Culture / Cultural Practices

The story of an overlooked group of cultural visionaries

The “Micmac Indian Craftsmen” of Elsipogtog (then known as Big Cove) rose to national prominence in the early 1960s. At their peak, they were featured in print media from coast to coast, their work was included in books and exhibitions — including at Expo 67 — and their designs were featured on prints, silkscreened notecards, jewelry, tapestries, and even English porcelain.

Primarily self-taught and deeply rooted in their community, they were among the first modern Indigenous artists in Atlantic Canada. Inspired by traditional Wabanaki stories, they produced an eclectic range of handmade objects that were sophisticated, profound, and eloquent.

By 1966, the withdrawal of government support compromised the Craftsmen's resources, production soon ceased, and their work faded from memory. Now, for the first time, the story of this groundbreaking co-operative and their art is told in full. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery opening in 2022, Wabanaki Modern features essays on the history of this vibrant art workshop, archival photographs of the artisans, and stunning full-colour images of their art.

Wla atukuaqn na ujit ta'nik mu ewi'tamuki'k tetuji kelulkɨpp ta'n teli amaliteka'tijik

Wla “Mi'kmewaqq L'nue'k amaliteka'tijik” tlo'ltijik Elsipogtog (amskweseweyekk i'tlui'tasikɨpp Big Cove) poqji wuli nenupnikk wla amaliteka'tijik 1960ekk. Je wekaw wutlukowaqnmuwow ika'tasikɨpp wikatikniktuk aqq ne'yo'tasikɨpp ta'n pukwelk ta'n wen nmitew — je wekaw Expo 67 — aqq ta'n koqoey kisi napui'kmi'tipp tampasɨk koqoey eweketu'tij stike' l'taqnewi'kasik, napui'kn misekn, wi'katikne'ji'jk, meko'tikl kuntal, kaqapitkl l'taqa'teke'l, aqq wekaw akalasie'we'k eptaqnk. Nekmow na kekina'masultijik aqq melki knukwi'tij ta'n tett telayawultijik, nekmow na amskewsewa'jewaqq l'nu'k tel nenujik ujit ta'n teli amaliteka'tijik ujit Atlantic Canada. Pema'lkwi'titl a'tukuaqnn ta'n sa'qewe'l, ta'n wejiaqel a'tukuaqnn Wabanaki, l'tu'tipp kaqasi milamu'k koqowey toqo eweketu'titl wutpitnual tetuji moqɨtekl, ma'muntekl, aqq weltekl.

Wekaw 1966ekk, kpno'l pun apoqnmuapni wla amaliteka'tikete'jɨk jel kaqnma'tijik ta'n koqoey nuta'tipp, amuj pana pun lukutipnikk, aqq tel awantasuwalutki'k. Nike', amskwesewey, wla a'tukuaqn tetuji msɨki'kɨpp wla wut lukewaqnmuwow etel kaqi a'tukwasikk. Wije'tew meski'k neya'tmk Beaverbrook Art Gallery pana'siktetew 2022al, Wabanaki Modern na pema'toql wikikaqnn ujit ta'n pemiaqɨpp wla tetuji wulamu'kɨpp kisitaqnne'l telukutijik, maskutekl sa'qewe'l napuikasikl toqo nemu'jik etl-lukutijik wla lukewinu'k, aqq sikte wultek aqq welamu'k ta'n koqoey kisitu'tij.

L'histoire d'un groupe de visionnaires culturels ignorés

Un groupe d'artisans mi'kmaw d'Elsipogtog (autrefois Big Cove) au Nouveau-Brunswick se fit connaître à travers le Canada au début des années 1960. À l'apogée de leur renommée, les Micmac Indian Craftsmen firent l'objet d'articles dans des publications d'un océan à l'autre. Leur travail figura dans des livres et des expositions — dont Expo 67 à Montréal — et leurs œuvres graphiques furent reproduites sous forme de gravures et de sérigraphies, et elles ornèrent de la papeterie, des bijoux, des tapisseries et même de la porcelaine anglaise.

En grande partie autodidactes et solidement enracinés dans leur communauté, les Micmac Indian Craftsmen furent parmi les premiers artistes autochtones modernes au Canada atlantique. En s'inspirant de récits traditionnels wabanakis, ils fabriquaient à la main une gamme variée d'objets raffinés, évocateurs et porteurs d'un sens profond.

