps o help.

By I had been working on he hisorical anhropology of Newfound-land fishing villages for hree decades. As a grea many fishers from norhernNewfoundland had been going, seasonally, o fish from he Labrador coass,and had been doing his for over years, I knew a bi abou he hisory ofLabrador.

Wha caugh my atenion in was he fac ha he media were re-

poring a widespread consensusamong governmen officials, academics,consulans, and media pundisha he epidemics of communal self- andcollecive desrucion were provoked by he forced relocaion of Naive peo-


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ples ino cenralized communiies ha Naive youh referred o as concen-raion villages. These were, indeed, miserable places o have o livepoorlyinsulaed or noninsulaed houses wih no running waer, no oiles, no sinks,no showers, no sewerage, and all his in a sub-Arcic environmen so hasome people would wake up on a winer morning wih he breakfas food inhe cupboard frozen solid and find heir children wih skin infecions becausehey could no wash effecively.

So o blame he ragedies ha developed wihin Naive communiies onhe forced relocaion of Naive people ino such unlivable places ha hegovernmen did no boher o improve for decades, despie heir promiseso do so, made undeniable sense. Bu here is a problem wih sopping he

atemp o undersand a ha poin.This problem, which I only dimly grasped a he sar of he research,was ha he suffering imposed by his forced relocaion was no a all new,

alhough he self-desrucion largely was. Naive peoples in Labrador hadbeen subjec o brual abuse for several hundred years since conac, andwha changed was heir abiliy o deal wih his abuse wihou urning onhemselves and each oher.

Tha quesion, ha problem of wha changed in Naive peoples abiliies

o deal wih all he suffering imposed on hemwha changed, and why, andwha remedies migh help address his issuebecame he iniial focus of hefirs several years of my research. My hunch ha more was involved han relo-caion o, and coninuing forced residence in, villages ha were such difficulplaces o live was furher suppored when, in , he Innu residens of oneof he wors places moved o a new communiy, where he houses were wellinsulaed, here were running waer and sewerage, a communiy recreaioncener, and more, and he same problems very soon reurned in full force.

Beyond he hunches ha began his research he work was far from easyor quick, for he relevan informaion was scatered among widely differensources, and hese sources oen conained litle more han hins.

Moreover, I made an imporan misake, which I did no realize unil he

midpoin of my work. I was quie unsetled by he emerging picure, as hedaa from differen sources came ogeher, revealing he frequency of im-posed famines and forced relocaions, devasaing epidemics of inroduceddiseases, he murderous grind of consanly presen diseases, including es-

pecially uberculosis, and he relenless sress of coping wih he loss of heirresources. In his conex my focus on how Naive peoples coped, or ried ocope, wih all his became oo narrow. I did no adequaely look a a wider


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range of issues, for I was finding i difficul boh o look closely a hese evensand o look away from hem.

In he spring of , five years ino his research, I gave a paper on ia Cornell Universiys anhropology deparmen. In a wonderful urning,Professor Kur Jordenwhom I had worked wih when he was a docoralsuden, sudying wih meopened a raher serious criique of his paper,along wih his even more forceful colleague, Professor Audra Simpson. They

poined ou ha I did no adequaely ake ino accoun he srong and posi-ive feaures of Labrador Naive communiies hrough all heir cenuries ofsuffering. Tha opened wha became anoher five years of research, and I amgraeful for he encouraging criique ha sared me on his work.

presened here conains wo hisories, wo sories.These are no he sories of dominaion, imposed abuse, and suffering onhe one hand, and he changing ways Naive peoples responded o his onhe oher. Those quesions organized he research bu no a all wha camefrom he research. Raher, his book is abou he sruggles beween order andchaos. This includes he pressure o creae order boh from above, from hose

who sough o govern, o conrol, o use, o saveincluding missionaries,fur raders, and governmen officialsand hose working for a differen kindof orderliness from wihin Naive communiies, who have sruggled o creaesome kind of order ou of he chaos ha comes wih imposed order.

The second sory, as i migh be called, is abou his chaos. This includeshe chaos of dominaion, and he chaos ha has emerged wihin Naive com-muniies as people sruggle wihin and agains wha has been done o hemand supposedly for hem.

I is imporan why I call hese sories, alhough hey are no ficions. Ido so as a ribue o wha I have learned boh from Rober Piglia and JohnBerger. Piglia, in discussing he logic of shor sories, wroe:

In one of his noebooks, Chekov recorded he following anecdoe: a man in

Mone Carlo goes o he casino, wins a million, reurns home, commis suicide.

The classic form of he shor sory is condensed wihin he nucleus of ha fu-

ure, unwriten sory. Conrary o he predicable and convenional (gamble

losecommis suicide), he inrigue is presened as a paradox. The anecdoe

disconnecs he sory of he gambling and he sory of he suicide. Tha rupure

is he key o defining he double characer of he sorys form. Firs hesis: a . . .


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sory always ells wo sories. . . . Each of he wo sories is old in a differen

manner. Working wih wo sories means working wih wo differen sysems of

causaliy. The same evens ener simulaneously ino wo anagonisic . . . logics.

The essenial elemens of he sory . . . are employed in differen ways in each

of he wo sories. The poins where hey inersec are he foundaions of he

sorys consrucion. (, )

This may be a complicaed way of making several useful poins. Wha ishappening can cener on, or emerge from, he surprises, and i can help o

focus on wha he surprises may reveal. Furher, i is helpful o no imposeone logic, one perspecive, one unified inerpreaion on he mulipliciy ofevens ha are happening, for wha may be mos imporan are he rupures

and he breaks, he way hings do no fi ogeher.John Berger made a similar poin very simply and very powerfully when

he said, If every even which occurred could be given a name, here would beno need for sories ([] ). And in wha follows he namelessboh

for us and for he Naive peoplesis oen crucial.Wha I have learned from Berger and Piglia urned ino a bigger issue for

his book han i migh a firs appear o be. I has led me o pu aside, or ominimize, many of he cenral conceps of anhropology, including culure,

social organizaion, and social srucure. All of hese conceps boh suggesand seek o poin oward a supposed wholeness or uniy of social life, as whenwe say a culure, or a social organizaion or, even more ou of ouch, we

say he Inui or he Cherokee, and so forh. We could scarcely go veryfar if we sared our discussion wih, say, he New Yorkers. Wha makes ushink we could go much furher saring from he Inui? Or o press hepoin, Inui culure as an absracion from peoples spread from Alaska oGreenland, living from he coas or more from inland resources, or boh,some now near mining camps or miliary bases and some more disan? Thislas poin, puting aside such absrac and unifying conceps as culure andsocial organizaion, will likely make some readers uncomforable, or even

angry, for i rubs agains he familiar. Wai unil he book is read o see howhis perspecive unfolds.

