Kisikew

Modern Metis Myth making by AHF

2011-12-20T22:57:00.008-05:00

Comment on Aboriginal Healing Foundations's article 'Who are the Métis'

The article 'Who Are The Métis' by AHF illustrates exactly what I've been writing about recently in re "myth" and "legend".

People who look into the ethnicity of the Métis patriarchs will quickly discover they were not European. The majority appear to have been Eurasian (Y DNA Haplogroup R1b1a2) which is neither Asian nor Caucasian but intermediate between Asian and European (Central Asia, maybe North Africa origin?), although there were also more than a few African and West and East Asian patriarchs as well.

As for language, they had their own, first the now lost (except for survival of some words in Louisiana and perhaps some words in joual) "Acadian trade language" and as well their Indigenous "mother tongues". Then Michif. So it's absurd to say they were even "French speakers".

As for being "French", the french observe jus soli, the law of naturalisation, rather than jus sanguinis. Even if some of the engaigés (short term contract workers) had actually born on french soil (naturalised as "French"), when their three year contracts with the french were up, they were freemen. Any children they fathered who were born in North America were also free, not slaves and not subject to anyone in europe.

It probably irked and still irks the British Crown, who made sure with its laws that children of slaves were themselves born slaves in the Virginia colony, that the French Crown at the time freed these multi-ethnic, multiracial, "mixed", Métis people after their contracts were done. Labelling them retroactively as "French" when they were not even francophone, and revising history, concealing the truth, it seems obvious what the agenda is there. "The French" were never their owners, just their employers.

As for "most interracial marriages" being "officially discouraged"? Not by the French Crown: "our young men will marry your daughters and we shall be one people" (pledge made by Samuel de Champlain 1633 & 1635) -- literally true with many of the nobles sent here from France who married Indigenous women to form their trade alliances. Their descendants are still here because when the French returned to France, their children remained behind as they were not considered French because they had not been born on French but on North American soil.

It wasn't just frowned upon by the British, marriage between "races" (as defined by the British Crown "white" supremacists) -- miscegenation -- was against the law by 1713! "Frowning on" something does not include dehumanisation and genocide. It does not include labelling of people as "savages" and "beasts". Nor does it include paying bounty on scalps, including those of women and children.

They have to create this "myth" and "legend" to try to conceal their ignorant racism and ancient hatred of all the free "coloureds" and browns there are on the planet -- both in their homelands and in North America where they married in to Indigenous families and communities. Which include(d) the "Celtic / Basque" peoples -- who are Eurasian ethnicity rather than Caucasian.

-- Kisikewiskw
20 Dec 2011

Reference: Indigenous American Genetics

"French Heritage" study at family tree

* Read a copy of AHF's 'Who are the Metis' here.

Make / read comments on the Kisikew Forum

tags: aboriginal, acadia, acadien, africans, ahf, albannach, basque, basque diaspora, breton, british, british crown, canada, celtic basque, central asia, champlain, contract workers, cymry, dna, east asia, engaige, engage, ethnicity, ethnic basques, eurasian, first people, france, free africans, freemen, french heritage, fur trade, haplogroup, highland clearances, highlanders, historical revisionism, irish, jus sanguinis, jus soli, la cadie, legend, metis, miscegenation, mixed race, multi-ethnic, multiracial, myth, naturalisation, north africa, north america, one people, pre-columbian, race, racist, samuel de champlain, scalping, scots, slaves, slavery, un peuple, virginia colony, west asia, white race, white supremacist, who are the metis

Tiny URL http://tinyurl.com/ca244kk

Review of MSGC flag design

2011-12-18T04:47:00.013-05:00

Review of a link to something I've found on the interwebs, not necessarily recommending this but it is interesting and is about / by / for Metis Nation and peoples...

Metis Settlements General Council
The Metis Settlements flag, depicts the outline similar to the Canadian flag. The two outside bars with the signs of infinity represent the eight Metis Settlements land areas and keep the infinity sign of Louis Riel’s Metis flag. The circle of life in the centre reflects the joining of two cultures, the red symbolizes our Native ancestry. The white represents our French and Scottish ancestry. The brown is our new vibrant Metis culture. Within the circle two peoples join hands and invite ours into the circle with their extended hands. The bottom half has the letter “M” for Metis. historyonline.msgc.ca/

There's not much on this site or the links don't work. So my comment is pretty much limited to the flag design. The design is very eyecatching, I like it. However, historically the red infinite Métis flag was associated with the Hudson's Bay Company. The blue infinite Métis flag (which was the original one)
was associated with the Northwest Company. I kind of wonder why they used the red one (times 8). I also realise that this flag represents Métis Settlements, but there were originally 12 Métis Settlements, so it only represents a post-1960s reality. I don't think the flag designer was striving for an historic representation though.

There is no such thing as a "white race". It's an artifical social construct. I've written about this many times, and I doubt I am done with it, suffice to say the idea that there is was engendered by self-described "whites" (European Christian elites, so called "upper class") so they could enslave, demonise, and dominate those they labelled other "colours" or just "people of colour" in general.

Also written this many times now, the "French Heritage" DNA study, which was expected to "prove" all these alleged "Frenchmen" were ancestors of the Métis people indicates that the Métis (and Acadien) patriarchs were actually an extremely diverse group of people with origins in both East and West Asia, Africa (North and West), and pretty much all around the world, not just France and not just Europe. They may have worked for "the French" and some may have been francophone, besides speaking their own language which was Michif, but they could hardly have been said to be "French". As a group the Métis patriarchs were themselves métis: "mixed" or multiracial peoples of many ethnicities.

Besides the reality of the "French of France" observance of jus soli, the law of naturalisation, rather than jus sanguinis. And besides the reality that there was no nation of France for at least 200-400 years (maybe more) after the patriarchs arrived in North America.

The most represented ethnic group of Métis patriarchs appears to have been "Celtic / Basque" (Eastern Woodlands). And that's of the francophones, or those who worked for "the French" Northwest Company. Of course the "Selkirk Settlement" Scots (Albannachd) of the highlands and islands who joined the core group of Métis in Assiniboia "Red River Settlement" would share that "Celtic / Basque" ancestry (ethnicity) as well for the most part; however, their language (native or mother tongue) would have been gaidhlig (unless they had already lost their language during The Clearances).

So the patriarchs of the historic Métis Nation were as a whole a related group of ethnic "Celtic / Basque" peoples and peoples from continents other than europe including North America, whose ancestors spoke different languages as mentioned: gaidhlig, français, and their own language Michif.

There certainly were very few french cultural elements expressed by the Métis Voyageur (Traveller, in english) lifestyle, if any.

Anyway as I wrote, I don't think the flag designer was striving for historic accuracy, so much as trying to represent its own entity, the Métis Settlement General Council, which I suspect is (to be?) kind of like a grand band council for eight of the original 12 Métis Settlements.

-- Kisikewiskw
18 Dec 2011

Image (above right) is Voyageurs "Shooting the Rapids" 1879 by Frances Anne Hopkins, copyright and other information here.

tags: albannach, alberta, assiniboia, basque, canada, celtic, celtic basque, clearances, council, east asia, eastern woodlands, ethnicity, flag, french heritage, general, hbc, highlands, hudsons bay company, metis, michif, msgc, northeast woodlands, northwest company, patriarchs, red river settlement, selkirk settlement, settlements, traveller, voyageur, west asia

Also see Acadien Cajun Basque heritage not French

Make / read comments on the Kisikew Forum

To rabble dot ca : It was not a 'rebellion'

2011-12-17T01:55:00.019-05:00

Even rabble dot ca? One more time, it was not a 'rebellion'

It was not a 'rebellion', even less a pair of 'rebellions' (the Riel Rebellions? hunh??) well not unless you are of the same school of thought as Cornwallis during the ethnic cleansing and genocide known as "The Great Upheaval" or the Acadian diaspora, who wrote of the Indigenous peoples of the maritimes being "Banditti Ruffians, or Rebels, to His Majesty's Government" whilst at the same time laws covering the scalping of the Original people were written, where Indigenous people in their own homeland were treated as so many animals whose "pelts" could be handed in for a bounty. The scalping only stopped when too many scalps with hair that resembled that of Europeans were being handed in for payment. The "scalp laws" are still on the books. The attitude that people in their own homeland who resist the use of force and violence by foreigners from another continent against their own are some kind of "rebel" also remains.

Okay I am really not only offended by all this repeated mention of a so-called "rebellion" but now have moved to a feeling of total disgust at this Krystalline Kraus person's words (her opinion?), supposedly writing on "Indigenous issues" in of all things the rabble dot ca -- which formerly was the home of activists -- using the same exact label of "rebels" that Cornwallis used.

Many of the families who ended up at the Red River who are now known as Métis, originated in Acadia (La Cadie, Lnue'gati) and left during the first wave of genocide by the British Crown. They didn't drop out of the sky and land where the city of Winnipeg now is, they moved from where the terror had been first unleashed on them, the terror known as Le Grand Dérangement.

That's why the corporate entity of Canada was so ready to refer to the people as rebels: it was a label already pinned on them by Cornwallis more than a hundred years before. They had settled far away from the British Crown occupied territories, and made themselves a new homeland, Assiniboia. They married into Indigenous families and created alliances through such relationships as well as through peaceful (and truly free) trade. They created their lives anew in that Red River valley known as Assiniboia, having escaped with their lives from the horrors meted out in Acadia.

The Crown (church state empire) followed them. Like some abusive spouse stalking "his" other who managed to escape, like some psychopathic serial killer. Like some gigantic bloated parasite lumbering its way from east to west, searching for a host to latch on to to suck dry. New lands to pillage and destroy in the name of "development". New peoples to enslave in the name of "human resources".

Hudson's Bay Company never owned the land. All they got from the Northwest Company is the same thing the french had, which was monopoly trading rights on Indigenous territory, with respect to others foreign to North America (they still needed to consult Indigenous peoples about that). The British Crown and its various corporate entities never owned the land. The Métis never were part of "Canada", their nation pre-existed the Dominion of Canada (a corporate entity whose agents squat here and there on Indigenous land) by more than 100 years. And that's in their new Red River homeland; in North America their nations' time can be counted in thousands of years.

Yeh right, the "new" activists, who apparently are akin to old Edward Cornwallis and that ilk use the word "rebellion" too.

Activist Communique: Metis court case to re-open the rebellion
By Krystalline Kraus | December 16, 2011

No one "rebels" against something they have never been a part of!

It was a resistance. It's deeply offensive that the "scalp laws" are still on the books, and it's deeply offensive that a resistance is mislabelled a rebellion. Really.

-- Kisikewiskw
17 Dec 2011

More about the scalp laws here.
Make & read comments on the Kisikew Forum.

Also see
It was not a rebellion and the Metis were not insurgents
Governor Edward Cornwallis - Crimes Against Humanity and About Rename Sites Petition at Daniel N. Paul dot com

Wolf Lake Metis

2011-12-13T14:57:00.006-05:00

Wolf Lake Métis Settlement
1940 - 1960

(LA COREY AB)

Pre-Settlement: Métis trappers and their families start to move into the region in the late 1880s to the early 1900s, though some may have been there earlier, before the last Bison was hunted ca 1879. In 1911 some Acadien Souriquois L'nu and intermarried Abenaki Aln8bak families from N'dakina, Abenaki Territory (some of them francophone), encouraged by the Oblates at St Paul des Métis to move there, arrive to join them and establish a trading post known as La Corey in the Wolf Lake Métis community, which is at the northernmost point of the Old Buffalo Trail. By the 1930s the community at now La Corey is Wolf Lake Métis colony. (Alberta Métis Colonies). It is worth noting that the Abenaki Aln8bak peoples collectively were known at one time as the Wolf Nation (Natio Luporum) in their original northeast homeland.

Wolf Lake (Cree Mahikan Sakhahegan) Métis Settlement ... was created ca 1940 to provide the Métis trappers around Wolf Lake / La Corey a central area in which to live "... near [their] traditional trapping grounds as well as local villages and schools". (Atlas of Alberta Lakes | Wolf Lake). Wolf Lake Métis Settlement, created 1940, was rescinded in 1960. Partly due to the efforts of the assimilationist residential and day school teachers (Roman Catholic) and partly to avoid discrimination and racism against Indigenous peoples, some of the people began to identify themselves as Franco-Albertans.

-- Kisikewiskw
13 Dec 2011

map showing bonnyville, durlingville, fort kent and la corey

tags: abenaki, abenaki territory, aboriginal, acadien, acadienne, alberta, aln8bak, assimilation, autochtone, bonnyville, canada, canadian, canadian river, cold lake, colony, community, first peoples, fort kent, francophone, homeland, indigenous, la corey, lacory, metis, metisse, n'dakina, original, original canadians, original peoples, rive sud, riviere canadienne, riviere st laurent, settlement, souriquois, st lawrence river, st louis de moose lake, south shore, wabanaki, wolf lake

Cold Lake Metis

2011-12-13T13:50:00.007-05:00

Cold Lake Métis Settlement
1940 - 1956

(ST LOUIS DE MOOSE LAKE - BONNYVILLE AB)

Cold Lake Métis community was on the Old Buffalo Trail. Métis peoples as well as francophone Abenaki Aln8bak and Acadien Souriquois L'nu displaced from their own homeland N'dakina, Abenaki Territory (rive sud / south shore of the original Canadian now St Lawrence River / aujourd'hui la Rivière St Laurent originalement la Rivière Canadienne), started arriving in the area forming the Cold Lake Métis community in the early 1900s. By the 1930s the community near St Louis de Moose Lake now Bonnyville had become Cold Lake Métis colony. (Alberta Métis Colonies). Some of the families moved further north to the Wolf Lake Métis community which became the Wolf Lake Métis colony. Cold Lake Métis Settlement was established in 1940 and rescinded in 1956. Partly due to the efforts of the assimilationist residential and day school teachers (Roman Catholic) and partly to avoid discrimination and racism against Indigenous peoples, some of the people began to identify themselves as Franco-Albertans.

-- Kisikewiskw
13 Dec 2011

tags: abenaki, abenaki territory, aboriginal, acadien, acadienne, alberta, aln8bak, assimilation, autochtone, bonnyville, canada, canadian, canadian river, cold lake, colony, community, first peoples, francophone, homeland, indigenous, metis, metisse, n'dakina, original, original canadians, original peoples, rive sud, riviere canadienne, riviere st laurent, settlement, souriquois, st lawrence river, st louis de moose lake, south shore, wabanaki

It was not a rebellion and Metis were not insurgents

2011-12-12T12:24:00.017-05:00

Kwe

Wonder are they (mainstream media) deliberately trying to be offensive? I refer to the recent news articles (e.g. The last battle of Red River CP) about the pending Supreme Court of Canada decision about their own never honouring the agreements they made with reference to the Red River Métis children, where the mainstream media repeatedly use the word "rebellion" instead of resistance, and try to falsely label Métis as "insurgents".

It wasn't a "rebellion". The Métis were not "insurgents". They never were subjects of the British Crown, no one "rebels" against something they have never been a part of to begin with. They were free human beings living on their own land as the Creator / creation intended. Their ancestors (up to seven generations before them) had once been engagés (laborers with short term contracts) of the french, but the french (who only had monopoly trading rights in Indigenous territories) had long since returned to europe. I emphasize they were (are) free human beings. They never were slaves of the french and the people could never have been transferred to another "owner" when they never had been owned to begin with. Not that owning slaves was ever moral or acceptable, human beings are not property.

What they did was "resist", they resisted being locked up on reserves or settlements aka concentration camps, they resisted theft of not only their homeland, but their personal property and trade items that were stolen from them such as pemmican they had worked hard and long to prepare, and furs they had also worked long and hard to prepare as trade items. I am pretty sure a lot of the labour of the women went into preparation of those furs, hides, and pemmican too.

The thieves would wait until all the work had been done, and it's not like pemmican was prepared in a snap in those (or any) days, nor were furs and hides prepared for market overnight, it represented long hard hours of physical work of many people ... after things had been made ready as trade items, the thieves would break in and steal them, not only stealing the trade items, but the hard labour put into those items.

In between times there was wave after wave of smallpox that killed many people.

Doesn't take much digging into history to discover who the thieves were, and it wasn't "white (sic) settlers from Ontario". Nor was it the peoples displaced from their highland and island homelands who quickly had gone "wild" and whose descendants had become Métis as well.

As for the resistance being relabelled a "rebellion", that's offensive and obnoxious to me. It's not just a falsification of history, it's total bull$hit, as it tries to make it appear -- retroactively -- that the Indigenous peoples had been "rebellious subjects" of a foreign (european based) ruler when the fact was many of them had been engagés of the Northwest Company that employed them and traded with them, that is, they were free people who worked for and traded with a trading company. That company never had title to any of their homelands but simply monopoly trading rights in relation to others foreign to the North American continent just as they were.

Of course the Métis resisted those thieves! I suspect if Indigenous North Americans ever turned up on a european (or any foreign) shore with murder, bio-terrorism (smallpox blankets), rape, pillage, looting, kidnapping, child sex slavery, and adult work slavery, and theft the only thing on their mind, europeans (or anyone else) would resist as well! The fact is Indigenous North Americans were happy where they were, and had no desire to invade and disturb other people around the globe for "riches" and illusory "power over".

An insurgent is not someone who resists terrorists, and tries to defend themselves, their own livelihoods and that of their children, their own property and means of subsistence, and their own homeland!

Yes I think the constant use of the word "rebellion" and labelling the people as "insurgents" is extremely offensive. I'm not sure if the mainstream media intends to be offensive, but to me they are offensive, and disgustingly so.

Look at the opposite, for them not to be defined as "insurgents" (part of the "Indian problem") according to the mainstream media, they had to what? submit to slavery and imprisonment? give up everything to those who never earned it by their own work, blood, sweat, and tears? or just simply die off and disappear? Oh really?

Surely no one sane and of a sound mind would ever believe that.

Kisikewiskw
12 Dec 2011

Tiny url http://tinyurl.com/7jwp92z

Read more and comment on the Kisikew Forum | Metis News

tags: aboriginal, assiniboia, assiniboine, british, canada, crown, engage, ethnocide, free people, fur trade, genocide, hbc, hudsons bay company, human beings, human rights, insurgents, manitoba, mainstream media, metis, northwest company, offensive, ottawa, pemmican, rebellion, red river, red river metis, resistance, smallpox blankets, winnipeg

Also see To rabble dot ca : It was not a rebellion

Going with the flow but don't call me yellow

2011-12-11T23:21:00.009-05:00

Going with the flow -- but don't call me yellow

I've decided not to resist any longer what I felt was disrespectful use of the word Métis by people who were not related to the people known as Métis at the Red River Settlement, the people of the historic Métis Nation.

For awhile I thought it was important to resist but the wave has become an overwhelming tide.

Sad to me that there's people claiming to be Métis from Alberta who have migrated to the east who aren't even aware that there were (are) Métis Settlements. As for the Métis residential school at St Paul des Métis, to my understanding they were written out of history apparently long ago.

Even out west, where there actually still are settlements I think, some people think the word is just a catch-all word for Non-Status Indians or those who believe they have some Native ancestry, a Native grandparent or parent.

