Canadian Indigenous Courses

DraMétis is the first anthology to focus on the emerging discipline of Métis drama. The pieces have all been previously produced and highlight the diversity of Métis drama being written and performed in Canada.

Memories. Some memories are elusive, fleeting, like a butterfly that touches down and is free until it is caught. Others are haunting. You'd rather forget them, but they won't be forgotten. And some are always there. No matter where you are, they are there, too.

In this moving story of legacy and reclamation, two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless in a broken system, April and Cheryl are separated and placed in different foster homes. Despite the distance, they remain close, even as their decisions threaten to divide them emotionally, culturally, and geographically. As one sister embraces her Métis identity, the other tries to leave it behind.

Will the sisters’ bond survive as they struggle to make their way in a society that is often indifferent, hostile, and violent?

Based on the adult novel In Search of April Raintree, this edition has been revised specifically for students in grades 9 through 12. 

Educator Information
Recommended Grades: 9-12.  This version of the novel was written specifically for students in grades 9-12 and does not contain the graphic scene that is contained in the original version, In Search of April Raintree.

Grades 10-12 English First Peoples resource.

Find a teacher guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree here: Teacher Guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Stories of Indigenous Survivance, Family Separation, and the Child Welfare System

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

This reference and instructional manual contains a detailed thoroughly analysed, well-supported comparisons of the four Pacific Northwest First Nations art styles. There are 800 clear, detailed illustrations accompanied by straightforward copy. Topics include design formalise, ovoids, U shapes, S shapes, heads, body parts, and design formation, as well as a step-by-step "How to Draw" section.

This reference and instructional manual contains a detailed, thoroughly analyzed, well-supported comparison of the four Pacific Northwest First Nations art styles. There are 800 clear, detailed illustrations accompanied by straightforward copy. Topics include design formline, ovoids, U shapes, S shapes, heads, body parts, and design formation, as well as a step-by-step "How to Draw" section.

Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth is the emotional story of a woman’s struggle to acknowledge her birth family. Grace, a Native girl adopted by a White family, is asked by her birth sister to return to the Reserve for their mother’s funeral. Afraid of opening old wounds, Grace must find a place where the culture of her past can feed the truth of her present. Cast  of 2 women and 2 men.

Reviews
“…this play is a very tender, engaging look at two strangers learning to be sisters…witty one-liners and snappy dialogue has crafted likeable, real characters…brings a satisfying sense of closure to the struggles of Barb and Janice/Grace. It is a welcome ending, one that reflects hope for the future – not only for these two sisters , but also for all the others who have yet to find their way home.” - Cheryl Isaacs, Aboriginal Voices.

Awards

• James Buller Award for Playwright of the Year, 1997
• Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division, 1996.

Educator Information
Grades 11-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the units Yes, there is Funny Stuff - Humour in First Peoples Literature and What Creates Family?

Additional Information
112 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

In-depth analysis of the 130-year history of the Aboriginal title issue in British Columbia, including the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en case.

Anthropologists have traditionally studied Europe’s “others” and the marginalized and excluded within Europe’s and North America’s boundaries. This book turns the anthropologist’s spyglass in the opposite direction: on the law, the institution that quintessentially embodies and reproduces Western power.

The Pleasure of the Crown offers a comprehensive look at how Canadian, particularly British Columbian, society “reveals itself” through its courtroom performances in Aboriginal title litigation. Rather than asking what cultural beliefs and practices First Nations draw on to support their appeals for legal recognition of Aboriginal title, Culhane asks what assumptions, beliefs, and cultural values the Crown relies on to assert and defend their claims to hold legitimate sovereignty and jurisdiction over lands and resources in B.C. What empirical evidence does the Crown present to bolster its arguments? What can thus be learned by anthropologists and the public at large about the historical and contemporary culture of the powerful?

Focusing in particular on the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en case, the book traces the trial of Delgamuukw. v. Regina from its first hearing during 1987 and 1991 to its successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which issued a landmark ruling on the case on December 11, 1997.

Additional Information
416 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback 

This important and timely book is a balance of the most gruesome elements of assimilation: church-run schools, the child welfare system, survivors of sexual abuse, and Foetal Alcohol Syndrome counter-balanced against heroic stories of children who survived, fought back, and found their way home.

Harrrowing stories are presented wherever possible in the first person, by Fournier, a journalist, and Cree, a B.C native spokesperson and activist, and a stolen child himself. The final message is optimistic, suggesting that redress and reconciliation could enrich the entire country by creating healthy aboriginal communities.

The extraordinary life story of Clayton Mack (1910-1993), a legendary hunting guide from the Nuxalk Nation (Bella Coola), is told in his own words. To Clayton Mack, who loved the wilderness and whose most precious memories were of the days when people got around without roads, told time without watches, and took planks from giant cedars without axes, the two most mysterious creatures on earth were grizzly bears and "Q''umsciwas" (white men) - from Crooked Jaw the Indian Agent to the rich and famous men who hired him to guide them on their trophy hunts.
"The tales are told by a natural storyteller, who as a child was carried as a prop in Native ceremonial dances, and who later found himself dining in Hollywood restaurants with California''s most powerful people. His stories are wild and bawdy and funny and tragic, and they reach back through history. They are like native ritual dances, in that it''s impossible to separate the magic from the realism: at the end, you will wonder what was real and what was dream. The arnazing thing is, it''s all true. It''s all true."
-Mark Hume, journalist for the "Vancouver Sun," "National Post" and author of "The Run of the River"

A powerful coming-of-age story -- edgy, stark, and at times, darkly funny that centers around Larry, a Native teenager trying to cope with a painful past and find his place in a confusing and stressful modern world.