I also pu aside mos of he sandard mehods of anhropological research.Almos all he daa for wha follows comes from public documens accessibleo anyone a libraries and archives. I wen o Labrador several imes, parlyo work in libraries in Happy ValleyGoose Bay, he adminisraive cener ofLabrador, and parly jus o see several of he Naive communiies I was wri-


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A C KN O W LE D G M E N T S

I had he privilege, he pleasure, he pressure, and he special produciviy ofworking, for a monh or wo almos every summer for weny years, wih heworking group on he hisory of everyday life a he Max Planck Insiue forHisory, in Goetingen, Germany. The wo cenral members of his group, Alf

Luedke and Hans Medick, have shaped my sense boh of he larger signifi-cance of everyday lives and mehodological and heoreical ways of sudyingi. Two oher very special German hisorians, Adelheid von Saldern and Ur-sula Nienhaus, have been crucial o my work. As I brough wha I learnedback, several of my docoral sudens a he Ciy Universiy of New York,

wih heir relenlessly quizzical engagemen wih my perspecives, helpedshape my undersanding of producive ways o work. I specially wan ohank Avram Bornsein, Augus Carbonella, Kirk Dombrowski, Anhony

Marcus, Unnur Dis Skapadotir, and Elizabeh TenDyke. Peer Ikeler, hen agraduae suden in sociology, was my research assisan while his book wasbeing writen, and his combinaion of hard work and sharp insigh becameparicularly helpful. My colleague Michael Blim, who also augh all hese

sudens, in addiion boh indirecly and direcly shared his wisdom and hisbalanced vision wih me.

As he manuscrip developed and my ways of working changed, I was verysignificanly helped by Jane McMillan, wih her long hisory of sraegically

brillian and poliically commited legal and poliical acivism on behalf ofnorhern Naive people; by Carol Brice-Bennet, by far he mos knowledge-


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srees of New York Ciy are repued o be veerans. In his larger conexwe are dealing wih somehing more han he problems of small groups ofnorhern Naive peoples. We are also confroning one of he key feauresof our modern world, somehing we migh call, jus o ge us sared, heproducion of overwhelmingly senseless chaos in he lives of vulnerable anddisposable peopleour soldiers, for a sar. These are people who once, aleas briefly, believed some of he lies ha hey were old, or ha hey learned

o ell hemselves, while hey were being boh used and used up.In place of hese rosy lies, usually abou a fuure or a cause, he vicims

found a chaos ha could no be reduced o reason, ha could no be ex-plained raionally, no by he vicims, and no believably by hose who im-

posed i. Furhermore, he vicims live in a chaos ha canno be atribuedsimply o chance, acciden, or he forces of naure, as was atemped wihHurricane Karinas devasaion of African American neighborhoods in NewOrleans. The vicims suffer in par because of heir immersion in wha seemso have been, or sill is, senseless chaos ha people have imposed on hem:governmens ha spend billions bailing ou banks o keep hem alive whileleting millions of homeowners and workers die social deah; governmensha pay billions for miliary conracs while sending soldiers o war in un-

armored vehicles, so hey come back, like he equipmen hey were senou wih, missing essenial pars or capabiliiesfor he res of heir lives,for lives ha will never again have res. Naives, veerans, hose berayed bybanks and dreams of home ownershipdespie fundamenal differences, allare vicims of an endless and senseless violence ha ries o hide iself under

one name or anoher: normal, naural, ordinary, usual, necessary, proper,progress. There are hus more issues a sake here han jus he well-being ofhe Naive peoples of Labrador.

To call he violence imposed on people, as well as he consequences ofhis violence, senselesschaos, a leas o sar, is boh o name a problem forhe people we seek o undersand and help and also o name a problem forourselves. All my long life in social heory I have had he illusion ha he

problems before us could be undersood and explained, ha here was senseo be made. From his saring poin i seemed we could help by joining wihhe vicims o oppose wha we undersood o be he specific social causesof suffering. We could undersand causes if only we worked hard enough,

hough inensely enough, and began from somehing more inellecuallyserious han he seducive bu empy plaiudes of mid- and lae wenieh-cenury social and hisorical science.


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The poin here is differen: i is o challenge he idea ha we can com-pleely explain wha we see and hear, and ha our success in developing andorganizing a helpful inervenion urns on ha. There may be oher wayso inervene han saring wih a nea explanaion, oher roues o effecivesruggle for a beter world, roues ha are fully social bu follow differenkinds of maps.Making sense of largely senseless chaos may do litle more

han uterly miss he main poin. Here, by way of a few brief examples, Iinroduce he noion of parial and incomplee ways of making sense ofsufferingfor ha perspecive guides his work.

When children sniff gasoline, which, as hey well know, boh producesan unusually inense high and a he same ime does severe neurological

damageas he kids hemselves say, This shi ros your brain in abou woyearswe may well be dealing wih somehing more, and more complex,

han wha can be reduced o a compleed explanaion. Someimes i helpsjus o worry and wonder abou i all. The following is an example ha hascaused me a lo of boh.

Many Naive children in norhern Canada (and elsewhere of course),saring a eigh or nine, sniff gasoline, which hey seal. They do no, or veryrarely, use alcohol, alhough ha is around in ways ha could be pilfered

wihou oo much difficuly. Perhaps alcohol, being expensive, would bemore closely wached, and he punishmen for aking i more severe. Aduls,as much as hey use alcohol, scarcely ever inhale gasoline. So here is a per-haps useful quesion before us: why do children use gasoline and aduls alco-hol? As difficul as i migh be for youh o ge alcohol, i would save aduls a

lo of money o use gasoline for subsance-inducing change. Bu hey don.Le me offer a speculaion, no so much o answer he quesion bu o

sugges one way of hinking abou he problem of addicions. Gas, people say,

ges you very high. I is, in common knowledge, he mos inense high ofany subsance. A bi of alcohol also ges people high, bu his poin is veryquickly passed, if i occurs a all, in serious long-erm drinkers. Mosly alco-hol in ha conex suppresses some feelings and self-conrol, making peopleeiher more passive and socially relaxed or more violen, and hen putingpeople oumaking hem fall asleep or pass ou.

So we migh well look a he difference beween he use of gas and ha ofalcohol by saying ha children sill wan o ge high, o rise above heir siu-

aion, and aduls who have learned ha his is scarcely possible wan o jusforge, o ge ou no jus socially bu away from heir botled-up feelings.

This atemped inerpreaion migh jus be nonsense, empy speculaion.


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Bu i has one useful virue: i poins us oward hinking abou how peoplesacions are siuaed in he ongoing hisory of heir liveshe pass ha heysill carry wih hem, he fuures hey dream, desire, dread, deny. This iner-preaion leads, in sum, o wha we will discuss as hisorical violence, no as ageneralizing concep bu as a way of geting our hands and our minds aroundhe specifics of specific lives. The quesion abou he differen uses of alcoholand gasoline may or may no be answerable, bu he quesion iself poins us

in useful direcions. I is worh wondering and worrying abou, even houghor because i may no be an answerable quesion. Anoher sill open quesionmay ake us furher on ha journey.

The addicions in many Naive communiies are severe and geting worse,

alhough hey are sill far from universal, even in he mos inensely sressedcommuniies. In I spen par of he summer in Labrador, on one of myresearch rips. A woman who has worked wih Naive peoples healh for a

decade and a half, lovingly, sympaheically, and inensely, old me ha since some parens had sared placing gasoline-soaked arpaulins or blankesover he cribs of heir infans, because i keeps he infans soned quie forfour or five hours while he parens go ou drinking. The shock of hearinghis was like being hi in he pi of he somach. These were heir own infan

children being sacrificed o an addicion. More may be a sake in his hanhe addicive pull of alcohol.

In he lae mid-nineeenh cenury, across he raher narrow sea fromLabrador, on he norhwes coas of Greenland, Inui people developed aruly inense addicion o coffee. Traders and adminisraors from Denmark,who had colonized Greenland and he Inui here, were wriing back o heirhomeland saying ha he Naive people were sarving and freezing becausehey had such an inense craving for coffee ha o ge i hey were rading

sealskins hey needed for heir clohing and o build he kayaks hey used ohun food and fur (Marquard ).

