Robert Alexander Innes
Robert Alexander Innes is a Plains Cree member of Cowessess First Nation. He is an Assistant Professor in the department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan and the author of Elder Brother and the Law of the People: Contemporary Kinship and Cowessess First Nation.
Books (1)
Synopsis:
In the pre-reserve era, Aboriginal bands in the northern plains were relatively small multicultural communities that actively maintained fluid and inclusive membership through traditional kinship practices. These practices were governed by the Law of the People as described in the traditional stories of Wîsashkêcâhk, or Elder Brother, that outlined social interaction, marriage, adoption, and kinship roles and responsibilities.
In Elder Brother and the Law of the People, Robert Innes offers a detailed analysis of the role of Elder Brother stories in historical and contemporary kinship practices in Cowessess First Nation, located in southeastern Saskatchewan. He reveals how these tradition-inspired practices act to undermine legal and scholarly definitions of “Indian” and counter the perception that First Nations people have internalized such classifications. He presents Cowessess’s successful negotiation of the 1996 Treaty Land Agreement and their high inclusion rate of new “Bill-C31s” as evidence of the persistence of historical kinship values and their continuing role as the central unifying factor for band membership.
Additional Information
216 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
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