I won't resist the tide any longer and from time to time might continue to try to make people aware of the history of the descendants of the historic Métis Nation, not that I think that will have any effect on those who don't care that there even is a history of the people, and who probably care even less that the people had a language and a culture that had nothing to do with jigging.

It would be nice if they cared, but no one can make them care. And they apparently, numbered in the thousands, with who knows hundreds of Métis groups and organisations set up especially in the last decade, are determined to use the word to self describe, and this is apparently the case since 1982.

It's like the Medicine Wheel which many are apparently now adding to their newly found Métis cultural identity. Many newly self-identified Métis have adopted that symbol, which originated with a man named Vincent Laduke who claimed to be a Cheyenne Medicine man who wasn't, who wrote a book for newagers under the pseudonym Sun Bear, who based his whole system which included the Medicine Wheel on neopagan teachings current in the 1970s.

I thought that Andrea Bear Nicholas wrote the definitive article on the Medicine Wheel in 2007, and yet people who newly self-identify are still being taught that it's part of their culture, when it's not part of any Indigenous culture at all and never has been.

Even worse than the Medicine Wheel hoax being passed off as something genuinely Native, is the variant that has the four colours of black, red, yellow and white -- colours which originated with the Miccosukee Nation flag and were probably later on adopted by AIM (American Indian Movement) for their flag -- representing "four races". Which is just racist nonsense. There are no "four colours" of human beings. The idea that there were is an artificial social construct created by so-called "whites" for the purpose of enslaving the other "colours" as designated by them.

Métis peoples have always been mixed, or mestizo, peoples. So where would they fit on this Medicine Wheel anyway? Well historically the "yellow" so-called race was not Asian, it was biracial mixed (usually but not always African and European), so Métis would technically have been of the "yellow" race, but it has been a really long long time since anyone was identified in that way with that word "yellow" used to describe those who were mixed (some examples below). Where do Métis fit now that Asians have been shoved into the "yellow" slot by racists? I fail to see why Métis would even want to be represented by a racist symbol like the "four race" Medicine Wheel to begin with!

The whole point of the modern and newage Medicine Wheel was not to be inclusive of multiracial or mixed people, when the colours were assigned to "races" by some few; but to keep the artificial segregationist division between people going which was put in place to begin with so "whites" could have "coloured" slaves. And so "whites" and "coloureds" could not marry and have children. And so the children of "coloureds" would be born slaves, property of "whites", or labelled as savages. People who are focused on belonging to one "race" or another, have no time for culture or history, nor do they have a history, other than the one the original self-described "white" European Christian elite imposed on them to begin with.

I would hope that more people look beyond what's currently popular deeper into the culture and the history of the people they are claiming to have some relationship to, but I am not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

What will be, will be.
Kisikewiskw
11 Dec 2011

Some examples of 'yellow' being used to describe multiracial (Métis) peoples in colonial records:

"Southampton County Register of Free Negroes 1794-1832 ... Ave Duncan a yellowish black 28 emancipated by Thos. Lane & Lucy Lane deed Dec 1788 recorded 11 Dec 1788 ... Sam Stanton a yellowish black man about 21 emancipated by Jas Stanton. rec 1 November 1782" Source: Free African Americans

"Sally, born about 1771-6, a nineteen-year-old 'free light mulatto woman' ... She registered as a 'free Negro' in Lancaster County on 18 June 1805: Age 34, Color yellow ... born free" [Burkett, Lancaster County Register of Free Negroes, 2] Source: Free African Americans

"George Makee, a 'yellow' taxable in the lower district of Prince William County in 1809 and 1810" [Personal Property Tax Lists, 1782-1810, frames 708, 736] Source: Free African Americans

"... Jacob Perkins... . A yellow man - said to be Portuguese. ... I have been about his house a great deal and nursed for his wife. She was a little yellow and called the same race. ..." Source: Genealogy dot com

tags: aboriginal, african, aim, american, american indian, american native, asian, assiniboia, biracial, black, culture, ethnicity, european, four colours, four directions, indian, indigenous, medicine man, medicine wheel, mestizo, metis, metis nation, metisse, miccosukee, mixed, movement, native, native american, neopagan, newage, race, racism, red, red river, resist, resistance, segregation, slave, slavery, white, white supremacy, yellow

You can also make and read comments on the Kisikew Forum

Tiny url http://tinyurl.com/c58twga

Basques in Mikmaki

2011-11-30T07:06:00.010-05:00

Basque fishing sites and settlements by 1600

Basques started to arrive and establish themselves in La Cadie / Lnue'gadi / Mi'kma'ki at least 100 years before 1492.

tags: andia, anonachar, anse-aux-gascons, atlantique, balea baya, balsaman, barbachois de malbay, barachoa, barbochino, baye de biscaye, baye de chedabouctou, baye des espagnols, baye des molues, baye st-georges, belles-amours, buria, buria chumea, canseau, cap bay, cap degras, cape breton, chasco, chischedec, echaide portu, férol, gaspé, golfe st-laurent, grande anse, grande baye, havre des trois îles, île aux basques, île percée de bonaventure, île st-jean, ingarnachoa, ingrenachoa, labrador, mingain, miscou, moisie, newfoundland, newport, niganiche, nova scotia, océan, orphor portu, ouroughnousse, pabos, placentia, plaisance, port-a-port, port aux basques, portuchoa, prince edward island, quebec, red bay, renewse, sept-iles, ternua, terre-neuve, ulli-cilho

Also see Acadien Cajun Basque heritage, not French

François Ouellet of Paris is a work of fiction

2011-11-26T13:04:00.005-05:00

Archiving websites that mention the 100% pure fictional character François Ouellet of France.

There was no such person. The person the character appears to be based on is a François Housalet or Hoûalet who married Elisabeth / Isabelle Barre in St-Jacques-du-Hautpas, Paris, France.

The couple was without children, they left a will with no heirs.

They are not (other than as a work of fiction) the parents of René Ouellet born about 1649 in St-Jacques-du-Hautpas, Paris, France, also a 100% pure fictional character, who is based on a person who signed a marriage contract in 1679 as René Auclaire dit Houelet.

René Ouellet (or Auclaire for that matter) does not appear on any known ship's passenger list, nor is he found on the 1666 census for the Isle d'Orléans.

People are advised to do their own research and not believe what appears on the web (even in supposedly reputable online sources) or printed in books: without source documentation, it's fiction or a legend, not history.

A claim may be made that these are "ancestors in the heart", that they are a kind of spiritual ancestor; well that doesn't make them real persons, they are still fictional no matter how many may want to believe in them. In the meantime true relations who walked the earth are being neglected and ignored.

One can add to, comment on, and/or read list in progress here, there's a lot of sites for Ouellet / Ouellette in North America that now claim descendancy from these fictional characters.

tags: assimilation, auclaire, collaboration, colonialism, ethnicity, ethnocide, eurocentrism, falsification of history, faux, francais de france, fiction, francois ouellet, francois houallet c1600 paris france, francophilia, fraud, genealogy, identity fraud, houallet, identity politics, metis, ouellet, ouellette, paris, passing, politics, pur laine, rene ouellet, self-hatred, wannabe, white privilege

First peoples: Afro-Asian Amerindiens

2011-10-29T05:46:00.010-04:00

First peoples: Afro-Asian Amerindiens
Afro-Asian - ethnicity; lineage or patriline which originated in West Asia, includes individuals with Haplogroup Y DNA J2 [1]; see list of some Afro-Asian surnames in North America below [2].

"Amerindien" (m) "Amerindienne" (f) - there are a number of people of this Afro-Asian ethnicity to be found on the Île d'Orléans aka Wendake at the time the Jesuits had a mission and settlement for their Huron Wendat converts (ca 1650 to 1697). The Jesuits only mention they were converting Algonquin language speakers and Iroquoian language speakers (Hurons originating in Georgian Bay), they do not mention any contemporaneous or recent arrivals from the Indian sub-continent, North Africa, or the Middle East. Obviously the people they called Huron, St Lawrence Iroquois, and Algonquin who are of this ethnicity were in North America well in advance of the European missions and long enough to become Amerindiens (Algonkin Anishinaabek and St Lawrence Iroquois) and to be fully enculturated to life on the continent and naturalised as North American "Indians", i.e. Amerindien/ne/s, before the Jesuits reenculturated them as Christian francophones. (111028)

(Link)

[1] J2 Afro-Asian = Middle Eastern, Phoenician & NE North America "Indians" (Amerindians) Iroquois (?) "St Lawrence Iroquois" (?): "The J2 lineage originated in the northern portion of the Fertile Crescent where it later spread throughout central Asia, the Mediterranean, and south into India [... and west to north-eastern North America].

[2] Northeast of North America - St Lawrence River watershed
Families*: Amyot / Amyotte; Aubespin; Auger, Beauchamp, Beaulieu; Blais, Bourbonais; Boutareaud; Boyer; Burset; Carrie; Charles; Cholet; Collett, Comeau; Côté, Dauphinée; Denier; Dube, Ducas / Dugas, Duffney; Fuqua / Fuquet, Gaignard / Ganiard; Galarneau; Hamelin; Lacombe; Lamiraux; Lamont; Lamoreau (x?), Lamy; Laroche; Marcotte; Michaud, Ouellet / Ouellette, Quesnel / Roussel; Roy; Samson; Senecal; Willett

References
"French Heritage" study at familytreedna.com/
Jesuit Relations and Allied documents (1610 to 1791)

(Source)

Huron Wendat men

"...Immediately the work [of the Jesuit Mission] began to broaden [in 1625], but the records of the dual mission do not give evidence of many converts, — a few Huron youth taken to France, and there instructed and baptised, being the chief gains." -- Jesuit Relations Vol. I, p. 8

"The colony of Huron Christians has its settlement on the island of Orleans, which they call by a sacred name, 'the island of saint Mary'. They have cleared fields, have erected cabins, and claim to have found there their second country. Two of our Fathers are employed there, with labors and a fervor which deserve that God have pity on these poor people, and make them an entirely Christian people forever. We have had to feed them at our own expense, this first year [1651]." -- Jesuit Relations Ch.3 p. 202, Of the Huron Colony.

Ouellette Tribe

2011-10-26T15:18:00.012-04:00

Ouellet / Willet / Ouellette / Willette Tribe

In this blog the word tribe is not used to describe an organisation or corporate entity; it is used to describe descendants from a common male ancestor and his brothers.

The Ouellette and alternate spellings such as Ouellet, Willet, Willette, Tribe of Great Turtle Island aka North America are believed to be descendants of René Auclaire dit Houelet*, born ca 1635. Those surnamed Ouellet who are believed to be his descendants may have first appeared on Wendake, named Île d'Orleans by francophones, which is where the Jesuits established a mission and settlement for their Huron Wendat converts. Wendake was the name given to the island by the Wendat, known to the Jesuits as Huron. Wendake was a place name they brought with them from their original Georgian Bay homeland. When they moved again in the early 1700s, they again brought the place name with them.

Though at one time René was believed to be of French / European ethnicity, Haplogroup Y DNA results in the "French Heritage" study of descendants so far indicate he was of West Asian origin, of Afro-Asian ethnicity. Other families found around the same time on the Île d'Orleans at the Huron mission share this ethnicity. Though there are many legends about their supposed origin in Europe (France), documentation of this has never been found. No one knows for sure when these West Asian (Indian) peoples arrived in North America, perhaps their migration was centuries before Europeans were "discovered" on their territories by the Original inhabitants of North America.

A note about claims to French nationality for the Ouellette, the nation of France did not exist until 1789, long after the Ouellette were being documented in colonial records. Further, the French observe the law jus soli naturalisation, rather than jus sanguinis birthright: this means that descendants of René Auclaire dit Houelet, even if they did have a patrilineal ancestor born in France and even if they spoke french, would not be French but francophone North Americans. Nor does baptism or christening convey French (or any European) nationality.

Based on our own research, it is our position that the Ouellette Tribe, descendants of René, are descendants of Iroquoian language speakers who started being enculturated by Europeans at the Jesuit's mission for their Huron converts on the Île d'Orleans, and they were among the First Peoples -- Original inhabitants -- of North America described as Indians or Amerindiens by Europeans.

Kisikew, Kisikewiskw

26 Oct 2011, revised 28 Nov 2011

*Houelet, possibly from la houlette, a shepherd's implement, a long stick with a spoon-like tip of iron, used to scoop and cast dirt clods and small stones at sheep to get them to move without startling them or causing them to panic. By 1612 in France (see image) the word and tool had become synonymous with leadership, perhaps the masculine form of the feminine word indicates René was some sort of community leader.

Link

Make / read comments on the Kisikew forum

Honouring Old Joseph - Where are the Ouellettes?

2011-10-13T15:40:00.009-04:00

Honouring Joseph Ouellette (1792-1885) - Where are the Ouellettes?

Discrimination and hatred against the Métis, and self-hatred thanks to the activities of the church and state and its residential schools, reverberates so intensely that many members of the Ouellette Métis family which probably numbers in the tens of 1000s will not admit to being Métis in the homeland. The situation is so dysfunctional and sad that in the Northwest no Ouellettes at all apparently will claim descendancy from or even relatedness to Joseph Ouellette (1792-1885) who fought and was killed at Batoche at the age of 93 and was so respected by the British he was given his own grave, rather than being thrown into a mass grave with the other Métis that were killed. So "Old (Joseph) Ouellette" is adopted by families other than his own Ouellettes as their "grandfather" who wish to honour him with a memorial. See Métis Warriors Honoured.

In the meantime, some western Ouellette busy themselves with rewriting history and trying to reinvent themselves as "Français de France" by adopting an "ancestor" with the patronym Housalet or Hoûalet born in France, even though it is the Huault family that probably are his descendants; and even though the patronymic ancestor of the Ouellette and Ouellet in North America was either Huron-Wendat himself or married into the Huron-Wendat community the Jesuits had established for their converts on the Île d'Orléans; as well, DNA Haplogroup Y testing in the "French Heritage" study so far has established that there are actually are no ethnic "French" or "Europeans" of the Ouellette / Ouellet family name anywhere in North America.

-- Kisikewiskw
added to Northwest Timeline 2009 13 October, 2011

If you have comments, you can also make them on the Kisikew forum.

Image on this page is of a Métis ceinture flechée or arrow sash.

tags: 1885, aboriginal, alberta, ancestor, afrasian, afro-asian, american indians, assimilation, assiniboia, batoche, bonnyville, blasian, blasian indians, calgary, canada, canadian holocaust, chippewa, cold lake, colonial, dumont, durlingville, edmonton, ethnocide, fort kent, franco-albertan, french canadian, french, french heritage, fur trade, genealogy, genocide, half-breed, healing, hidden from history, houalet, housalet, huault, hudsons bay company, huron, huron converts, identity, ile d'orleans, indigenous, jesuit, joseph, joseph ouellette, la corey, manitoba, mass graves, memorial, metis, metis nation, metis resistance, metis warriors, mixed, natives, native americans, northwest, ojibway, old ouellette, ouellet, ouellette, ptsd, racism, racist, red river, residential school, resistance, roman catholic church, saskatchewan, self-hatred, self-identification, settlement, st louis de moose lake, st paul des metis, wendat, west asians, white supremacy, willet, willette, wolf lake

Now there's Enrolled Metis?

2011-10-10T06:44:00.006-04:00

I just can't help commenting. The M(etis) word must be the "new" Cherokee with all the internet claims to be (whatever flavour) Me'tis. Anyway I was looking through this site, and on the "about page" here it is on the page about "Staff":

"Carolyne is a professional journalist and former daily newspaper editor. She is of Tsalagi and mixed European heritage. Carolyne is an enrolled Metis in Canada and the United States.

"Michael is a mixed blood Indian and Metis — his mother was Seneca, Turtle Clan, and his father was Canadian and U.S. Metis with French bloodlines. He was raised traditionally under the tutelage of his maternal grandparents, his paternal grandmother and a maternal uncle. Michael is an enrolled Metis in Canada and the United States."

If you're going to claim to be Métis, at least get the word right! "Mixed blood Indian and Metis" doesn't make any sense! A Métis is pretty much the same thing as a "mixed blood Indian".

As for enrolled, I'll get to that in a minute.

Me'tis -- pronounced may-tee -- usually spelled with an acute accent over the "e" or like I've just spelled it when I'm not using or don't have a french keyboard -- is a word meaning "mixed race". Its english equivalent or translation from the french language, as we can see from colonial documents of the northwest, was "Half Breed".

Now there are capital M Me'tis, and there are small m me'tis. The feminine, by the way, since it's a french word it has a feminine, is Me'tisse and me'tisse.

The capital M Me'tis today are people who are descendant of the original people of the Me'tis Nation, they are descendants of people who were of "mixed race" -- which is what small m me'tis means -- marriages between francophones who were enculturated Europeans and Indigenous women, who were for the most part Anishinaabek (Ojibway / Chippewa, Cree, Oji-Cree), that is, algonkin language speaking peoples.

No one who is not a member of the Métis Nation should be calling themselves Métis, that's my two smokes worth on that. If they actually are related to the people of the Me'tis Nation, I don't have a problem with them saying so. But they should not be claiming to be Métis or Métisse unless they have some familial relationship to the people of the historic Métis Nation.

As for enrollment. There's no such thing as an "enrolled Me'tis" at least not anywhere I've ever heard about. The Métis never had "rolls", what they did have was called scrip, which was a piece of paper stating they had a right to their own little piece of land "river lot" along the Red River where Winnipeg now is. These papers, which can show descendancy of some of the Me'tis people, are found in the National Archives in Ottawa, though probably also available in microfilm through libraries and probably found online by now. The "rolls" and enrollment of the people labelled "Indians" by colonial governments were not done by the British but by the UStatians. There were no "rolls" or enrollment of Me'tis "mixed race" people anywhere.

I would personally shun anyone claiming to be "enrolled Me'tis" because it sounds like yet another made up plastic Indian group created last month, that uses certain terms they obviously don't understand the meaning of to give themselves the air of legitimacy, at least among the uneducated and underaware.

If you want to know more about the real Métis people of the Métis Nation I suggest this site .

Now as for small m me'tis. As above, it is a french word meaning "mixed race", "half breed" in english. It can be used and is used for biracial and multiracial peoples, if you are a francophone. If you are an anglophone, the equivalent word in english already exists and was in use around the same time me'tis was being used in the northwest of North America by francophones. Actually there are many such words, but the ones that equate to me'tis (french word) and are contemporaneous with me'tis are mestee, mustee, and mulatto (english words from french and spanish). Pretty sure there was no Mestee Nation, since the mestee people tended to marry into various communities and Indigenous nations, they were not isolated by the racist and segregationist British which is the case in the northwest of North America Métis homeland (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario). There was a whole lotta mixing going on, which is why USA was known as the "melting pot" and Canada (British North America) was known as a "cultural mosaic": the British colonials who succeeded the French colonials didn't "mix" and actually had laws against it.

By the way, I'm not aware of any person who actually does have a Haudenosaunee (Seneca) mother referring to themselves with a french word that means "half-breed" or "mixed race". It doesn't make any sense at all to me for someone to do so, either. Ditto for calling any Iroquoian-language speaker descendant me'tis (or métis), such words simply are not used in the Iroquoian culture as the concept of being (say) a "half Mohawk" doesn't exist.