Wihou denying ha caffeine can engender some craving, probably noas inensely as does alcohol, his siuaion suggess ha somehing evenmore profound han he addicive properies of alcohol as a subsance ishappening. This inense and desrucive addicion o coffee migh be rooedin somehing ha has o do wih wha I will call incoherent domination, un-speakable dominaion, and he nearly unconrollable cravings ha emerge

wihin and agains his dominaion.I suggess cravings ha boh join you o he foreign and alien world ha

came o assaul you, merging you wih he alien invaders powerful subsance


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or allowing you o incorporae wihin you wha hey brough from afar, andsimulaneously disance you from ha same alien world ha was imposedin your mids. Alcohol makes people unconrollable in many ways; coffee inGreenland almos doomed he Inui as rading parners. These are cravingsha join you o he subsances of he dominan and simulaneously, in heireffecs, or in he effecs of wha you have o do o ge access o hese sub-

sances, break you apar from he raional demands dominaion imposes.The cravings, he addicions, also break people apar from each oher, andulimaely from heir prior selves. This is no a coheren package,in any senseof coherent: glued ogeher, or cohering, in he middle, or coheren in hesense of easily and undersandably speakable.

Neiher is dominaion coheren, in eiher sense of coherent. Tha domi-naion produces incoherence in is vicimsbeing boh chaoic and oenunspeakable in is consequencesis a good par of how dominaion works,as we shall see. Because dominaion produces a leas parly incoheren livesamong is vicims, i canno iself be as orderly, rouine, and predicable as ipreends o be and sill mainain he conrol i seeks. Bureaucracies are bohhe realiy and he fanasy of dominaion (see Lea [] for evidence ofhis in Naive lives). The incoherence and he chaos of dominaion and he

incoherence and chaos i produces in he lives of is vicims, wih and verymuch beyond he addicions, are separae issues and separae problems. Wewill consider boh.

Bu his perspecive also does no lead o fully answerable quesions. Wih

women who drink so inensely while pregnan ha i damages heir children,we may be dealing wih parens for whom he world seems so awful ha asome level hey do no wan heir children o grow up clearheaded, for i iswidely known ha children born wih wha professionals call feal alcohol

specrum disorder ()and some locals call children born hur ordamagedhave rouble making connecions in heir minds by he imehey are school-age. However well heir eachers say hey can hink specificpoins, heir eachers also oen say hese children canno make connecions.

This migh well be a empaion o a woman suffering from a childhood anda marriage marred by seemingly or acually inescapable domesic violence.Why would you wan your baby o grow up clearly and fully undersandingwha lies in heir fuure, paricularly if you hough ha heir chances for a

differen fuure were small? Or his kind of child-damaging drinking could beencouraged by a number of oher reasons ha we canno ye know or name.

There have recenly been a lo of very simplisic inerpreaions of prac-


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ices now called he weapons of he weak (for example, Scot ). Weneed o consider no jus individualisic ways of making life a bi uncomfor-able for he dominan bu he poenial of he weak o find hose even weakeramong hemselves and make weapons ha work on hem, or work hem over.A simplisic weapons of he weak perspecive urns ou o be an obsacleo undersanding, in large par because i poses dominaion as a simple wo-sided relaionship beween he dominan and a muliude of individuals in

he caegory ha is dominaedpeasans, Blacks, Naives, whaever.More generally, we should no be emped o reduce complex issues o

simpleand worse, compleeexplanaions. We should no ry o invenwha social scieniss call hypoheses o es (we could also call hem fancy-

dress guesses abou causes or connecions). Le us pu his empaion aside,even hough i leads o well-paying research grans and high consulan fees,and immerse ourselves in wha is happening. We mus also do his wihou

leting ourselves sink ino mindless descripion, for simple descripion is al-ways no jus incomplee bu inadequae, more incomplee and inadequaein more imporan ways han i preends o be.

consrucion worker and my neighbor in he norh-lands, wih whom I was quie friendly, said o me one lae aernoon, in a mo-men of inense and shared closeness abou he difficulies of building a goodfamily life up here, Gerry, I don know wha he fuck i all means. I donknow wha he fuck is happening. I don know why he fuck hings are his

wayover and over again repeaing and emphasizing his liany of confusionand sorrow. The wors and mos alienaing response I could have given ohis open wound he was showing and sharing would be o say, I know wha

is happening: have a look a pages o of my las paper, or my new book.Moreover, such an answer o his sorrow and his unhappiness, o he im-

possibiliy of undersanding, o he largely imposed incoherence of his siua-ion, would no only have been foolish and arrogan; i would have been a lie.

Wha we need, here and now, is an admitedly parial undersanding, inboh senses of he wordpartial: limied and sided. I will be an undersandingha a is bes is very limied, grasping only a piece of he problem, and i willbe an undersanding ha akes sides, for such disasers as we will address do

no jus happen, bu are made, and hopefully can be a leas parially unmadeby aking sides wih he vicims. So his will be, a is bes and if we can gehere, an engaged work, formed wih and no jus abou he needs and feel-


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ings and experience-rooed undersandings of he people whose siuaionswe sudy. This is very far from a comforable saring poin, for i requiresus o abandon our idea ha our heories elevae us above he sufferings haour world has imposed upon he peoples we have made vulnerable boh oour doings and o our heories.

Par of he discomfor of his posiion is he muddiness of rying o wrie

somehing more han a descripion of a major social problem wihou beingable o offer much by way of undersanding. Wha else, if no undersanding,is he job of social science? Suppose, hough, we say ha while his has beenhe job of social science, we migh do somehing else, perhaps somehingmore and beter, or a leas less in he service of sae power? For sae power

rouinely uses wha we produce, wheher or no i hires us o produce i. Theincreasing collapse of he welfare sae over he pas few decades, in almos

all he advanced indusrial naions, should finally each us, despie he rem-nans of our illusions, ha he sae does no any longer mean he vulnerablewell, if i ever did. If we sop dancing in he big-house gardens of sae andcorporae-shaped science, wha is he somehing else ha we migh ry o do,closer o how he people we care abou hink and work, and whose problems

we seek o helpfully address?

To sar, our ask will be o ake hold of a piece of wha is happening, wih-ou rying o compleely undersand, and figure ou how o urn i around,or a leas o bend i oward making less oppressed lives. I sounds like amodes ask, unil we see how profoundly i will change wha we do, how wedo i, and especially he ools wih which we work. Then i becomes more

significan. Nea explanaions ha describe soluions oen, bu no always,wind up serving he ineress of sae or of capial far more han he peoplehey presume o help. And we have o wonder why he producion of hese

soluions pays so well, a leas by academic social science sandards.We sar by naming he cenral problems and, in his conex, he focus

of his work.

The First Problem

The amoun of suffering ha has been imposed upon Naive peoples saggershe imaginaion. In he Americas, in Africa, in Asia, and in Ausraliaevery-where he sory is broadly similar. Moreover, everywhere he reacions ha

imposed suffering has produced among indigenous peoples are also similar:episodic confronaion wih dominaion, along wih atemps a evasion orcollusion, all ordinarily pu down wih, or conrolled by, overwhelming vi-


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olence and abuse, and hen, along wih he confronaions and coninuingabuse, subsanial raes of alcohol and hen drug abuse, domesic violence,suicide, and sill more. And all hese reacions, which are always more hanjus reacions, are soaked o he core by he horrendous moraliy from hediseases and wars he invaders brough.