En 1966, toutefois, le gouvernement retira son soutien. Les Craftsmen perdirent leur financement, la production cessa peu après et leur œuvre finit par être oubliée. Une nouvelle publication relate maintenant, pour la première fois, l'histoire complète de cette coopérative innovatrice et de ses réalisations. Publié dans le cadre d'une grande exposition qui a lieu à la Galerie d'art Beaverbrook en 2022, Wabanaki Moderne comprend des textes sur l'histoire de cet atelier dynamique, des photographies d'archives des artisans et de superbes illustrations couleur de leurs œuvres.

Educator Information
Delivered in three languages: English, Mi'kmaw, and French

Additional Information
228 pages | 10.00" x 10.00" | Paperback | 96 Colour Reproductions and Photos, 26 Black and White Illustrations and Archival Photos 

Long known as the Cannibal Dance, the Hamat̓sa is among the most important hereditary prerogatives of the Kwakwa̱ka̱ꞌwakw of British Columbia. Writing the Hamat̓sa offers a critical survey of attempts to record, describe, and interpret the dance under shifting colonial policy. In the late nineteenth century, as anthropologists arrived to document the practice, colonial agents were pursuing its eradication and Kwakwa̱ka̱ꞌwakw were adapting it to ensure its survival. In the process, the dance – with dramatic choreography, magnificent bird masks, and an aura of cannibalism – entered a vast and variegated library of ethnographic texts.

Drawing on close, contextualized reading of published texts, extensive archival research, and fieldwork, Aaron Glass analyses key examples of overlapping genres over four centuries: the exploration journal, the territorial survey, the missionary polemic, settler journalism, government reports, anthropological works (especially by Franz Boas and George Hunt), poetry, fiction, and Indigenous (auto)biography.

Going beyond postcolonial critiques of representation that often ignore Indigenous agency in the ethnographic encounter, Writing the Hamat̓sa focuses on forms of textual mediation and Indigenous response that helped transform the ceremony from a set of specific performances into a generalized cultural icon. This meticulous work illuminates how Indigenous people contribute to, contest, and repurpose texts in the process of fashioning modern identities under settler colonialism.

This comprehensive critical survey of ethnographic literature on the Hamat̓sa ceremony will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the Northwest Coast in a range of disciplines – Indigenous studies, anthropology and history of anthropology, ethnohistory, BC studies, art history, museum studies, and material culture – as well as for Kwakwa̱ka̱ꞌwakw/Indigenous readers.

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Foreword / Chief William Cranmer/T̓łlakwagila (ꞌNa̱mg̱is Nation)

Prologue: Points of Arrival and Departure

Introduction: From Writing Culture to the Intercultural History of Ethnography

1 A Complex Cannibal: Colonialism, Modernity and the Hamat̓sa

2 Discursive Cannibals:The Textual Dynamics of Settler Colonialism, 1786–1893

3 The Foundations of All Future Researches: The Work of Franz Boas and George Hunt, 1886–1966

4 Reading, Rewriting, and Writing Against: Changing Anthropological Theory, 1896–1997

5 From Index to Icon: (Auto)Biography and Popular Culture, 1941–2012

6 Reading Culture, Consuming Ethnography

Afterword: Between This World and That / Andy Everson/Tanis (K̕ómoks Nation)

Appendices

Glossary

Notes; References; Index

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512 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 28 b&w photos, 2 maps | Paperback

20.12m: A Short Story Collection of a Life Lived as a Road Allowance Métis celebrates and acknowledges the humble living conditions of Métis Road Allowance families and it exemplifies their grit and tenacity to survive and indeed succeed in the face of so many hardships. “20.12m” refers to the narrow width of many of the road allowances throughout the prairies. This unoccupied crown land became one of the meagre options for many impoverished Métis families as so few owned land.

In this passionate coming of age book, Arnolda Dufour Bowes honours the true-life experiences of her father, Arnold Charles Dufour, a resident of the Punnichy, Saskatchewan Road Allowance community. The strength of the oral tradition has kept these stories solidly in place in Arnolda’s memory. Weaving true elements with those drawn from her own creativity, these five engaging stories share a lived experience that is little-known to most Canadians. This collection of cherished remembrances of this Métis family will also strongly resonate with many other Métis families who lived similar lives. In keeping with the family focus, Arnolda’s sister, Andrea Haughian, skillfully complements these poignant stories with expressive illustrations, which both honour and richly portray road allowance life.

