University of

MY GRANDMOTHER'S MOCCASINS: INDIGENOUS WOMEN, WAYS OF KNOWING AND INDIGENOUS AESTHETIC OF WORK

by

Lois Elizabeth Edge

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Indigenous Peoples Education

Educational Policy Studies

©Lois Elizabeth Edge Spring 2011 Edmonton, Alberta

Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms.

The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada

Your file Votre r&ference ISBN: 978-0-494-80952-5 Our file Notre rGference ISBN: 978-0-494-80952-5

NOTICE: AVIS:

The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.

The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis.

1+1 Canada love, joy, peace and light

Dedicated to Christopher Edge, Sylvia Marie Fox and Gracie Marie Fox ABSTRACT

An Indigenous researcher from northern Canada illuminates a strategy of

decolonization and social well-being of Indigenous peoples as counter-narrative

to that of Indigenous and non-Indigenous historical, cultural and social relations.

The application of a reflective social analytic autoethnographic approach disrupts

1) a dislocation of Indigenous women's ways of knowing in the enactment of

traditional cultural activities such as , hair tufting, and

, and 2) the severing of relationships to Indigenous art forms when

Indigenous peoples' ontologies are dominated by others.

A unique creative research approach is applied in the introduction of a fotonovella

with three visual stories each of which is integral in reciprocal relationship to each

other, and to the study as a whole; the parts altogether form a conceptual

metaphor of beadwork and writing. The strategy of a fragmented narrative

prompts the adoption of a critical consciousness as multiple meanings are located within the work as a whole and serving as repository of knowledge(s) to be

accessed and acted upon to enhance our understanding of the lived potential of

Indigenous philosophy to inform and enhance daily life.

The reclamation of Indigenous women's ancestral knowledge and ancient art

forms enacts the embodiment of Indigenous women's philosophy, pedagogy and

ontology as signifying an Indigenous aesthetic of beadwork. Analysis and reflection upon Indigenous ways of knowing as resides in museum collections around the globe encourages the repatriation of Indigenous knowledge towards cultural regeneration and survival of Indigenous peoples. Learning from

Indigenous art forms as crafted by Indigenous peoples reveals a complex context wherein layers of meaning unfold as significant to Indigenous identity, lifelong learning and wellness of Indigenous people.

This study encourages the enrichment of Indigenous education and Indigenous peoples' lives in contemporary circumstance.

The research draws our attention to the many contributions of Athapaskan women in northern Canada and Indigenous women elsewhere in North America whose legacy is a rich endowment of Indigenous art forms from which current and future generations may continue to reclaim and learn Indigenous ways of being. PREFACE

Fotonovella: My Grandmother's Moccasins

As a fotonovella, this work applies a unique creative research approach based upon a series of three digital story videos developed and used during this study: My Grandmother's Moccasins: Indigenous Women, Ways of Knowing and Indigenous Aesthetic of Beadwork. Each of the three stories, Threading the Needle, Coming Home and Artists Unknown, is integral in the reciprocal relationship to each other, and to the study as a whole; the parts altogether form a conceptual metaphor of beadwork and writing.

An Indigenous research methodology illuminates a strategy of decolonization in support of the social well-being of Indigenous peoples as counter-narrative to that of Indigenous and non-Indigenous historical, cultural and social relations. The application of a reflective social analytic autoethnographic approach disrupts 1) a dislocation of Indigenous women's ways of knowing in the enactment of traditional cultural activities and 2) the severing of relationships to Indigenous art forms when Indigenous peoples' ontologies are dominated by others. This study is intended to enrich Indigenous education and Indigenous peoples' lives in contemporary circumstance.

Lois Edge, University of Alberta Email: [email protected] April 2011 Photograph: Gwieh'irt pWrap-Around] Moccasins J1943) Copyr.^V. Pitt Rivera Museum, 2008 Accession No. 1343.2.1 ,1 3 7rft&%cft/7Q Z*/j& J/&&J/& *?«/ Qt-i&xf/wcrfJtaJ- A^f.i iff// 9 />&p*r

S/fa fjrf t~iao? Stfaudt Je*/¥7a, eretfViafl, He/UsJ* and f6r*SGyS ^HH'JmSsJ /"«« tjftt tf/ifdZafi S &sy ."Stat*? *4 st&Mft-tda of ffaraf

^y &N3ftdsty&f/p&}' £ n&&d/&

In t/sis at f/tesr st&rJt Ir* zSt/fy&fi at t^ioa/m* ?Jit-G£&fS

or sAisy qfi^fia/'M AeadS

£lf*Jt JmStOn aMtS 6tr»g£4a

/,£& the. $£tm/»xa p/&*ts a/* ?J4S Aanus/' fauns? i*> the S&tAarfttc «»^

A ^MSmAre^iati

/? Vis /•t€tf¥s^^a»xHlp and At tu&fttajfinq .fs Aamffy

oM>£titi dtSapftosGt fifeltet fa Ax .5"iM/i

«S ,1a fa/>ii/>e} Me&f afaesf/t

fa f/j& £/iwfad &s9qdaj?f fa M'gif ajif/i y*y qretfxt/*iafAet S /noncjets!r>& 0* fAc Pitt ffifet-S MuSeta* eS* Oxfotd tfnlsHtt-Slty

Ay f/?e ltfad£a*> £ Sty Ccvrptay lii t?*)3 X &*r Jay/it/ fa tAsvV *fA s>tyf QtH/td/^raf/tat S s*fe*g/?^Si*>g

If tg f£*ty fa a!%te fAoufc.'*

•fat Attt fjaafinalaa fa f&srA s*tin fAtaii^h fAe tyf? of At!) f/at*J*n>.^

I /tc&& £&wte ft&^td^ftaa pAaaf thr. ftip

I Aa/m fa <-«"/*«? <..«ys of ' ^nat^aa

Z f up aJifA "(/ naad/a qmitfy

<$/aS£ AaadA ana Ay ana

H3nfa /wy fAtm&l pliantfy plat**Ji)Q &taa&& Aids

&at*Jij3ek fl&oatftps njat/*r q/ouJUiQ SitwJSoAf

/tAtanf falattt

AiaS^C

&JlJdf/a**ja/ !S

X ti£*f&lff .

ffW>

Co/?f tsjq >7 o/^f

la ffya SaUfA iWW*"« of f/ta Plff &vat.S MitSait/i

Z

Z Ao/a t-.o^ta fto*t C-HnHt/s. fa rislf aJifA wy ^StatxfjnafAat £ MarSAglmS

~fhay i^ieta patfJi&Sad Ay fAa rf&dgan $ Bay C^a^-fpany and dansfad fa fAa P!ff ^WatsS MuSaiJm

My qtond/nafAict J5~K4»MMF £d$e lif Ant lad t**fA s^y QtGndf&fAa* AiAotf fdar a? fatt SutflfA N°atfAt~aSt ~Jatt

Jit, PaatS ikJa/f'os*fa& s*ta fa fAa snttSaU/**

fr)a !Saf up a iSfJtadafm of tojaajtfy j*taaflno£ At fAa fttSf twV Z <**? aSr-offad fAtoU&h Q. SatlaS offAtaa /ocJfcad JootS

Z i*f4/St *ja&- LLiAlfa raff on a/oVaS

Zf 'S OMtaf in fAa /tSlflnq ^tSaO)-fJfat tOOi*?