Our people don't come in parts.

My two smokes.

Kisikewiskw

Note: Though some who admire the eugenicist Walter Plecker would have it so, "mulatto" does not necessarily mean "Free African American" descendant. The word (along with the term "Free Person of Color" later on) was used for someone who was either one quarter African, or one half Native American and respectively three-quarters / one half European, essentially a mixed-race person.

tags: african, african american, black indian, enrolled, métis, Métis Nation, metis, mestee, mohawk, mixed race, mohawk, mulatto, multiracial, mustee, scrip, seneca, tsalagi, triracial

CC License Canada 2.5

Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives

First published / make comments here.

Julien Lord tribe

2011-07-24T04:35:00.014-04:00

About the Julien Lord tribe

The word 'tribe' is used by us to describe descendants of a common male ancestor.

Julien Lord / Laure dit Lamontagne, who was born ca 1651 and died ca 1724, is believed to be the first of this patronym in North America and is the patrilineal ancestor of 1000s of descendants of the Lord and Laure, Lamontagne (Mountain), family names. Julien first appears in colonial records of Port Royal, La Cadie. While many believe he was born in France, no documents have been located so far which support this legend. At some point he and his family migrated to Taoopskek, Kespukwitk "Land's End" District (Rivière Dauphin / Annapolis River NS) of Lnue'gati (La Cadie / Acadia). This site includes some of his descendants.

A note about nationality: the French traditionally and historically observe the law of jus soli "the right of the earth" (naturalisation) rather than jus sanguinis "right of blood"; therefore according to the custom and culture of the French, the children of Julien and his wife Anne Charlotte Girouard dit Lavarenne who were born in Lnue'gati (La Cadie) were L'nuk (Acadiens) and Lnu'sgw (Acadiennes) aka Souriquois (Mi'kmaq) who may also have been francophone, they were not French. The Acadians were never French nationals and could not have been for the simple reason they were not born in France: further the Nation of France (French Republic) did not exist until 1792, long after the Acadian diaspora (le Grand Dérangement) 1755-1763. According to the tradition and culture of many Indigenous North American Nations, children inherit their clan and their Nation from their mothers: the children of a Wabanaki (Abenaki) mother are Wabanaki (Abenaki).

-- written by Kisikewiskw, 15 Jul 2011

Figure du Port Royal en La Nouvelle France, Marc Lescarbot, 1609

tags: abenaki, acadia, acadien, acadienne, aln8bak, amerindian, amerindien, annapolis, family, francophone, french, genealogy, la cadie, lamontagne, laure, lnue'gadi, l'or, lord, maliseet, meuse, mi'kmaq, mi'kmaw, mius, mountain, port royal, souriquois, wabanaki

Seven Nations

2011-07-07T00:28:00.007-04:00

Tsiata Nihonowentsiake

Seven Lands, also known as Seven Fires or Seven Nations; located along Kaniatarowanenneh, the St Lawrence River.

Akwesasne Mohawks
Kahnawake Mohawks
Kanehsatake Mohawks, Anishinaabeg (Algonquin and Nipissing)
Odanak Abenakis
Oswegatchie Onondaga
Wendake / Hurons of Jeune Lorette
Wôlinak / Bécancour Abenakis

To read more about the Seven Nations, see Seven Nations ~ the Other Iroquois Confederacy

Source

Update to Cote Ouellette Y-DNA

2011-03-28T18:43:00.016-04:00

Update to Cote Ouellette Y-DNA*

I want to add while I'm thinking of it that there was a fairly serious error made on the Kisikew blog which has yet to be corrected about the Haplogroup Y-DNA studies of the North American Côté origins*. To make this brief, the cited "French Heritage" study traces back to people with an ancestor surnamed Côté actually documented as having originated in France; the North American Côtés Simon is related to, from the Jesuit Huron colony (see below), have no demonstrable or documented ancestors in France, so no Indigenous Côté have been tested to my knowledge. Simon's not related to North American Côtés who have been tested and have documented a Côté ancestor in France (documented with records such as birth, baptism, and so on) as far as we know. His patronymic Côté ancestor did not spell the patronym that way anyway, later generations did though as they became enculturated by francophone priests who kept records. Anyway probably will write more about this later. ;) But basically, having the same surname doesn't necessarily mean people are related and is no indication of ethnicity. 8) Most times when Indigenous peoples were christianised in the northeast, the first ancestor so named had his or her surname (often a descriptive one such as Rose or Laviolette) plucked out of the air by the priests. They were not translations of a name, as happened in the west later on.

Côté - americanised / anglicised in North America as Cody, Cote, Coty, and probably other variants such Coda, Costa, and Cota. Originated in North America as an Acadien L'nuk Mi'kmaq patronym, and descendants of one of the first people with that patronym in North America 400+ years ago have "Huron Northern Iroquois" Wendat Wyandot ancestry from Anne Martin Matchonon (d. 1649), Cord Clan Attigneenongnahac of the Ile d'Orléans settlement the Jesuits established for their Huron converts (see the Jesuit Relations Vol I Part IV).

-- Kisikewiskw "Annie" first posted 19 Mar 2011 to Indigenous News forum.
Original material licensed by and attributed to Annie Everywhere
CC License Canada 2.5
Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives

* See Cote Ouellette Y-DNA

tags: attigneenongnahac, canoe, cody, converts, cord clan, coste, cote, cote first nation, côté, coty, culture, customs, ethnicity, european, first, first nation, first people, huron, ile d'orléans, indigenous, jesuits, kanien'keha:ka, l'nu, l'nuk, l'nuegati, martin, matchonon, mi'kmaq, names, naming, north america, origin, original people, patrilineal, patrinom, patronym, simon, simon côté, surnames, wendat, wyandot

Southeastern Acadians

2010-12-03T17:52:00.014-05:00

Acadians: Mikmaki Outlanders of the Georgia and Carolina colonies

THE PEOPLE

L'nuk

The word Acadian is from the french word La Cadie (sometimes written L'Acadie) which derives from the word suffix in the Indigenous (Algonquian) language of Mikmaki -kadi, which means place. Acadians are "people of the place, Mikmaki".

In 1756, 400 Mikmaki Acadians -- L'nuk -- who are francophone Indigenous mixed-race (Celtic-Basque, Breton, Cymry, Portuguese + Anishinaabek) people arrive in the colony of Georgia after having been expelled by the British who have invaded and stolen their homeland in Mikmaki. In all, over 6000 Mikmaki Acadians will be sent to Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1757, the British colonial Georgia Assembly enacts a bill which permits justices of the peace to bind out all Acadians that refused to work to anyone willing to feed, lodge, and clothe them in return for whatever service could be obtained of them, i.e. they are made slaves. This continues the genocide [1] by coercing many Acadians into assimilation. Many change (anglicise) their names [2], learn the English language, change or abandon their religion, and deny their Indigenous (Anishinaabek) ancestry to try to avoid being enslaved.

THE HOMELAND

Mikmaki
"The Canadian Maritimes"

NOTES
1 Genocide - - "a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2, of this convention defines genocide as

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group"."

-- Wikipedia: Genocide

2 Some of the Acadian L'nuk name (and self-identifying name for the peoples) changes may be

Mélançon - Melungeon (TN) / Melancon (LA)
Leclerc / Le Clair = Locklear
Laure (dit la Montagne) = Lowery / Lord
Portuguese = Portyghee
Colin/s fr. Colline "little hill" = Collins

-- Kisikewi'skw

+/\+/\ U=== /\+/\+

tags: acadia, acadian, algonquin, americas, anglophone, anishinaabek, assimilation, basque, breton, british, british canada, british north america, cajun, carolinas, celtic-basque, colony, colonies, cymru, cymry, diaspora, first peoples, ethnocide, expulsion, francophone, genocide, georgia, historic, homelands, indians, indigenous, l'nu, l'nuk, mikmaki, mikmaq, north america, north carolina, original people, outlanders, portyghee, portuguese, redbone, shawnee, slave, slavery, south carolina, traditional

Also published to the forum...

Acadien Cajun Basque Heritage, not French

2010-10-05T04:42:00.018-04:00

Acadien Cajun Basque Heritage, not French

Apparently a large number of participants in the Family Tree DNA "French Heritage" Project who have ancestral patronyms in the french language, who have long been supposed to be of "French" ethnicity are R1b1b2 (R1b1a2)** which is Basque Euskaldun (Euskotar) *** or "Celtic / Basque". This is especially true of Acadien Cajun L'nuk [see note] patronyms, that is, patronyms of Acadien / Cajun families in North America.

The Basques are believed to have originated in Central Asia, moving to SW Asia some 30,000 years ago, and then migrating westward including North Africa in their travels, to the Pyrennees some 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. They were the First Peoples of Western Europe. The Celtic peoples and the Basque peoples are one people once believed to be two. The Celtic peoples adopted the languages of subsequent invaders and migrants to their homeland, while the Basque retain the original language, one of the oldest in the world.

The Basques may have known about North America as early as 1000 ce. Certainly they were whaling in Mikmaki +/- 100 years before 1492, as the Portuguese and Bretons are known to have migrated to fish off the NE coast of North America as well.

There's little doubt that some of the Basques settled, fitting themselves with little effort into Indigenous communities early on through intermarriage and other peaceful and friendly relationships.

Some of the Acadien Cajun L'nuk patrilineal descendants of a Celtic / Basque ancestor have the patronyms Arseneault, Beaulieu, Blanchard, Breault, Caron, Lemay, Savard, Savoie, and Trahan.

It could be that when the Basques first arrived from their home country Euskal Herria, they were speaking their own language, and when the priests arrived from France in the 1600s, both the Mikmaki Indigenes (L'nuk Mikmaq Souriquois) and the Basques were given french surnames as they were converted / baptised. More than likely french was their common language. Both peoples were probably bilingual (their own language plus french as a second language) for a time, and slightly enculturated as "French", but neither Basques nor Mikmaq are of "French Heritage" or ethnicity.

Acadien Cajun L'nuk (including those now in Kebek) who are descendants of the Basques Euskaldanuk have more in common in terms of culture and ethnicity with the peoples of Chile and Argentina than they do with the French from France.

My two smokes,
Kisikewiskw
4 Oct 2010

Also see Basques in Mikmaki for a map of fishing and settlement sites by 1600

Note

Acadien or Acadian, LA Cadie, "the place", francisisation from the word suffix in the Indigenous language -kadi or -akadi, meaning "location, place". Cajun is a corrupt anglicisation of Acadien. L'nuk (ull-nook) is the peoples' name for themselves, the "human beings". Mikmaq is an anglicisation from nitap in the Indigenous language meaning "friend, ally".

Image (above) from a 1573 woodcut of Basque whalers: "Des Monstres" 1st ed. by Ambroise Pare

Update: Acadien Cajun Basque ... and Ojibwe ... in North America

"In Indigenous Americans groups, R1 is the most common haplogroup after Q, specially in North America in Ojibwe people at 79%, Chipewyan 62%, Seminole 50%, Cherokee 47%, Dogrib 40% and Papago 38%. ... It is believed that these populations could be the result of European admixture, however the high frequency of haplogroup R1-M173 (formerly known as haplogroup P-M45b) in native northamericans also makes it unlikely that all these chromosomes result from admixture, since such a predominant European ancestry seems inconsistent with the preservation of the cultural identity of this population. ..." -- Wapedia Wiki | Haplogroup R1 (Y DNA) (101009)

** R1b1b2 has been renamed R1b1a2 since this was written (111218)

*** Euskaldun, pl. Euskaldunak, can mean a speaker of the language, not necessarily of Basque ethnicity, so a neologism Euskotar, pl Euskotarrak was created in the 19th century for ethnically Basque peoples.

tags: 1492, acadia, acadian, acadien, anishinabek, argentina, arseneault, basque, beaulieu, blanchard, breault, cajun, caron, celtic, celtic basque, chile, culture, dna, ethnicity, euskal, french, first people, france, french, french heritage, haplogroup, herria, euskaldunak, indigene, indigenous, la cadie, lemay, mikmaki, mikmaq, ojibwe, pyrennes, r1b1b2, savard, savoie, souriquois, trahan, western europe, whalers, whaling

Tiny url for this article http://tinyurl.com/buruhc9

Community Signature Clans

2010-09-28T01:06:00.009-04:00

Community Signature Clans of Anishinabek and Onkwehonweh ca 1721

According to Aln8bak (Abenaki Nation) tradition, in each community are three Clans. In addition, each community also has a signature Clan. Following are the signature Clans of nineteen Anishinabek (Algonquin language speaking peoples) and Onkwehonweh (Iroquois language speaking peoples) communities from a 1721 document signed by a spokesperson for each community from Mikmaki to Oka Kanehsatake, northeast of Great Turtle Island (North America).

Kisikewi'skw
28 Sep 2010

Note

One inherits one's Nation and one's Clan from one's mothers, this is traditional to many sovereign Indigenous peoples of Great Turtle Island. Also when a community moved or was forcibly displaced from their traditional territory, their Clans, which are inseparable from the Indigenous peoples themselves, moved with them.

Community Clan signatures retrieved from Abbe Museum "Resistance: Making War and Negotiating Peace"

tags: 1721, 8an8iak, abenaki, algonquin, allies, aln8bak, alouette, androscoggin, anishinabe, anishinaabek, anmiss8kanti, arsikanteg8, autochtone, bear, beaver, becancour, bobcat, bullfrog, canton, castine, castor, cat, caughnawagas, chat, chevreuil, clan, community, cote du nord, dove, deer, deux montagnes, ekpahak, esturgeon, farmington falls, fox, frederickton, freyeburg, goose, great turtle, great turtle island, huron, identity, indigene, indigenous, innu, iroquois, iroquois de sante, jays point, k9upahag, kahnawake, kahnawakeronon, kanata, kanehsatake, kanehsatakeronon, l'nu, l'nuk, loup, loutre, lynx, maine, medakteck, medicine man, meductic, micmaks, mikmaki, mikmaq, missisquoi, missisquoi bay, moliantegw, montagnez, montagnais, muanbissek, muskrat, narakamig8, narrans8uk, new brunswick, norridgewock, north america, oie, orignal, otter, ouaouaron, ours, papinachois, passamaquoddy, passenger pigeon, pauwau, peg8akki, pentaguet, pentug8et, pesamokanti, porc epic, porcupine, quebec, rat musque, reclamation, renard, river, riviere, riviere st laurent, st francis, st lawrence river, st pierreville, sandy river, santon, savage island, signature, skylark, sturgeon, territory, tortue, tourterelle, tradition, traditional, turtle, two mountains, vermont, w8linak, wawenac, wendat, wolf, woodstock

Why Atlantic Metis

2010-09-27T02:53:00.013-04:00

Atlantic Métis, Why?

(continued from Eastern Métis and why such groups should be avoided)

And now there's another term, "Atlantic Métis". We have no idea who is coming up with these terms, most of which are absurd if one knows anything about history of the time period before The Great Upheaval (1755 - 1763) and place, Mikmaki, known as the "Atlantic seaboard" or Maritimes of the invaders.

However, before the British Europeans came up with their theory that there were "two races" of people in the whole wide world -- "white" European Christian and what they referred to as Indians and / or savages ("coloured" Indigenous, and everyone not European Christian) -- and their belief that so-called civilised persons ("whites") and non-persons according to them ("coloureds") should not interbreed because it polluted the "white" race -- the foundation of "white supremacy" -- and before the British Crown banned intermarriage (or at least tried to, the peoples had little respect for the British wannabe overlords / invaders and occupiers) with the passage of anti-miscegenation laws beginning ca 1713, the peoples of Mikmaki were one people, L'nuk. There was no such thing as a "half-breed" in Mikmaki which is what Métis originally meant. The term was only used in the west, and only as a translation by francophones from the english term "Half-Breed" which is found on english documents of the 19th, not 18th, century.

Indigenous (inclusive of so-called "mixed-race" peoples) in the east were known to francophones as Voyageurs (river pilots a loose translation), Trappeurs (trappers, hunters), and Habitants (inhabitants, farmers). But since these names were about occupation, culture, and family, not so-called racial identity which if anything could be said to be Anishinaabek there is no way to "separate out" the people worse yet, retroactively, according to "race", which is an artificial social construct invented by (let's face it) misanthrophic xenophobes to begin with. Many Indigenous peoples learned how to speak french and became francophone, probably more than any Europeans learned to speak Indigenous languages. Some Indigenous families even sent their children to France to be educated in the language and returned, this is well documented.

And as for the so-called differences between Acadiens L'nuk (human beings) and Mi'kmaq L'nuk (human beings), there really was no difference until the British invaders divided them or caused them to divide in their approach to the British just before 1755. The Acadiens [1] were people who wanted to remain neutral and not take sides in numerous imported European conflicts, the Mi'kmaq [2] were ready to fight to defend themselves when attacked and act as protectors / defenders of the homeland, both were L'nuk, the peoples of Mikmaki.

My two smokes,
Kisikewi'skw
27 Sep 2010
---

Notes

[1] Acadien, from a word suffix in the Indigenous algonquian language meaning "place" or "location", from LAcadie, "the place" french from an algonquian language

[2] Mi'kmaq, from a word in the Indigenous algonquian language meaning "friend, ally": Mi'kmaq were allies of France (the French crown in Europe).

Edit: clarified note 2, 18 Apr 2011

tags: 1713, 1755, 1763, acadia, acadie, algonkin, algonquin, anishinaabek, anti-miscegendation, atlantic, british, cajun, canada, culture, diaspora, ethnocide, europe, european, expulsion, francophone, french, genocide, great upheaval, habitants, half-breed, homeland, human, human beings, indian act, indigene, indigenous, invaders, invasion, la cadie, lacadie, l'nu, l'nuk, metis, mikmaki, mikmaq, occupied, racism, racist, rights, sauvage, savage, settlements, settlers, territory, trappeur, white race, voyageur, white supremacy, yellow race

Cote Ouellette Y-DNA

2010-06-22T13:59:00.015-04:00

Please see this Update to Cote Ouellette Y-DNA of 28 Mar 2011

According to the Family Tree DNA "French Heritage" Project, of Côté and Ouellette patronym family members tested, both are Haplogroup Y-DNA J2 (confirmed).

Of course this Y-DNA test indicates that the Côté and Ouellette patronymic ancestors in North America are not of "French Heritage" and did not originate in France (western Europe). Rather, patronymic descendants in North America are "Middle Eastern Heritage", originating in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East.

From wikipedia article Haplogroup J (Y-DNA):

J2
Main article: Haplogroup J2 (Y-DNA)

Haplogroup J2 is found in the highest concentrations in the Fertile Crescent and is found throughout the Mediterranean (including Southern Europe and North Africa), the Balkan peninsula, the Caucasus, the Iranian plateau and into Central Asia[7] and South Asia. More specifically it is found in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Israel, Greece, Italy, the Balkans, and the Iberian Peninsula[12], and most frequently in Lebanese 30% (Wells et al. 2001), Iraqis 29.7% (Sanchez et al. 2005), Syrians 29%, Kurds 28.4%, Iranians 24%[13], Ashkenazi Jews 24%, Palestinian Arabs 16.8% and Sephardic Jews [2]

Consistent with its Middle Eastern extent, J2 also includes the Cohen Modal Haplotype.