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Recommended by publisher for secondary, post-secondary, and adult readers.

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Paperback

In A People and a Nation, the authors, most of whom are themselves Métis, offer readers a set of lenses through which to consider the complexity of historical and contemporary Métis nationhood and peoplehood. Multidisciplinary chapters on identity, politics, literature, history, spirituality, religion, and kinship networks orient the conversation toward Métis experiences today.

The chapters within are themselves also a reorientation given that the field of Métis Studies has been afflicted by a longstanding tendency to situate Métis within deeply racialized contexts, and/or by an overwhelming focus on the nineteenth century. A People and a Nation confronts such problematic characterizations head on, training a critical gaze on conventional historiographical positionings of the Métis people as a primitive intermediate force that opened up the Canadian West.

A People and a Nation dismantles the impoverished notions that continue to shape political, legal, and social understandings of Métis existence. It is a timely collection that convincingly demonstrates how racialized interpretative frameworks diminish the Métis people and are incompatible with the task of understanding Métis peoplehood and nationhood.

Reviews

Educator Information
This important work will appeal not only to scholars in Métis studies but also to scholars and students of Indigenous studies, political science, sociology, history, and cultural studies, and to policy workers and others seeking a better understanding of the Métis people and the current state of Métis studies.

Table of Contents
Introduction: A New Era of Métis Studies Scholarship / Chris Andersen and Jennifer Adese

1 Peoplehood and the Nation Form: Core Concepts for a Critical Métis Studies / Chris Andersen

2 The Power of Peoplehood: Reimagining Metis Relationships, Research, and Responsibilities / Robert L.A. Hancock

3 The Race Question in Canada and the Politics of Racial Mixing / Daniel Voth

4 Challenging a Racist Fiction: A Closer Look at Métis-First Nations Relations / Robert Alexander Innes

5 Restoring the Balance: Métis Women and Contemporary Nationalist Political Organizing / Jennifer Adese

6 Alcide Morrissette: Oral Histories of a Métis Man on the Prairies in the Mid-Twentieth Century / Jesse Thistle

7 “We’re Still Here and Métis:” Rewriting the 1885 Resistance in Marilyn Dumont’s The Pemmican Eaters / June Scudeler

8 Mary and the Métis: Religion as a Site for New Insight in Métis Studies / Paul L. Gareau

9 Building the Field of Métis Studies: Toward Transformative and Empowering Métis Scholarship / Adam Gaudry

List of Contributors; Index

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252 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

In A Short History of the Blockade, award-winning writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg stories, storytelling aesthetics, and practices to explore the generative nature of Indigenous blockades through our relative, the beaver—or in Nishnaabemowin, Amik. Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of dams and the world-building possibilities of blockades, deepening our understanding of Indigenous resistance, as both a negation and an affirmation. Widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation, Simpson’s work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song, bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. A Short History of the Blockade reveals how the practice of telling stories is also a culture of listening, “a thinking through together,” and ultimately, like the dam or the blockade, an affirmation of life.

Educator Information
Subjects & Keywords: Social Sciences, Literary Criticism, Indigenous Studies; Indigenous resistance, blockades, beaver dams, Nishnaabeg storytelling, regeneration, generative resistance, Canadian Indigenous literature, land defenders, water defenders, practice of wisdom, Indigenous stories, Indigenous authors.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools collection for grades 10 to 12 for these subjects: Social Studies, English Language Arts, English First Peoples

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88 pages | 5.25" x 9.00"

One man’s story of growing up in the hunting and gathering society of the Ojibways and surviving the residential school system, woven together with traditional legends in their original language.