Z can Aaar fAaJiiiqfa of iayl Aa/d Ay staff uW

'?&'-••'£•'.•••••-.—0*L'i '-*.wm'W>'. •'• 3V. PaaKg pisr^S <2 AaSf an fAa teJUa

ZnStde naSt/ad *n t

Z litAafa d)it/y d ft^'nf tuiSp of fAa. Sftotrt Sfjuit of Sswofced ntooSa Alda A'nqatS Z l/*t/*tadt3ta/y t

~J~hay Of a fAa e±»^p6)-aitnd kind and tAay ara fo/'dad ujt onq

Z Qanfty /iff fAa tops mrqp fAa tor^S iStoMnd tsarJf Gfdfta Hud fj3taf2f//y fla a dailA/a J(naf So fAey tLjoit f fo/*ia £indaim X &/*! fa/npa/fad fa fa// J>t Paa> S &atytA>na tAe& Ao$ Aqppanad »« o£4t fh**flAj •Sinrr i-ty qtiOnd/^ofAai pnSSad .1,, .-,->/ •'« $Q\ X f/m Siw Asnd?* Aam Sft.tSotS rtrff-nq naad/a ptatfjiQ f/fifj' Alda tAtaoJ pu/iad fAtotl^A am" A Stiff Jt X SanSc Aat anaray It /inosjS StM ~ffca yottna SfudanfS 3/ Oaf at J ask *»

•S/sDfa Z r,oma to ttsfca fAa ntoTiTJSSlnS Aon^a?

Z t-ap/y tAaf St'tlSA ?aas/i&-an doaS not of/ouj fat taptfftl&flon "^>W« te raatforf

t&teSttw* 13 My qt&nd/*tatAat S srtae*/*^$ln£ Ota of fAa Plff K?l>/atS MtlSaM/*;

'//fay uutJ Aa Aata Sofa

X am SiitrptrSad ft: taa/'Zi* Z swMSt tatitl a to if-.fit

4*/Aan Z 4at Aa&ra Z say aVaty day <*JGS Atll/lant Ht*£*&£S l/s?£s?€Di4JS? Staty SeaT and ASaJnaSdoy

X rJaan my aftartm&n? blLtSf •sAaA'aS and t^aSA f/aora X lAop far

On fAa day of fAa AAotltkna/ tLjonfan S A&ojlno rStr/a XptapOfa to At&a a <°/aa? mind and Aaayt //pis &c£fc$i*ia /"JI-^JA "TTtata apa a mMttituda of d&TjSlotoS to Aa m&da A&fol^a pifJtlna ctp O. naad/a

~Ja find fAa tlqAt AaeJS fAtaad and nead/aS

"la "AaoSa fa/aat 1 So/at" t mat at, a/ 7)etar**'n

And tAan "/Tfata is fAa. ertua/ Aaajlna Os-fi i&t*mpt& fit A*rtdn.«rvf t»fUet aS indtandt/a/a

ytt dlfatttaarJ tsrjjgpt aa ii/*m Ma tibSlt and ta/k

AAo&t fAa Aoma/aSS paap/a o&ffglda fAa ftorit door of my Anl/dlMA

AAont fAa off fa tha St/anfa aratXixJ fAa maaflnq toom toA/a

SifAt/a mamA/titos cl ditaft oftafkif aAotsf tAoSa paop/a

/Ja ta/k oAoLit fAa oAsant*a of pt^l/ay.

Of out anfoantatS uJtA maf&aa/izafian and aOffJaSlan BafuJ&an £iS

sAota

Alt'! and pa,"fi

aSatit aitt Jfr Stat/

CM/tttta ttCfiltloiiS and pi aff>C£S jJr li/tur* SfarinS

tfAaat rAtJlanym ttnd fA* Asiev't/y ti^&. t/a m>p^tlmnfrad

far i-"Ji/aAtrtfp atir •»ettit\fttf

V/jK" %-rti,/i'A faep (ft raft ana fjAaf Z />'ka AaSf ara momaitts iuA&tt It Is St/ant (*)Aan X Aaar fAa naod/a p£i//lna fAfaaa* fAto&qA fJafA

far A stiff A ptar'tSaAy OneJloirirn atvA Aaad infa pi ara faa t/pnk aAo£/f fAa tijoman Out anTaSfotS BaOtdlna Ilia, foma foaatAat **-)Aan itja ara Aaodlnq "JAata ara prayerS •fi oat Aa&gft/& As a rJfl/d

X Sat In my qtandmatAat s k&rAan tuafr^/finq Aar Sam

"Today In my i**otk

X String /aftarS foyifAa? Into fiords and Stt-va fat Aatmony and Aa/'onra

As /Ivad Phatografih: Gwich'in [WraiJ-Araund] Moccasins f1943)

Copyright Pt: Rivers Museunr 2008 Accession No. 19*3.2.1 13 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is inspired by my late grandmother, Mrs. Joanne Edge, formerly of Fort Smith, , an extraordinary woman, seamstress, craftsperson and artist. I wish to acknowledge and extend my appreciation to all of the Edge family members including Albert Edge, Rita and Art Edge, Joanne Edge, Josh and Lana, Michael Edge and all my relations. I need also acknowledge my maternal grandmother, Marie Colombe Mercredi, whose memory remains dear within our family.

My deepest gratitude is extended to Christopher Edge and Sylvia Fox for enduring love, patience, and belief in my dreams and aspirations. Sylvia's exceptional courage serves as daily inspiration, as does Gracie, each whom brings joy and beauty into being.

Mahsi'cho. To Jane Martin for unconditional friendship, encouragement and support, and to Marilyn Dumont and Dorothy Schreiber. My heartfelt thanks for sharing your lives and experiences in a good way. Thank you to Lisa Bearskin- Bourque and Melissa Gillis for your participation, and especially to Melody Goodstriker, Melissa Jo Moses, and Anjel Houle for sharing your knowledge and experience with the women of the beading circle.