The expansion of Europe ino he Americas, Africa, Asia, Ausralia, andhe Pacific Islands was sickeningly brual and violen in ways ha are diffi-cul o grasp, for he violence ordinarily wen far beyond wha was necessaryo achieve he objecives of conques and dominaion. Bu his onslaughremains raher easy o see, unless you believe he fanasy excuses and self-decepions abou civilizing he primiives or Chrisianizing he heahen, or

he same hing pu more absracly: progress or acculuraion. I is heresponses o, engagemens wih, and evasions of his dominaion ha are far

more complex, far more difficul o grasp.In Norh America he colonizing onslaugh was no a brief even in any

one locale, saring on he Eas Coas and moving across he coninen ohe wes, or in norhern Canada saring also in Hudsons Bay and radiaingouward. To he conrary, he onslaugh has been a coninuing even, every-

where, beginning in mos places wih he spread of new diseases and pro-

voked warfare long before he arrival of many Europeans, and coninuing nojus o he presen bu, as is vicims well know, o he coming omorrowconinuing wih ever-ighening, ordinarily seemingly senseless and openlydesrucive governmenal conrol and massive economic and culural inru-sions.All his, despie is overwhelming horror, is concepually he easy parof he hisory o ell.

One of he many consequences of he coninuing European colonizingonslaugh is far more difficul o grasp and inroduces he major problem

for his hopefully helpful projec. The amoun of suffering ha manybuvery far from allNaive people have in recen decades come o imposeupon hemselves and each oher, wih alcoholism, wih domesic violence,

wih suicide, wih subsance abuse, all wih increasing inensiy since hemid-wenieh cenury, saggers our abiliy o grasp and o help remedy. Thepoin here is he opposie of blaming he vicims for heir roublesiis rying o figure ou how desrucive dominaion from ouside urns inosomehing more, somehing ha makes sruggling agains dominaion even

more difficul.While he wo issuesdesrucive dominaion and collecive self-

desrucionare clearly conneced, he connecions are neiher direc nor


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mechanical. Whaever hose connecions may or may no be, paricularly ashey shape he possibiliies for healing and for remedy, he relaion beweendominaion and self-desrucion becomes a cenral problem. The approacho his problem begins wih he concep of hisorical violence.

Historical Violence

This book is abou wha I will call hisorical violence: he muliple ways inwhich several cenuries of abuse, dominaion, exploiaion, devasaing epi-demic and endemic diseases, and aking of Naive lands and Naive resourcesecho and ricoche like a seel bulle around he walls and openings of hepresen. The problems ha Naive peoples face are coninually changing, as

are he sruggles agains heir oppression and heir sorrows. These changesand he underlying coninuiies ha srech from he no quie pas ino he

impending fuure form he core of wha is called hisorical violence.The problem before us, a leas in is surface manifesaion, seems clear.

The Naive peoples of Labrador, boh Innu (reminder: formerly called andsocially consruced as Indians) and Inui (formerly reaed as Eskimo), haveone of he very highes youh suicide raes in he world. Suicide raes aredifficul or close o impossible o measure in very small populaions, because

a few more or less in any one year changes he rae grealy. Suicides are alsooen underrepored, for many reasons. Keeping all his in mind, he numberof suicides among he Naive peoples of norheasern Canada is proporion-aely exremely high. Moreover, here is a deepening epidemic of childrensniffing gasoline, which gives inense highs and also does subsanial neu-rological damage, and here is also widespread and severe adul alcoholismha permanenly damages he brains of many newborn infans, in addiiono all he consequences boh for hose who drink oo inensely and for heir

families. All his is compounded by very high raes of domesic violence.When hese epidemics of self-desrucion sared being major problems iscrucial, for when has been aken o explain why. A simplisic connecion be-ween when and why has been an imporan cause of he failure of all exisingprograms o be of any help.

These problems of individual and collecive self-desrucion do no havea long hisory. They became severe in he lae s and early s, whenmos Labrador Naive peoples were relocaedhe Innu primarily o wo

villages, he Inui souhward o norh-cenral and cenral Labrador. The si-uaion in heir new villages was horrendous: governmen conrol over heirlives was exreme, as was he lack of governmen provision for minimally


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adequae housing, for he availabiliy of work (his for he Innu more hanhe Inui), and for a social infrasrucure. Worse, he governmens of bohNewfoundland and Canada lied abou wha Naive people would ge follow-ing relocaion and never fulfilled heir promises, despie decades of repeaedreminders.

The places o which Naive peoples were relocaed, combined wih hemid-wenieh-cenury wihdrawal of he from he fur rade and he

Moravian missionaries from heir mission-supply saions, made formerways of life increasingly impossible o coninue. The villages ino whichNaive peoples were forced, and increasingly confined, were he locales ofvery subsanial, clearly imposed, and almos inescapable suffering. Laer we

will describe hese places in some deail, for even hough he problems havemuch longer roos han in he villages o which Naive peoples were relo-caed, he condiions in hese villages have also been deeply relevan.

The close associaion of his relocaion wih he onse of epidemics of self-desrucion has led o he obvious bu inadequae noion ha relocaion, oneway or anoher, caused hese epidemics. As hese epidemics, which inen-sified furher in he s, caugh Canadian naional media atenion in he

mid-s, and as he sories and picures of Naive suffering were broadcas

worldwideincluding a video of one young boy, wih a plasic bag full ofgasoline in his hand, who screamed a he phoographer I wan o die!he Canadian governmen came under serious pressure o do somehing.

Two atemps o address he problems were direcly based in he noionha relocaion o hese awful places was o blame. One atemp was o builda brand-new, maerially very much beter village for one Innu communiy,

he wors of he relocaion places, and o build new houses in he oher majorInnu relocaion communiy. The second atemped remedy was o helicoper

Innu back o he bush for limied periods of ime, where hey could recon-nec wih heir radiional life ways, and similarly o help Inui revisi he

locales from which hey had been forced o leave.None of hese atempedremedies have been any help whasoever in alleviaing he epidemics.

The saring poin for wondering abou wha else is happening beneahhe epidemics, and especially why, is no he fac ha relocaion brough avery grea deal of suffering, for indeed i did. We will sar from he poinha he imposed suffering is no a all new, alhough he self-desrucion is.

Beginning in , I have gone hrough a large number of widely separaeses of daa: healh records from governmens and medical missionaries, mis-sionary journals and repors, ravelers and explorers memoirs, governmen


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commissions of inquiry, police repors, judicial and legislaive records, records, and more. Wha hese diverse records revealed, when combined inoa chronology, is ha he Naive peoples of Labrador experienced a majorassaul on heir well-beingepidemics, arranged famines o ensure com-pliance wih fur-rade demands, forced relocaions, he desrucion of heirresource base by he onslaugh of Euro-Canadians, pervasive scaning of sup-

ply, all his and more, wih a crisis every few years since he early nineeenhcenury, and all wih significan moraliy raes.

These episodic problems were in addiion o major inroduced endemic(consanly presen) diseases, especially uberculosis () and venereal dis-ease, which also had very subsanial and socially devasaing moraliy raes.

