This blog really started as a Cree language blog over two years ago. Back then, all I wanted to do was celebrate and explore nêhiyawêwin. It was a way for me to keep using my language even though I had moved to Montreal and was far from my home territory. I have spoken often of…
Category: Culture
The reports of our cultural deaths have always been greatly exaggerated
To hear non-Indigenous people tell it, we’ve been teetering on the edge of extinction since not too long after Contact. That narrative hasn’t changed much over the years, though the cause of our cultural and perhaps even physical demise has varied somewhat in the details. There have been moments of colonial guilt over past policies,…
Nationhood is a Verb
When settlers discuss the concept of Indigenous nationhood, the term ‘capacity’ often comes up, as in Indigenous peoples lack it. There might be some recognition that we governed ourselves before contact, though rarely is any respect or understanding shown of those socio-political orders, but the opinion of the majority of Canadians is that we cannot…
Hunters/gatherers to trappers/harvesters. Does it matter what they call us?
The Inuit make no bones about it. Theirs is a hunting culture; but what does that mean? Most Inuit still eat a solid diet of country food, which is just like it sounds, traditional foods such as caribou, whale, seal, fish and so on. Hunting remains a central practice in Inuit communities. So is that…
Idle No More: Where do we go from here?
“Canada is a test case for a grand notion – the notion that dissimilar peoples can share lands, resources, power and dreams while respecting and sustaining their differences. The story of Canada is the story of many such peoples, trying and failing and trying again, to live together in peace and harmony. But there cannot…