Image of a Phoenician ship ca 500 BCE (Source)

Notes

Côté those who participated in the study appear to have a documented ancestor from Western Europe, while some are descendants of Jehan / Jean Côté dit Coste (ca 1603 - 1661) believed to be the patronymic ancestor of the Indigenous Côté, Coty, Cody, etc. of North America ... it's important to note that not all of the surname may be related. Please see this Update to Cote Ouellette Y-DNA of 28 Mar 2011

Ouellette and variant spellings e.g. Ouellet, Willet, Willette. In the north-west region of North America, people with this surname are Métis/se, Chippewa (Ojibwe), or métis/se, though they may not self-identify as such. Ouellettes (etc.) originating in the north-east region of North America are more than likely descendants of Acadien/ne/s L'nuk Mi'kmaq who intermarried with others of the Wabanaki Confederacy / Wabanahkiyik (e.g. Western Abenaki Aln8bak) after Le Grand Dérangement.

You can discuss this blog entry and make comments on the Kisikew forum.

Historic Metis homeland

2010-06-05T12:25:00.005-04:00

Métis Homeland Map

The Métis Nation homeland geographically includes all three prairie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) as well as parts of Ontario, Northwest Territories, Montana, and North Dakota.

As the Métis Nation is not recognised south of the invisible line (US-Canada border), some of the descendants of the peoples of the historic Métis Nation are considered to be Chippewa or members of other Indigenous Nations.

Link: More information about the Métis Nation

Tags: aboriginal, alberta, assiniboine, british columbia, historic, homeland, indigenous, manitoba, map, metis, metis nation, montana, nakota, nation, north dakota, north-west, ontario, saskatchewan, south dakota, territory

Moise Ouellette

2010-06-05T11:30:00.007-04:00

Note: this was previously published to this blog elsewhere as a footnote. It has been moved to its own page because where it was, it may have given the impression that Simon was claiming to be a direct patrilineal descendant of Moïse, which would be a wrong impression. All that was intended was to point out that Ouellette is well known as a family name associated with the Métis Nation north of the invisible line (Canada-US border) and Chippewa south of the invisible line. All Ouellettes in North America as far as we know at present are ultimately related to each other, no matter how they may self-identify as individuals and no matter which Nation or community they consider themselves to be a part of. As to the particular Ouellette patriline Simon descends from, this is still slowly being researched, it is a project that has taken fifteen years so far. The current answer is we don't really know much at present, and will update this blog as research progresses. -- Kisikewi'skw, 5 June, 2010

---

Moïse Ouellette at Batoche

May 12th 1885, as told by Gabriel Dumont

"Around two o'clock in the afternoon, on definite information furnished by those who betrayed us that we had no more ammunition, the troops advanced and our men came out of their trenches. It was then they were killed: Jose Ouellette, ninety-three years of age; Jose Vandal, who had both arms broken first and was finished off with a bayonet, seventy-five years old; also very old, Isodore Boyer; also an old man, Michel Trottier; Daniel Ross, first fatally wounded and then speared with a bayonet; Andre Batoche, Calixte Tourond, Elzear Tourond, John Swan; and, Damase Carrier, (mistaken for Riel) first had his leg broken and then dragged, with a rope around his neck, around the field while tied to the tail of a horse. There were two Sioux, also killed.

"The balance sheet of these four days of desperate fighting was for us, three wounded and twelve dead; as well as a child killed, the only victim during the campaign of the famous Gatling Gun.

"When the troops entered Batoche, our men had at first fallen back half a mile. I myself stayed on the high ground with six of my brave fellows. I held up the advance of the enemy for an hour. What kept me at my post, I must admit, was the courage of 'Old Ouellette'. Several times I said to him, 'Father, we must retreat'. And the old fellow replied, 'Wait a minute! I want to kill another Englishman'. Then I said, 'All right, let us die here'.

"When he was hit, I thanked him for his courage; but, I could not stay there any longer and I withdrew towards my comrades." (an excerpt from pp. 125-126)

May 12th, 1885, continued:

"Moise Ouelette was in a hole (trench) a little ways down from the one that the Touronds were in, and he flees toward 'old Champagne's place' when the English charge. He then starts shooting, from the River. When returning, toward Champagnie's, he runs across Riel who says to him, 'I've heard that seven families have been taken'. Then Charles Thomas arrives with his gun and rosary. Riel and Edouard Dumont start off and are followed by a group of men and women. Moise Ouelette catches up with them at Lafontaine's.

"'Where are you going with the women?' Ouelette says. 'They will freeze tonight, you would be better off to send them to the houses'. Moise didn't know then that the houses had already been burned. The men did not answer him, so he leaves the party and goes home to join his family. In the evening, Maurice Lepine and David Tourond arrive; the latter states that he is leaving and asks for a few provisions". (pp. 127-128)

May 13th, 1885...

"After breakfast, Moise takes his twelve-shot rifle to go and kill an animal (deer). In the bluffs, he meets Francois Fidler who was looking for his family. Moise returned home and discussed surrending with his wife. She urges him to run away. Isidore Dumont, his father in-law is of the same opinion. Moise changed his mind saying, 'No, I want to see this whole affair come to an end'. Isidore lends him his wagon, and his wife goes with him to bring it back home; should he remain there.

"When he arrives, Peter Hourie says to him, 'What a mess...'and, you haven't seen everything'. Moise asked where Middleton was; being told he was 'in the vicinity of the Church'. At the priest's house he is told that Middleton is in his camp. Moise asks Father Vegreville to accompany him, which he does. When passing the church, they see a procession of dead and wounded men being transported to the steamboat. Moise leaves his wife at the church.

"Middleton is on his bed, in his little Fort constructed out of earth. Father Vegreville says 'Here's a man who wants to give himself up'. Middleton says in French, 'What is your name'.....'Ouelette'...'Are you a Councillor?' Says Ouelette, 'Oui, just a petty councillor'....Middleton calls in an officer, 'You are a prisoner, but I won't put you in irons'. At that moment, Father Vegreville speaks to Middleton in English which Ouelette could not understand. Middleton began to ask him questions about his association with Riel; and, asks him to take a letter to Riel.

"Moise took the letter, requesting that he be allowed to see the place where his father had been killed first before delivering it to Riel. He returned to Batoche with Father Vegreville and finds his father lying dead, on his back, without any shoes. He loaded his father into a wagon and buried him next to the Church. Some English soldiers helped him with the burial... He then returned home for the night." (excerpt pp. 128-130)

May 14th, 1885...

"Moise started looking for Riel the next day. He met Corbette Fagnan who was looking for his family; and, one of the Parisien's who tells him Riel is visiting his cousin Joseph Vandal. Moise finds Riel and gives him Middleton's letter. He sleeps at Joseph Vandal's that night."

May 15th,1885...

"Riel tells Moise that he will reply to the letter... he writes his answer on Middleton's letter... "I will surrender, but my councillors have scattered. You must not look for them. I take all the responsibility...'. Moise told Riel that he was not telling the truth, because he (Moise) had already surrendered. Moise gave Riel's letter to a priest, to give to Middleton.

"He returned home, where Peter Hourie brought another letter from Middleton... which he was to take to Gabriel Dumont.

"Riel was captured at Noon, on Friday May 15th, by three scouts: Armstrong, Diehl and Hourie, four miles north of Batoche. They recognized Riel. No effort was made by Riel to escape... Riel declared his intention to surrender... he was promised safe conduct to Middleton's headquarters. Riel's wife and children were apparently on the West side of the River." (p.130)

May 16th, 1885...

"Gabriel Dumont was told by his father (Isidore) that Moise Ouelette had a letter from Middleton for Riel. Gabriel saw Ouelette, who confirmed that he had delivered the letter to Riel... and, that Riel had gone to give himself up at the enemy camp. Gabriel made his decision to take refuge in the United States Territory. He sent his nephew, Alexis Dumont (son of Jean Dumont) to get him some provisions and to tell his wife 'he was leaving'. Gabriel was accompanied by Michel Dumas. They went to Montana." (p. 134)

"Moise went to see Isidore Dumont (father-in-law) who was sick... the police arrived, looking for Gabriel, and took Moise to see Middleton. He was taken to the steamboat, where Middleton was waiting. Middleton asked for the letter (for Gabriel)... after being questioned, Moise was arrested. The order was given to take Moise Ouelette aboard the steamboat... and, he was a prisoner." (p. 135)

Source: "War In the West: Voices of the 1885 Rebellion", by Rudy Wiebe and Bob Beal, 1949. The Canadian Publishers, McClelland and Stewart Limited, Toronto, Ontario M4B 3G2, ISBN 0-7710-8973-2

(My note, this was not a 'rebellion' since the British Crown never had jurisdiction over the region. It was a genocide.)

Tags: 1885, aboriginal, batoche, battle, canada, chippewa, crown, dumont, ethnocide, gatling gun, genocide, historic, indigenous, jose, louis, metis, metis nation, michif, montana, non-status, ouelette, ouellette, north-west, rebellion, riel, saskatchewan, terrorism

Read more about Moise Ouellette | The Forgotten Soul

Abenaki Nation

2010-05-08T19:55:00.006-04:00

Abenaki Nation

N'dakina "Our Land", the historic Territory of the Abenaki people which has never been ceded is vast, extending from the coast of Maine (USA) to the St. Lawrence River Valley. This is a transition zone between the boreal forests frequented by hunters and the agricultural region of the southern Anishinabek peoples. The Indigenous Abenaki people made their living by both hunting and farming. They were a kind of mixed culture, halfway between the Haudenosaunee (Iroquoian language speakers) and the Anishinabek (Algonquin language speakers) to the east. The Abenaki are part of the Wabanahkiyik, Wabanaki Confederacy, which includes the Pennacook, the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot, the Piguaket, the Taconic, and the Norridgewock. Against the backdrop of endless colonial wars, these people made their way northward where they became French allies in exchange for food and protection for their families.

From 1670 to 1760, the Abenaki were considered by the Jesuits to be "the guardian angels" of their francophone colonies. They were at the perimeters and outposts of the settlements and outposts of New France, and suffered every time the British set out with their troops to conquer the territory. The Abenaki acted as a buffer, delaying the British long enough for the French to organise a counter-attack. During these colonial wars the Abenaki paid a heavy price. At the end of the wars, many Abenaki returned to the part of their homeland now occupied by the naissant USA. Others settled permanently at Odanak and Bécancour (W8linak). In 1812 they took up arms again on the side of the British, while the US fought on the side of the francophone colonists during the events of 1837.

From their first contact with the newcomers from Europe, they quickly adopted European social and religious attitudes. However, even when they lived near a Catholic chapel, they never abandoned their use of animal parts (fur, feathers, quills) for decoration and for their outfits. The Abenaki lived in wigwams of birch bark. Their staple food was Maize; they grew a variety that took two to three months to ripen. The women had the responsibility of sowing, tending and harvesting this precious grain, as well as Beans. The importance of agriculture to the Abenaki varies across communities. The Kennebec grew a great deal of Maize, while the Etchemin on the St John River grew it only sporadically. In general, the more northerly Abenaki offset gaps in agriculture with hunting and fishing. Before the Maize was ready to be stored, the men had the responsibility of hunting Moose and Beaver in the winter and fishing in the summer. In the middle of winter, the whole village would disperse in small groups to hunt. Women supplemented the hunting done by the men by preparing the meat and the skins. After a successful hunt or fishing expedition, the "smoking" (feast) is mandatory. People would eat their fill which brought credit to the provider. The Abenaki all worked on preserving food for storage. Maize was ground to a flour which was easy to preserve, and which when boiled became "sagamité". Meat and fish were smoked. In addition their menu was complemented by the collection of seafood or eggs of wild birds.

The Abenaki are robust, strong and well composed, large and stylish. They use the colours red, blue, and black for face and body paint. The "matchias" (porcupine quills) and "wampum" (cut and polished seashells) are used as adornments. The tribes west of the Kennebec wear bracelets or belts of copper. Both men and women wear their hair long and tied behind the head. The men traditionally wore a loin cloth made of an animal skin, which covered their lower body and was held up on both sides by a belt. Another animal skin which was tied over one shoulder wrapped the upper body. In order to face the harsh winters, they added extra thick sleeves, leggings for the "mekezin" (moccasin) and more than likely an extra skin covering the shoulders. Their winter clothing was made from the skins of moose or beaver originally, however from the beginning of the 17th century they adopted European fabrics.

Their home is a wigwam, which is a conical dwelling of birch bark stretched over a frame of wood poles. Each wigwam accomodates 10 to 12 people. The wigwams are made to be perfectly watertight: the birch panels are stitched together with tree roots, and then birch bark patches held in place with a glue from tree gum covered the stitching. Inside the wigwam, pine branches served as a floor covering, and the skins of bear and moose were used for seating. In the centre of the wigwam was a huge pot made of wood. Using it required utmost patience, as hot stones were placed in the pot to warm the contents. The Abenaki came to prefer the European copper cauldrons, which were easier and lighter to use. As with many other things adopted over time, the Abenaki more and more embraced and integrated the European culture with their own.

The Abenaki were in constant contact with the Mikmaq and Maliseet and frequently they intermarried. Early on, they learned how to weave with wool, the use of flax-based fabrics, and how to knit in the European manner. Ash splint and Sweetgrass basket-making is part of their tradition; however, arts and crafts making use of birch bark was borrowed from Attikamekw on the north shore of the St Lawrence. Another borrowing, from the Mikmaq, was structuring frameless baskets. The material culture of the Abenaki testifies to the existence of relations with other North American Indigenous groups and the many underlying cultural borrowings and sharings.

Oral tradition for the Abenaki has managed to convey the importance of their heritage. For instance, it is said that one day a council was held to determine the Clans and tribal divisions which now designate the Abenaki. The peoples all rallied in three Clans: Bear, symbolic of strength and courage; Turtle, symbolic of wisdom; and Beaver, symbolic of diligence and labour. Each Clan exists in all Abenaki communities, however, each community also adopted a single signature Clan. Clans at Odanak use Sturgeon and those of W8linak use Lynx.

Abenaki have been permanently settled at Odanak since ca 1700. Odanak is a quiet village that invites relaxation and discovery. Before they settled there the Abenaki knew this as a place of wealth where migratory birds such as Geese and Snow geese make a stop-over during migration. Perch and Walleye (Sandres) abound and climb Alsigontegok "tall grass to the river" to spawn. The soil is rich and fertile. A recent study has shown that the highest concentration of medicinal herbs in the north-east region is located at Lac St-Pierre about 16 km from Odanak.

The population of Odanak is mixed, however Abenaki represent 70% of residents and even today one can determine membership in one or the other Clan. Some names are reminescent of ancient tradition, M'Sadoques means "person of the great river", O'Bomsawin "person who maintains the fire". The community has been welcoming visitors since 1960, for instance the first "aboriginal" Museum is found at Odanak. Cultural life is steadfastly maintained. There are celebrations of the Harvest time, the time of Ice Fishing, and the arrival of the Geese. But the festival considered the most important is the largest Pow-Wow which is held the first weekend of July to which all are invited, Abenaki on both sides of the invisible line (colonial border) as well as other Nations North and South.

The Abenaki peoples have a rich past and are proud of this. In the Museum you will find basketry, archaeological objects, illustrations of ancient life, as well as films, videos, and exhibitions. You will be made "Kolipai8" (Welcome). Here is a place of memory, a living witness, on the banks of the St Francis River set in a park adorned with totem poles and the works of Indigenous North American artists. You will discover a weath of poignant memories and legends such as "In the beginning when there were plants and animals on earth the Great Spirit carved the Abenaki and his companion in the great Ash Tree. Thus were born the people of the East". Thus the Abenaki speak of their attachment to that particular species of Ash, which was also used to manufacture their bows which rapidly gained favour with neighbouring peoples. Several artisans live and draw inspiration in the community. There's something for everyone: loom beading or leatherwork, pottery, and basketry. For about a dozen years, a group of youths and young adults repeat and perpetuate ancestral songs and dances at ceremonies and festivals with energy and pride. In 1997 they began a tour in south-western France which was a resounding success.

As a prerequisite for their alliance with the French 300 years ago, the Abenaki became christianised. In remembrance of this there are two churches in Odanak, one Anglican and one Catholic. The front of the Catholic Church faces the river and not the main street as is traditional in francophone communities, since originally the path one took to the church was from the Abenaki River. Despite the presence of these relics, Indigenous spirituality is becoming more and more significant. Abenaki are more likely to live off the reserve, but nonetheless the village is still the place where one can come to be closer to one's roots and recharge, the place where Abenaki feel "at home".

Established officially since 1708 near the Bécancour River, the W8linak community is located about twenty kilometers from Trois-Rivieres. This peaceful Abenaki community is distinguished by its wildlife preserve located in Haute-Mauricie. In all seasons, this area of 120 km2 and 40 lakes offers a main building with four rooms and seven furnished camps, outdoor enthusiasts led by experienced guides will canoe down the river, cross the lake, observe wildlife (bears, beavers, moose, deer, wolves, foxes) and participate in Indigenous culture by reviving the ancient lifestyle and traditions. A magnificent belvédère built by the Indigenous peoples will lead you to the heart of the forest or to a tree which has a story to tell.

And if while you are hiking you perceive an urge to wander into the unknown forest, it may be the cult of the dead that calls to you at the bend of a trail. If you want to know the habits and customs of the peoples of the Abenaki Nation, a journey may be organised this summer which will target a wide audience eager for discovery and adventure with no risk, in the footsteps of the voyageurs.

---
Translation loosely based on one from translate.google.com edited by
Kisikewiskw, 8 May 2010

Original en français La nation Abenaki par Bernard Brando

Métis Cypress Hills Petition 30 Sep 1878

2010-04-30T14:09:00.005-04:00

Métis | Cypress Hills Petition | 30 September, 1878

"These names came from an 1878 Cypress Hills Petition, which I found in a book covering the transcript of the Louis Riel Trial and all of the evidence submitted for the trial. There are several (8-10) separate petitions from different groups of Metis in the West, and I am transcribing the names for all of them. The petitions themselves are quite fascinating and eloquent, at times heart wrenching to read.