Members of Eli Baxter’s generation are the last of the hunting and gathering societies living on Turtle Island. They are also among the last fluent speakers of the Anishinaabay language known as Anishinaabaymowin. Aki-wayn-zih is a story about the land and its spiritual relationship with the Anishinaabayg, from the beginning of their life on Miss-koh-tay-sih Minis (Turtle Island) to the present day. Baxter writes about Anishinaabay life before European contact, his childhood memories of trapping, hunting, and fishing with his family on traditional lands in Treaty 9 territory, and his personal experience surviving the residential school system. Examining how Anishinaabay Kih-kayn-daa-soh-win (knowledge) is an elemental concept embedded in the Anishinaabay language, Aki-wayn-zih explores history, science, math, education, philosophy, law, and spiritual teachings, outlining the cultural significance of language to Anishinaabay identity. Recounting traditional Ojibway legends in their original language, fables in which moral virtues double as survival techniques, and detailed guidelines for expertly trapping or ensnaring animals, Baxter reveals how the residential school system shaped him as an individual, transformed his family, and forever disrupted his reserve community and those like it. Through spiritual teachings, historical accounts, and autobiographical anecdotes, Aki-wayn-zih offers a new form of storytelling from the Anishinaabay point of view.

Reviews
"Aki-wayn-zih will educate not only Canadians but the world as to what my people went through during this tragic part of history. I recommend this book wholeheartedly, and I hope that it inspires our young people and the public to learn more about Indigenous Peoples, our history, and why we remain strong in our culture, our languages, our lands, and our nations." — David Paul Achneepineskum, Matawa First Nations

"Eli Baxter eloquently weaves us through his life on the land. This is not just a book, but also a record of Anishinaabay customs and beliefs. What also makes this an incredible treasure is the fact that it is expressed in the language. No doubt a language resource for many generations to come, the information in this book is sacred and will transform lives." — Isaac Murdoch, Onaman Collective

"I truly enjoyed reading this book: its way of storytelling drew me in from the opening page. Aki-wayn-zih sets up the storytelling approach of the Anishinaabay language, offering important teachings in a subtle way, and bringing in a strongly experientially grounded sense of the language and its importance for healing and connecting with the spirit of land relations." — Timothy Brian Leduc, Wilfrid Laurier University and author of A Canadian Climate of Mind: Passages from Fur to Energy and Beyond

"Aki-wayn-zih will help many North American settlers and immigrants understand the history of the Anishinaabay people and the land that now sustains all of us. This book is eloquent and well written and offers perspectives that range from supporting dominant narratives to providing important contrasting views. It is clearly the work of an articulate storyteller respected in and beyond his community." — Margaret Ann Noodin, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and author of What the Chickadee Knows

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160 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 5 photos, 1 map | Hardcover 

The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in the United States that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America.

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian, Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy.

Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, “sacred” texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity.

Reviews
“Nuanced and illuminating, this book is a worthy addition to a remarkable series.”—Booklist

“This book reveals uncomfortable truths about the dehumanizing legacies of both capitalism and colonialism while forging a path of reconciliation between the Black and Native communities. Mays offers a solid entry point for further study. An enlightening reexamination of American history.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible and informative . . . Mays’s colloquial voice enlivens the often-distressing history . . . This immersive revisionist history sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the American past.”—Publishers Weekly

“This is a bold and original narrative that is required reading to comprehend the deep historical relationship between the Indigenous peoples who were transported from Africa into chattel slavery and the Indigenous peoples who were displaced by European settler colonialism to profit from the land and resources, two parallel realities in search of self-determination and justice.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“A bold, innovative, and astute analysis of how Blackness and Indigeneity have been forged as distinct yet overlapping social locations through the needs of capital, the logic of the nation-state, and the aims of US empire. While we know that slavery and settler colonialism are intricately linked, Kyle Mays uniquely demonstrates that the afterlives of these two institutions are also linked. They provide the land, bodies, and capital for ‘newer’ systems of bondage to flourish, such as mass incarceration. You will never think of the peoples’ history the same way after reading An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“Dr. Mays brilliantly makes accessible the knowledge of how Native, Black, and Afro-Indigenous communities, under the oppressive projects of settler colonialism and white supremacy, have navigated points of tension and harm, while simultaneously revealing instances when we’ve resisted by way of solidarity and allyship. Ultimately, he reminds us that both the ‘Indian problem’ and the ‘Negro problem’ are, in fact, a white supremacist problem.”—Melanin Mvskoke, Afro-Indigenous (Mvskoke Creek) activist

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272 pages | 6.25" x 9.35" | Hardcover

A gripping, witty memoir about indigeneity, travel, and colonialism

When she was twenty-five, Ursula Pike boarded a plane to Bolivia and began her term of service in the Peace Corps. A member of the Karuk Tribe, Pike sought to make meaningful connections with Indigenous people halfway around the world. But she arrived in La Paz with trepidation as well as excitement, “knowing I followed in the footsteps of Western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed they were there to help.” In the following two years, as a series of dramatic episodes brought that tension to boiling point, she began to ask: what does it mean to have experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand, and yet to risk becoming a colonizing force in turn?

