Physical Activity and Healing through the Medicine Wheel

According to Wesley-Esquimaux and Smolewski (2004), Indigenous people have experienced unremitting trauma as a result of colonization. The un-remitting trauma of colonization included physical disconnection with children being removed from families and communities; mental disconnection with forced assimilation, forbidding the use of Aboriginal languages; changes in political and social structures; emotional disconnection by enforcement of the stereotypical view of “savage Indians” needing assimilation; and spiritual disconnection by banning of Indigenous cultural ceremonies (Chansonneuve, 2005).