As a leader in my community of Yakweakwioose I wanted this years box to reflect some of the major issues going on throughout indigenous communities. However, I could not pin point just any one to focus on.
What this box represents is the on-going issues which seemingly get passed on through generations of indigenous peoples and the hope that we don’t burden the next generation with these issues.
The fist coming out of the box holding a red feather represents the “passing of the torch” and breaking of the cycle. Each one of the coloured hands represent some of the major issues we deal with.
The orange hand represents one of the biggest news stories of this year- the residential school atrocities and the findings of what many survivors have spoke of in the past, which is the fact that these institutions have many, many children buried in unmarked graves on these sites. I hope that this leads to the identification and repatriation of our children. This is for all of those who survived and for all of those that didn’t make it home from residential schools and all the trauma that has lingered from this horrific chapter of Canadian history.
The red hand represents the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). This topic is one that has spanned many, many generations. I’ve heard horrible stories from family members of murder victims whose cases went unsolved and were not treated with the same response a non-indigenous case would. There are many Indigenous women and girls that are still missing and this crisis is as old as Canada itself. #nomorestolensisters
The blue hand is representative of all the issues regarding water. Perhaps the biggest issue is pollution. Heavy traffic from boats, ships, oil pipelines and human settlement along the waterways has lead to the pollution of our waterways. Another big impact on the water is climate change, which has countless effects on our waterways. This affects the livelihood of salmon and all other food sources that come from the water in return affecting our own livelihood.
The green hand represents one of the larger issues we as leadership deal with: the land. There is not only environmental issues like forestry, wild fires and floods but in BC there is the lingering Land Question (aka the Indian Land Question). In my own family this has been a hard fought issue that started with my late great grand father Richard Malloway (Th'eláchiyatel) working to solve the land question and it has been handed down through the generations to myself. I have a YouTube video titled: UBCIC April 21st, 1975 where he states that at that time he had been working on the land question for over 40 years. This is definitely one battle that I don’t want to pass on to my children.
The black hand on the lid of the box represents a few issues. The first one is the opioid crisis; overdoses have become far too common in communities throughout the country for many different age groups. The second issue this represents is the racial injustices that indigenous people face whether it is through the court system or police brutality. The other issue that I wanted this to represent was suicide, it has happened so much more recently than I can ever remember.
The hand prints are my son's and the fist was carved by using my own as a model. This gives it a little more personal meaning with my role as a leader and the dedication to my own family to do my best to leave bright future for those that follow after me.
-Siyemches (Chief Terry Horne)
