The Healer, the Witch, and the Law: The Settler Magic That Criminalized Indigenous Medicine Men as Frauds and Normalized Colonial Violence as Care

Abstract

This article examines the puissance of psychospiritual geographies to Witsuwit’en–settler relations during the 1920s and 1930s in British Columbia, Canada. Specifically, we track the ontological politics of the psychospiritual that inhere to relationships between Indigenous healing traditions and a complex array of colonial institutions, including police detachments, courts, churches, residential schools, and asylums. Our entry point is the 1931 witchcraft trial of two Indigenous healers who police apprehended treating a person with cin sickness, a form of animal-spirit dream possession. The article highlights three central elements of the contested nature of psychospiritual care. First, it demonstrates the role that policing witchcraft played within the expansion of settler surveillance and control over Indigenous life. Second, we critically unpack court transcripts from the witchcraft trial, exploring how the Indigenous healers explained the treatment of dream sickness on the stand, as well as how courtroom mistranslations facilitated their criminalization. Third, we flip our gaze and interrogate the substance of colonial care, particularly focusing on the role of churches, residential schools, and asylums in causing psychospiritual harm to their Witsuwit’en wards. Through the article, we reveal the colonial deception that produces the illusion of benevolent settler institutions caring for Indigenous well-being while they actively disrupt the psychospiritual connections that define wellness within Witsuwit’en ontologies. To decolonize this foul settler magic, we argue that we must disrupt the universality of colonial ontologies, expose the violence inherent to settler regimes of care, and recognize the vitality of Indigenous psychospiritual relations to the more-than-human world.

本文探讨了在20世纪20、30年代的加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省, 心理精神地理对Witsuwit’en与定居者关系的影响。我们追踪了心理精神的本体论政治, 这种政治存在于土著治疗传统与各殖民机构的关系中, 包括警队、法院、教堂、寄宿学校和精神病院。我们的切入点是1931年对两名土著医师的巫术审判。cin是一种动物精神盗梦疾病。在治疗一名cin病人时, 这两名医师被警方逮捕。本文强调了心理精神护理的争议性本质的三个核心要素。首先, 展示了巫术监管在扩大定居者监控土著生活的作用。其次, 批判性地解读了巫术审判的法庭记录, 探讨了土著医师如何在法庭上解释盗梦治疗方法, 以及法庭的误译如何促使对其定罪。第三, 质疑了殖民护理的实质, 尤其关注了教堂、寄宿学校和精神病院给Witsuwit’en病房带来的心理精神伤害。本文揭露了殖民欺骗: 它即产生了定居者机构关心土著福祉的仁慈的幻觉, 又刻意破坏了Witsuwit’en本体论中健康的心理精神联系。我们认为, 为了对这种肮脏的定居者魔法进行去殖民化, 必须去除殖民本体论的普遍性, 揭露定居者护理制度的固有暴力, 认识到土著心理精神与超人类世界关系的重要性。

Este artículo examina la fortaleza de las geografías psicoespirituales en las relaciones witsuwit’en–colonos pobladores durante las décadas de 1920 y 1930, en la Columbia Británica, Canadá. De manera específica, se seguimos el rastro a las políticas ontológicas de lo psicoespiritual inherente a las relaciones entre las tradiciones curativas indígenas y un conjunto complejo de instituciones coloniales, incluyendo destacamentos policiales, tribunales, iglesias, internados y asilos. Nuestro caso de entrada es el juicio de1931 por brujería seguido contra dos curanderos indígenas a quienes la policía había aprehendido mientras trataban a una persona afectada con la enfermedad cin, una forma de posesión onírica por espíritus animales. El artículo destaca tres elementos centrales de la naturaleza controversial del tratamiento psicoespiritual. Primero, demuestra el papel que desempeñó el control policial de la brujería dentro de la expansión de la vigilancia colonial, y el control ejercido sobre la vida indígena. Segundo, analizamos críticamente las actas judiciales del juicio por brujería, explorando el modo como los curanderos indígenas explicaron en el estrado el tratamiento de la enfermedad del sueño, así como el modo como las traducciones erróneas del tribunal facilitaron su criminalización. Tercero, cambiamos de mirada e interrogamos la sustancia de la atención colonial, enfocada en particular sobre el rol que cumplieron las iglesias, los internados y los asilos para causar daño psicoespiritual a sus pupilos witsuwit’en. Mediante este artículo, revelamos la decepción colonial que produce la ilusión de que las benévolas instituciones de los colonos cuidan del bienestar de los indígenas, mientras ellos mismos activamente perturban las conexiones psicoespirituales que definen el bienestar dentro de las ontologías witsuwit’en. Para descolonizar esta maléfica magia de los colonos, sostenemos que primero debemos trastocar la universalidad de las ontologías coloniales, exponer la violencia inherente que tienen los regímenes de atención de los colonos, y reconocer la vitalidad de las relaciones psicoespirituales indígenas con el mundo-más-que-humano.

Key Words:

• asylum geographies
• Indigenous medicine
• legal geographies
• psychospiritual geographies
• settler colonialism

关键词:

• 精神病院地理
• 土著医学
• 法律地理
• 心理精神地理
• 定居者殖民主义

Palabras clave:

• geografías del asilo
• geografías jurídicas
• geografías psicoespirituales
• medicina indígena
• colonialismo con pobladores

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the constructive feedback of the two anonymous reviewers. We also benefited from sharing drafts of the paper at meetings of the Canadian Association of Geographers in Winnipeg; the Workshop on Law, Space, and Society at Florida State University; and the Critical Geographies Lab in Tallahassee. Similarly, we benefited tremendously from conversations with Witsuwit’en community members about traditional healing. We dedicate the paper to the memory of the late Russell Tiljoe.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tyler McCreary

TYLER McCREARY is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of First Nations Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on how settler colonialism and racial capitalism inflect governance processes in North America.

Rebecca Hall

REBECCA HALL is an independent scholar, Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is also a Registered Sign Language Interpreter with the Westcoast Association of Visual Language Interpreters and Canadian Association of Sign Language Interpreters. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the relationships between language, consciousness, and being.