Recognizing Aboriginal the Logic of Colonialism

BOOK REVIEWS The Principles of Tsawalk: of Eurocentrism, he argues that a An Indigenous Approach to way of seeing reality predicated on competitiveness and fragmentation Global Crisis has brought the world to the brink of Umeek (E. Richard Atleo) environmental and political collapse. The Principles of Tsawalk offers a Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 220 pp. framework for indigenous-Canadian $32.95 paper. political relations that does not embrace Damien Lee competitiveness per se but, rather, seeks to manage inherent polarities within University of Manitoba and between world views. Whereas every culture has a story to help it make o the theories and worldviews sense of reality – a story that translates Dof the Enlightenment reveal all into its world views, laws, and policies there is to know about reality? Can – Umeek argues that the Eurocentric the political relationships between theories of science and politics Canadians and indigenous peoples underpinning Canadian policy are be healed solely through Eurocentric just sub-narratives of another people’s remedies? Can settler Canadians story, namely, that of Europeans. The and indigenous peoples live together survival of the fittest mentality, Umeek respectfully? argues, has permeated Canadian These are just some of the questions politics; armed with Social Darwinism, addressed by The Principles of Tsawalk. Canadians targeted indigenous Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), a hereditary peoples’ world views for extinction. Nuu-chah-nulth chief from the By contrast, the Nuu-chah-nulth west coast of what many today call concept of Tsawalk, meaning “one,” Vancouver Island, offers us a read posits that, while competition exists, life that brings into relief the normalized is intelligent and seeks collaboration. Eurocentric concepts of reality and Living well involves finding balance politics underpinning Canadian society. between shifting polarities. By threading the various expressions It is against this backdrop that of Darwinism (e.g., social, biological, Umeek articulates a lucid political political) into a sustained critique call to action embodied in a concept bc studies, no. 77, Spring 3 171 172 bc studies he calls Hahuulism. A synthesis of today (the federal government has, as Nuu-chah-nulth and Western world recently as January 2012, recommitted views, Hahuulism is suggested as itself to upholding the Indian Act); a constitutional order predicated and they will be applicable over the on building equitable relationships next two hundred years (the Alberta between Canadians and indigenous oil sands demonstrates that colonialism nations and, just as important, between in Canada will not end overnight). humans and the rest of Creation. To Thus, students of political science, move beyond the colonizer-colonized environmental management, and relations that characterize Canada Native studies engaged in critical today, Umeek fleshes out protocols thinking will find this book useful based in recognition (mutual respect when rethinking relationships between and understanding), consent (behaviour peoples and places. that is mutually agreeable), continuity (shared harmony [all life is valuable]), and respect (truly understanding The Imaginary Indian: others) as ways to bring peoples together without naively positing The Image of the Indian in that cultural differences will simply Canadian Culture disappear. Indeed, the principles of Daniel Francis Tsawalk recognize that such polarities will continue to exist but that, through Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011. these protocols, they can be managed. 2nd ed. 272 pp. Illus. $23.95 paper. The Principles of Tsawalk is both timely and timeless. It is timely in the Chelsea Horton sense that its underlying principles University of British Columbia can be used to rethink how settler governments are, for example, ramming wenty years after its initial the Enbridge oil pipeline down the Tpublication, The Imaginary Indian: throats of indigenous nations on the The Image of the Indian in Canadian BC coast. This is a survival-of-the- Culture remains a relevant read. fittest approach, in which indigenous Featuring a new preface and afterword, peoples continue to be dominated by this second edition of Daniel Francis’s Eurocentric market attitudes towards important popular history deserves ecology. Clearly, Canadian policy- the attention of audiences both fresh makers have a lot to learn from this and familiar. book. The argument is clear: “The Indian The book is timeless not only because is the invention of the European” the principles of Tsawalk are part of (20); “there is no such thing as a real a Nuu-chah-nulth way of being but Indian” (21). The Imaginary Indian also because settler disrespect for tracks the stereotypes, noble and not, indigenous