An Indian among los Indígenas, Pike’s memoir of this experience, upends a canon of travel memoirs that has historically been dominated by white writers. It is a sharp, honest, and unnerving examination of the shadows that colonial history casts over even the most well-intentioned attempts at cross-cultural aid. It is also the debut of an exceptionally astute writer with a mastery of deadpan wit. It signals a shift in travel writing that is long overdue.

Reviews
“A brutally honest and badly needed story. . . Witty and clearly written, this memoir is a must-read, not just for Peace Corps volunteers, anthropologists, and others working in foreign lands, but for everyone—all of us finding ourselves in an ever increasing diverse and complex cultural landscape.”—Greg Sarris, author of How a Mountain was Made

“Ursula Pike's memoir is unlike any other I've read, with her perceptive, always-seeking, and lovely narrative voice. . . No one's written about the Peace Corps like this, with the details of food and family and landscape told through the vision of an Indigenous woman finding new stories in a deeply-rooted place miles from her own.”—Susan Straight

“In Ursula Pike’s perceptive and poignant debut memoir, a North American Indian woman knowingly enters the complex dynamics of voluntourism and discovers aspects about her own identity, colonialism, and comparative privilege while navigating the vivid landscapes and personalities of a small Bolivian community in the Andes.”—Chip Livingston, author of Crow-Blue, Crow-Black

“The Indigenous peoples Pike lived and worked with speak loudly from these pages, challenging many of us to check privileges we didn’t know we had, demanding the right to be complex, strong, and human. This book is all heart, all vulnerability, as a young California Indian woman makes family far from home.”—Deborah Miranda, author of Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

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240 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

asowacikanisa: A Guide to Small Métis Bags is a continuation in the series of “how to” books on Métis material culture. This resource will guide you in the step-by-step process on how to create two different bags, a tobacco pouch and a sash bag, which were traditional utilitarian items used by the Metis. These bags are used today to carry traditional medicines and other treasured items. Complete with historical information, easy to follow instructions, detailed photos and accompanying DVD, this resource provides everything you need to know to make your own traditional bags. (Materials not included).

Educator Information
Grade Level: Secondary / Post Secondary / Adult 

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8" x 10" | 46 Pages

Châhkâpâs: A Naskapi Legend shares the story of Châhkâpâs, a heroic figure in First Nations storytelling, who performs feats of strength and skill in spite of his diminutive size.

The book shares this traditional legend as originally recorded in the Naskapi community in northern Quebec in 1967 when it was narrated by John Peastitute, a Naskapi Elder and accomplished storyteller. Transcribed in the Naskapi language and syllabic orthography, the book offers a literary resource for the Naskapi language community, and the English translation enables those unfamiliar with the language, or the story, to discover this important legend.

The book also contains extensive analysis of stories about Châhkâpâs, notes about the provenance of the recordings, a biography of the storyteller, and a history of the Naskapi people. Lavish illustrations from Elizabeth Jancewicz—an artist raised in the Naskapi community—provide a sensitive and accurate graphical account of the legend, which has also been approved by Naskapi speakers themselves.

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the First Nation Language Readers series. With a mix of traditional and new stories, each First Nations Language Reader introduces an Indigenous language and demonstrates how each language is used today. 

By John Peastitute
Edited by Marguerite MacKenzie
Translated by Julie Brittain and Silas Nabinicaboo 
Illustrated by Elizabeth Jancewicz 
Contributions by Bill Jancewicz

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

In this timely collection, the authors examine Indigenous peoples’ negotiations with different cosmologies in a globalized world. Dussart and Poirier outline a sophisticated theory of change that accounts for the complexity of Indigenous peoples’ engagement with Christianity and other cosmologies, their own colonial experiences, as well as their ongoing relationships to place and kin. The contributors offer fine-grained ethnographic studies that highlight the complex and pragmatic ways in which Indigenous peoples enact their cosmologies and articulate their identity as forms of affirmation. This collection is a major contribution to the anthropology of religion, religious studies, and Indigenous studies worldwide.