"Here is Cypress Hills Petition signatures, for an example of what will be in the document that I will send, if this is something you would like to have:

"Starting on page 298:

"Petition from Half-Breeds Living in Vicinity of Cypress Hills received through the North-West Council, not dated, covering letters from the Lieut.-Governor of the North-West Territories, dated 30 September 1878:

[body of petition]

Petition of 1878 from the Cypress Hills Metis, signatures:

David Laverdure jun
Isadore Dumont jun
Henri Vital
Isadore Patrife
St. Pierre Laverdure
Charlie Malaterre
Isadore Dumont sen
Baptiste Jolibois
Joseph Vilbrun
Normand Marion
Francois Delorme
William Ross
Elie Parenteau
Pierre Lantigras
David Boyer
Napoleon Ledeux
Antoine Rocheblave
Joseph Thomas
Francois Lafountaine
Francois Kole
Calice Kole
William Fayant
Michel St. Denis
Celestine St. Denis
John Welsh
Isadore Dumont
Francois Lemire
Xavier Lemire
Pascal Breland
Patrice Breland
Olivier Laplant
James Whiteford
Michel Klyne
Isadore Mallette
Edward Morrison
Norbert Delorme
Andre St. Germain
Gabriel Leveille
Antoine Gladu sen
Antoine Gladu jun
Michel Gladu
Joseph Michel
Baptiste Peltier sen
Alique Peltier
Cuthbert Peltier
James Whitford jun
Maxime Whitford
Elzeor Whitford
Louis Whitford
David Laplante
Antoine Laplante
Baptiste Briere
Louison Briere
Brisebois Briere
Jeremie Briere
Cleophas Briere
Antoine Laplante
William Davis
Alexandre Houle
Antoine Mallete
Joseph Charette
Daniel Mechiale
Andre Klyne
Antoine Canada jun
Alexandre Canada
Cuthbert St Denis
Louis Hagart
Baptiste Champagne
Leon Laverdure
Louis Malaterre
John Malaterre
Alexandre Morin
Gabriel Poitras
Joseph Bourquin
Pierre Leveille
Severe Hamelin
Modeste Giroux
Moise Valle
Antoine Ouellette
Augustine Racette
Joshon[Joachim] Welsh jun
Maxime Marion
Ambroise La Pierre
Paul Larivez
Pierre Boosah sen
Abraham Boosah
Pierre Boosah jun
Jean Shakote
Baptiste Pelloche sen
Alexandre Pelloche
Baptiste Pelloche
Lasselog Pelloche
Adolphus Pelloche
Joseph Bois sen
Joseph Bois jun
Ambroise Bois
Norbert Bois
Xavier Fayand
Treffle Fayand
Francoise Fayand
Alexandre Labombarde
Baptiste Dosa
Isaie Teboure
William Teboure
William Swane
John Swane
Alexander Swane
Baptiste Swane
Kersore Swane
Peter Fiddler
Peter Bremner
Zacharias Barland
Moses Barland
Xavier Barland
Samson Barland
Joseph Poitras
David Poitras
Termie Poitras
Francois Poitras
Salomon Poitras
Baptiste Poitras
Vital Chercote
Pascal Chercote
Medard Chercote
Edouard Pelloche
Napoleon Pelloche
Cuthbert Pelloche
Alexandre Pelloche
William Pelloche
Jean Baptiste Pelloche
Roderick Ross
Urban Ross

Alexis Malaterre
James Grant
Louis Morin
Jean B. Lange
William Soan Sr.
William Soan Jr.
William Lafournaise
Thomas Breland
Thomas Leveille
Joseph Ouellette sen
Julien Ouellette
Patrice Ouellette
Joseph Ouellette jun
Pierre Labruler
Maxime Labruler
Napoleon Labruler
Elzear Bottineau
Zacharie LaRat
Pierre Leveille
Alexandre MaGill
Augustine Davis
Louis Davis
Pierre Lavallee
Leonard McKay
Pierre Morin
Joseph Leveille
James Ouellette
Joseph Edouard Marion
Antoine Canada
Pierre Smalemie
Louis Malaterre jun
Baptiste Ouellette
Narcisse Laverdure
Daniel Ledoux
Baptiste Racette
Bernard Thomas
Pierre Ledoux
Chrysostome Robillard
Charles Trottier
Andre Trottier sen
Michel Trottier
Antoine Trottier
Henri Trottier
Isadore Trottier
Jean Baptiste Trottier
Norbert Trottier
John Trottier
Andre Trottier jun
Alexandre Trottier sen
Moise Letendre
Norbert Welsh
William Welsh
Albert Welsh
Xavier Welsh
Paul Caplette
Francois Bois
Jean Turner
Paul Pelloche
Michel Bonno
William Trottier
Alexandre Trottier jun
Antoine Lafontaine
Napoleon Lafontaine
Louis Lafontaine
Gaspard Lafontaine
Pierre Bonno sen
Charles Bonno
Basile Bonno
Pierre Bonno jun
Louis Gariepy
Leonide Gariepy
Baptiste Gariepy
Elisee Gariepy
Bonaventure Gariepy
Joseph Parisien
Alexander Gaddy
William Gaddy
James Gaddy
Baptiste Dusanne
Wallace Dusanne
Cuthbert Dusanne
Lyasant Dusanne
Chrysostome Dusanne
Joseph Kieise
Treffle Bedard
Chs Pierre Le Maire
Pierre Le Maire
Joseph Le Maire
Leander Say Farmah
Edward Say Farmah
Michel Allard
Augustine Laframboise
Edouard Laframboise
Daniel Laframboise
Chs Pierre Cardinal
Deume Desjarlais
Jean Baptiste Laframboise
William Laframboise
Neddy Welsh
John Welsh
Gregory Welsh
James Welsh
Edward Welsh
Samuel Welsh
Donald Welsh
Joseph Welsh
Damase Welsh
Jerome Lafournaise
Bernard Delorme
Casimer Bouvier
Charles Montigny
Patrick Montigny
Joseph Tait sen
Joseph Tait jun
Cuthbert Tait
Thomas Tait
Joseph Delorme
James Sanderson
Isaie Leveille
Paul Leveille
Pierre Leveille sen
Baptiste Falcoe jun
William Sinclair
Alexander Morrad
William Clyne
Duffle Clyne
John Desmarais
William Sparvie
Paul Sparvie
Joseph Sparvie jun
Joseph Sparvie sen
Jean Baptiste Sparvie

"266 signatures We tend to forget that Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan and Alberta was a large Metis community during the Buffalo (Bison) hunting era.-- to D. Garneau from Sharon Seal"

Reference & Source: Métis Culture 1875 - 1885

Western Abenaki language

2010-04-17T19:46:00.004-04:00

Western Abenaki - Abénaquis de l'Ouest

Common Interest - Languages

Western Abenaki Language | Facebook

The Western Abenaki language was down to 20 speakers in 1991, now it's probably down to something like 16 speakers. This means it is nearly extinct, which is a very serious state of affairs. It seems like it will soon follow the Eastern Abenaki language, which is now extinct. Loss of a language means a loss of culture.

And yet all the mainstream and the colonial governments have to offer has only to do with two official (and colonial) languages of "Canada", and is in the form of constant reminders of the french "fact" that francophones believe their language to be endangered, when it is in reality french is one of the most spoken languages on the planet with 77 million who speak french as their mother tongue which includes 7 million in "Quebec". There's just no comparison between 20 speakers of Western Abenaki and 7 million francophones in terms of endangerment.

This group has two goals. The first is to bring attention and public awareness to the situation which exists with respect to this loss of an Indigenous language. The second is to hopefully stimulate some action towards doing whatever we can to preserve what there is before it actually is an extinct language with no living speakers.

All people of good minds of welcome to join this group, whether it's to learn more, give your silent support, whether you are related or a descendant or not (and all the Wabanahkiyik are related as are the peoples along the St Lawrence River), your input and especially your thoughts about what we can do about this are more than welcome.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=178297314494

---

La langue Abénaquis de l'Ouest | Facebook

La langue Abénaquis de l'Ouest est en baisse - à 20 parleurs en 1991, maintenant c'est probablement quelque chose comme 16 parleurs. Cela signifie qu'il est presque éteinte, qui est une situation très grave. Il semble que elle sera bientôt à suivre la langue Abénaquis de l'est, qui est maintenant éteinte. Perte d'une langue - soit une perte de culture.

Et pourtant tous les gouvernements «mainstream» et coloniaux ont à offrir c'est deux langues officielles (et colonial) du «Canada»: l'anglais, et le français. On se fait rappeler constamment que le Français soit en danger, quand il en réalité la langue française est l'une des langues les plus parlées de la planète avec 77 millions de personnes qui le parle comme langue maternelle, dont 7 millions au Québéc». Il n'ya simplement aucune comparaison possible entre 20 locuteurs des Abénaquis de l'Ouest et 7 millions de francophones en termes de mise en danger.

Ce groupe a deux objectifs. Le premier est d'attirer l'attention et la sensibilisation du public à la situation qui existe à l'égard de cette perte d'une langue indigène. La seconde est de stimuler l'espèrance à une action à faire tout ce que nous pouvons pour préserver ce qu'il ya avant qu'il ne soit en réalité une langue éteinte sans locuteurs vivant.

Tous les gens de bons esprits sont bienvenue à rejoindre ce groupe, que ce soit pour en savoir plus, donner à votre soutien silencieux, si vous avez des liens ou un descendant ou non (et tous les Wabanahkiyik sont liés comme le sont les peuples le long du fleuve «St-Laurent»), vos commentaires et surtout vos réflexions sur ce que nous pouvons faire à propos de cela sont plus que bienvenus.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=178297314494

Acadia: Origins of the First people

2010-01-25T05:36:00.014-05:00

The eurocentric site Acadian-Home dot Org lists as "European" many mtDNA Haplogroups that, simply put, are not "European".

Apparently some people claiming descendancy from some of the women considered to be ancestresses of the Acadians released their results and their matrilines to be published on the site. Almost all Haplogroups are listed by the site as "European". Also not taken into consideration is that some of the ancestresses might have been adoptees, or have taken or been given a family name for any number of reasons, which may have nothing to do with their ancestry.

It should be obvious that if someone originated in North or East Africa or the Middle East or Western Asia, and migrated (or were brought) to Europe where they boarded (or were put onto) a ship bound for the North American continent, they did not by any means become European; one doesn't lose ones origin (not to mention family ties and relations) simply by placing one's feet on European soil!

The information below about Haplogroup mtDNA and origins of the various groups comes from wikipedia, not the best source, but certainly a starting point for further research.

Here are the name of the ancestresses that Acadian-Home dot Org lists as *European*:

Haplogroup mtDNA H - origin: southwest Asia & Middle East:
North Africa, Middle East, Europe

Jean (sic) AUCOIN
(Jean is a masculine name, in english John. Surely Jeanne AUCOIN is meant?)

Michelle AUCOIN

Anne BERNON

Perrine BOURQUE

Catherine BUGARET (also see H1)

Francoise CORBINEAU

Antoinette LANDRY

Barbe MINGUET

Perrine RAU (also see H4)

Jeanne ROUSSELIERE

Haplogroup mtDNA H1 ~ Western Europe: Basques, Iberians, North Africans, Sardinians

Catherine BUGARET (also see H)

Haplogroup mtDNA H3 ~ Basques, Galicians, Sardinians

Jeanne MOTIN de REUX

Haplogroup mtDNA H4 ~ West Asia and Europe, the Caucasus

Perrine RAU (also see H)

Haplogroup mtDNA H13 ~ West Asia and Europe, the Caucasus

Renee BREAU (also see H13a1)

Haplogroup mtDNA H13a1 ~ West Asia and Europe, the Caucasus

Renee BREAU (also see H13)

Haplogroup mtDNA HV ~ Near East, the Caucasus:
Iran, Turkey, southern Russia, East Africa, the Sudanese Arabs

Jeanne CHEBRAT

Haplogroup mtDNA J ~ origin Western Asia:
Near East, Europe, the Caucasus, North Africa

Rose BAYON

Marie GAUDET (see also J1b)

Madeleine HELIE

Haplogroup mtDNA J1 ~ origin Western Asia

Francoise GAUDET (see also J1b)

Haplogroup mtDNA J1b ~ origin Western Asia: North Africa and Europe

Francoise GAUDET (see also J1)

Marie GAUDET (see also J)

Haplogroup mtDNA J1b1 ~ origin Western Asia: North Africa and Europe, maybe Scotland

Martine GAUTHIER

Marie GAUTROT

Haplogroup mtDNA T ~ origin Mesopotamia (Syria & Turkey):
Pakistan, India, Europe

Catherine VIGNEAU

Haplogroup mtDNA T1 ~ southeast, central, and northwestern Europe

Jacquette MICHEL

Haplogroup mtDNA T2 ~ Europe

Marguerite DOUCET

Haplogroup mtDNA T3

Andree GUYON

Haplogroup mtDNA U ~ origin Western Asia

Haplogroup mtDNA U6a ~ East Africa, Canary Islands, Iberia to Syria, Ethiopia, Kenya

Catherine LEJEUNE

Edmee LEJEUNE (see also U6a7)

Haplogroup mtDNA U6a7

Edmee LEJEUNE (see also U6a)

Haplogroup mtDNA W ~ Pakistan, Australian aborigines

Marie Anne CANOL

Genevieve LEFRANC

Haplogroup mtDNA X ~ origin Asia:
Algonquin, Sioux, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Navajo, Yakama

Radegonde LAMBERT (see also X2b)

Haplogroup mtDNA X2a
(Acadian-Home dot Org does list this as "Native American")

Marguerite Francoise BENOIT

Ursule MARCHE

Haplogroup mtDNA X2b ~ Central Asia, Siberia

Barbe BAJOLET
[for Barbe, the site makes the statement she "was baptized in France ... according to the registers of Piney..." which is pretty meaningless considering in the early years (1600s) according to the Jesuit Relations and Allied documents many Indigenous children were sent to France to be educated, etc., and then returned, this was before there were 'residential schools' or even churches for that matter. It's almost beside the point that a baptism does not confer citizenship and never did!]

Radegonde LAMBERT (see also H)

Reference (for the false claim that most or almost all of the above are "European"):

mtDNA Proven Origins
http://www.acadian-home.org/origins-mtdna.html

------------------------------

It's really not helpful to try to conceal information about origins. Many of these ancestresses have long been believed through oral and family traditions to have been Indigenous, simply labelling them all "European" when they are not and trying to hide the truth doesn't change anything. I think that many of them were considered to be Indigenous because they had arrived well before the so-called discoverers; and they were already fully integrated into Indigenous communities, participating in community life, speaking the language, and sharing culture well before the French explorers arrived. Accounting for their arrival on the North American continent and theorising as to the migration routes used is another thing altogether.

My two smokes,
Kisikewiskw, 25 January, 2010

------------------------------

An interesting read is the blog "Can DNA Tell What 'Race' You Are?"

Edit: added some links and a note about Jean (sic) Aucoin 18 Dec 2011

Old Buffalo Trail

2010-01-05T16:49:00.017-05:00

(click on image to see larger)

The 'Old Buffalo Trail' is found in the historic Métis Northwest homeland. The map at right shows the 'Old Buffalo Trail' "... that millions of buffalo (bison) used to traverse the Province of Alberta [Indigenous Territory]. It is a 686 km long trail running north and south through central Alberta. It starts at La Cory near Cold Lake, passes through Bonnyville, Elk Point, Vermillion, Wainwright, Czar, Consort, Oyen, crosses the Red Deer River, crosses the South Saskatchewan River, passes near Medicine Hat, Elkwater, and ends at Wild Horse near the USA border." Ref: North-West Territories 1870-1872.

Simon was born at almost the northern-most point, Bonnyville AB, near Moose Lake. St Paul, formerly St Paul des Metis, is a little to the south-west. Métis [*] moved to the region after the 1885 Resistance at Batoche (though they first went east and south and then west and north). European settlers, mostly from the Ukraine, moved to the region after the railroad reached Bonnyville in 1928.

Bonnyville AB was known as the Cold Lake Métis settlement area from 1940 until it was closed in 1956; La Corey AB where many of his maternal ancestors lived was known as the Wolf Lake Métis settlement area from 1940 until it was closed in 1960.

-- Kisikewi'skw
5 January, 2010; revised 1 April, 2010; note added 11 May, 2010

Note [*] The term Métis used here is inclusive of people of the historic Métis Nation (of the Red River Settlement) as well as Wabanaki (Abénaki and Acadian L'nu descendants) from Abénaki Territory "Our Land" N'dakina along the south shore the St Lawrence River at Lac St Pierre, e.g. Pithiganek and Bécancour W8linak. See map of N'dakina here.

See also About Simon; Simon's Matriline

About Simon

2010-01-02T17:05:00.013-05:00

About Simon

Contrary to any rumours or gossip that occasionally (re)surfaces, his real name is Simon. How and why he changed his name has been published and has been up on the internet for at least ten years now in his biography and in other places.

Here is what it is, again. Simon was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) as an infant, and given the baptismal name "Eric". In 1993 he officially and formally left the Roman Catholic Church. How this is accomplished, is by obtaining two copies of one's baptismal certificate and sending one to the parish where you were baptised, and one to the diocese where you now reside, along with your notice that you are quitting the church. Presumably the RCC does some kind of ritual, but you are not told about that, since you have quit (of course). After that they consider you to be an apostate, your word for it is exovedate [*]. That is what you have become.

When Simon had become an exovedate, he stopped using the name "Eric" to mark this as it had been his baptismal name and had those associations. He started using the name "Simon" as his name to mark the transition from being a member of the RCC to being an exovedate.

There is nothing illegal or wrong about taking and using a new name. One can change it legally with one government body or another but there's fees and it's fairly expensive to do. Otherwise it is changed through use, which means consistent use of the name that it is changed, that's in accord with common law and custom. It's also how artists, writers, actors, and others are able to use other names.

As for his patronym Côté, which also is not some "secret", sometimes he appends it to Simon, sometimes he doesn't. More often than not he doesn't. This would be because 1) use of a patronym is part of European Christian culture; 2) the patriarchal customs of European Christians is of little or no importance to either of us; 3) although his male biological parent had the patronym Côté, his parents divorced when he was four years old so the Côté family has not been great influence on his life; 4) he considers Côté to be his colonial name and that's about it.

According to custom and after 1981 civil law in Quebec, people can have as their surname their mother's or father's patronym, or a hypenated name with both. Côté is his father's patronym, not his maternal grandfather's which is Ouellette, well-known in the north-west of this Great Turtle Island as being one of the patronyms of the historic Métis Nation peoples [e.g. Moise Ouellette].

When we lived in the traditional and historic homeland of the Métis Nation peoples under the jurisdiction of the Métis National Council, which is considered to be the colonial settler states of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, Simon -- who was born in the colonial settler state of Alberta in the homeland -- self-identified as Métis. In the colonial settler state of Quebec (occupied Indigenous territory), he does not identify as Métis but as Non-Status (see note below). There are Métis organisations, communities, and settlements (which are like reserves for Métis peoples) in the north-west, in the north-east there are none. There even was at least one residential school for Métis children, "St-Paul des Metis". There is nothing that "Indians" have experienced that the peoples of the historic Métis Nation have not also experienced, ethnocide, loss of language (Michif), land theft, burning and destruction of their homes and fields, extermination of the Bison on which they were dependent, residential schools, displacement, discrimination, the whole array of horrors.

Kisikewi'skw, 2 January, 2009, added definition below 16 May, 2010

---

[*] exovedate - a word coined by Louis Riel from Latin ex- "out of" + ovis "sheep" to mean a person who is no longer part of the Christian flock; an ex-Christian.