My sincere appreciation is extended to Cora Weber-Pillwax for encouragement and support throughout my doctoral program. Thank you to Ali A. Abdi for sharing your light and to Michael Emme, University of Victoria, for reawakening my creative spirit. Thank you to Margaret Haughey and Ingrid Johnston for a generosity of belief in others. A further thank you is extended to Randolph Wimmer and M. Honore France, University of Victoria. Mahsi'cho. To each of you walking ahead of those who come to walk beside you.

Thank you to Laura Peers for a gracious welcome to the Pitt Rivers Museum. No words can express the depth of my appreciation for the thoughtful opportunity to sit and visit with my grandmother's moccasins as it is my grandmother's beadwork that inspires this work and whose life continues to enrich others in a very special way. I hope to visit once again to Oxford in future!

A warm and special thank you to Heather Devine for the serendipitous 'discovery' of the moccasins at the Pitt Rivers Museum as these unique and beautiful moccasins have enriched this work beyond any expectation.

Thank you to Christopher Fletcher and Michael Emme for sharing the visual arts and for encouragement to creatively engage in this work.

I need acknowledge the late Mary Pruden who kindly showed me how to do beadwork and for the gift of her . Thanks to her daughters, Margaret and Flora, for the gift of sharing, especially to Flo for your unhesitating kindness and generosity of spirit in lending a hand in support of my immediate family.

Mahsi'cho. To Tom McCallum, Whitestanding Buffalo, Albert and Alma Desjarlais, Roger, Vera Martin, and the many other Elders, healers and ceremonialists who I have learned from and who teach and share Indigenous ways of knowing and being for well-being. Thank you for your good thoughts.

A special thank you to Linda Massimo for unwavering support and for listening.

My gratitude is extended to the many Indigenous scholars, Elders and others worldwide whose works continue to guide learners in coming to know Indigenous philosophy and ways of being. These Indigenous scholars, in particular, guide my work (it has been a tremendous to privilege to hear each speak at workshops, meetings, conferences or as instructors in the classroom over the years): Leroy Little Bear, Marie Battiste, Sakej Henderson, Leonard George, Reg Crowshoe, Amethyst First Rider, Murdena Marshall, Paula Gunn Allen, Linda Hogan, Lionel Kinunwa, Beatrice Medicine, Bev Cuthand, Emma Larocque, Maria Campbell, Kim Anderson, Madeline Dion Stout, Heather Devine, Joyce Green, Cora Voyageur, Tracy Friedel, Narcisse Blood, Ryan Heavyhand, Angeline Letendre, Malcolm King, Linda , Ovide Mercredi, Francois Paulette, Bill Erasmus, Steve Kakfwi, Denise Kurzewski, and Priscilla Lepine.

My appreciation is extended to the many scholars whose works I have accessed as well as those whose works are not included yet remain as significant contributions to inspire many. All are guides.

Thank you to Lahoucine Ouzgane, Ted Bishop and Kristjana Gunnars for your encouragement to actively engage in creative non-fiction and creative writing. Also thanks to Ray Leblanc, Carl Urion, Owen Beattie, Ruth Gruhn, Alan Bryan, Jack Ives, Michael Asch and Mike Evans for sharing Anthropology.

Thanks to Robert Kershaw and Canadian staff with the Centre for Digital Storytelling, Berkeley, California for the gift of digital storytelling.

I wish to acknowledge the following for contributing to completion of this study: • Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alberta, Canada • Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, Canada • Alberta NEAHR Network, University of Alberta, Canada • Canadian Circumpolar Institute, University of Alberta, Canada • Gwich'in Tribal Council, Northwest Territories, Canada • National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, Canada • Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and Research, Athabasca University, Canada • Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, Northwest Territories, Canada.

Heartfelt thanks to extended family members, good friends, community members, esteemed colleagues, those who dedicate their lives to helping those in need, and to all my relations—good thoughts and prayers.

Wapisk 'kakakew TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE - Reclamation of Ancient Ancestral Knowledge(s)

PART TWO - Expressions of Indigenous Knowledge(s) 17 Indigenous Protocol: A Good Mind 17 Ancient Indigenous Knowledge(s) 19 Indigenous Peoples Educational Experience 22 Decolonization and Self-Determination 26 A Critical Indigenous Aesthetic Space 32

PART THREE - Indigenous Research Methodology 34 Indigenous Research and Methodology 34 An Indigenous Researcher... 41 Visual Arts and Image Schema 45

PART FOUR - My Grandmother's Moccasins 53 "Outstanding Things": Across the Big Pond 53 Rupert's Land: at the Pitt Rivers Museum 54 A Pair of Moccasins 56 Visiting Researcher at Oxford 58 Visiting with My Grandmother's [ Around] Moccasins 72 Postscript 74

PART FIVE - Voices of the Beading Circle 77 Coming Together in the Beading Circle 77 Traditional Art Form of Beadwork 80 Family Relations 84 Leaders and Elders 87 Indigenous Identity and Non-Aboriginal Social Relations 89 Relationships to Land and Environment 93 Culture, Ceremonial and Community Events 95 Teaching and Learning, Learning and Teaching 96 Beading Knowledge and Instruction 100 B eaded Philosophy 103 A Sacred Place and Space 106 Making Digital Stories 108 Closing the Circle 111 The Beading Circle 113 Learning to Do Beadwork 118 PART SIX - Ancient Women's Art Forms 126 Floral Art of Beadwork 126 Words in a Story: A Visual Repertoire and Restorative Space 127 Voices Inscribed in Beadwork 130 Traditional Art Forms: Enactment of Multiple Knowledge(s) 131 Culture and Cognition: Early Beads 132 Beads, and Seed Beads 133 Motifs and Symbols: Pawn Shops and Museums 134 : Interpretation of Histories, Laws and Rituals 136 Art of Early Quillwork: Stitching Time 141 Art of Early Hair Embroidery: Complexity of Form, Technique and Design 144 Contemporary Beadwork Style, Image and Symbol: Shared Meaning and Practice 149

PART SEVEN - A Special Gift: something sacred wears me 152 Indigenous Aesthetics: Sacred Threads and Ancient Constructs 152 Merging of Floral Motif and Design, Symbol and Belief 154 Aesthetics, Metaphysics and the Sacred: Stories Told By 159

PART EIGHT - Athapaskan Women's Work 167 Old Style Athapaskan Beadwork: A Special Gift 167 All the Vogue: Athapaskan Beadwork Done Right 173 Athapaskan Beadwork and as Cultural Documents 181 Heritage, Identity and Community 192

PART NINE - The Inheritance: Fur Trade Families and Beadwork 196 Athapaskan Peoples of Denendeh 196 Emergence of the Fur Trade 197 Northern Metis Heritage 199 Families of the Fur Trade 201 Old-Style Gwich'in Floral Beadwork and the Red River Jig 108

