"Culture Answer to Woes: Mercredi"

MONTREAL - Indians must return to their traditional language, culture and spirituality in the battle against the rampant alcohol and drug abuse that is devastating their communities, says Ovide Mercredi.

"We have closed our minds and our hearts to our own spirituality," Mercredi, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told a conference for native children of alcoholics.

There's a sense of helplessness among natives, he said, especially among young people who are desperate "to feel comfortable, to feel confident and to feel their lives are meaningful."

To "rebuild our people and rebuild our nations," a concerted effort to relearn native traditions is needed, said Mercredi, who delivered part of his speech in Cree.

And he wants native leaders to be at the forefront of that campaign.

Mercredi was speaking to about 500 members of the National Association for Native American Children of Alcoholics.

They're meeting to discuss substance abuse and what it has brought to native communities: epidemics of family violence, sexual and child abuse, suicide, sharp political divisions and a general feeling of hopelessness on reserves.

The conference, which ends today, opens with prayers and a ceremony presided over by an elder. And many of the speakers are spiritual leaders.

One of them, Tom Porter, a Mohawk spiritual adviser from New York state, made an emotional appeal to delegates to take time to teach the young about the ways of their ancestors.

"Our creator forbids people from using things that alter the natural state of mind," Porter said, but booze and drugs are nevertheless destroying native individuals, families and communities.