A grea many all-oo-young children wached heir parens die and hen hado figure ou how hemselves o be parens; a grea many parens wachedheir children or each oher wase and die from inroduced diseases or im-posed sarvaion and hen had o figure ou how o coninue. And in hewenieh cenury, aer Naive peoples were forced o focus on commercialfur and skin rading o survive, here was an erosion and hen a collapse ofprices, which led boh he , he main raders o he Indians, and he

Moravian missionaries, he main raders o he Eskimo, o abandon he rade,

leaving he surviving Naive peoples swinging in midair.If inroduced and imposed suffering is no a all new, why hen is he sui-

cide and subsance abuse? Wih ha quesion our work begins, and i sarswih a focus on he concep of hisorical violencehow yeserday boh doesand does no become oday for vulnerable people.

The answer will urn, in par bu an imporan par, on he complexiiesof auonomy and digniy, as he basis for hese kinds of relaions was rans-formed aer World War II and he increasing collapse of he fur and skin

rades. To begin, people wih nohing o do, no way of earning heir living,do no have, or do no easily have, any auonomy. Auonomy urns ou o be

one aspec of relaionships ha simulaneously work oward oher ends. Buhere is anoher aspec o auonomy: i is mos realizablelierally, maderealwhen i is also a conex for digniy. Digniy and auonomy for vulner-able peoples oen emerge in he space people can make beween imposedhisory and heir lived hisories. This space has been made in more produc-ive ways han is widespread a presen.


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Partial Violence, Partial Coping

Pu simply, hisorical violence is he unfolding of violence over several cen-uries. To pursue his sraighforward beginning, we will focus on changingways of using Naive peoples and heir skills and resources, and changing

ways of discarding Naive peoples, making hem disposable, when wha waswaned was obained or used up.

To go furher, he concep of hisorical violence also calls our ateniono he changing ways Naive people have been able, or unable, or mos of allpartiallyable o cope wih he specific manifesaions of violence hey haveconfroned. They mus confron his violence boh wih he memories andconsequences of yeserdays violence and wih wha hey know or fear, from

heir experiences, may soon be coming.The mos revealing poin a sake here is embedded in he noion ofpar-tial coping. To be parial is o be incomplee, o have a parial soluion o yourproblems, and also o be biased. A parial soluion means ha he soluion,all in all, does no quie work. More likely, as he lessons of how famines un-fold each us, i works well enough for some, bu no a all for ohers.Naivepeoples coping wih he onslaugh has been and sill is parial because iis, unforunaely bu oen necessarily, selecive. Some will survive, perhaps

even hrive, a leas for a while, and some will no a all, and when we andhey look closely, his oen urns ou no o be random.We have o ry o grasp he implicaions for Naive communiies ha he

parial soluions o he problems creaed by imposed dominaionand heonly possible soluions for Naive people, mos of he ime, were parialmean ha some among hem would suffer much more han ohers. To ryo cope wih dominaion, as we all oo innocenly name i, means o be puin a posiion where you unavoidably consign or abandon some of your own

o a much worse fae.Our explanaions of so-called coping have been horribly incomplee

because mos of our heoreical apparaus so far has homogenized Naive

peoplesmade hem seem, in imporan ways, inernally undiffereniaed.We homogenized hemmade heir communiies seem inernally undif-fereniaed excep for some poliical inequaliies ha were reaed as par of

a shared social srucure and culure. Anhropological erms like adaptationor copingor acculturationor a generalizing thetheculure of thex people

were all ways of preending ha our hands are cleaner han hey are. All heseerms conceal from members of he dominan sociey a realizaion of whawas done ha has led o he increasing inernal differeniaion of Naive soci-


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eies. Parial coping, by conras, calls our atenion boh o he incomplee-ness of coping and o he differeniaion beween hose who do and do no,can and canno, copehose who do and do no, can and canno, make io omorrow. Furher, parial coping calls our atenion o he characeris-ic, nearly universal fac ha indigenous peoples sraegies for dealing wihdominaion, whaever hey may be, usually do no work, a leas no in he

long run. The coninuaion of dominaion over Naive peoples depends onmaking sure of his.

I does no aid undersanding very much when anhropologiss and gov-ernmen bureaucras coninue o use he classic, now only parly discrediedanhropological fanasy and alk abou he culure of he _____ Indians.

This generalizing erm conceals siuaions where some are surviving andsome are no, which is paricularly crucial when he disincion is no ran-dom. One migh be emped o say ha we need o sudy theculure o seehow i produces his disincion, bu ha is o assume ha here is aculure,and ha people simply have his as heir own culure, raher han needing ose hemselves very much agains wha ohers, or even hey hemselves, or,as we shall see, heir elie, call heir culure. Kirk Dombrowski, in his book

on Naive Americans in souhern Alaska, revealingly iled Against Culture

(), has very usefully described and analyzed hree insances of a wide-spread inernal conflic in Naive socieies abou who has wha is regardedas heir culure, and who in Naive communiies need o se hemselvesagains, or parly agains, wha is assered and claimed.

To use he noion of hisorical violence, of violence ha coninues hrough

is changes over long periods of ime, is o realize ha he violence iself isalso always parial, for he people i addresses sill survive, sill coninue (aleas some of hem do) in some ways diminished and ransformed, in oher

ways srenghened, bu, like Job, sill very much hereor beter, here.Socially consruced violence is no jus incomplee bu parial in he

sense of biased in he atemped choice of is vicims and survivors. Hisori-

cal violence is hus boh parial violence and parial coping, and o sudy iand mos of all o engage io ge our minds on i and our hands aroundiwe mus be parial also: no ry o do i all, and ake sides.

Nailing Tomorrow

I have long hough ha he sudy of a significan social issue ough o beorganized and judged by wo main sandards: Firs, wha are he chances hai will producively surprise boh us and he people sudied? Wha are he


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chances ha we will learn somehing we do no already know? The poin isno jus o add new deails o old undersandings, or add small modificaionso curren inerpreive fads, bu o develop sudies ha, like good ar andgood music, help us look a and lisen o he world in new ways.

Second, we can judge he usefulness of a sudy by asking, o wha exenhas he projec helped, or will i help, us o hear he silences? In my experi-

ence he mos significan social knowledge is embedded in he silences ofhe social worlds we sudy. We can indeed learn o look for and lisen o hesilences, and when we do, hey oen inroduce crucial surprises. Silencesare acive, and he more serious ones oen have a maerial form. Bu we cannever fully know hem: ha is why our work is always parial, always incom-

plee. Chaper begins o explore and illusrae his poin.If we hink wih surprises, wih wha surprises us and our knowledge ofhe world, perhaps somehing differen will happen. The noion of hisoricalviolence, as i is used here, is designed o surprise us wih wha i reveals, andalso o orien our work oward he silences. To do his, we will have o usehe concep of hisorical violence no jus o engage wha happened yeser-

day bu also o hink abou omorrow. Tha ask, hinking abou wha maybe coming omorrow, can be sared by using a relaed concep, srucural

violence. Srucural violence is an inroducion o hisorical violence.A number of significan works have refamiliarized us wih he issue of sruc-

ural violence (e.g., Green ). Amarya Sen, who won he Nobel Prize in for his sudies of who dies in famines and why, defines, in his foreword oPaul FarmersPathologies o Power, he concep of srucural violence by calling

our atenion o he social condiions ha so oen deermine who will sufferabuse and who will be shielded from harm (Farmer , xiii).A sake, asFarmer and Sen show, is nohing less han he naure and disribuion of ex-

reme suffering. The concep of srucural violence highlighs how widespreadforms of inequaliy are produced and used: gender, race, class, generaion, dif-

ferenial ciizenship, localiy, and neighborhood. The concep also leads us oinvesigae how fundamenal inequaliies in access o power disribue differenexperiences of sufferingin paricular, he kinds of suffering ha shorens orerminaes life, and he kinds of suffering ha endures over long periods ofime. Many social inequaliies are wha I call terminal inequalitieshe kindsof inequaliies from which people die soon or much sooner.

