Douglas Quan, a reporter for the National Post in Toronto, recently described Aboriginal communities as being in "A state of perpetual mourning" and asked, "What’s behind the 'clusters' of suicide attempts in aboriginal communities?"

The latest "cluster" occurred in the community of Attawapiskat, which declared a state of emergency after 39 suicide attempts, mostly by young people, since March. Since autumn 2015 there have been more than 100 suicide attempts in Attawapiskat, which has a population of just 2,000.

What can we say to answer Quan's question?

Quan quoted Gerald McKinley, an aboriginal health expert at Western University in London, Ontario, who said suicide clusters "are typically triggered by a variety of social stresses: substance use, changes to family structure, intergenerational trauma, violence, food insecurity, and low employment."

The Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal studied an earlier "suicide cluster" on Manitoulin Island in 1974-75, and linked it to "an absence of self-esteem, an absence of any intimate personal relationships, family discord and heavy alcohol use in the family."

John Berry, a psychology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, linked suicide among Native youth to "the situation of being caught between two cultures and being unable to find satisfaction in either."

Carrie Bourassa, an indigenous health studies professor at First Nations University of Canada in Regina, said, "We don’t even have a word for suicide in our languages. Do you know what that tells me? It tells me that it did not exist in our communities before contact."