PART TEN - Land, Knowledge(s) and Peoples 213 Dene Knowledge Transmission and Self-Determination 213 Ancient Connections: Motion, Transformation and Relationships 214 Taskscape: Entry and Exit Points 217 Northern Landscapes: Relationships of Time and Place 218 PART ELEVEN - Indigenous Cultural Knowledge, Politics and Representation 219 Indigenous Material Culture and Representation 219 Colonial Present: Cultural Translation, Tension and Rupture 221 Museums, Artifacts and Relations 224 Indigenous Material Culture and Social Relations of Visual Imagery 225 Indigenous Social Biography and Repatriation of Indigenous Knowledge(s) 227

PART TWELVE - Analytic Autoethnography, Ironic Validity and Indigenous Media 232 Lens of Analytic Autoethnography 232 Frame of Simulacra/Ironic Validity: Rendering the Invisible Visible 233 Visual Ethnography, Digital Technologies and Representation 235 Indigenous Media: Visual Imagery Of and About Culture 236 Indigenization of Visual Media and Cultural Expression 237 Indigenous Media: Social Action and Cultural Intervention 238 Indigenous Cultural Heritage of Difference 239 Digital Media and Curriculum 242

PART THIRTEEN - An Embodiment of Intertexuality 243 The Peoples' Aesthetics: Weaving as A Way of Life 243 Textual Translation: Mi'kmaq Double Curve-Motif Embroidery 247 Translation, Literary and Metaphorical Polyphony 250 Inhabitants and Occupation, Storytelling and Textuality: A Zone of Entanglement 253 Knowledge Making: Meaningful Relationships of Fixity and Flow 257 Embodied Realism: 'Why Things Matter' 259 Culture and Symbolism: Interpretive Encounters 263

PART FOURTEEN - Indigenous Education, Indigenous Art Forms and Indigenous Social Well-being 264 Indigenous Education 264 Policy in Indigenous Education 271 Indigenous Pedagogy 276 Value in Tradition: Enactment of Repetition and Theme 285 Traditional Craftsmanship: Skills and Knowledge 287 Intellectual, Aesthetic and Spiritual Art Forms 287 Museums and Repatriation In Canada 288 Northern Arts Today 289 Aboriginal Health Research 290 Indigenous Peoples Health 292 Indigenous Health and Wellness 294 PART FIFTEEN - Beadwork as Indigenous Knowledge and

Ways of Knowing: Conclusions and Reflections 296

ENDNOTES 298

REFERENCES 289 APPENDIX 320 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Checkerweave Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 31) 1

Figure 2. Checkerweave Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 31) 17

Figure 3. Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 32) 34

Figure 4. Double-diamond Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 35) 126

Figure 5. Quillwork weaving with sinew warp-strands (Orchard, 1984, p. 38) 152

Figure 6. Quillwork on rawhide strips for broad surface (Orchard, 1984, p. 45) 167

Figure 7. Two quills contrasting colours on deerskin (Orchard, 1984, p. 59) 196

Figure 8. Gwich'in Jig Flower Pattern Diagram (Mishler, 1993, p. 66) 211

Figure 9. Quillwork of a raised line with additional string

(Orchard, 1984, p. 65) 213 Figure 10. Quillwork on a coil of hair (Orchard, 1984, p. 48) 219 Figure 11. Quillwork Woven technique without sewing (Orchard, 1984, p. 56) 232 Figure 12. Quillwork folding a single quill on a cord of sinew

(Orchard, 1984, p. 61) 243

Figure 13. Quillwork Rosette (Orchard, 1984, p. 71) 264

Figure 14. Quillwork method of ornamenting fringe (Orchard, 1984, p. 72) 296 Figure 15. Quillwork method of ornamenting fringe (Orchard, 1984, p. 74) 298 PART ONE - Reclamation of Ancient Ancestral Knowledge(s)

Figure 1. Checkerweave Quillwork Orchard (Orchard, 1984, p. 31)

I gather them up with my needle, gently, glass beads, one by one, onto my thread, patiently piercing, moose hide, sewing, fingertips, warm, glowing firelight, vibrant colour, swirl pattern, mosaic, wild/lowers... I remain.

The above verse, inspired by my late grandmother, Mrs. Joanne Edge (nee McLeod), a seamstress and craftswoman, formerly of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, served as inspiration for me to undertake a study of traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms such as quillwork, hair tufting, embroidery and beadwork as practiced by Indigenous women in North America. The term beadwork is used throughout this study as specific to the activity of beadwork and, generally, as inclusive of all of these aforementioned activities and art forms.

As an Indigenous woman, I am compelled to learn about and from Indigenous philosophy, history and life ways or "ways of knowing," teaching and learning, and "ways of being." In this journey, I seek a deeper level understanding and meaning within an Indigenous aesthetic of embodied knowledge as resides within Indigenous art forms as representational, embedded and enacted within Indigenous philosophy, epistemology, pedagogy, methodology and ontology— Indigenous ways of thinking, teaching, learning and being—an articulation of the breath of Indigenous women's consciousness within ancestral knowledge(s) and ancient ways of being.

The term "aesthetics" is a derivative of a Greek term referring to the nature of beauty, art and taste or perception by means of the senses. In this study the term aesthetics is not applied in a western philosophical sense, rather the term Indigenous aesthetics is applied in an Indigenous context as a transformative experience wherein creative expression engages and enacts a spiritual dimensionality. Thus creative expression and creativity are understood as enactment of the spiritual dimension of being.

Indigenous scholar Betty Bastien (2004, p. 198) interprets Indigenous epistemology as "when you have made it part of your body," as in "embodying your knowledge" and in coming to "know your heart" where one begins to understand in living knowledge. Pedagogy refers to teaching and learning whereas a "critical pedagogy" challenges the dominance of western education teaching and learning strategies towards achieving a "critical consciousness." Ontology refers to the philosophical study of metaphysics focused on the nature of being, existence and reality, of being in the abstract.

This study explores the participation of Indigenous women's participation in traditional cultural activities as expressed and articulated in Indigenous art forms, in relation to individual development, identity formation, facilitation of teacher/learner relationships, and formation of relationships to social, cultural and ecological environments. The purpose of this study is to examine ancestral Indigenous knowledge and ancient art forms as enacted by Indigenous women from an Indigenous positioning.

An Indigenous methodology foregrounds the application of a reflective social analytic autoethnographic approach in the creation of a fotonovella as precedes the body of this work. Together, the voices of the Indigenous women's beading circle and my experience visiting with my Grandmother's moccasins at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, form the heart of this study. A comprehensive survey of related literature backgrounds this interpretation, translation and representation of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms as Indigenous aesthetics.