In my own previous work on he hisory of famine in Africa (Sider ),i became clear ha people in a localiy oen know, raher clearly, who isorwha kinds of people area risk of sarving in henextfamine. Srucural


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violence is ordinarily designed o deny a securely livable omorrowno jusodayfor is vicims. One canno undersand he dynamics of socially pro-duced inequaliiessuch as race, gender, and differenial ciizenshipanyoher way. Alhough hey oen are jusified by reference o a ficive hisory,hey are fundamenally abou omorrow: who will hen ge wha, do whakinds of work, offer wha kinds of deference. Beyond wha is happening o-

day, a denial of a livable omorrow urns ou o be crucial. I is he issue ofomorrow ha he noion of hisorical violence, as used here, calls ino ourview and expands. Hisorical violence is violence ha reaches from yeserdayino omorrow: i is hisory sill very much in he making. And for healing,including especially collecive self-healing, he issue is no jus yeserday and

oday bu always also omorrow.Le us sar in he mids of one insance of hisorical violence, firs o show

wha is a sake, and hen o furher develop new ools for hinking and acing.There is a simple bi of home furnishing in he Canadian norhlands

called by many local Whies he Indian coa-hangera racis pu-downof he povery and he resourcefulness of hard-pressed Naive peoples. I isa nail, or more precisely a row of quie large nails, pu in he wall jus pashe enrance door of a home. When you come in, you can hang your coa

on one of he nails. Indian coa hangers also can frequenly be found onoher walls inside he house, paricularly where people change clohes, andparicularly before he housing improvemens in he pas decade or so, whichincluded building some closes.

In many, bu very far from all, norhern Naive houses, hese rows of largenails are surprisingly high up on he wall. If he woman of he house is askedwhy he nails are so high, she will occasionally say somehing like, Is sowhen my husband (or boyfriend) smashes me agains he wall, I don hi

my head on a nail.

Only a sranger o he village would ask; everyone buyoung children know wha and why.

Now consider he siuaion of he eigh- or en-year-old child (he agewhen children sar sniffing gasoline, alhough here may be no direc con-necion) coming home and dropping his or her coa on he floor, or on achair, because hey canno reach he high nail hangers. Every ime a childhis age drops her or his coa, she or he may know why he nails are so high,or sor of know why, and he or she has he possibiliy of remembering wha

was seen or heard. And here also is, a leas occasionally and perhaps paric-ularly for he girls, as hey grow ino and hrough pubery, he provocaiono wonder abou heir own fuure.


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This is wha I mean by hisorical violence, bu in only he firs of heimporan senses of he erm. I is violence ha siuaes iself beween heyeserdays and he omorrows of is presen and fuure vicims, as well as ispresen and fuure perperaors.

There is anoher poenially useful sense of hisorical violence, revealedby asking: Wha was done o people o bring hem o his siuaion, and howcan hey ge ou of i? In wha ways, if any, will knowing how we go ino his

mess help us o ge ou of i? We is he more useful formulaion; heyallocaes blame before we even begin.

There is a hird sense of he erm historical violenceha is also crucial: hewidespread endency of people who were abused in childhood o become

abusers hemselves; in conras bu equally imporan, here are also hosewho were abused as children and because of his do no hemselves becomeabusers. We are in he realm of he deeply conneced issues of reproducionand ransformaion: how vicim is ransformed ino vicimizer, how vicims

oen marry vicimizers, and how hey do no, or how hey become par of hesruggle agains such pracices. This is he issue of how yeserday becomeseiher a similar or a differen omorrow wihin families and communiies. I isa paricularly complex ransiion when he coninuiies are widespread, and

domesic violence and subsance abuse become wha is called normalizedbecause i seems almos everyone does i.

Normalized urns ou o misundersand or evade he crucial poin of

some people choosing or needing o do somehing hey know is very wrong.For example, we do no wan o say anyhing abou Naive men hiting, orhiting on, heir wives and children ha we would no also poenially sayabou Caholic priess or famous fooball coaches raping litle boys, for hereare likely o be some imporan similariies. A he core of hese similariies,

more han has been deal wih in sudies of domesic violence, is he proba-biliy ha a subsanial proporion of he perperaors know ha wha hey

are doing is wrong.Hisorical violence calls ino he foreground a hisory founded upon rup-

ure, disconinuiy, conradicionupon breaks in all he hear-wrenchingand also progressive senses of he word. Tha he perperaors of he violenceoen know ha wha hey are doing is wrong, and ha his seems o be parof he wha and why of wha hey do, is, from he perspecive of he perpe -

raors, par of he break from wha has been done o hem. They are no, orno jus, he vicim: hey have power, as much or more power as hose whohur hem.


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There is, in he mids of all his, a posiive opening. The significance ofhe breaks, rupures, and chaos wihin hisorical violence is ha hope, aswell as suffering, can be born in he spaces ha chaos creaes. As we shallsee, boh hope and suffering ener peoples lives and peoples hisories in hedisconinuiies ha shape and coninually reshape hisorical violence, andour ask is o join wih he vicimsand he vicimized perperaorsofind and nourish he hope.

has been abused grows up o become an abusive paren,or marries a person known o be abusive, how can we call his disconinuiy?

This quesion will require an answer ha will have o be worked ou overseveral chapers, bu i urns ou o also be an imporan opening for healing,for finding and using spaces ha coninually open up in he mids of change.

Le us say, only for a sar, ha violence usually inroduces is own discon-inuiies, along wih is repeiiveness and is demands for coninual compli-ance. To he exen ha violence produces dependency, which wihin fami-lies and so-called romanic relaionships seems o be one of is characerisicgoals, i necessarily also produces hosiliy. Dependency, as Freud insised,

is a hosile connecion beween people. For all he compliance in relaions ofdependency here is usually also a subsanial separaion and disancehedisance and he inimacy of hosiliy and perhaps also of hope for change.We will reurn o his issue when we sar o consider he maerial and socialbases for hope.

We mus, in he conex of considering he paricular relaions of depen-dency ha emerge wihin families, also consider he fac ha he main insi-uions of communiy-wide dominaion for he Indians, he Moravian

missions for he Eskimos, and, by he mid-wenieh cenury, he Canadianfederal and Newfoundland and Labrador provincial governmens, plus he

resource-exracing mining, imber, and hydroelecric corporaionsallcenered heir engagemens wih Naive peoples on he producion and in-ensificaion of dependence, a dependence ha was always changing, alwaysincomplee, always producing elusive subjecs. Boh subsance abuse andhe refusal o engage in subsance abuse may each express he muliple waysindividual Naive people and heir families evade dominaion and he open

and hidden pressures, conrols, and demands of he dominan.


