So, I have been doing some reading for my Indiginous Studies class. I've actually never been so interested in Canadian history before. I remember learning about Louis Riel back in grade 9. I didn't enjoy my social studies teacher, or the class. I never really thought Canadian history was all that interesting. I took a college History of Western Civilization class once. Greece vs. Rome. That's pretty interesting. But as I have barely scraped the surface of Canada's aboriginal history, it has been nothing less than intriguing. I remember on some family vacation when I was close to 10 years old, I don't remember where it was even, but we went into an aboriginal art gallery. I remember reading some of the captions and looking at the art and reading the history and feeling so awful about what Europeans - essentially, I - did that I think I might have cried that day.

The deep history of Canada is pretty sick. The things human beings are capable of are... disgusting, to say the least.

I have never really known all that much about aboriginal religion or beliefs. I know that some of the beliefs are that everything has a spirit, so everything should be respected - even inanimate, unbreathing objects. I know that they lived in an egalitarian type of society, where everyone was treated equal. There was no looking down on women, or even children. Everything was just as important as everything else. But in the Christian European world view, these people were savages, living off the land with no structurized political system. No God, no king. Europeans decided that instead of just trading from the land, that they would come and live off of it, and eventually take over it, starve the people and kill off tribes and make it their hierarchal capitalized land with unfair treaties and unjust motives. And this is why my skin is white and I live here. Great.

The strangest thing that has come about in my thought process from this class is from religion. I grew up in that standard, church going Christian household with my Dad as the head of the household, God over him and obeying the words of my parents. My prof talked a lot about the huge difference between the hierarchial way of European lifestyle versus aboriginal egalitarianism. Because Europeans were a general Christian people, they got their rules from the Bible. The Bible, which teaches that man is the head of the household, that woman is under man, that God is above everyone, that children obey their parents, that men are the stewards of the Earth and essentially the owners of the world to take care of it (you can see what a good job we have done with this task). The Bible gives a hierarchial approach to living. It even gives an unfair way of living. It has rules of living. Don't lie, steal, swear, get drunk, keep the marriage bed pure...... etc etc. But the recorded people God chose to lead his people were people who did not just do minor little white lie mistakes, they were adulterers and murderers and drunkards. Maybe no one in the entire world at that time seemed to have it right, but I know a lot of preachers now that haven't done anything that bad in their entire lifetime. You'd think there must have been people like that in that time, but even though that's how Christians are "supposed" to live, they were not chosen or rewarded for their efforts. Maybe it's because stereotypically those who live this way think of themselves as better than everyone else, and wouldn't have been successful in the sacrifical ways required. Everyone knows bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, all the time. There are no guarunteed benefits, on this earth, for doing good. Essentially, most things in the Bible are unfair, showing that those who are loyal their entire lives aren't given the same treatment as those who aren't. Those who work 12 x as hard as the person as their left get equal treatment. And the most puzzling and distorting thing of all, for me, is that it encourages a hierarchal way of living, the same thing that influences so much corruption and unfair and unequal ways of living... I know I am being general and unfair and not taking all into consideration, but I just hadn't really looked at it that way before. The "savage people" with no god and no law -- at least they had equality, sharing, the simplicity of living off the land, happiness in poor situations... I know it's arguable that mankind just distorts religion, but it has just been an awful revelation to me that Biblical Christian teachings seem to encourage a hierarchal way of living. Problems of wives living with husbands even when they are unhappy or abused, because of the rule of no divorce. Is there a reward in heaven for that? Women and slaves being treated as dirt. Children with no voice. I don't know. We are just so corrupt. I look around at all the white faces with European decent and shake my head. We aren't even supposed to be living here. This is not even our land. We just took over it with our capitalism and rules and rights, and here we are, Canadians and Americans, thriving and succeeding.

O, Canada.