2 Prior to this study, I conceived of writing and beadwork as a conceptual metaphor, the patterns of which are motivated by image schemas of embodied human experience, consciousnesses and habits of the mind, as expressed and articulated by Indigenous women's participation in traditional cultural activities, in Indigenous art forms and as representative of Indigenous women's experiences, consciousness and ways of life. In the articulation of a conceptual metaphor of writing and beadwork, I envision coming into knowing and being as enacted and grounded in epistemological, pedagogical and ontological memory, history and lived experience.

As a child I sat in my grandmother's kitchen watching her do beadwork, moose and caribou hair tufting, silk and wool embroidery, working with smoked moose hide, wolf, beaver, caribou and fox furs, sewing wool stroud and duffle, making , mukluks, moccasins and mittens.

As a novice craftsperson, I am aware there are a multitude of decisions to be made before picking up a needle to do beadwork. The term craftsperson applies to an individual who has undertaken an apprenticeship to become a master in their craft. A beadworker determines intent by taking into consideration their relationship to, qualities and characteristics of, the intended recipient of a crafted item and whether the item is intended for a specific purpose or occasion. The craftsperson considers the time required to complete the project, bead size, colour and materials, image design and pattern, and beading method. Standards and quality of completed work are dependent upon knowledge(s), awareness of core principles, prior learning and experience, standards of craftsmanship, access to materials and resources, and other factors.

In the formulation of intent in this writing, a first step was to locate a positioning and space from within which to speak and inhabit as an Indigenous woman. This required an exploration of a sampling of Indigenous knowledge(s) as articulated

3 by Indigenous scholars within academia, by Indigenous women and community members, and from the perspective of my own lived experience and knowledge(s). In the study of Indigenous knowledge(s), I need that I remain a novice learner.

A survey of works in the fields of qualitative inquiry, anthropology, feminism, history and the visual arts was undertaken. Essentially, I sought a language with which to articulate concepts that resonate as relational to my understanding of Indigenous philosophy and, in particular, Indigenous aesthetics. The term Indigenous philosophy is used as inclusive of Indigenous systems of knowledge(s), pedagogy, methodology and ontology.

Throughout this undertaking, I remained conscious to succeed pressures to integrate or merge Indigenous thinking with that of the western intellectual tradition, to shun adoption of an authoritative voice and avoid integration of my voice into the voices of others. This reluctance is premised upon a mutuality of respect and integrity. The origin of this resistance translates as a struggle to voice based upon my lived experience in the context of the oppression, silence and absence of Indigenous women's voices in academia. Part of this reticence is premised upon efforts to rediscover, retain and maintain integrity of voice as an Indigenous woman. This struggle may be interpreted as resistance to envelopment into existent oppositional and linear English narrative form and structure. My resistance is a struggle to maintain my integrity and identity as an Indigenous woman.

In writing and as in beadwork, I undertook to determine which works to include as part of this study based upon whether the knowledge contributed to a deeper level understanding of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms, principles and standards as articulated within Indigenous knowledge(s) and whether inclusion of a scholar's work allowed for the

4 maintenance of a positioning and inhabitation of a creative space from which to speak as an Indigenous woman.

My intent is not entirely theoretical, as in proposing a grand universal theory of truth as is foundational to western philosophical study, as this is not the way of Indigenous knowledge where knowledge(s) rather speak to a complex comprehensive ecophilosophical ideal as a way of knowing and being (Cajete, 2000b). Rather my intent is to contribute to our limited knowledge(s) and understanding of Indigenous women's philosophical principles and standards in the enactment of Indigenous traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms.

Given that ancient Indigenous women's voices and art forms are relegated to marginalized spaces of silence and absence in a western philosophical context, our awareness of Indigenous women's philosophy is founded upon available fragmented knowledge(s), most often gleaned through the translation and interpretation of knowledge concerning Indigenous peoples through the lens of a colonial gaze1 and framework of a western intellectual tradition.

As an Indigenous woman, I remained cognizant of the constraints and potential of lived experience and ancient knowledge(s) to be deeply influenced by social, cultural and political hegemonies enmeshed within colonial histories in the context of contemporary Indigenous peoples' aspirations for decolonization in western social science and educational theory and practice.

My intention is to mediate a positioning as an Indigenous woman, in an expression of self-determination, to articulate my thoughts, experience and observations by inhabiting a creative space within, between, apart from and together with diverse and boundaried systems of knowledge(s). The term creative is not used in a western philosophical sense, as in the creation of something new and valuable, as discovery, or use of the imagination. Rather, the term creative is

5 used as an expression of a multi-dimensionality of consciousness(es) as expressed in dreams, through intuition and in the invocation and exercise of one's spiritual essence through creative enactment. To be creative is to enact one's creativity, thinking processes and knowledge(s). This study encourages change in the manner in which creativity in the domain of Indigenous art forms is perceived from within the boundaries of western epistemologies.

Contemporarily, Western and Indigenous knowledge(s) are consensually perceived of in western science as relational by way of an oppositional binary construct. Alternatively, I propose the form of a symmetrical conceptual metaphor reflective of an Indigenous principle of reciprocity within which there is potentiality for Indigenous and western knowledge to co-exist in a relationship of mutual reciprocity supported by foundational Indigenous principles of harmony and balance.

Throughout this writing, I refuse acquiescence to the constraints of formulaic narrative transported by linear plotlines remaining conscious of the allure of subordination to the dominant conventions of western discourse. I need stand fast to avoid assimilation and integration into a compartmentalized space of dispossession, isolation and poverty void of life giving nurturing energies upon which my survival depends. Herein resides a reflective social ethnography of a dislocation, fragmentation and severing of knowledge(s) as experienced in the lives of Indigenous women.

I seek a counter-representation to that of absence and silence as a woman of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry grounded within a reality of lived experience as Indigenous. As an Indigenous woman, there is no negotiation in lived experience, perspective, positioning or worldview as Indigenous. There is no border crossing between Indigeneity and that of a western philosophical positioning as non-Indigenous. In order to maintain my integrity and identity as an Indigenous woman, I resist attempts of assimilation and integration and strive

6 for attainment of balance, wholeness, harmony and beauty as an Indigenous woman.

As an Indigenous woman located in a creative space, wherein resides a multi- dimensionality of experience incorporating intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical aspects of being, I remain aware and conscious of a sense that I engage in writing in a manner similar to that within which my grandmother(s) engaged in traditional cultural activities in the crafting of Indigenous art forms such as beadwork.