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Silent Violence

Concenraion camp survivors from he holocaus, as is well known, rarelyold heir children very much abou wha hey wen hrough, bu surpris-ingly, heir grandchildren oen know more, or admi o knowing more, hanheir parens, and hey show in heir lives some of he long-erm effecs of

ha horror. Coninuiy in some conexs seems o be embedded in silences:he kinds of silences ha he French poe Paul Valery called he acive pres-ence of absen hings.Thus, some of wha we know becomes wha we dono say, becomes wha lives wih us and wihin us as silence. Soldiers whoyears or decades aer heir war sill wake up, from ime o ime, screaming in

he middle of he nigh live boh wih and agains heir memories and heir

feelings. Moreover, heir memories and feelings live wihin hem, wih a lifeand claims and demands of heir own, for i is no easily predicable from heprior days evens wha nighs hese veerans will wake up from heiror ourimposednighmares calling ou in pain. And many do no, or canno, orwill no alk abou eiher wha hey lived hrough or wha sill lives wihinhem. There is someimes no poin in openly knowing somehing if we cando anyhing abou i, or if we hink we can. Our silences are no jus wha we

do no say o ohers; some are also wha we do no or canno say o ourselves.

This is no a all simply a moralizing perspecive, where silences can bebroken wih sermons abou righ and wrong, alhough here are indeed righsand wrongs. Telling someone who is episodically violenly abusive o his orher family ha his is a bad or desrucive way o ac may be doing nohingmore han elling he person somehing hey already know and will no say.Par of he problem before us is how o wrie or alk abou silences.

One approach o his problem is hrough anoher reach oward whamigh or migh no be. I hink ha he silences embedded in such siuaions

as domesic violence, as he coninuing rauma of yeserday, are an expressionof inconclusive sruggle. To wonder how o wrie or alk abou silences iso wonder abou hard sruggles ha have led nowhere. The problems con-inue, despie he nameless sruggles boh wihin hem and agains hem.This migh well give our wriing, our voice, a differen form han usual.

Le me warn you, said Harold Innis, Canadas foremos economic his-orian and auhor of The Fur Trade in Canada ([] ), ha any ex-posiion . . . which explains he problems and heir soluions wih perfec

clariy is cerainly wrong. Ye grans are sill awarded, and graduae sudensare sill rained, by he crieria of preended abiliy o explain wih perfec


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clariy. Surprisingly, acceping Inniss poin may make our work poeniallymore helpful.

For neiher he Naive peoples of Labrador nor we are helpless in he faceof such suffering, including especially he suffering imposed upon he mosvulnerable people, nor are we compleely hampered by wha canno ye beknown, writen, or spoken. Tha is he beauy and power of worlds organizedby sruggle, even inconclusive sruggles. As we have learned from he civil

righs sruggles in he American Souh, sruggle iself no only dignifies buheals. The poin is o produce sruggles ha have deep and effecive roos,boh among he people our work engages and wihin our engaged work. Towrie wih and agains he problems of violence embedded wih silences is

a journey ha can only rarely if ever have a beginning, a middle, and an end,wih a clear and unified narraive line running hroughou. We should nopreend ha we can wrie conclusively abou inconclusive sruggles: oursruggle is no ha differen.

Rethinking Struggle: A Start

There is a widespread figure of speech heard hroughou norheasern Can-ada and rural New England, especially among he Whie working class.

When people are presened wih rouine friendly greeing quesions suchas Howr you doing? or Whas happening? he response is someimesSame shi, differen day, or even more poignanly, , which means, obegin, same old shi.

Bu of course is he worldwide, almos language-free, disress call:hree long sounds or lighs, hree shor, hree longoriginally from he

elegraphic Morse code, and sill oen he cleares way o call for help acrosslong disances or empy space. is no jus same old shi: along wih he

resignaion, he accepance, he cynicism, he quiely good-naured rebutalo your hello quesion, implying Wha did you expec? here is, hoveringwell in he background, he noion of disress, he claim ha more is waned,more is needed, perhaps also help is needed. Even he more sraighforwardand superficially less complicaed saying same shi, differen day is no jus

resignaion and cynical accepance. I is said by people I know who sruggleo do beter and o have some fun on he way. People who say his almosrouinely, in response o he rouine greeing, also almos rouinely ake va-

caions, celebrae holidays, fix up heir homes, and do wha hey can o hangon o or beter heir jobs. Bu his is oen, as hey and we so well know, asruggle agains he odds, agains he sysem.


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can problems, and o begin we will focus on hese problems. Before we caneven incompleely undersand, we mus also know ha here are oher sub-sanial pars of hese communiies, and oher significan ways of living bohwihin and agains he hisories of hese communiies, even since he sand s, when he epidemics of self-desrucion began. To undersand,even parially, we mus also come o know hose imes and places and hosepeople in hese communiies who, wihin and agains all ha has been done

o he Naive peoples of Labrador, wihin and agains all he mess of so manylives, have managed o build good, producive, and caring lives. Mos of all, ograsp wha is happening, we mus never divide hese villages ino produciveand roubled, healhy and ill, good and bad, for if we do, we will miss all he

surprises, all he conradicions ha give and conceal meanings, ha giveshape and fracures o lives. And in paricular, we will fail o see he maerialand social bases for hope and digniy in he mids of pervasive dominaion.

We will work hrough all of his bi by a small bi, so ha he complexiyof he issues we are rying o deal wih does no become overwhelming. Ahe momens when i does feel overwhelming, perhaps ha feeling wihinusauhor, academic readers, concerned observers and aciviss, Naivereaderswill help us, in he end, realize a bi more abou how he people

we are hinking abou feel hemselves. People in difficul circumsances canbe boh ariculae and clear-sighed a some momens and overwhelmed and

confused a ohers. Don ask for anyhing more han his for yourself, as youwork hrough his book, because o wan an easy and full undersanding is oseparae yourself from he people. Our search for a compleed undersandingmay mosly jus disance us even more han necessary.

Three Clarificationsand a Format

One: Throughou his work I will use he names, or labels, for Naive peoplesha were used a he ime. In he early conac period in wha is now souhern

Labrador, Naive peoples were called Esquimaux Indians; laer he nameswere spli. In recen imes Naive peoples have aken, by heir choice andwih official and increasingly public assen, he names Inui and Innu. Touse hese modern names hroughou he hisory of colonial dominaion is oprofoundly misundersand boh he inensiy and he shape of dominaion.The names people are called mater quie a bi, no a all as descripors of

who hey are bu very much, as he erm savagehas shown, o shape howhey will be reaed. People who were called savages of course were no, buhey were reaed wih rue savagery. The name primarily specified no who


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hey were bu how he dominan sociey was going o regard and rea hem.When alking abou heir hisory, o change heir name or heir labels a anearlier ime o Inui or Innu is no a all he mark of respec i claims o be, buan atemp o minimize or even erase he vileness and he violence of our ownhisory. Eskimo and Indian urn ou o name deeply consequenial formsand processes of dominaion and response, which changed subsanially buonly parly for he beter wih he new names, Inui and Innu. Using he

names ha were curren a he ime being writen abou is designed o helpreveal hese processes ha sough o creae wha was named, as well as okeep us cenered on wha, and how much, is a sake.

