Defining and Preserving the Well-Being of the Cree: waamistikushiiu v. miyupimaatisiiun :: Essays Papers

Defining and Preserving the Well-Being of the Cree waamistikushiiu v. miyupimaatisiiun For the Cree, health is more than individual(a) physiology. Health is definied by miyupimaatisiiun, a mazy word that refers to an individuals enriching connection to his union and his natural environment. Miyupimaatisiiun can be interpreted as being-alive well, a motive that includes the safety and security of family, friends and tribal members, as well as for the resources the Cree work out on to survive. Thus, the health of the Cree becomes a political entity, defined through contest environmental, social, political as well as physiological threats to traditional life. Politcially, the destination signifies the ability to negotiate the obstacles that threaten the survival of the Cree (57). To understand the significance of Cree health, thither is much to be said for cultural definition through opposition. The bring out element of waamistikushiiu, or whiteman health, that distinctly separa tes it from the miyupimaatisiiun is its numbing divorce from the earth. Removed from a lifestyle of hunting and dwelling in the bush, waamistikushiiu life is by and macro unattached to the intimate discharge-life story of the Cree people. Without much(prenominal) a story, whiteman health is strange and blind in Adelsons Being Alive Well. possibly most significantly, waamistikushiiu health stubbornly denies the existence of other definitions of human health. be by individual physiology, waamistikushiiu health is universally evaluated against simple biomedical standards and find out in proportion to a relative absence of disease(5). Cree miyupimaatisiiun, however, is not a biased and incomplete standard of fitness, but a complex process comprising social relations, land and cultural identity (4). In Whapmagoostui, inadvertent and suicidal deaths, drug and alcohol related illnesses, infectious diseases, and chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and cancer are all found- so metimes in disproportional number-in native communities across Canada (14). By waamistikushiiu standards, such health conditions are disconsolate yet for the Cree, these ailments readily signify a deeper, perpetual ache of land and culture. For centuries, influences of waamistikushiiu culture have altered Cree living. Devastating fur trades, land usurpation, hectogram poisoning in fish and water bearings, and flooding damage are provided a few of the casualties to Cree life in the whitemans pursuit of happiness. As the only way to acquire miyupimaatisiiun strength is to eat Cree food, and the only way to get Cree food is by hunting, the Cree are bound to defy whiteman death of their land and assert rights to survival on their own terms (94).