In a conceptual metaphor a conceptual domain is understood in relation to another conceptual domain. This writing is to be comprehended in relation to the concrete conceptual domain of my grandmother's beadwork and my grandmother's beadwork is to be comprehended in relation to the abstract conceptual domain of writing. Each of the conceptual domains is both a root conceptual metaphor and a visual conceptual metaphor.11

The design patterns created by my grandmother can be said to represent the flora and fauna of the northern subarctic forest. Each design is both an abstraction and concrete image schema of that which exists upon the earth. As to their inspiration, image schema are interpreted and translated in the context of the viewer's knowledge and experience.

Just as my grandmother strung beads onto needle and thread, I string letters into words. In beadwork, beads onto needle and thread are directed to become whorls or petals encircling a pistil of a beaded flower, a collection of flowers, or inflorescence, as an image schema of the conceptual domain of a conceptual metaphor. In writing, letters are directed to become words strung into sentences shaped into paragraphs, as image schema of the conceptual domain of a conceptual metaphor. Together the conceptual domains of writing and beading

7 engage in a mutual reciprocity that together lead to wholeness, balance, harmony and beauty.

As a root conceptual metaphor, writing and beadwork communicate an underlying worldview that shapes an individual's understanding of a situation. As a visual conceptual metaphor, writing and beadwork provide a frame or window on experience. Further, in writing, metaphors can be implied and extended throughout pieces of literature just as in beadwork metaphors can be implied or extended throughout Indigenous knowledge(s).

As a conceptual metaphor, there is an underlying association that beadwork and writing are systematic in the embodiment of human thought, experience and environment.111 The mapping of these conceptual domains as a conceptual metaphor is motivated by image schemas foundational to core elements of embodied human experience such as time, space and movement in relation to mind, body and spirit.

In beadwork, there are often two pieces of beadwork that are replicated as a reciprocal or mirror image of the other, as in the instance of left and right moccasins, mukluks and gloves, or as in the left and right sides of vests, and parkas. These two halves of a beadwork design when viewed side by side as positioned on the right and left sides of the human body come together in the form of a symmetrical whole. In writing, as a woman of Indigenous and non- Indigenous ancestry, as a learner of Indigenous and western knowledge(s), my writing attempts to access and position Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge(s) in a relationship of a mutual reciprocity of knowledge(s) when perceived of as side by side as a relational symmetrical whole.

As my knowledge and experience as an Indigenous woman is fragmented and incomplete, just as our awareness of Indigenous knowledge(s) is fragmented and incomplete in the context of Indigenous peoples' shared experience of global

8 colonization, my attempts to achieve symmetry in writing may be irregular, or zygomorphic, just as an image schema of beadwork may be irregular." Only a master craftsperson may achieve an image schema that is mirror image to another image schema. Just as no work of writing is perfect, I am told no piece of beadwork is perfect. Rather, there is a standard practice to ensure imperfection in one's work because we are imperfect as human beings and only the Creator may achieve perfection/ The reader of this work will encounter attempts to achieve symmetry in the conceptual domains of writing and beadwork however need rest assured to encounter irregularity in the work of this novice craftsperson.

/ sit at the kitchen table in my grandmother's kitchen. She hands me a china saucer. Beads of many colours skitter scatter to the edges. She expertly pokes a thread, grasped tight between thumb and forefinger, into the eye of a thin needle, pulling it through and expertly inserting needle into bead after bead after bead.

Given my previous sporadic and incomplete attempts to complete a beadwork project during this study, and in the absence of my late my grandmother to teach me, I sought out an elder Metis woman who consented to instruct me how to "do beadwork." In showing me some of her significant collection of beads gathered over the years, she distinguished difference and similarity amongst the beads. "These are 'Indian' beads," she said. "These are 'White' beads."V1

The Indian beads in basic colours are prized for their good quality, uniformity of depth and hue, their inner circular shape ensuring steady and methodical insertion of beading needle onto bead, movement along threadline, secure positioning and anchoring to sit next to the previous bead, yielding a smooth evenly contoured surface/11 The iridescent sparkle of White beads attracts the eye, resplendent in a multitude of hues in every imaginable colour however upon closer visual inspection, an irregularity of colour, shape and size presents itself.

9 Attracted to multiple discourses and approaches, my attention is drawn and curiosity piqued by the iridescent sparkle, multitude of hue and epistemological luminescence I encounter in recognition of, response to and engagement with the language I am seeking with which to articulate my perspective and positioning as an Indigenous woman. I am selectively intuitive as to what might or might not fit, picking up this piece or that piece, keeping that which meets standards of quality following closer examination or discarding that which does not seem to fit.

My grandmother mixed flour and water together into a clear glass toothpick holder. With toothpick and flour paste, she drew flower, leaf and stem patterns as a guide onto black velvet. When working with moose or caribou hide, she used a red pen, always careful to ensure the ink could not be seen. My grandmother did not use patterns in her beadwork. She drew freehand.

My elder beading instructor teaches me how to bead a simple flower on a moccasin vamp intended for a pair of moccasins for a baby. This expert beadworker advises she learned how to bead by practicing beading on dozens upon dozens of moccasin vamps. She has made dozens upon dozens of pairs of moccasins over the years. While beading, my teacher instructs me to un-do and re-do a leaf several times as my initial attempts are not up to standards of norm for good quality craftsmanship. Just as I do, undo and redo my beadwork so too have I undone and redone this writing to attain a reasonable standard of quality fitting to a novice in such an undertaking.

As an Indigenous woman, my learning experience is one of accessing fragmented knowledge(s), a journey of fragmentation, with limited access to bits and pieces of knowledge where meaning is or isn't found. It is this experience that is a precursor to the application and imposition of a disrupture in intertextuality and narrative structure in this writing. An absence of conformance and irregularity in narrative form is strategic in recognition and acknowledgement of a silent rupture and disrupture in the interrelationship of the sharing of Indigenous women's

10 stories, teachings and life ways that remain integral to Indigenous peoples' autonomy and survival. The experience of fragmented learning is not one of ease or comfort, as it is up to the learner, usually without guidance or mentorship, to navigate one's way in the absence of the presence of clear direction or markers posted along the way.

Attempts to seek a foothold upon a firm foundation from which to assert my voice are persistently repelled, the very ground upon which I stand eroded by that which is not is, rendered mute, relegated beyond the margins to a space and place as in a void of silence and absence. I seek to unlearn that which is learned and to learn in the absence of the learned.

I do not want to undo the work. Many times I undo the work. This writing need conform to dominant norms of narrative structure, flow and pattern. I shun the contrived and artificial, the overused generic pattern, threadbare in its replication, authoritative, verbose, without meaning or relevance to my worldview. I attempt to draw a freehand pattern. The imposition of a disrupture in intertextuality and narrative structure are intended for the reader to experience the dislocation of fragmented knowledge(s) where meaning may or may not be found in the absence of narrative structure and form.