constitutional orders has that white society has projected and only deepened since the early nineteenth imposed onto “Indians” from the mid- century. In challenging the basis of nineteenth century through today (the the colonizer-colonized relationship, new afterword opens with a discussion Umeek’s protocols of Hahuulism would of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics). have been analytically applicable two Whether in writing, painting, film, hundred years ago; they are applicable advertising, performance, or policy, Book Reviews 173 Francis posits, “the Imaginary Indian” short shrift here) in the “museum has said much more about white aims, scramble” on the Northwest Coast (117). assumptions, and anxieties than it has The Imaginary Indian is wel l about actual indigenous peoples. When written, and Francis’s use of the first it first appeared in 1992, The Imaginary person is effective in stimulating Indian was especially notable for its a sense of personal implication in application of this argument to the this history, something that is all Canadian context and for reaching a the more critical given the current wide non-academic audience. climate in Canada, which Francis The book is organized thematically refers to as “New Assimilationism” with a strong focus on English Canada (245). Francis concludes this edition, and the west, including British as he did the first, on an optimistic Columbia. As Francis illustrates, note: “The Imaginary Indian survives, this province has offered up some of but he/she is becoming increasingly Canada’s most resilient “Imaginary unrecognizable as Canadians are Indian” fodder, including the work being educated by their Aboriginal of Emily Carr and Edward Curtis fellow citizens to a new understanding and that most supernatural symbol, of White-Aboriginal relations and the totem pole. With the exception therefore to a new understanding of the of its new preface and afterword, history of the country” (250). Though this edition does not incorporate I share his generally hopeful outlook, I new sources. Readers, then, could believe we also need to ask: Is it fully effectively complement it with more the responsibility of indigenous peoples recent literature like Paige Raibmon’s to do this educating? And just what 2005 Authentic Indians: Episodes of will it take for settler society to really Encounter from the Late Nineteenth- listen? Francis himself describes being Century Northwest Coast, a study that regularly approached by readers who simultaneously stresses indigenous have not grasped his argument and agency in contexts including the 1893 still want to know what he thinks “the Chicago World’s Fair, discussed briefly real Indian” is (6). As Paulette Regan by Francis (110), and puts a sharper recently argues (in Unsettling the Settler point on the material and political Within: Indian Residential Schools, implications of “Imaginary Indianness.” Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Francis is well aware that, in his words, Canada, 2010), decolonization demands “Images have consequences in the real a conscious process of “unsettling world: ideas have results” (207). He is the settler within.” Considered in especially eloquent in articulating how this spirit, this new edition of The a persistent settler search for belonging Imaginary Indian clearly contributes to in North America has contributed this pressing project. to land dispossession and ongoing cultural appropriation (203, 236). His discussion of “the official Indian,” however, comes late in the text, with the result that readers unfamiliar with Canadian colonial history could miss the close relationship between, say, missionaries, Indian affairs officials, and anthropologists (who receive fairly 174 bc studies Westward Bound: Sex, Violence, Emphasizing abortion, seduction, and the Law, and the Making of a assault, Chapter 5 deals with different understandings of urban and rural Settler Society spaces. Chapter 6 analyzes how the Lesley Erickson legal system acted to shore up the patriarchal family in cases of incest, Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 360 pp. assault, and murder, while Chapter $34.95 paper. 7 examines the debate over female Chris Herbert offenders and the death penalty. To no one’s surprise, Erickson finds Grand Valley State University that the Canadian legal system on the Prairies acted to shape and strengthen estward Bound is a work of a colonial social hierarchy that placed Wremarkable scope and depth. Anglo-Canadian men at the head of Covering the period from 1886 to society and at the head of families. 1940, Lesley Erickson uses records An Anglo-Canadian judiciary, police from local courts, the Department of force, and Indian affairs bureaucracy Indian Affairs, and the North-West used criminal trials as a stage to convey Mounted

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