Contributors: Anne-Marie Colpron, Robert R. Crépeau, Françoise Dussart, Ingrid Hall, Laurent Jérôme, Frédéric Laugrand, C. James MacKenzie, Caroline Nepton Hotte, Ksenia Pimenova, Sylvie Poirier, Kathryn Rountree, Antonella Tassinari, Petronella Vaarzon-Morel

Reviews
“Contemporary Indigenous Cosmologies and Pragmatics advances debates about how Indigenous cosmologies are received, understood, and valued. The contributors consider the complex connections that emerge between religiosity, politics, activism, and the ways in which globalization continues to shape these processes as Indigenous cultures relate with different elements of traditionally European religions.” - Amy Whitehead, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Massey University

Educator Information
Keywords / Subjects: Cosmology; religion; ritual; Indigenous; settler-Indigenous; spiritual; ethnography; Americas; Australia; Malta; Russia; secular; globalization; entanglement; identity politics; Social Science; Comparative Religion, Anthropology; Beliefs

Table of Contents
1 Indigenous Cosmologies, Entangled Religiosities, and Global Connections 1
A Theoretical Overview
FRANÇOISE DUSSART & SYLVIE POIRIER
2 Embracing Christianity, Rejecting Western Individualism? 33
Inuit Leaders and the Limits of Indigenization
FRÉDÉRIC LAUGRAND
3 Engaging Religiosities 59
Relationality, Co-existence, and Belonging among Lander Warlpiri, Central Australia
PETRONELLA VAARZON-MOREL
4 Making People 87
Manipulating Alterity in the Production of the Person among the Karipuna People of Northern Brazil
ANTONELLA TASSINARI
5 Discourses on the Advent of New Times among the Kaingang People of Southern Brazil 111
ROBERT R. CRÉPEAU
6 From Unknown to Hypermediatized 133
Shipibo-Konibo Female Shamans in Western Amazonia
ANNE-MARIE COLPRON
7 Tying Down the Soul of a Potato in the Southern Peruvian Andes 157
Performance and Frictions
INGRID HALL
8 Negotiating Indigenous-Global Relationships in Contemporary Shamanism 187
The Case of Malta
KATHRYN ROUNTREE
9 Indigenous Cosmologies and Social Media 219
Creativity, Self-Representation, and Power of the Image for First Nations Women Artists
CAROLINE NEPTON HOTTE & LAURENT JÉRÔME
10 Human Remains and Indigenous Religiosity in the Museum Space 253
Ritual Relations to the Altaian Mummy in the Anokhin National Museum of the Altai Republic, Russia
KSENIA PIMENOVA
11 Shaman, Christian, Bureaucrat, Cop 285
Maya Responses to Modern Entanglements
C. JAMES MACKENZIE
Contributors 311
Index 317

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

Daughters of Aataentsic highlights and connects the unique lives of seven Wendat/Wandat women whose legacies are still felt today. Spanning the continent and the colonial borders of New France, British North America, Canada, and the United States, this book shows how Wendat people and place came together in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and how generations of activism became intimately tied with notions of family, community, motherwork, and legacy from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. The lives of the seven women tell a story of individual and community triumph despite difficulties and great loss. Kathryn Magee Labelle aims to decolonize the historical discipline by researching with Indigenous people rather than researching on them. It is a collaborative effort, guided by an advisory council of eight Wendat/Wandat women, reflecting the needs and desires of community members. Daughters of Aataentsic challenges colonial interpretations by demonstrating the centrality of women, past and present, to Wendat/Wandat culture and history. Labelle draws from institutional archives and published works, as well as from oral histories and private collections. Breaking new ground in both historical narratives and community-guided research in North America, Daughters of Aataentsic offers an alternative narrative by considering the ways in which individual Wendat/Wandat women resisted colonialism, preserved their culture, and acted as matriarchs.