In this writing, I am sensitive to my sources of knowledge as grounded within Indigenous knowledge or that of non-Indigenous knowledge systems. There is a struggle to mediate a position of integrity and maintain a standard of quality that serves Indigenous principles in the context of a primarily non-Indigenous western intellectual tradition and domain within the academy. The reality that I need apply an Indigenous methodology is non-negotiable. It is not my intention to blend or merge Indigenous knowledge with non-Indigenous knowledge, to weaken integrity, nor is it my intention to integrate two distinct knowledge systems in an assimilation of one system as dominant, to encompass or supercede another system.

11 An exploration of fragmented knowledge(s) that emerge as a consequence of colonialism and examination of a multiplicity of methodological and epistemic discourses, of translated and re-interpreted narratives, yields multiple levels of understanding of old-style ways as embedded within Indigenous cultural traditions, Indigenous art forms, and ancient ancestral knowledge(s). In their engagement and enactment, Indigenous women benefit of a rigorous instruction where training and the necessary skills are all highly valued qualities representative of Indigenous women's wellness.

High quality standards of beadwork as practiced by Indigenous women with knowledge and expertise of traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms such as quillwork, hair tufting, embroidery and beadwork are founded within Indigenous principles of teaching, learning and living as lived by Indigenous women that remain relevant to the wellness of Indigenous women today and in the future.

A vast body of Indigenous knowledge resides in the form of thousands upon thousands of items of material culture artifacts housed in the world's museum collections. Each of the items tells a story yielding Indigenous knowledge about ancient practices, beliefs and life ways that enriches our understanding of Indigenous knowledge(s).

To give consideration to visual image schema as 'memory texts' in the reconstruction of social articulations of Indigenous women is to mediate the social identity of Indigenous women in a manner that recognizes that Indigenous women are active agents in their contribution to Indigenous philosophy, knowledge(s), pedagogy, methodology and ontology. This form of visual repatriation and knowledge repatriation allows for the inscription of complex layers of knowledge as located in a realm of cultural politics identified by Edwards (2003, p. 83) to incorporate representation, identity and sovereignty.

12 Whilst there remains a foundation of strength, power and beauty in the grounding of Indigenous philosophy, culture and practices, the challenge remains in aspiring to the tenets of balance and harmony in a discordant and polyphonic world of competing ideologies and life ways. Nonetheless, there is strength to be found in knowing the philosophies, histories and life ways of Indigenous peoples in North America, to be conscious of the gift in practicing and living one's traditions, in the awakening and nurturing of spirit as located in spaces of transformation where harmony and balance reside.

In the application of an Indigenous methodology it is imperative to consider the politics of location, as such I have chosen to engage from the positioning of a creative space in this study of ancient knowledge(s) as engaged in by Indigenous women.

As an Indigenous researcher and Indigenous woman, I need speak eloquently as Indigenous in the reclamation and retelling of ancient knowledge(s) as a counter- narrative and alternative approach that speaks to dominant voices in the generation of new knowledge(s) in an effort to provoke change. In exploring silence, I seek to illuminate and locate meaning in the present. This is a self- critical process that embraces multiple perspectives and ways of knowing drawing attention to Indigenous creative expression as a site of power wherein relationships are interpreted, translated and mediated from an Indigenous perspective.

The adoption of an Indigenous positioning and social ethnographic approach employs a lens of analytic autoethnography (Anderson, 2006) within a frame of ironic validity (Lather, 1994). This approach invokes both a discursive and recursive personal narration where the imposition of intertextuality mirrors and imposes a disruption that in turn provokes alternative conceptualizations of Indigenous arts and traditional cultural activities as enacted performance

13 representative of polyphonic and multiple consciousness(es) experienced intuitively and based upon available knowledge(s).

A re-conceptualization of Indigenous art forms and traditional cultural activities emerges in an elucidation of the conceptual domains of writing and beadwork, both as narrative and performance encouraging a deeper level understanding of their significance as enactment and engagement inclusive of the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of wholeness, balance, harmony and wellbeing, and to contemporary Indigenous philosophical, pedagogical and ontological discourse.

In this journey, I have 'come to know' and understand an Indigenous women's aesthetic of beadwork in the study of their engagement in traditional cultural practices as creatively expressed in Indigenous art forms. Herein resides and resonates a beauty of spirit, harmony, balance and wholeness reflective and representative of a nurturance that perpetuates wellness in Indigenous women, family, community and peoples.

As an Indigenous educator, I have a responsibility and obligation to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing and being, to enact and take action, seek guidance and counsel while remaining grounded within my identity as an Indigenous woman, to do my best to actively contribute to Indigenous wellness in a good way. My lived experience and active engagement in the fields of Indigenous knowledge, research and education, Aboriginal population health, Indigenous self-determination and wellness affords a foundation and skill set from which to inhabit a 'creative space of resistance' to speak from an Indigenous positioning.

Analysis and reflection upon Indigenous ways of knowing, teaching and learning, and being in the expression of an Indigenous aesthetic embedded, embodied and enacted in ancestral Indigenous women's knowledge and ancient art forms

14 strengthens awareness of the integral importance of Indigenous philosophy to Indigenous education.

The threading of the needle, each bead, strung, one by one, each bead a prayer.

In the crafting of beadwork and in this writing, there resides good intent and prayer, standards of quality craftsmanship, principles of Indigenous knowledge(s), a reciprocity of image schema, pattern and motif, irregularity and symmetry that join together to comprise wholeness, balance, harmony and beauty at least from the eyes of this beholder. As a novice, I strive to maintain the integrity of diverse systems of knowledge(s) to bring each together into a symmetry of wholeness as achieved in the journeyed domain of the master craftsperson.

As an Indigenous researcher, I need acknowledge that I am guided in this study of my grandmother's beadwork by a pair of wraparound moccasins as made by my grandmother, the knowledge of which was gifted perhaps in response to invocations for such guidance. In the employment of writing as a strategy of survival, I need mention that I receive guidance through 'dreams' in a manner whereby acknowledgement of the guidance of the grandmothers throughout this learning experience is necessary.

I seek my inheritance, as Indigenous, as a descendent of women and men of Metis ancestry—, Cree and Gwich'in, French, Scottish and English—mixed- blood—a descendant of Red River and Athapaskan Metis, whose lives are embedded in the fur trade, in a history of Canada as a nation that is not taught in classrooms, a history that I sought as an individual embraced within a rich cultural heritage.

To name the Indigenous women who are my ancestors, my grandmothers, is an honour for their lives, for the most part, do not form a part of the written historical record, yet whose voices remain inscribed in the image schema of Indigenous art

15 forms and clothing. The telling, retelling and reinterpretation of stories honours my relations and ancestors, and the generations yet to come, by breathing life into ancient life ways and giving meaning to our lives contemporarily.

