Good Health and Wellness in Indian Country- GHWIC: An allegory

By AKA Associate Desiree Acosta, Miwok

This month, AKA celebrates Native American Heritage Month and the stories, partnerships, funding, and people who remind us we are doing sacred, mission-driven work that will heal seven future generations. AKA supports the evaluation of three GHWIC-funded programs at the Pueblo of Pojoaque, the California Rural Indian Health Board, and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians.

Photo taken at a point along Amanda's Trail in Yachats, OR, CTCLUSI territory—trigger warning: Indigenous history/forced relocation/violence against women/elders, read more: CTCLUSI's specific history

Along a river in coastal Oregon, there is a canoe house that has seen everything. Winter storms, logjams, the highest tides, and low water years. Seasons when no one dared launch into the water… seasons when it seemed like everyone did.

Inside this house, there are a few canoes of varying age resting. Their hulls carry the marks of many hands and teachings about each journey needing a crew, a clear destination, a plan to work together in the event of rough weather or storms, and a way to make sure everyone returns home together. The elders teach how each seat in the canoe carries a special commitment and responsibility, how every stroke of the paddle is a choice, and that the journey is what we enjoy.

For generations, people here have been told to leave their canoes behind and board “bigger and better” ships instead. Those ships come with new rules, new foods, new expectations, and very little room for ceremony or culture in the new definitions of “healthy.” Today, this looks like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and grief woven into everyday life.

But the community here never put their canoes to sleep, nor stopped building; singing and paddling together as a community, anyway…

At one point, the Tribe gathered to talk about a long journey: reshaping the health systems available to their Tribal members and their families so that the systems truly reflect the values of the Tribe as a whole. With that, they carved a new project into being: General Health and Wellness in Indian Country, also known as GHWIC.

But this is not some crate that arrives out of nowhere, floating in on a random current. No. It’s a cedar storage canoe, over generations, built and filled with their own teachings, plans, hopes, and more, which they sent downriver into the US federal system. After many bends and eddies, the canoe returned home, painted with grant language from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Everyone recognized what is inside: Their own ideas and values to answer their own needs, now resourced…

New paddles labeled “policy, systems, and environmental change,” to not blame individual swimmers anymore, but to shift the entire current.

Star charts marked “performance measures” and “putting data into action” were meant to help all of the paddlers see patterns in fog and chart a clear course.

In the hull, a medicine bundle hangs from the canoe’s neck full of teachings that remind everyone that stories, culture, language, food, and life-ways are not add-ons. They lead.

Suddenly, the canoe house became full as clinic staff, Tribal leaders, aunties, youth, and community partners, including Allyson Kelley and Associates (AKA), all began to step in and find their seats in the GHWIC canoe. Together, this crew is using GHWIC to build real activities and benefits for the community.

AKA is joined in supporting data gathering: When patterns in the data show that some families rarely visit the Clinic, this presents a question for the canoe crew: Is the current system working against them? Do programs clash with fishing for food, time for school, align with, and respect ceremony schedules?

Not as a judge, not as a leader, and none of the work replaces the teaching in the canoe house, our work extends and augments the community voice and direction, never replacing original instructions set forth by generations of Tribal people along this river. The same people with teachings that have always been there: pull together, keep a balanced canoe inside and out, respect the river and the waters, plan for storms, and travel in a good way with honest relationships.

Together, we work to answer, “Are we paddling towards a place where the Tribal community names what is truly ‘healthy?’ The place where health and healing become possible, and not just in a story.”

This means that when the next seven generations step into this canoe, the goal is simple: the Tribal community that has called this place home since time immemorial should feel the GHWIC canoe (and canoe culture at large) belongs to them… because it does. When we convey this and work together for others, we fortify the message and truth that the waters and Tribal people in their homelands still know each other, no matter how long it may be between visits.