Notes

Non-Status "Indian" since there is no such thing as a Non-Status Métis (nor should there be). -- Kisikewi'skw, 17 March, 2010

Not all members of the Ouellette patriline (descendants of his maternal great-grandfather) and the Ouellette patronymic ancestor that Simon descends from self-identify as Métis even where they still do live in the historic Métis Nation homeland north of the invisible line (US-Canada border). -- Kisikewi'skw, 5 June, 2010

***

Tags: aboriginal, Alberta, apostacy, apostate, Bonnyville, Canada, Cold Lake, Cote, Eric, exovedate, historic, indigenous, jurisdiction, Metis, Ouelette, Ouellette, Saskatchewan, self-identification, Simon

Medicine Wheel Teaching a hoax

2010-01-02T11:07:00.010-05:00

This was posted on Indianz.com and bears repeating:

Medicine Wheel Teaching a hoax

Andrea Bear Nicholas
Chair in Native Studies
St. Thomas University
Fredericton, NB, Canada
April 24, 2007

To Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Peoples of the Maritimes:

It has been repeatedly brought to my attention how completely our people have been fooled into believing that the medicine wheel is somehow part of our traditions, especially our spirituality. While I had long had concerns about its origins, what woke me to the hoax was an event that occurred several years ago at a national conference of Aboriginal women scholars. It occurred when I raised the concern and prefaced my remarks with an apology to those whose tradition it might have been. Immediately a chorus went up with virtually everyone in the room saying loudly that it was not their tradition! And these were Aboriginal women scholars from across Canada!

Subsequent to that meeting, we in the Native Studies Program at St. Thomas University began researching the history of the medicine wheel, and what we have found is appalling!

Indeed, it was not even known by our people in the Maritimes until the last couple of decades. It is not anywhere in the oral traditions of Maliseet, Mi'kmaq or Passamaquoddy people collected as recently as the 70s and 80s. So how in the world could it represent the knowledge of our elders, if none of them ever heard of it until recently? The answer is that it was a totally invented tradition that was foisted on our people only as recently as the 1970s.

The following is an excerpt from a paper I have written which is due to be published soon. It is titled "The Assault on Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Past & Present." I include in this paper an analysis of the assault on our languages, as the most important of our oral traditions, specifically the fact that our languages have been deliberately targeted for destruction, not only by residential schools, but also by public schools and all schools taught only in a dominant language such as English. The paper also deals with the fact that so many of the stories of our people have been both distorted and often totally invented or fabricated by non-First Nations people. It is in connection with the destruction of our languages that I discuss the matter of invented traditions, especially the medicine wheel, as follows.

[Begin quote] "It is into this void [where so many people no longer speak their languages] that invented traditions have come with a vengeance. One such "tradition", the medicine wheel, is of particular concern for it is now widely promoted as the basis of Maliseet or Mi'kmaq traditions. In fact, it was invented as recently as 1972.

(1) by a man representing himself as Cheyenne, but who was immediately exposed as a fraud.

(2) The medicine wheel is not a Maliseet or Mi'kmaq tradition, nor, it seems, was it a Cheyenne tradition. Within two decades, however, it evolved into the form it is known today, thanks to the embellishments of several others, including the discredited "plastic medicine man" known as Sun Bear, who exploited the idea for their own personal gain.

(3) The irony is that this now very non-Native invention is seen as the essence of Native traditions, not only by the dominant society but also by First Nations people, even many who style themselves as "traditionalists", in spite of the fact that the enormity of the fraud has been known at least since 1983.

(4) With the 1996 publication of a Native Studies textbook that features the medicine wheel,

(5) the concept has been foisted upon a whole generation of Maliseet and Mi'kmaq high school students who now firmly believe that this invention is an old Mi'kmaq and Maliseet tradition.

Furthermore, Native Studies teachers in New Brunswick high schools are now provided with supplementary binders and curriculum materials that are totally focused on the medicine wheel. That this philosophy has effectively and almost totally displaced the oral traditions of our people in schools, makes it impossible to conclude that it does not serve the ends of the ongoing colonial assault on the traditions of our people. That this headlong rush for an invented tradition has occurred without critical attention to its origin as a hoax is a serious indictment of academia, and particularly those institutions that have taken on the responsibility of training First Nations teachers.

(6) The sad irony is that anyone who now voices objections to the medicine wheel as tradition is generally condemned for "messing" with tradition." [End of quote]

I put these comments out knowing that they will stir up much reaction and discussion, and that they will even be considered disrespectful, to say the least! I just hope that the discussion it provokes is respectful. As an indigenous academic my duty is to seek the truth, and to speak out against untruth, particularly with regard to our history. In fact, I now realize it would be disrespectful of me to hold my tongue on this matter any longer, especially when I know that young people are being taught this hoax as some sort of truth or legitimate tradition of our peoples, even in school.

I urge people to read the following footnotes to the excerpt quoted above, and the sources they cite before weighing in on this matter.

Respectfully,
Andrea Bear Nicholas

(1) Storm, Hyemeyohst, Seven Arrows, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.

(2) Kehoe, Alice B., "Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men", in James B. Clifton, ed., The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, New Brunswick & London: Transaction Publishers, 1990, p. 200.

(3) Sun Bear and Wabun, The Medicine Wheel, New Jersey: Prentice-Hill, 1980. Judy Bopp, The Sacred Tree, Lethbridge, Alberta: Four Worlds Development Project, University of Lethbridge, 1988; and Lorler, Marie-Lu, Shamanic Healing within the Medicine Wheel, Albuquerque: Brotherhood of Life, 1989. For a critique of this idea and other New Age phenomena Aldred, Lisa, 2000. "Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality" in The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 24(3):329-352; and Jenkins, Philip, Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

(4) Parkhill, Thomas, Weaving Ourselves into the Land: Charles Godfrey Leland, "Indians" and the Study of Native American Religions, Albany: State University of New York., 1997. p. 141, citing Alice Kehoe, "Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men", p. 200-201, who in turn cites Castro, Michael, Interpreting the Indian, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982, p. 155; and Bruchac, Joseph, "Spinning the Medicine Wheel: The Bear Tribe in the Catskills", in Akwesasne Notes, 1983, vol. 15(5):20-22.

(5) Leavitt, Robert, Maliseet & Micmac: First Nations of the Maritimes, Fredericton, NB: New Ireland Press, 1995. .

(6) Dorson, Richard M., Folklore and Fakelore: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies, Cambridge & London, Harvard University Press, 1976, p. 119.

Source: indianz.com

Edit: 22 May 2010 added image of 'Medicine Wheel'

Tags: aboriginal, bear tribe, canada, first nations, four, fraud, hoax, medicine, medicine man, medicine wheel, new age, pan-indianism, quebec, shaman, sun bear, symbol, tradition, traditional, wabun, young, youth

Eastern Metis and why such groups should be avoided

2010-01-01T14:08:00.017-05:00

Currently the colonial settler corporation British Canada which tries to pass itself off as a government (it has no constitution and is not structured to serve anyone other than the Crown, i.e. European powers) and its various corporate entities are attempting, once again, to try to "organise" Indigenous (so-called Non-Status Indian) peoples. Sometimes this is done with the support of / and alongside various political parties of the colonial settler state. Usually the name Métis (pronounced may-tee) is used for such groups.

I don't recommend that anyone join any of those groups, especially those that are now claiming to be Eastern Métis, Woodland Métis, Eastern Woodland Métis, Métis of the Maritimes, Quebec Métis, and similar terms. Their use of the term Métis in my opinion is an attempt to try to extinguish Indigenous rights and especially land rights of Indigenous peoples and to transform Indigenous peoples into some kind of landless peasant in the colonial settler states. Use of the term also is an attempt to destroy the distinct culture and rewrite the history of the original Métis Nation which pre-existed the British corporate entity known as Canada, which is ethnocide.

Use of the term totally disrespects the people of the historic Metis Nation, and use of the flag and symbols by people who are not related is simply put, theft and cultural appropriation.

If people want to organise themselves, that's another thing entirely, it should be done from the grassroots (sweetgrass roots!) though; at first in small working groups, families, communities -- and be focused on inherent, Human and Indigenous Rights -- not from the top down by a colonial corporation who wants to try to remove rights and continue land and resource theft activities and oppression that go along with colonialism.

Indigenous have inherent rights which should be asserted, not "granted".

Stand up for your rights!

-- Kisikewi'skw, 1 January 2010

Source

---

More information about the historic Métis Nation and the Métis Nation Council can be found here:
MetisNation.CA

Kisikew.Org Métis forum

---

Note
(added 27 Sep 2010)
And now there's another term, "Atlantic Métis", Why?

False Info about Cote family

2010-01-01T03:54:00.008-05:00

There is some false information, misrepresentation, and disinformation that is being propagated about the Côté family of North America at the NAFPS New Age Fraud and Plastic Shaman newagefraud dot org forum.

Most of it appears in threads about métis peoples and the Métis Nation.

These two threads on the Kisikew.Org forum should help clear up the false information:

New Age Frauds: Eurocentricity at NAFPS newagefraud dot org

New Age Frauds: "Moma Porcupine" newagefraud dot org

Importantly, the owner of the Kisikew.Org domain and his partner have never claimed that the Côté or any individual Côté family member were or are Métis / member(s) of the historic Métis Nation through this patriline / because of this patronym!

Also please note, contrary to what NAFPS has published to the site, Kisikew.Org and those associated with that domain, do not endorse either NAFPS New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans newagefraud dot org, or any of the activities of the people who post to the forum, nor do we support or recommend any of the commercial activities or products they are selling, nor do we suggest or recommend that anyone "donate" to their activities.

Sacred Assembly Proclamation 1995

2009-12-30T15:55:00.003-05:00

Sacred Assembly Proclamation

Aboriginal Peoples of Canada
Hull, Quebec
6th-9th December 1995
Date: Sat, 06 Jan 96 02:10:53 -0800
news:DKKMIp.BFB@freenet.carleton.ca
ab155@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Martin F. Dunn) wrote:
Subject: Sacred Assembly Proclamation

My thanks to Murray Angus, one of the organizers of the Sacred Assembly held recently in Hull, Quebec (Canada) for the following Proclamation which the Assembly released at end of its deliberations.

Reconciliation Proclamation

We, the delegates to Sacred Assembly '95, gathered together in Hull, Quebec on December 6 - 9, 1995, having come from the four corners of this land -- East, West, North, and South -- and having brought with us diverse spiritual backgrounds, and having listened to and prayed with Elders, spiritual leaders and with each other, are now able to assert the following:

We share, as part of our common spiritual foundation, the belief that:

◦ the Creator God reigns supreme over all things;
◦ the land on which we live was created for the benefit of all;
◦ as the original inhabitants of this land, Aboriginal peoples have a special right and responsibility to ensure the continuing integrity of the land and the unity and well-being of its inhabitants; and
◦ non-Aboriginal Canadians also share in these responsibilities.

We share the recognition

◦ that reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians must be rooted in a spiritual understanding of land as a gift from the Creator God;
◦ the sins of injustice which have historically divided Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples remain active in our society today;
◦ concrete actions must be taken by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples alike to overcome these injustices and to bind up the wounds of those who have suffered;

We share an understanding

◦ that the starting point for healing and reconciliation lies in personal communion with the Creator God;
◦ while change must take place at all levels of society, it must be rooted most firmly in the communities; and
◦ relations based on justice will require respect for past treaties, a fair settlement of land rights disputes, the implementation of the inherent right of self-government and the creation of economic development opportunities and other institutions to support it.

We share a commitment

As individuals:
◦ to seek the personal guidance and counsel of Elders and spiritual leaders in order to walk more closely with the Creator God;
◦ to return to our communities and develop ways to continue the process of healing and reconciliation that has begun at Sacred Assembly '95;
◦ to continue to explore with each other our sacred foundations, in order to bring about spiritual reconciliation, Aboriginal justice and the fulfillment of political responsibilities in this country;
◦ to continue to respect the differences in our spiritual journeys, even as we seek to discover the common spiritual link between us.

As churches and faith communities:

◦ to continue the process of healing and reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples, by providing the forums and supports needed to heal the wounds created in the past;
◦ to become stronger advocates for justice and reconciliation in current and future public affairs, and to hold our governments accountable for their implementation of just policies;
◦ to recommit ourselves to a program of education and action on issues relating to land rights, self-government, economic development and racism.

As First Nations and Aboriginal communities and organizations:

◦ to work towards healing and reconciliation within our own communities;
◦ to accept the challenge issued by our Youth to create an environment in our communities that encourages a healthy view of oneself and respect for others, and which also addresses community conflicts that prevent Youth from finding their path.

<===============================================================>

Source: Martin F. Dunn, Aboriginal Rights Consulting from an Aboriginal Perspective
Mountain Man's Usenet Archive
reformatted for this blog by Kisikewi'skw, 30 December, 2009

Youth at the Sacred Assembly 1995

2009-12-30T14:22:00.007-05:00

from our files - proceedings of the youth at the Sacred Assembly, Hull, 1995

SACRED ASSEMBLY '95

RORRIE ELLSWORTH, INUK BAFFIN ISLAND

[Young people addressed the Assembly on Dec 8. The young peoples proceedings are reported. This is part 1 of 4. The Sacred Assembly was called by Elijah Harper, M.P. Churchill, Manitoba.]

Rorrie Ellsworth - Inuk from Baffin Island. If there are people out there who don't know where Baffin Island is, it's the little island next door to Greenland.

Before I begin speaking I'd like to offer on behalf of all the youth. I'd like to offer everybody here a gift and the gift that we wanted to give is an opportunity for you guys to look into the future. If all the youth would come up here please and join the other youth at the podium.

Since we all can't speak we'll have a little bit of silence for now. Just listen quietly to the silence. (3 seconds) Did everybody hear that silence? Did you hear the fear? The fear of failure. Did you hear the anger? The anger of the misunderstanding and the chaos. Do you hear the confusion? The confusion that loses us. Do you hear the pain? The pain of ignorance and the pain of the politics of exclusion. But do you hear the hope? The hope that makes us strive. Do you hear the joy? The joy of being understood and heard. Do you hear the knowledge? The knowledge that guides us. Do you hear the love? The love of unification. Do you hear the silence? Do you feel the silence? We do.

I just want to share a poem with you. A poem that I wrote a while ago, when I first started wanting to learn more about my culture. The turning point in my life, where I thought: a lot of the stuff I'm learning now doesn't really help me very much. What I really want to learn is who my elders are? Where they came from? And where I am going to be in the future? This is from an Inuit perspective. So if you guys can just think of it from your own personal perspective, from your own culture.

The Inuit culture is a story yet to be told.
A story that is to be told by someone special.
Somebody who knows the ways of all the worlds.
I would like to tell that story
But I am not worthy of that responsibility.
I have not talked with my elders.
And I have not learned what I must
Because I do not know the life.
I may be able to learn little bits and pieces.
But I am not knowledgeable.
Maybe now if I learned I would be able to understand
The story when it comes time for the story to be told.
I would like to hear the true story of how the Inuit lived and died.
I would like to learn my culture because I am a part of my culture.
Yet I do not know the story.
The story of my people.
We must unite together and help ourselves.
We have to preserve the Inuit culture.
We must teach the young the ways of the old.
I want to learn and help to teach.
I want to help, only because I need to.
I need you to know what has to be done.
The culture of the Inuit has been stripped.
And now the ways of the Inuit have been changed.
Nobody is to be blamed.
No finger needs to be pointed
But we must all work together.
And help others to learn.
I want my culture back.
Although I never had it.
I want to be an Inuk
And I want you to know that I am Inuk.
Please help me to learn.
Please.

I think one of the main reasons I came here was to come talk to my elders and last night we got an opportunity to do that. We got an opportunity to sit with our elders and hear some stories. To learn where we came from. To learn some of our traditions, and I'm really glad we got the opportunity to do that. I just like to see more opportunities like that.

Because I want to help my people, and I want to help everybody, but I can't help anybody until I help myself. I want somebody to help me, and I want to help myself so that I can go out and help other people. And before I want to do anything I want to know first where I came from - and who my grandfather is and where he came from - so that I will have something to teach my children. So that I will have some knowledge to pass on.

That's all I have to say.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SACRED ASSEMBLY '95

PATRICIA SAULIS, MALISEET YOUTH

[Young people addressed the Assembly on Dec 8. The young peoples proceedings are reported. This is part 2 of 4. The Sacred Assembly was called by Elijah Harper, M.P. Churchill, Manitoba.]

Patricia Saulis - I'm from the Tobique, New Brunswick, I'm a Maliseet young person.

I'd like to thank my brother for telling so passionately what it's like to be a young aboriginal person in today's society. In terms of the focus of this gathering, this day is supposed to be sacred foundation in regards to reconciliation and healing. And this is exactly what it's going to take for us as young people to be able to get a healthy perspective and a brighter outlook on our future. Because I'll tell you right now, it's not as optimisic as some of our political leaders would like us to believe.

I guess the reason why I'm here... I wrote a letter about three weeks ago, and I was going to send it out to all the native newspapers because I was really upset about a government announcement between the Secretary of State for Training and Youth and one of the national organizations. Basically, it would exclude a lot of our aboriginal youth from participating in any kind of constructive type project or training or work that is to be coming up. I just want to share this letter with you because at the time that I wrote it I had a lot of strong feelings and I stand by these words and when I had finished writing it I thought how great it would be to tell everybody at that Assembly exactly what my words are in this letter so that somebody else out there would actually care.

Basically the focus of the letter is how are we going to overcome what has been done to us and what can we do to help one another in that process. We all acknowledge that a genocide has occurred in this land - a holocaust of indigenous people across the world, which includes North America. Millions upon millions of original peoples have been killed because of something called "manifest destiny." For all of you who do not know what this means, it means that I have a right to kill you because my God is better than yours. Upon spreading of this manifest destiny original peoples and their cultures were to be annihilated and destroyed completely.

To do such a thing they were not only murdered but they were also retaliated against by destroying their culture and their connection with what gives us our life, The Creator, and what sustains that life, our Mother the Earth. Europeans built, villages, then towns, then cities, then metropolises to cover over our most sacred sites, like burial grounds, and ceremonial grounds and hunting grounds. And doing this the connection to our Mother was distorted yet not broken.

Today we are still dealing with the impact of this. Part of the healing process that will have to occur is the healing of the land. And those of our ancestors bound to it. Non-indigenous officials have always been scared of our ancestors it seems. The first Wounded Knee clearly depicts that. The ghost dance as some call it was a way to reconnect to our ancestors and to draw on their strength and wisdom. What's wrong with that? The ceremonies we do today acknowledge and honour our ancestors, but I believe it is time to go one step beyond that.

And thinking about how things are today, I began trying to figure it out and then what might make it better. I figured out that it began with me. After having many opportunities to hear many elders and wise peoples speak I found out that change begins with me. If I wanted the world to be different, to be better, I had to be different and be better. To do this I found out that I had to learn our ways and practise them in my mind, body and spirit.

Doing that it did seem like the world was changing and that I could come to understand how it worked a little better, though very slowly. For a long time now I have been trying to figure out how the world could be a better place, especially for our young people. Drawing upon my own experiences of loneliness, confusion, frustration and a general lack of understanding of how to affect those things that impacted negatively upon myself, I began piecing together what I thought the truth to be.

I want to tell you what I found out so far. We are connected to our ancestors from the beginning times. Our ancestors need healing and they need our help to do it. Young people, because of our high energy levels, we are the ones to do this. In the past young people had a role to play in our communities. Young people held their own councils and had a voice in the running of their communities. Young people helped the old people to live, and ensured that the wisdom was being passed on from one generation to the next. At that time young people married early for they had learned what they needed to have a family. Today this does not happen because our young people are sent off to schools that do not teach those ways.