Reviews
"Daughters of Aataentsic makes a significant contribution to the historiography of Indigenous women. Labelle has written an important book and her laudatory and exemplary methodology is a model for all people researching and writing on First Nations and Native Americans." — Clifford Trafzer, University of California, Riverside

"Daughters of Aataentsic enriches our understanding of the everyday lives of real women, their families, and communities across time in Quebec and parts of the southwestern and western United States. This book does not denounce the past, holler, and shout, but rather attends to the range of information and knowledge passed down to draw us into times and places we would otherwise not have the privilege of knowing from an Indigenous perspective. Its insights have stuck with me long after my first reading, as I expect they will for others." — Jean Barman, University of British Columbia

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Figures xv
Map xxvi
Introduction 3
1 Cécile Gannendâris (?-1669) 13
2 Marie Catherine Jean dit Vien (1676-1767) 33
3 Margaret Grey Eyes Solomon (1816-1890) 50
4 Mary McKee (1838-1922) 69
5 Eliza Burton Conley Jr (1869-1946) 90
6 Jane Zane Gordon (1871-1963) 115
7 Dr Éléonore Sioui (1924-2006) 132
Epilogue: The Wendat/Wandat Women’s Advisory Council 154
Notes 169
Index 205

Recommended for these subjects: History, Women's History, North American History, Canadian History, Indigenous History, Indigenous Studies, Women's and Gender Studies.

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 21 Photos, 7 Diagrams 

Frank Surprenant is a Cree Elder from the Sucker Creek Band on Lesser Slave Lake in Alberta, Canada. He is a Pipe Carrier and Sweat Lodge Keeper. For more than 30 years Frank has been involved in Medicine Wheel Gatherings across Canada and his Teachings have been listened to by countless people. He decided it was time to set these Teachings down in writing and make them more widely accessible.

Medicine Wheel Teachings is an easy-to-follow guide explaining what a Medicine Wheel is and how it is relevant to our lives today. Frank’s vision for this book is that it will be an invaluable tool to understand the connectedness with all things – human, animal, mineral, plant, insect, and more.

The book explains the Medicine Wheel layer by layer. Each layer is illustrated with a diagram. These diagrams build up a complete Medicine Wheel. Each part explains how to find your place on the Medicine Wheel and what you can learn from it – beginning from a starting point of something as simple as your date of birth. The final section gives ideas on making a personal Medicine Wheel.

This book will act as a spark and ignite a further pursuit of Medicine Wheel Teachings and Indigenous Knowledge. Moving forward with healing, understanding and reconciliation.

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75 Pages 

“Our identity, our sense of belonging, our understanding of being human, is all connected to our relationship with the land. And our relationship with these lands span millennia. Our grandfathers and grandmothers that came before us walked these same ridges, valleys, and trails. They fished the same lakes, streams, and rivers. They cherished memories carried in the pungent smell of the fall tundra, in wafts of spruce, cottonwood, and willow smoke. They ventured throughout these lands until their final rest. Our ancestors are literally part of this land. We are part of this land.” –Evon Peter

The North is changing at an unprecedented rate as industrial development and the climate crisis disrupt not only the environment but also long-standing relationships to the land and traditional means of livelihood. Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North explores the ways in which Indigenous peoples in the Arctic have adapted to challenging circumstances, including past cultural and environmental changes. In this beautifully illustrated volume, contributors document how Indigenous communities in Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia are seeking ways to maintain and strengthen their cultural identity while also embracing forces of disruption.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors bring together oral history and scholarly research from disciplines such as linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. With an emphasis on Indigenous place names, this volume illuminates how the land—and the memories that are inextricably tied to it—continue to define Indigenous identity. The perspectives presented here also serve to underscore the value of Indigenous knowledge and its essential place in future studies of the Arctic.

Contributions by Vinnie Baron, Hugh Brody, Kenneth Buck, Anna Bunce, Donald Butler, Michael A. Chenlov, Aron L. Crowell, Peter C. Dawson, Martha Dowsley, Robert Drozda, Gary Holton, Colleen Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Emily Kearney-Williams, Igor Krupnik, Apayo Moore, Murielle Nagy, Mark Nuttall, Evon Peter, Louann Rank, William E. Simeone, Felix St-Aubin, and Will Stolz.

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448 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 172 Colour Illustrations | Paperback

Authenticity Note: This work contains contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors. It is up to readers to determine if this is an authentic work for their purposes.