Books – Indigenous Studies
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Severing the Ties that Bind
Government Repression of Indigenous Religious Ceremonies on the Prairies
Religious ceremonies were an inseparable part of Aboriginal traditional life, reinforcing social, economic, and political values. However, missionaries and government officials with ethnocentric attitudes of cultural superiority decreed that Native dances and ceremonies were immoral or un-Christian and an impediment to the integration of the Native population into Canadian society. Katherine Pettipas presents a critical analysis of the administrative policies and considers the effects of government suppression of traditional religious activities on the whole spectrum of Aboriginal life, focussing on the experiences of the Plains Cree from the mid-1880s to 1951, when the regulations pertaining to religious practices were removed from the Indian Act.
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The Ojibwa of Western Canada, 1780-1870
Among the most dynamic Aboriginal peoples in western Canada today are the Ojibwa, who have played an especially vital role in the development of an Aboriginal political voice at both levels of government. Yet, they are relative newcomers to the region, occupying the parkland and prairies only since the end of the 18th century. This work traces the origins of the western Ojibwa, their adaptations to the West, and the ways in which they have coped with the many challenges they faced in the first century of their history in that region, between 1780 and 1870.
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As Long as the Rivers Run
Hydroelectric Development and Native Communities
Waldram examines the politics of hydroelectric dam construction in the Canadian northwest, focussing on the negotiations and agreements between the developers and the Native residents. He shows the parallels between the treatment of Natives by the government of Canada in these negotiations and the treaty process a century earlier.
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Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada
Historical and Legal Aspects
Addresses a wide range of topics related to Aboriginal resource use, ranging from the pre-contact period to the present.
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The Plains Cree
Trade, Diplomacy, and War, 1790 to 1870
The first economic, military, and diplomatic history of the Plains Cree from contact with the Europeans in the 1670s to the disappearance of the buffalo from Cree lands by the 1870s, focussing on military and trade relations between 1790 and 1870.
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The Orders of the Dreamed
George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823
Among Anglo-Canadian fur traders of the early nineteenth century, George Nelson stands out for his interest in the life and ways of the native people he encountered. In 1823 Nelson was serving as a Hudson’s Bay Company clerk in charge of the post at Lac la Ronge, an outpost of Ile a la Crosse in northeastern Saskatchewan. During that time he kept a letter-journal, addressed to his father, in which he related his observations of Cree and Northern Ojibwa religion and myth. This document is reproduced here for the first time.
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Stories of the House People
wâskahikaniwiyiniw-âcimowina
Publications of the Algonquian Text Society #1.
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Indian-European Trade Relations
in the Lower Saskatchewan River Region to 1840
This study examines the development of fur trade relations between the European traders working for the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Western Woods Cree of the lower Saskatchewan River region centred on Cumberland House (modern day Saskatchewan) and The Pas (modern day Manitoba).
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The New Peoples
Being and Becoming Métis
A path-breaking collection of original essays by twelve leading Canadian and American scholars, this volume is the first major work to explore, in a North American context, the dimension and meaning of the process fundamental to the European invasion and colonization of the western hemisphere: the intermingling of European and native American peoples.
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