My name is Albert Marshall, and I reside in the community called Eskizoni in Nova Scotia.
But I'm really from Miigamagi, the territory of the Miigamos.
And the article that we decided to put forth was based on this concept of Tuwai-Sin.
Tuwai-Sin to us is a very encompassing word because it makes you look at everything from another perspective.
Dealing and talking about health, for example, I think it's about time that we incorporate more of that concept.
Because what I am witnessing and seeing at this juncture, of course, is the health has a tendency only to look at the symptoms,
and not the causes of those symptoms.
And in most cases, the health caregivers, again, will only look at the symptom.
And we're just talking exclusively now for Miigamagi people in my case.
They will look at the sickness and maybe not the cause of the sickness.
But being an Aboriginal person today, especially those of us that are the products of residential school,
we realize today that we infested our children, our grandchildren, and our communities
to the atrocities that we have somehow been subjected to.
People that are starving cannot and will not concern themselves about the state of the environment.
The cultural starvation plays a role into those years in which we have been forced to be disconnected of who we are as Aboriginal people.
And part of that disconnection that is felt and experienced today, of course, is not just the physical disconnect,
but also the spiritual disconnect.
Because to us, there was very little separation between the physical and the spiritual aspects of who we are.
And in order for us to maintain those two in a balanced and harmonious way,
they have to be not just utilized but nurtured and incorporate and to be able to understand what nature is telling us.
And the only way that you can understand what she is telling you is through the language that you were born with.
And in our case, it's Miigamagi.
So Miigamagi today is not used as a working language.
It's only used as a form of just maintaining it.
But to bring back the essence of who we are, the very things that keep our forefathers alive and well,
those have to be done through the language.
So if the language is absent, then how can the other domains be maintained in a balanced and harmonious way?
Because of the interconnection, interdependency of everything and of your very essence of who you are is based and transmitted through the language.
So to me, this is what cultural starvation is.
If you are forced people to denounce or to deny them to be who they are and to function who they are,
not just how they go about in sustaining themselves, but how they structure their daily lives.
And those could only be done and prepare the next seven generations through the language of their birth.