Today our old people are pushed aside and not recognized and their knowledge is not valued. Today young people do not know their own history or their own role and place in their communities for many have been taught to be seen and not to be heard. What can we do? I suggest that we reconnect to one another as young people. I suggest that we talk to one another like we have never talked to one another before. To live like we have never lived before.

I also suggest that we reconnect to our ancestors. We can pray for them and do ceremonies for them. I think we can reach out like we have never reached out before. We must demand that we have access to our sacred sites no matter where they are. City, town, suburb, dam site, or mineral deposit. Especially for the cities that once were gathering sites and our burial grounds. That we must have access to these sites to be able to take care of them. From coast to coast every major city is such a site for the original peoples of this land. Halifax, Sydney, Moncton, Fredericton, St. John, St. Johns, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Brantford, Hamilton, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, The Pas, Saskatoon, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, just to name a few.

All of these cities need to be sites of healing. We as young people are the ones to do it . We are the ones flocking to these cities. Yet no-one including ourselves knows why. We are being called and maybe it is time we took that call. As young people we know the shock and pain of seeing our brothers and sisters killing themselves and being lost on the streets. It is probably because we have lost our place in our societies, in our communities, and in ourselves.

We, as young people, are sold on sex, drugs, alcohol and violence. Yet where is real happiness in any of that? Many of us are looking for love, acceptance, belonging, yet only find abuse and more suffering. I found out that the cycle of destruction ends with me. Maybe it can end with you. Maybe we can begin to work together to help ourselves heal and to help heal our communities.

Without a role, without some sense of belonging, it is easy for us as young people to get caught up in that fast life. For many of us it gets too fast. And we get swept away to the spirit world. I think too many of us have gone on in that way. I think that we need to hold on to one another for safety and for love.

To all of those leaders out there: Stop trying to speak on our behalf, stop selling us out on our behalf. Stop thinking that you know about us when you don't. We want you to talk with us, not about us, or to us.

Young people are just as disfranchised today as we ever were. Representation is just an illusion to be bought and sold. Like all other oppressed peoples in the world we have bought the hype about being worthless. Well no more. Not for me. I can't stand by any more and see the destruction around me and not say a word.

Can you?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SACRED ASSEMBLY '95

TAMMY WILSON, METIS YOUTH AND ADULT RESPONSES

[Young people addressed the Assembly on Dec 8. The young people's proceedings are reported. This is part 3 of 4. Included are responses by Chair Elijah Harper and elders Kathleen Green and Lillian Petawanakwat. The Sacred Assembly was called by Elijah Harper, M.P., Churchill, Manitoba.]

Tammy Wilson - Good afternoon, my honoured elders, my fellow youth, ladies and gentlemen. I'm standing here before you today as a representative of the Metis National Youth Advisory Council. Our council is relatively new and it was a hard first step, but we've made it.

And we know there will be many growing pains as we try and change. We try and change amongst ourselves we try and change society. We fight for what is right, but we know that this path can be no harder than the path that it took each of us to find ourselves there in the organizational meeting. For many of us we come from our communities and for the longest time (and I am speaking for myself here) I didn't know who I was. I didn't fit in. I didn't belong. I know the confusion and the frustration and the loneliness. I've known the anger, and the hate, and the fear. You live it. You live it every day and you grow up thinking and not knowing, and wondering, and you're hollow inside. You have nothing to feel proud of. You have no spirituality to help you through, or to make those very hard decisions we face as youth. But when you find out who you are, when you start learning about where you come from, and your roots, you find a pride and a sense of belonging and a determination in yourself. All the fire of the anger and the hurt and the frustration is slowly put out by this calm peaceful feeling of knowing where you come from and where you belong. For us as a group, I know that although it will be hard to make the changes. That can be no harder than what it was for us to find out who we were, and to get over the lumps and bumps that we call youth.

I see something very sad. In grade one you look into our school and on that playground you see children of every race, every creed, every religious background, playing together on a playground. And in grade two. But by grade three something strange starts to happen slowly and surely. You find and seek out what is your own. By the time our children hit grade six, you have groups. You have all of the Chinese children together. You have all of the white children together. You have all of the First Nations children together.

We learn to grow up dividing ourselves. We learn discrimination as we grow. We teach it. We live it. We have to stop it. We are all one people. As a people, how can we ask society, mainstream society, to accept us for who we are, if we cannot accept one another as equals.

United we are a force. But divided we will be conquered. If we want to fight. If we want to make change we must learn to look within ourselves. We must accept who we are as aboriginal peoples and unite that force together and work as a unit.

By including the youth you are ensuring that the objectives that you fight for are pure. Also by including the youth you are cementing it and supporting it. We are tomorrow and there is no better way than to start teaching us today. You provide the example. You support us. You give us the skill that it takes to fight, and to change, and to grow. You help us spiritually. You educate us. You give us the fundamental things that we need to grow as a people.

So when you go back to your communities, and you go back to your home, take a youth, take them under your wing. If you are a youth, take a younger youth under your wing. Show us our roots, teach, help people support one another. Through that support we grow, and we grow stronger together.

Thank you.

Elijah Harper:

What you see in front of you is the future of our people. The young people that will go into the next generation. ... A nation without hope has no future. Today I see hope in these young people. I see them yearning, burning for wanting to reconnect. We have a great nation and a great people. We have so much to offer to the rest of the world.

Menno Wiebe of the Mennonite Central Committee and a long time supporter of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC) and a tireless worker for Native justice commends the youth:

My first words are to the youth. Those of you who have stayed here. Wasn't it great to see 50 plus of them stand up at this Assembly and utter wisdoms that make true the prophecy, "And young men, and that goes for women too, will see visions and the older ones will have dreams." I think we have that portrayed right in our midst. And to those of you who struggled so hard the other great poem that comes from the elder Isaiah "They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up like eagles, they shall run and not faint." I'd like to leave these great words with you.

Kathleen Green:

As young people, love really makes life great. When I accept myself anew. When I accept myself as I am I can change. So love is when I can tell what is in my deepest heart. This is the most loving thing that I can do for you. Then if you choose, you can tell me what is in your deepest heart. That is love coming back to me. The best word I can find for that is emotional honesty.

Lillian Petawanakwat:

The challenge has been presented to each and every one of us. Challenged in the way of that reconciliation of self coming in. The youth has been a part of that circle since time immemorial. We stand up today with pride and dignity because they are ready to receive the teachings. I'm very proud of them and I would like to sing an honour song for them, to bless our youth. Not only the youth who are here, but all the youth in the universe, that they will have guidance when they reach out to an elder, that an elder will be there for them, that they will be guided unto that sacred path of life once more. This is my prayer and this is my blessing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SACRED ASSEMBLY '95

YOUNG PEOPLES SUMMARY

[Young people addressed the Assembly on Dec 8. They also had a talking circle involving 54 young people and had other meetings with elders. Because their delegates had some acrid remarks to make in their Grand Finale speeches it seems that the Elders Green gave an explanatory introduction before the young people spoke. This is part 4 of 4. The Sacred Assembly was called by Elijah Harper, M.P. Churchill, Manitoba.]

Robin Green - Shoal Lake elder [Ontario Manitoba border just north of Lake of the Woods]

My friends, my relatives, church delegation, visitors, I stand before you to tell you something that was overlooked. Perhaps it was overlooked because the anxiety were too anxious which is ok also, but as elders as we communicate we respect the young people because they came here to voice their concerns. For a good many years now they have been overlooked. What we have done is not a failure, it is a stepping stone for all of us, what Elijah Harper did for us. Its now a process of starting something we came here to learn. The young people are not accepting, are not ready because they were never taught. They were never given any teachings what the sacred fire is and we honour that, we honour that. And also what was read. Same thing. They don't want to accept something that they don't know about, which is good for them to think that way. I acknowledge that as elders, we acknowledge that, but the fire will be taken back each direction of the elder were they are standing. To begin these teachings maybe by 1997, as it was announced that next assembly will take place, maybe by then they will be ready. But they are preparing for all these things that they have come here to learn. So this is not a failure. This is a new beginning, I just want to acknowledge that. We apologize to the young people. We apologize because, and also I commend them to come forth and tell us how they feel. Otherwise they would have gone home more confused because we would have created more bad feelings amongst them. But I want you to know that reconciliation also has started. Migwetch. [shouts and applause]

Kathleen Green - Elder Shoal Lake:

I'd just like to say a few words to the young people. I have a lot of respect for these young people because they have a lot of courage to come and tell us how they feel. Now we know that our work is just beginning. To start teaching our young people these teachings that our elders had passed on to us. I'd like to talk to the young women. These young women have never been taught. When they became women for the first time. They were never taught self-respect. When a young woman becomes a woman for the first time she was put in a sacred lodge, which we call a moon lodge. That's where she received those woman teachings. That's where she received how to respect herself Every month for a year, she would go into that moon lodge with her aunties and grammas. They would look after them. They would take turns, sitting with them at night. They would take care of them. And same with the young men. When the young man was ready to be taught how to provide for his family. How to protect his family. It was the uncles and the grampas that took him. They taught him how to hunt. They taught him how to respect woman. Never hit woman because woman is sacred. Woman is the lifegiver. And same with the young woman, that man is the provider, to walk hand in hand like this. This is what we teach back home, my husband and I. We try to pass on these teachings that balance of life. That balance has to be there. I like to say migwetch There are so many teachings, there are so many things that I could say. But we are only limited to time here, but those are the basic life skills that you and me use every day. These are the teachings you can take home. Take home to your daughters, your grandchildren, your sons. These beautiful teachings that were passed on from generation to generation. Migwetch. [applause]

Edee O'Mara - Winnipeg youth activist:

boojoo [native words and name]
My english name is Edee O'Mara. I'm speaking on behalf of all these young people you see here, who are holding hands, Someone just asked me a few minutes ago, weren't you listening. Yes I was but yesterday our youth panel spoke. A time slot we were given was when all our big leaders were speaking too, so we couldn't hear them and they couldn't hear us. When our panel spoke, there was a crowd and we had a circle, and we wanted to talk about our issues. It was a very powerful circle we had representatives of youth from coast to coast. And it was very touching. I wish you could have seen that, I wish you could have heard that. We started about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon and we didn't close up till 10:30 last night. We requested that the older generation, that everyone else come and observe our circle. There was only a handful, there was maybe about 5 left when we closed up our circle. So while everyone else was pow wowing here, our youth were sitting together segregated way over there. There was a lot of anger amongst our youth. This is a good idea. This whole assembly and everything. I'm not talking my own mind I'm speaking on behalf of these young people. They delegated me to speak... [end of tape 8 side B]

[Unfortunately I have no audiotape to transcribe of the following presentations but I will give my personal observations from what was said. The young people voiced their concerns that while they were asked to participate and voice their concerns, but any concerns that they did express were not heard or implemented. Adults in very small numbers, about 30, came to listen to the hurt and needs expressed by the young people at their talking circle. It was rationalized that there were other events scheduled at the same time. That the adults chose to give higher priority to the other events proved to the young people that they are the forgotten generation.]

[Edee O'Mara elaborated further on the young peoples anger. She also read a poem "That Sage, She Speak to Me" that she had written about her favourable experiences on visits to an elder. An Inuk also spoke very eloquently about the young people's concerns.]

[I will attempt to get these texts and post them later.]

----------------------------------------------
Transcribed from an audiotape by:
Harold P. Koehler, London, ON

reformatted for this blog by Kisikewi'skw, 30 December, 2009

Status and Non - How can we make things better?

2009-12-30T05:44:00.002-05:00

"Indian Status" and "Non" - How can we make things better?

Why is it, in North America, you can claim to be Irish, Scottish, Australian, Asian, British, African, and claim to have ancestors from just about anywhere in the entire world, and no one questions it. If you say you are German, no one expects you to speak the language, and be wearing lederhosen, and be able to recite German fairy tales or even to know any. Same for any other culture.

A person has no fear that if they say they are Dutch, others will expect and even demand that they show a plastic government approved Dutch Status or White Euro Status card to prove it, and document their ancestry, and be able to recite both their ancestry and an oral history of their people at the drop of a hat to anyone who asks. Even if their hair were jet black and their skin dark, no one would question their claim to be Dutch. Nor would a person ever be referred to as a "wannabe" or "could never be" Dutch or French person. In fact, people are expected to "wannabe" French or British or Spanish i.e. 'Latino', no matter where they originated. But all you have to do is mention Indigenous ancestors, and all at once you are expected to know all about the culture, not only your own, but that of all the other 100s of nations of Great Turtle Island. You are expected to know all the protocols. You must be an expert in the language, even if your people lost theirs through forced assimilation policies, residential schools, and your Indigenous language is now down to less than two dozen speakers, who are able to speak it still despite a couple of hundred years of ethnocide.

As for your ancestors, you must be able to document them in colonial records (!), they are only as "Indian" as the colonial government said they were 250 years ago when they "discovered" them eating berries and roots in the bush they also "discovered". Not that they are "Indian", since "India" is another continent altogether. But otherwise you're a "wannabe Indian" for what it's worth. And apparently, it's much much better being a "make believe Indian" than it is being a "wannabe make believe Indian", though the line of difference might be almost indiscernible to some, one group might have Indigenous ancestry and the other might not, hence the need to carry around documents or know where to access them. "Les papiers, s.v.p.!" I've heard the "Indians" (from the continent "India") want their word back, by the way.

Just a reminder, some 79% of Indigenous according to British Canada are "Non-Status". This does not make them less than any other other people on the planet, it's simply a term invented by the colonial governments to divide the people into "carded" (Status) and "non-carded" (Non-Status). It's even questionable to my mind as to who gave the Europeans the right to decide who is and who isn't Indigenous to this continent, since they are recent arrivals. In truth, no one did give them the right, they took that on themselves. And it's very much a part of their "divide and rule" philosophy, creating two "groups" (government approved and non government approved) from *one* people.

Labelling of people as "Non-Status" does nothing to change people. It does not make them a new weird species of sub-human that can be further labelled "wannabe" and disrespected by anyone. People are "Non-Status" for many reasons, some undoubtedly by choice -- not caring and not really wanting colonial documentation -- but some because of government policy of stealing Indigenous land and resources, which is to this day accomplished by continuing to steal children from Indigenous homes and communities to be raised by non-Indigenous families. No one seems to know for sure how many children there are being raised like this, other than "a lot".

We need to Respect other people and give them the space to find themselves, I believe, and for many this means giving them time and space to find out who they are and where they come from, who their people are. The past 500 or so years have not been easy for many. Can't we all try to make things a little bit easier? How can we make things better?

-- Kisikewi'skw, 30 December, 2009

Magoua and Ankyloglossia

2009-12-30T01:37:00.011-05:00

(français suivant)

In his 2007 blog, Gaetan Bouchard asks "Am I a Magoua?" (see below for my english translation) and proceeds to answer the question by referring to a couple of internet sources for his information about the people descendant of the Magoua of Yamachiche, north shore of the St. Lawrence River near Trois-Rivieres.

The Magoua were and are more than likely Anishinabek of Attikamek and intermarried Mi'kmaq / L'nu'k / Acadiens who arrived there soon after Le Grande Derangement to join and intermarry with their Algonquin speaking relations found to the north of the river at Lac St-Pierre. Both the Mi'kmaq / L'nuk / Acadiens and the Anishinabek are Algonquin language speakers; however, the languages are dissimilar enough that they might have adopted french as a common language.

The Algonquin languages, however, lack the letter "R". This of course accounts for the fact that some Indigenous Algonquin-language speakers would be unable to pronounce the "R" and might substitute a "W" giving some distinctiveness to Magoua french speech. French of course, would have been their second language, not their mother tongue. Europeans consider that the inability to pronounce "R" or perhaps even the lack of an "R" in a language to be a "speech impediment" which is known as Ankyloglossia, in english "tongue tie". Surgery is used to correct this so-called medical condition.

At least one Magoua descendant I know reported to me that as an infant (born in the 1970s in Canada), he was subjected to surgery right after he was born, so that he might be "better able" to speak french and english. The surgery, which is known as lingual frenectomy, currently is used in Korea on children so that they might better be able to speak english. We have no idea how common such surgery on Indigenous children is or has been in Canada, or if it has been used randomly or is or was part of the forced assimilation policy to make Indigenous more like Europeans, and "better able" to speak their languages as they do.

So far it's not something that people have found themselves able to disclose or talk about publicly in Canada. It really isn't helpful for Gaetan Bouchard to seemingly mock people who are unable to pronounce the letter "R" whether it's part of their culture and/or due to a physical condition. Nor is it helpful to refer to the french speech of Magoua descendants as that of infants. However, his ignorance about Algonquin languages and people can be forgiven, as from his blog article it is pretty obvious that he knows very little. We can hope that he did actually attend a pow-wow which surely would have been an enlightening experience for him.

-- Kisikewi'skw
30 December, 2009

Note

Mi'kmaq (plural, Mi'kmaw singular) is what the British call the people, after the french version of a word which meant "allies, friends";

Acadien is what the French called the people, they called the land Acadie, after a word (suffix) in the Indigenous language which meant "place";

L'nuk (plural, L'nu singular) is what the Indigenous people call themselves, the land is known as Mi'kmaki, in english 'The Maritimes'.

---

My unauthorised translation of Gaetan Bouchard's blog:

SIMPLEMENT the blog of Gaetan Bouchard - Am I a Magoua?

Have you already heard of the Magoua? Up until now, Magoua was for me a mysterious word that designated those who live improperly and want to break everything, and I didn't dig into the meaning of the word further. One would say «c’t’un hastie d’magoua!» ("that's a gang of Magoua!") or «c’est une famille de magouas» ("that's a Magoua family!"). While surfing the web, I fell upon this text [1] published in Le Devoir, in 2006, where the question of the Magoua was mentioned, not the Magoua of my childhood, but the Magoua [2] of flesh and bone, the metis population that lived and still live to the North of Yamachiche, near Trois-Rivieres.

Magoua could be descendants of these Anishinabek of Trois-Rivieres (Attikamek), port city situated at the confluence of the Métabéroutin river (in the past St-Maurice) and river Magtogoek (in the past St-Laurent).

A study was even published on Magoua speech. This strangely resembles the speech of my childhood. Was this a serious study or a "joke"? I want to ask... This (study) is named « Les créolismes syntaxiques du français magoua parlé aux Trois-Rivières» ("The Creole syntax of French Magoua spoken at Trois Rivieres"), a study by Henri Wittmann. Read it [3], if it appeals to you.

Read this [4] also, even though it's Wikipedia, a institution snobby for nothing that usefully serves the informed web-surfer.

Maybe I also have some Magoua ancestors since I speak Magoua very well, like this linguist of UQTR has said.

"Conna ça en t’arnak e’l’magoua mwé.
"Mwé viens d’Twois-Wivièwes.
"Twois-Wivièwes, pô l’Cap-d’la-Magdlène st-crèche mais juste Twois-Wivièwes, Twois-Wivièwes. C'que j'aime à Twois-Wivièwes c'est c'qu'c'est pas Kébek ou Mourial. Non, Twois-Wivièwes c'est Twois-Wivièwes."

I have nothing against Magoua, you can see how well I speak it. I didn't find this in a box of Cracker Jack of St-Lemon.

