Who You Callin' "Indian", Part III

Being the Third Entry in a series by Jennifer David, setting out a weekly, non-dogmatic, light-hearted lexicon for those of you who work in this arena and would like a primer on how to refer to...well, us.

So far we've written off two of the older terms people use to refer to the people once referred to as "Indians" and as "Natives". We're getting a little bit closer to appropriate terminology. But as you'll see, we're not home free yet.

ABORIGINAL

For the last few years, "Aboriginal" has been taking over in many circles as the preferred term. As astute readers will have noticed, it's the word I've used most often in this series. Most of the newer organizations like it - think of the National Aboriginal Health Organization, the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, and the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association. It is entrenched in Section 35 of the Canadian constitution, which notes that existing “aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada” are recognized. And no less an authority than the Federal Government recently dumped the quaintly named "Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development " for the spiffy new "Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development ", no doubt ushering in a whole new exciting era of Federal/Aboriginal relations. Ok, sarcasm OFF. But we digress.

The good thing about the term 'Aboriginal" is that it encompasses Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples.

And the bad thing about the term 'Aboriginal" is that it encompasses Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Indigenous Canadians can't be lumped together as a homogeneous group. Their histories, languages, and societies are as distinct as the cultures of Pakistan, China and East Timor. You would never think of those three nations simply as "Asian" - so let's not pretend that there's a deep cultural tie between the fisheries and forest-based Haida, the Inuit hunters of Qikiqtarjuaq, and the wide-ranging Métis traders. Like "Asian" or "African", the term "Aboriginal" encompasses such an incredible diversity of languages, peoples, and cultures as to be almost meaningless.

There are other problems with the term as well. To start with, like the adjective "Indian", it already belongs to someone else. "Aboriginal" is an adjective long associated with the original inhabitants of Australia, as is the noun derived from it, "Aborigine". And that brings up another point - the no-doubt-well-intentioned-but-cringe-inducing use of the adjective (as in: Where can I go to get a real, authentic Aboriginal name?) as a noun (Some of my Best Friends Are Aboriginals, eh?)


With all those caveats and limitations, however, "Aboriginal" seems to have become the word of choice when you need to describe the wide range of Aboriginal people - partly because both "Indian" and "native" have even more issues (see my previous blog entries!) And partly because - well, YOU just try saying "First Nation/Inuit/Metis/status and non-status" and see what I mean.

More to come next week: Who Came First?