Two: In conemporary Labrador poliics i is a very sensiive issue wheher

or no he people who are calledMtisare a Naive people wih he now sig-nifican righs associaed wih ha saus. The Mis (from he French wordfor mixed) are primarily he descendans of colonial-era relaions beweenNewfoundlanders or Euro-Canadians and people hen called Eskimo. Theissue of heir Naive saus is no relevan o his research. This book primar-ily addresses he very high raes of subsance abuse and suicide of Innu andInui children and youh, and he Mis do no share his high rae. More-

over, he Mis have had a very differen relaionship o he Newfoundland

and Canadian governmens from early setlemen o he presen, a differencombinaion of producive aciviies, and very differen ways of connecingo larger poliical and economic organizaions and processes han Innu orInui. My use of he ermNative people(s)hus refers o he primary opic ofhe research and wriing, Innu and Inui, and leaves Mis aside for mos of

he ex, no because hey are or are no Naive people bu because hey areno he focus of he problem.

Three: I also need o clarify he use of he erm Naive or indigenouspeople

and Naive or indigenouspeoples. This is a very explosive issue, paricularlysince several governmenssaring wih Brazil, and including Canadacame under some pressure in he lae s from he Unied Naions humanrighs and indigenous peoples forums o sop abusing Naive peoples. Brazilhad offered o gran subsanial legal righs and proecions o Naivepeople,

which raised he fearful possibiliy ha Naive individualswould be granedsomehing like he righs of ciizens, as usual no well enforced, and Naivepeopleswould lose even more collecive righso heir land, heir resources,

heir own poliical processes, and heir special collecive ideniies. Therewas a powerful demonsraion a a Unied Naionssponsored meeing inwhich Naive peoples from differen regions of he world held up placards


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perspecive. This doubled sensibiliy is also crucial o anhropology, paricularly when i

is rooed in enough familiariy o lisen for he silences. This perspecive rejecs he fadcalled reflexive anhropology, which is overly rooed in looking wihin he anhro-

pologiss self. I has always impressed me as he concepual equivalen of ourism.

. For one excepionally insighful insance of he coninuing onslaugh in Labra-dor, see Samson (). For an analysis of he formaive processes ha emerge in his

conex in Naive socieies, see esp. chapers and of myLiving Indian Histories(Sider

b).. Carol Brice-Bennet () has given an exraordinarily moving descripion of a re-

urn visi of Inui o Hebron, from which hey had been ricked ino leaving years earlier.

The ile iself, Reconciling with Memories, suggess wha was a sake in his reurn visi,long aer he rauma.

. Amarya Sens () work on famines poined he way o his crucial realizaion.

Sen showed, for famines in India and Africa, ha a decline in available food, for example,of percen, ordinarily led o almos doubled moraliy raes: closer o percen han percen. Moraliy from famines is almos impossible o coun well, parly because

of he social chaos ha follows, and parly because i is difficul o assign numbers o

people who, weakened by hunger, die laer from disease and equally hard o coun hosewho flee, many of whom die en roue. Bu he poin is sill crucial: in famines many ea

as usual and ohers die of wan, wih far more dying han can be explained by he decline

in available food. This is one widespread aspec of he social consrucion of famines,and his siuaion, alhough exreme, has become he ype case for he concep of par-

ial soluions used here. I don inend o generalize hese proporions, bu only he idea

of he inequaliies and he biases of disasers. Parialiy suggess he incompleenessof he ways ragedy srikesin many cases some coninue o live as usual, while some

dieand his difference is no a all random.

. To help modern urbanies undersand wha follows: Milk ha comes direcly from

a cow separaes. The cream, which is oily, rises o he op, floaing on he more densemilk. Milk ha is now offered for sale is mosly homogenizedhe molecules broken

apar from one anoher wih pressure or grinding, so ha he faty, high-choleserol

cream says mixed ino a now arificially uniform subsance we also call milk. To alkabou, and hen o deal wih, he Cherokee or he Navajo or he Inui or he Innu

is o arificially homogenize, wih pressure and grinding, ino an arificially uniformeniy wih mosly unhealhy consequences.

. The fac ha no Naive sraegy for dealing wih dominaion can work well for

very long oen leads o severe facional sruggles among indigenous peoples. Compe-

ing facions advocae alernaive sraegies, which some undersand will no work eiher.This siuaion is discussed in deph in myLiving Indian Histories(Sider b).

. Linda Green () offers a fine sudy of gender in he conex of wha she calls

srucural and poliical violence.

. The Indian coa hangerwidespread in he norheas a leas, and in he houses

of poorer peoples of all ehniciiesis discussed for Firs Naions very insighfully andpoignanly by Anne McGillivray and Brenda Comaskey in heir excellen book Black

Eyes All of the Time: Intimate Violence, Aboriginal Women, and the Justice System().


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All of he ime in he ile poins oward he failures of he jusice sysem as much as a

coninuing problem wihin Naive communiies.. Some migh well say ha his discussion of dependence, hosiliy, and separaion

akes litle or no accoun of culural difference. Yes, I am sure ha in differen culures

women ge hi in differen ways for differen reasons, wih differen excuses. Bu hi ishi. I also know here is a lieraure ha argues ha in some differen culures women

have come o regard his as normal. If you wan o sar here and rehink he issues

here, you are welcome o do so, bu recognize ha doing his is abou perpeuaion. Isar from he poin ha violence by men agains women, for one example, or by he

sae agains Naive peoples, however differen in surface form, are each opposable,

wihin and agains heir coninuiies and heir differences. To no jus recognize buoverly emphasize culural differences is o minimize he possibiliies of opposiional

movemens learning from one anoher.

. Nicolas Argeni, in his wonderful book The Intestines of the State(), called myatenion o his key quoe.. I wroe abou his in he firs and second ediions of my book on rural Newfound-

land (Sider [] ). The poin ha local people knew wha was happening was

perhaps he mos holy conesed poin of his conenious book, paricularly by heNewfoundland elie. I is a revealing and sad fac for boh he le, wih heir fanasies

abou vanguard paries enlighening he masses, and he liberals and he righ, wih heir

fanasies abou indusrial capialis socieies being democracies (so he problems liewih he voers), ha boh share he noion ha he masses do no know and mus be

augh.

. Owning Death and Life. York () is an excellen general sudy of dispossession. The mos powerful case

sudy is sill by Anasasia Shkilnyk (). Her book has an exraordinary logic o i:you firs read abou Naive people desroying hemselves and each oher, wih very

serious alcohol abuse, page aer page of his seemingly self-imposed ragedy, and hen

you find ou ha hey have been relocaed o a horribly consruced place and hahey are suffering inensifying neurological damage from mercury poisoning because

he governmen did no boher o regulae he discharge from a mill or ell he Naive

people no o ea he fish from heir lake, which once was a major food source. Frank J.Teser and Peer Kulchyski () documen he exen o which knowingly murderous

displacemen, mainained wih lies and false promises, has been a Canadian governmen

pracice, and Colin Samson () and Carol Brice-Bennet () documen his in

recen Labrador Innu and Inui hisory.. This may be one of he many reasons why he diminuiveincluding erms such

as boyand he use of firs names for aduls in subordinae posiionsis used. I marks

boh adul dependency and subordinaion and perhaps also goes beyond conemp opreend ha his dependency is boh necessary and producive, as i is wih children.

. Indeed, a general hisory of he Innu and Inui remains o be writen. And i wouldbe an excepionally difficul ask, because I doub i could producively ake a narraiveforma bu would reside in he incomplee and unbalanced conradicions ha have

skin for skin by gerald m. sider

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