In the end, taking all this in, I have a feeling I am Magoua.

I will have to invite myself to their pow-wow next year so I may be enlightened.

Ah! I forgot...

Have you heard about François Boisvert, Chief of the Serpent tribe? He was found in the American west, in the middle of the 19th century... A Grand Chief who originated in Yamachiche, a Magoua exile. This is found on the blog Vivre le Quebec libre [5]. This is instructive above all. And it reminds us, that no matter where we are in the world, there will always be someone from "Twois-Wivièwes" who will offer us a coffee or an ale.

PS: The image heading this blog is the Metis [Nation] flag. I really don't get off on this flag. But, good, it is what it is. I felt much too tired to draw a Magoua. Digitizing drawings, makes me shit.

Links

[1] http://www.ledevoir.com/2006/06/03/110615.html

[2] http://espace.canoe.ca/Pocahontas/video/view/14486

[3] http://cafe.rapidus.net/hwittman/linguistique/1998b-csmag.pdf

[4] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magoua

[5] http://vivrelequebeclibre.over-blog.com/article-5730115.html

-- 'Unauthorised' english translation by Kisikewi'skw, 29 December, 2009

Tags: aboriginal, acadian, acadien, alberta, algonkin, algonquin, anishinabek, ankyloglossia, assimilation, attikamek, autochtone, canada, culture, creole, ethnocide, first nations, genocide, korea, lac st-pierre, language, lingual frenectomy, linguistics, l'nuk, magoua, mi'kmaq, pow-wow, quebec, speech, st. lawrence river, tongue tie, trois-rivieres, yamachiche

---

Magoua et Ankyloglosse
traduction par Simon L'nu

Dans son blogue, Gaetan Bouchard se demande «Suis-je un Magoua?» et procède répondre à la question en se reférrant at des sources sur le «oueb» pour son information sur les gens qui descendent des Magoua de Yamachiche, sur la côte nord du St-Laurent, près de Trois-Rivières.

Les Magoua étaient et sont fort probablement du peuple Anishinabek - Attikamekw - et ont mariés des L'nu (Mi'kmaq) / Acadiens qui se sont retrouvés là bientôt après le «Grand Dérangement», pour se joindre à leurs relations Algonquin de la côte nord de la rivière, au Lac St-Pierre. Les Attikamekw, L'nu, partagent la grand famille linguisitique Algonquinne; par-contre, parfois les lagues sont assez différentes que l'adoption du français aurait pu être fait pour servir de «lingua franca».

Les langue Algonquinnes par-contre, ne se servent pas du «R». Ceci bien sûr les algonquinophones ne pourraient pas prononcer cette lettre [ou avec difficulté] et pourraient se servir du «OU» (ou du «W»), qui servirait à distinguer le français Magoua. Le français bien sûr aurait été leur langue seconde, pas la maternelle. Les européens considèrent «l'inhabilité» de prononcer le «R» comme un défaut d'élocution, l'anklyoglosse; avoir une «langue cravate». La chiurgie est employée pour «corriger» cette soi-disante condition médicale.

Au moins un descedant Magoua que je connais m'a reporté qu'étant enfant (né dans les années 1970 au Canada), il a été soumis à cette chiurgie tôt après sa naissance, pour qu'il soit capable de «mieux parler» le français et l'anglais. Cette chiurgie, qui est connu sous le nom de frénologie linguale, est courramment utilisée en Corée du Sud sur les enfants pour qu'ils soient capables de «mieux parler» l'anglais. On a aucune idée si cette procédure est ou était courante chez les enfants autochtones au Canada, ou si c'était utilisée par hazard, ou si c'était utilisée par la politique d'assimilation forcée pour faire les autochtones plus comme les européens, et de les faire «mieux parler» ces langues.

Jusqu'à présent ceci n'est pas quelque chose que les gens ont pu êtres capables d'en parler ou en divulguer publiquement au Canada. Ce n'est vraiment pas utile pour Gaëtan Bouchard d'apparamment se moquer des gens incapables de prononcer le «R» si elle fait partie de leur culture et / ou en raison d'une condition physique. Non que c'est utile de se référer au discours français des descendants Magoua que celle des nourrissons. Toutefois, son ignorance au sujet des langues algonquines et les gens peuvent être pardonnés, que de son article du blog, il est assez évident qu'il ne sait que très peu. Nous pouvons espérer qu'il a fréquenté effectivement un pow-wow qui aurait sûrement été une expérience enrichissante pour lui.

-- Kisikewi'skw
30 décembre, 2009

Indigenous peoples are not "homeless"

2009-12-20T12:13:00.006-05:00

I find the use of the word "homeless" almost everywhere these days. It's not that marginalised peoples appear at the beginning of December and then disappear after the Christmas meal at the local church-run soup kitchen for "homeless". I think it's just that the fact that there is actually a large population living on or not far from the streets in large urban centres becomes more noticed because in the glut of greedy grabbing and gobbling that is the mainstay of pre-Christmas ring up the registers, and 'roll up the rim to win', rituals, people can't help but notice the street people. Maybe just maybe some salve their conscience of having participated in the glut by noticing, and the government and services agencies who collect money "to help" make sure they can't help but notice.

For about one month a year, the invisible become visible.

The point I want to make, however, has to do with the word "homeless". Not all "homeless" are Indigenous of course. But are Indigenous peoples really "homeless"? Of course not! North America is their home. There is not one single Indigenous person in North America who does not have claim to this continent as their homeland, having ancestors who have been here forever (according to some, if not all, oral traditions and stories), 10,000 to 30,000 years (a changing figure, according to what the grave robbers (ghouls) have dug up most recently, and not destroyed).

North America is the home of the Indigenous peoples, it is not the home of the European invaders, who still have their stories (many of them as recent as this decade) of where they are from, who their people are, and which continent is their home.

The word "homeless" as used by the colonial squatters, however, is used to underscore Eurocentric classism and help perpetuate land and resource theft. By declaring that Indigenous living on the street are "homeless", at the same time they are defining themselves as being in possession of homes, "not homeless". And what smug satisfaction that word seems to create, along with the inevitable sense of "white 1 privilege". It's a word also designed to create a class of people that never existed on this continent before the invasion by Europeans, that is, "landless peasant" 2.

I much prefer the term "living on the streets". That is the reality. It's not that Indigenous don't have a home, because they do and it's known as Great Turtle Island "North America". However, since the British Crown (foreign European powers) claimed the land, and backed up their land claim not with documents, but with force, including kidnappings, murders, disappearances, and the whole trail of broken "Peace and Friendship forever" treaties they signed, the reality for many Indigenous (79% of Indigenous north of the invisible line are living off-reserve) is that while they have a home (homeland) it is decent housing that they lack. The fact that land and resources are not being -- at least -- equitably shared is the real problem.

Kisikew'iskw
20 December, 2009

---

NOTES

1 "White" not for the lack of melanin in European skin, but for the white powdered wigs and white powdered faces they presented to Indigenous at first contact. "White" = European, usually Christian.

2 For that matter, the concept that there are "landless peasants" in Europe is a fairly recent one as well, it was institutionalised with 'The Enclosure' (ca 1750 to 1860): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts

Abenaki Language - La langue Abénaquis

2009-11-19T02:32:00.006-05:00

Western Abenaki language

The Western Abenaki language was down to 20 speakers in 1991, now it's probably down to something like 16 speakers. This means it is nearly extinct, which is a very serious state of affairs. It seems like it will soon follow the Eastern Abenaki language, which is now extinct. Loss of a language means a loss of culture.

And yet all the mainstream and the colonial governments have to offer has only to do with two official (and colonial) languages of "Canada", and is in the form of constant reminders of the french "fact" that francophones believe their language to be endangered, when it is in reality french is one of the most spoken languages on the planet with 77 million who speak french as their mother tongue which includes 7 million in "Quebec". There's just no comparison between 20 speakers of Western Abenaki and 7 million francophones in terms of endangerment.

This group has two goals. The first is to bring attention and public awareness to the situation which exists with respect to this loss of an Indigenous language. The second is to hopefully stimulate some action towards doing whatever we can to preserve what there is before it actually is an extinct language with no living speakers.

All people of good minds of welcome to join this group, whether it's to learn more, give your silent support, whether you are related or a descendant or not (and all the Wabanahkiyik are related as are the peoples along the St Laurent River), your input and especially your thoughts about what we can do about this are more than welcome.

Facebook | Western Abenaki - Abénaquis de l'Ouest

---

La langue Abénaquis de l'Ouest

La langue Abénaquis de l'Ouest est en baisse - à 20 parleurs en 1991, maintenant c'est probablement quelque chose comme 16 parleurs. Cela signifie qu'il est presque éteinte, qui est une situation très grave. Il semble que elle sera bientôt à suivre la langue Abénaquis de l'est, qui est maintenant éteinte. Perte d'une langue - soit une perte de culture.

Et pourtant tous les gouvernements «mainstream» et coloniaux ont à offrir c'est deux langues officielles (et colonial) du «Canada»: l'anglais, et le français. On se fait rappeler constamment que le Français soit en danger, quand il en réalité la langue française est l'une des langues les plus parlées de la planète avec 77 millions de personnes qui le parle comme langue maternelle, dont 7 millions au «Québéc». Il n'ya simplement aucune comparaison possible entre 20 locuteurs des Abénaquis de l'Ouest et 7 millions de francophones en termes de mise en danger.

Ce groupe a deux objectifs. Le premier est d'attirer l'attention et la sensibilisation du public à la situation qui existe à l'égard de cette perte d'une langue indigène. La seconde est de stimuler l'espèrance à une action à faire tout ce que nous pouvons pour préserver ce qu'il ya avant qu'il ne soit en réalité une langue éteinte sans locuteurs vivant.

Tous les gens de bons esprits sont bienvenue à rejoindre ce groupe, que ce soit pour en savoir plus, donner à votre soutien silencieux, si vous avez des liens ou un descendant ou non (et tous les Wabanahkiyik sont liés comme le sont les peuples le long du fleuve «St-Laurent»), vos commentaires et surtout vos réflexions sur ce que nous pouvons faire à propos de cela sont plus que bienvenus.

Facebook | Western Abenaki - Abénaquis de l'Ouest

Magoua of Yamachiche "Lac St-Pierre"

2009-10-22T07:02:00.009-04:00

Magoua of Yamachiche

The north shore of Lac St-Pierre is known as Nitaskinan, Atikamekw (Whitefish) Territory to the Indigenous Algonkin Anishinaabek whose Homeland it is. Lac St-Pierre is known as Nebesek. During and after the Diaspora (1755-1763), the L'nu Mi'kmaq Acadian peoples who began settling on the north and south shores of the lake, intermarried with their Indigenous relatives who were Anishinaabek on the north shore, Abenaki on the south shore, and with Wendat Huron (who had originated at Georgian Bay) and Metis [1] peoples who were also found in the region.

The peoples at Yamachiche ca 1767 were collectively known as Magoua, probably from the Algonkin word Magwish meaning "Loon", Cree Makwa, Mi'kmaq Gwimu, Français Huard. The AUCOIN, BASTARACHE, BEAULIEU, BENOIT, BERGERON, BERNARD, BOUDROS, DEVEAULT, LANDRY, LEBLANC, MÉLANÇON, PELLERIN, PICOT, RAYMOND, SAMSON, SAVOIE, THIBAULT, THIBODEAU, and TRAHAN who had migrated to Massachusetts (N'dakina, Abenaki Territory) after leaving Mi'kma'ki during the Acadian Diaspora 1755-1763, are families originating in Acadie Acadia Mi'kma'ki some of whom eventually migrated to and settled at Yamachiche.

Perhaps this collective (clan?) identity is one that was brought to Yamachiche with the peoples from Mi'kma'ki Acadia. Some of these families e.g. TRAHAN (descendants of Philippe MIUS and one of his two Mi'kmaq wives, both named "Marie", and descendants of Guillaume TRAHAN and his Mi'kmaq wife, Madeleine BRUN) originated at the Riviere Canard or Duck River at Minas Basin (see image); Loon -- a waterfowl who dives -- was not given its "colonial" name and categorised until 1788, which was after the Diaspora.

Image: 1755 map of Minas Basin, Acadia: Riviere Canard, Duck River is highlighted in yellow. Some of the families who eventually migrated to Yamachiche originated there before the Diaspora 1755-1763.

-- Kisikewi'skw, 22 October, 2009, edited 19 November, 2009

--

Note

1 The Metis (pronounced may-tee) are "mixed" French or Scottish and Indigenous: their mothers (ancestresses) are Cree, Ojibway, and Oji-Cree.

Tags: aboriginal, abenaki, acadia, acadie, algonkin, alnobak, anishinaabek, atikamekw, aucoin, bastarache, beaulieu, benoit, bergeron, bernard, boudros, british, cajun, canada, canadian, cree, derangement, deveault, diaspora, ethnocide, first nation, french, francophone, genealogy, genocide, homeland, huron, indian, indigenous, lac st-pierre, landry, leblanc, loon, magoua, makwa, massachusetts, melanson, metis, migration, mi'kma'ki, mi'kmaq, nebesek, nitaskinan, nova scotia, ojibway, oji-cree, original, pellerin, picot, quebec, quebecois, raymond, riviere, samson, sauvage, savoie, savoye, st laurent, st lawrence, st-pierre, strahan, territory, trahan, trois rivieres, wabanaki, wendat, whitefish, yamachiche

Nebesek "Lac St-Pierre" N'dakina

2009-10-22T06:51:00.003-04:00

Nebesek

LAC ST-PIERRE
District of Three Rivers - de Trois-Rivières

North shore is Atikamekw Territory ~ South shore is Western Abenaki Territory

Nebesek, "at the lake", is the name given by Anishinabek Original peoples to this lake.

When the Acadian Mi'kmaq L'nu were displaced from their Homeland Acadia Mi'kma'ki in the Acadian Diaspora [1], many families migrated to Nitaskinan, Atikamekw (Whitefish) Territory (north shore of the St. Lawrence River, Kebek Mauricie region) - N'dakina (Nadakinna), Abenaki Territory (south shore of the St. Lawrence River). Some of the latter families and individuals first migrated from Mi'kma'ki to places in what is now known as "New England" ("Vermont", "Maine", "Massachusetts") before their final arrival at the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

-- Kisikewi'skw, 21 October, 2009
---
Note
1 Le Grand Dérangement 1755-1763
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Upheaval

Tags: abenaki, acadia, acadian, acadie, acadien, algonkin, aln8bak, anishinaabek, atikamekw, autochtone, baie-du-febvres, becancour, becquets, bethier, british, cajun, canada, champlain, derangement, diaspora, displacement, ethnocide, febvres, first nation, francoise, genocide, gentilly, homeland, indigenous, kebek, les becquets, l'nu, loon, louiseville, loup, makwa, magoua, maskinonge, mauricie, mi'kma'ki, mi'kmaq, n'dakina, nadakinna, nation, nicolet, nitaskinan, odanak, pointe du lac, quebec, quebecois, rive nord, rive sud, riviere, sorel, north shore, south shore, st laurent, st cuthbert, st francois, st lawrence river, saint peter, st pierre, tracy, trois rivieres, whitefish, wolf, yamachiche

"Our Land" N'dakina "Chez Nous"

2009-10-22T06:39:00.004-04:00

"Our Land" N'dakina "Chez Nous"

This is the traditional and historic Homeland of the Aln8bak Abenaki, Indigenous peoples which has never been ceded, deeded, transferred or sold to British Canada, nor to any colonial corporate entity.

During and after the L'nu Mi'kmaq Acadian [1] Diaspora (1755-1763), many of those displaced families and individuals joined their relatives the Aln8bak Abenaki on the south shore and their relatives the Anishinaabek Algonkin on the north shore of the "St Lawrence River / Riviere St Laurent", especially around Nebesek "Lac St Pierre".

As part of their genocidal policy and in their attempt to extinguish land title and rights of the Indigenous peoples, the Original inhabitants of N'dakina, British Canada created "In 1876 The Indian Act " ... establishing "... the Department of Indian Affairs. In order to become a 'Canadian', Indigenous peoples [were required to] relinquish their 'Indian' (sic) Status." [2] Under International Law, this extinguishment of Indigenous citizenship is illegal. This attempt at resource and land theft by ethnocide and genocide of Indigenous peoples by the colonial corporate entity of British Canada is unconscionable.

-- Kisikewi'skw, 21 October, 2009

---

Notes

1 L'nu, pl. L'nu'k means man, Human being: what the Indigenous peoples call themselves; Mi'kmaq, what the British call the Indigenous peoples of the Maritimes, from a word meaning "friend, ally"; Acadien, what the French called the Indigenous peoples of Mi'kma'ki, Acadia L'Acadie, from the Mi'kmaq root word ending which means "place, location".

2 Source http://www.muiniskw.org/pgHistory2.htm

Tags: abenaki, aboriginal, acadian, acadien, algonkin, aln8bak, anishinaabek, autochtone, beauce, becquets, british, cajun, canada, canadian, chez nous, citizenship, derangement, diaspora, ethnocide, extinguishment, first nation, genocide, holocaust, homeland, human rights, indian, indian act, indigenous, jarrets noirs, lac st pierre, l'nu, loon, loup, loups, makwa, magoua, mi'kma'ki, mikmaq, n'dakina, nadakinna, nation, nebesek, original, quebec, quebecois, rive nord, rive sud, riviere, riviere st laurent, st lawrence river, trois rivieres, wolf nation, vermont, wabanahkiyik, wabanaki confederacy, waponahkiyik, yamachiche

McGill University Pow-wow

2009-09-20T19:19:00.001-04:00

McGill University Pow-wow
Come and enjoy Aboriginal Culture! Beautiful voices and amazing dancing all day from 9am to 4pm
Host: First Peoples' House
Type: Music/arts - Performance
Network: Global
Price: Free
Date: Friday, 25 September 2009
Time: 09:00 - 16:00

Celebration of Aboriginal Culture with:
Innu Singers,
Throat Singing
Iroquois Dancers and Singers
Traditional Storytelling
Aboriginal Role model
Lacrosse Demonstration

More information at the Facebook Event Group | McGill University Pow-wow

Kwe kwe, She:kon, Chwe'n, Hello!

2009-03-03T02:50:00.006-05:00

Kwe kwe, She:kon, Chwe'n, Hello!

Kisikew is a homophone for Gisigu (Mi'kmaq), which means "Old Man". The orthography resembles Cree, but Kisikew isn't a word in Cree, I don't think; the closest words in Cree are Kisikâw which means "Day" and Kisik which means "at this time". So that's who we are, Kisikew "Old Man" and Kisikewi'skw "Old Lady". Kisikew.Org is our site.

We are Non-Status, not enrolled, not represented by AFN/CAP, and we don't wannabe! We're not "Indians", "Indians" are from "India". We're not "aboriginals", we are Original people, L'nu'k, Onkwehonweh, Ekwehewe, our mothers -- our matrilineal ancestors -- originated on this continent known as Great Turtle Island. We're not "Savages", our civilisations pre-date those of Europe. We are Indigenous to Great Turtle Island, we are North American Indigenes!

Wela'lin, Nia:wen, Nyeawah, Thank you for your time.
Kisikewi'skw