The Relations of Mental Wellness: Indigenous Cree Lessons on Land-Based Healing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
I present Mushkegowuk Cree experiences of mental wellness, healthcare and land-based foodways in conversation with interdisciplinary academic interpretations. I use a Living Systems approach(1) with nature as a setting – mental healing in natural settings (including knowledges, activities and relationships) is understood by land-based communities through lived experience and by environmental psychologists using science – and as a subject, where health constructs, settings and practices are analogously compared to complex systems in nature, as in traditional land-based lifeways(2). I critique pathological and isolating narratives of dominant mental health paradigms and position Cree knowledge as more than locally-relevant cultural values: as valid and vital reminders on restoring healthy personal and planetary balance.This involved two sets of interviews seeking to: i) define mental wellness constructs, barriers and bridges according to the Cree of Peetabek (Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario) and characterize their mental healthcare systems from multiple perspectives(3) ii) understand healing pathways in traditional land-based foodways according to Cree harvesters. Cree unwellness was defined as isolation and fractured relationships created by residential schools and reality distortions of colonial institutional gaslighting. It is perpetuated by crisis- based, symptomatic healthcare inconsistent with the Cree Way. Cree wellness, based on trust in self, others and nature, arises from interdependent relations that simultaneously support the liberty of individual agency – contrasting isolated hierarchies. This dynamic of supported autonomy(4) was apparent in Cree harvest testimonies, and became the central concept for communicating Cree lessons to academia. The Cree harvest balances the relations of wellness by necessitating: continuous navigation, observation and embodiment of nature’s patterns and rhythms; place-based, multisensory rituals that harmonize a coherent and complex sense of reality between one’s internal and external environment; and routines of material interdependence, stimulating discovery and meaningful skill mastery. Ultimately, land-based, collective survival reminds people how to live as related agents. In dialogue with literature, I apply this to understanding psyche situated in embodied, environmental, and sociopolitical contexts. Footnotes: (1) My term based on Complex Adaptive Systems Theory. (2) Referred to by Gregory Cajete (2016) as Native Science. (3) Elders, traditional healers, clinicians, program managers. (4) My term. I alternatively use the term related agency, depending on context.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.016 | 0.032 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".