The mandate came down from Citizenship NHQ in Ottawa:  At every opportunity, at any citizenship ceremony, a native elder should be enlisted to deliver a “Native Spirituality prayer” before the hundred-odd newly sworn citizens.

            So I sent a query back to Ottawa:  “Since 40 percent of natives identify themselves as Catholics, and another 25 percent as Protestants, does the Lord’s Prayer qualify as Native Spirituality?” To which came back the reply: “LOL.” Hmmm. Since this involves public funding of a religious minister, Native Spirituality is now the Established Religion of the Canadian State.

   So there we were, one Saturday morning, assembling the procession for a big, elaborate citizenship ceremony, opening the new international terminal at our big airport.  And what a procession it was!  Four bagpipers, four drummers, RCMP in their red serge, Border Services in dress blues, the Judge (me) in black-and-scarlet robes, a half-dozen politicos, airport officials, the Clerk of the Ceremony and her staff…  and a 10:00 AM start time.

So where was our native elder?  Five minutes late.

            A hundred new citizens, with as many friends and family, were seated in the reception area, fifty yards down the monumental glass-and-marble corridor. The pipe band started tuning up to pass the time – and if you’ve never heard “the pipes” echoing in an airport terminal, you ain’t heard nothing yet.

            Ten minutes late. Once again, the discussion began:  how long do we wait, before we start without him – and then take the flak from Ottawa?

            Finally, to everyone’s relief, our elder wandered in, arrayed in buckskin and braids and grinning broadly. He then flopped down on a chrome-and-leather airport couch, pulled a bottle from his pocket, tilted back his head, took a long pull from the bottle, and then announced to the assembled procession, “I had really a rough night, last night!”

            While the staff urged the elder to his feet, I turned away to distract our dignitaries. So I can’t vouch for the brand he was drinking or even what he was drinking.   It might have been Gatorade in a mickey, though his words suggested some “hair-of-the-dog.”  Ah, well… Under similar circumstances, a rock star or TV celeb wouldn’t bother showing up.

            Finally we processed in, all in tartan, red, blue, black and buckskin, and greeted by a sea of smiling faces. Once the dignitaries were arrayed on the dais, the Clerk told the congregation to sit, and I announced the Native prayer. Our elder seized the pulpit and began mumbling incomprehensibly into the mike. Time stood still. Smiles endured on the 200-plus shining faces, but the eyes glazed over. Finally, with no end in sight, and given his pause for breath, I stepped forward and profusely thanked the elder for his beautiful prayer. Then we began the ceremony.

            The assembled Hindus, Sikhs, Confucians, Muslims, Latinos, Filipinos, and Nigerians were grinning steadily, delighted with their new citizenship and enthralled by the pageant. No one complained that the government was evangelizing the Cult of Gitchi-Manitou, since no-one really believed it – certainly not the bureaucrats mandating it. They “believed” the waving eagle feather and ceremonial tobacco pouch, no more than the Scotch tartans or RCMP riding boots.

            Over the years, I ran dozens of ceremonies with native elders and their prayers, and I could never tell if they believed it. Our elder at the airport was a nice guy and surely enjoyed himself. Others played a cheerful “mocking-the-white-man” shtick – and who can blame them?  One woman elder always bore herself with a beautiful sincerity, and maybe she really sensed her ancestors there – who can say?

You know what Pa Ingalls would have said: “Old Limping Buffalo’s down at the train station again, fleecing the city slickers” – meanwhile, live and let live.  Public servants however are not permitted a sense of irony. I only repeat that two-thirds of Canadian aboriginals freely identify as Christian, so Native Spirituality seems little more than an invention of that perennially inventive partnership, radical activist clients and their Administration patrons.

The question is:   What does the HUMA think it’s doing, sponsoring the construction of what it calls “Native Spirituality”?  The photo-shopped religiosity, sanitized with Postmodern mysticism, environmentalism and feminism, invoking beliefs, two centuries dead?

Conservative Christians fear that the Administration is plotting to suppress the last shards of Christian influence in public life. In this – mistaken – theory, state-sponsored Native Spirituality mirrors state-sanctioned Islam (like five-times-daily prayer in public schools).  Cultural Christianity was the nursemaid of liberal democracy, but now, the Administration is liberating itself from our representative institutions, by “Balkanizing” the culture, dividing and conquering. Our origins are Christian. Our holidays (“holy-days”) are Christmas, Easter and Hallowe’en. Our people are roughly three-quarters nominal Christians. The conservative accusation is that the HUMA is conspiring in a classic power grab: seizing the authority of an “affirmative action officer” and building a coalition of “ethnic diversity,” in order to suppress the committed-Christian 25 percent. The HUMA promotes the four-percent Muslim, three-percent Sikh, zero-percent Native Spirituality, etc., etc., to beat down the Christian plurality.

The problem with this theory? It violates a fundamental principle in understanding cultural movements: “Never assume malice, if policy can be explained by ideology, superstition or lunacy.” As Nietzsche said, “Insanity is relatively rare in individuals, but the rule in groups.” This is especially true of the HUMA. Its raison d’etre is public service – aka: “doing good for people” – with no objective performance measures. So it thrives on defining and nourishing dependent constituencies. But no ambitious public servant would ever risk conspiracy. Instead, the public servants simply never question the dependents de jour (aboriginals, women, refugees, etc.), as defined by the media, government, media or UN. The plurality Christians don’t want or need government sponsorship – they aren’t “dependents.” Minority religions are dependents – especially when manufactured de novo by the Administration itself.

In fairness, one imagines the despair of native community activists, confronting grim realities like a 25 percent alcohol abuse rate among on-reserve middle-school students.  The proven solution is the Alcoholics Anonymous’ appeal to the Higher Power. But native activists are excused for thinking the Christian Higher Power hasn’t done very well by them.  What’s more, any generic recovery programs would advance native assimilation, thereby gradually depriving patriotic native activists of their constituency. So the Administration happily adopts an imitation Neolithic spirituality, thus further isolating the dependent constituency.

The problem of the HUMA – the Homogenous, Universal and Managerial Administration – is that it encourages an expectation of effortless justice among its “clients.” Instead, it creates a culture of vacuous dependency. I’ve taught on a reserve and seen the waste and despair created by dependency. It tears out your heart. Yet, any attempt to call attention to the dependency – like the story above – is interpreted as an attack on the people.  Natives truly are victims. But they’re not victims of “the white man.” They’re victims of the Administration that perpetuates their dependency.