Larry is a Dogrib Indian growing up in the small northern town of Fort Simmer. His tongue, his hallucinations and his fantasies are hotter than the centre of the sun. At sixteen, he loves Iron Maiden, the North and Juliet Hope, the high school tramp.

In this powerful and very funny first novel, Richard Van Camp gives us one of the most original teenage characters in Canadian fiction. Skinny as spaghetti, nervy and self-deprecating, Larry is an appealing mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His past holds many terrors: an abusive father, blackouts from sniffing gasoline, an accident that killed several of his cousins, and he's now being hunted and haunted by a pack of blue monkeys. But through his new friendship with Johnny, a Métis who just moved to town, he's now ready to face his memories and his future.

The Lesser Blessed is an eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young Dogrib man in the age of AIDS, disillusionment with Catholicism and a growing world consciousness.

Educator Information
Grades 11-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the unit What Creates Family?

Note: This novel contains mature content, such as depictions of violence and incidents of drug and alcohol use).

Additional Information
128 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Written mainly by First Nations and Métis people, this book examines current issues in First Nations education.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Eastern Door: Reconceptualizing First Nations Education

1. Towards a Redefinition of Indian Education
2. Peacekeeping Actions at Home: A Medicine Wheel Model for a Peacekeeping Pedagogy
3. Redefining Science Education for Aboriginal Students

Southern Door: Connecting with and Maintaining Our Relations

4. Aboriginal Epistemology
5. Quaslametko and Yetko: Two Grandmother Models for Contemporary Native Education Pedagogy
6. Language and Cultural Content in Native Education
7. Learning Processes and Teaching Roles in Native Education: Cultural Base and Cultural Brokerage

Western Door: Meeting the Challenge of Incoherence

8. A Major Challenge for the Education System: Aboriginal Retention and Dropout
9. Teacher Education and Aboriginal Opposition
10. The Challenge for Universities
11. Non-Native Teachers Teaching in Native Communities

Northern Door: Transforming First Nations Education

12. Treaties and Indian Education
13. Taking Control: Contradiction and First Nations Adult Education
14. Locally Developed Native Studies Curriculum: An Historical and Philosophical Rationale
15. The Sacred Circle: An Aboriginal Approach to Healing Education at an Urban High School

Bibliography of First Nations Pedagogy
Contributors
Index

Marie Battiste (editor), a member of the Mi'kmaq Nation, teaches in the Indian and Northern Education Department at the University of Saskatchewan.

Jean Barman (editor) is a Professor in the Department of Social and Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Originally published in 1977, and reprinted several times since, Contact and Conflict remains an invaluable account of the profound impact that white settlement had on Native-European relations in British Columbia after the fur trade ended. Robin Fisher argues that the fur trade had a limited effect on the cultures of Native people. Both Natives and Europeans were involved in a mutually beneficial economic system, and there was no incentive for non-Native fur traders to alter radically the Native social system. With the passing of the fur trade in 1858, however, and the beginning of white settlement, what has been a reciprocal system between the two civilizations became a pattern of white dominance.

The second edition includes a preface in which the author re-examines his original arguments, surveys the literature since 1977, and comments on directions for new research. The original edition of the book was published at a time when there was relatively little written by historians on the subject. Today, Contact and Conflict is still widely used by scholars and students, and its arguments have endured, yielding new insights into the role of Native people in the history of British Columbia.

One of the first books published to deal with the phenomenon of residential schools in Canada, Resistance and Renewal is a disturbing collection of Native perspectives on the Kamloops Indian Residential School(KIRS) in the British Columbia interior. Interviews with thirteen Natives, all former residents of KIRS, form the nucleus of the book, a frank depiction of school life, and a telling account of the system's oppressive environment which sought to stifle Native culture.

Winner of the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (BC Book Prize) in 1989.

Now in its 8th printing.

Authenticity Note: This book has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label because of the interviews and contributions of Indigenous peoples in this work, whom the author thanks and acknowledges in the introduction of the book. It is up to readers to determine if this an authentic work for their purposes.

Breathtaking photographs make this volume an unforgettable visual experience. Individual works of superlative Northwest Coast Indian art appear on large pages, their colors vivid against black backgrounds. Most startling and awe inspiring are the many masks, made of wood and other materials, that represent animal spirits and shamans; for instance, the gorgeous thunderbird transformation mask with its dark, curved beak and red feathers, which is shown closed and then open to reveal the metamorphosed turquoise human face within. Other photos display detailed carvings on boxes, utensils, and even houses. The detailed text is well wrought, both academically solid and accessible. But it is the photographs that make one gasp with admiration.