Traditional art forms and cultural activities such as quillwork, hair embroidery, moose and caribou hair tufting, beadwork, silk and wool embroidery remain integral to our development, ways of knowing, teaching, learning and being, as Indigenous, and in the formation of pedagogical and ontological relationships to social, cultural, physical and spiritual environments.

16 PART TWO - Expressions of Indigenous Knowledge(s)

Figure 2. Quillwork Checkerweave (Orchard, 1984, p. 31)

When discussing the complexity of form, technique and design in the ancient women's art's of early quillwork and hair embroidery, a friend shared a teaching. When someone is given a braid of sweet grass, the receiver of the braid may not consider each blade of sweet grass is hand picked (Name Withheld, 2010). Or, that the gatherer engages in prayers and good thoughts during the selection and gathering of each blade of sweet grass from amongst multiple types of grasses that grow together on the earth. The recipient of a gift of the scared medicine of sweet grass lights the braid and smudges in a ceremony of purification. Wisps of sweet smelling smoke rise, together with one's prayers, to the Creator. "The medicines [are] used [to] assist the individual to call for the unseen forces of nature, or grandmothers and grandfathers as they are commonly called, [to] give guidance and direction in the decision making process ...Sweet grass facilitates the process of inducing positive energy and therefore relaxes a person and slows down the mind" (McCallum, No Date).

Indigenous Protocol: A Good Mind

As an Indigenous researcher, it is necessary to engage in Indigenous protocols as integral to the conduct of Indigenous research when working collaboratively with Indigenous peoples, communities or organizations. For this study, the offering of tobacco, as appropriate, and practice of prayer or meditation with traditional medicines such as sage, sweet grass, cedar and fungus, are integral and speak to the good intentions of the work.

17 Tobacco is a sacred medicine, one that is offered as a basic first step for those wishing to engage in the teaching and learning of Indigenous knowledge(s) or for those seeking healing with a traditional Elder or healer. The offering of tobacco is a gift to spiritual guides who carry ones thoughts, wishes and prayers to the Creator. Both parties, the individual offering tobacco and the individual accepting tobacco, enter into a shared understanding to engage with one another in a respectful manner (Albert Desjarlais, personal communication, 2006; Tom McCallum, personal communication, 2006). The offering is intended in a "good way" towards positive outcomes of harmony, balance and wellness.

An example of an Indigenous protocol, as practiced historically and contemporarily by the Haudenosaunee to the east, is to welcome those with whom one is working collaboratively in a good way and with good intentions. The following passage is intended to welcome you, the reader, to engage with this study in the framework of a "good mind" (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, A Thanksgiving Address, 1996).

The speaker of the Thanksgiving Address welcomes all: "... there are times when things happen to distract us. When this happens it is easy for us to lose our way and stray from the path that is the good mind" (para. 1). The speaker acknowledges our struggles and fears, the obstacles we each face, welcoming the listener with "words of greeting and respect," offering sustenance to ease our burden, share in the strength of others, to feel comfortable and at ease (para. 2). The speaker uses an eagle feather to remove any fear, pain, anger or tears, encouraging each to "see the beauty that is all around you and your friends and relations who have gathered here to support and help you" (para. 5).

The words of the Address are intended to restore mind, body and spirit in celebration of life. "... as we prepare to begin this new day, we take a few moments to centre ourselves, to reflect on who we are, on our place within the Circle of Life, and on our responsibilities to all of Creation" (Ibid, p. 25). The speaker reflects upon our responsibilities to all of Creation, expressing acknowledgement, gratitude and thanks for Mother Earth and all life forms and other elements of Creation, reminding us of our duties and obligations, to the past, in the present and future. "We are reminded of the importance of the diversity and harmony in Creation" (Ibid, para. 13).

"The Ohentonkariwatehkwen (the words that come before all others) help to remind us of our responsibilities and duties..." (para. 23) "We ask that you give us all courage, the strength and the wisdom to use the power of the good mind in all we do" (para. 25). The Thanksgiving Address allows for reflection "...of our place within the Circle of life and on our responsibilities to all of Creation" (para. 25). This work begins with a prayer for each of us to engage with this work with a good mind.

Ancient Indigenous Knowledge(s)

Indigenous Knowledge is summarized by the United Nations (No Date) as knowledge that an Indigenous community accumulates over generations in a particular environment encompassing all forms of knowledge, technologies and skills, practices and beliefs that enable Indigenous communities to achieve sustainable livelihoods in their environment (para. 1).

Indigenous knowledge is unique to every culture and society and it is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals... it is rooted in a particular community and situated in broader cultural traditions. It is a set of experiences generated by people living in those communities... based on, and is deeply embedded in local experience and historic reality... unique to that specific culture; it also plays an important role in defining the identity of the community... It represents all the skills and innovations of a people and embodies the collective wisdom and resourcefulness of the community, (para. 2-3)

19 Today, ancient Indigenous knowledge(s) are considered as a birthright to Indigenous peoples in North America. Alvin Manitopyes (2010) states Indigenous knowledge(s) are "...given to our people when we were placed here on Mother Earth with sacred instructions on how to live as caretakers of Mother Earth" (para. 1). The transmission of Indigenous knowledge is a sacred process requiring a protocol of the presentation of an offering of tobacco to Elders who share teachings, histories and stories. Following is a partial description of ancient Indigenous knowledge(s) as described at the first International Roundtable Supporting Ancient Indigenous Knowledge:

.. .The traditional beliefs of my people is that the Creator placed us here as the Original Peoples of North America to be the caretakers of Turtle Island by living under the natural laws of this creation. Each Indigenous nation was given original instructions about upholding natural laws, and we understand that our very existence is an expression of the Creator's love, (para. 6)

The laws of the Creator are written in nature, and these great laws instructed us to live in peace and harmony with all forms of life, with all humanity. Our Mother Earth is a source of all life, whether it be plants, crawlers, four-legged, winged-ones, or human beings. If we listen, observe and respect her, she will continue to provide sustenance, and recycle the food and medicine we consume, and make them available to her children and grandchildren, (para. 7)

Like Mother Earth, women are the givers of life and must be respected. Indian people believe that all women are sacred, that all women symbolize Mother Earth. Traditionally, there was no competition between gender in Indigenous societies, as men and women understand their roles based on balance between genders. This is one of the many teachings we can tech the world, (para. 8) When we witness the wonder and diversity of Mother Earth, we also learn to witness the beauty, wonder and diversity of the children of Mother Earth and The Creator, (para. 12)

The great plan of the Creator is for al human beings to experience the sacred energy of Mother Earth, to walk upon her in a sacred manner. Creator planted a spirit into every form of life so that we could learn her great natural laws. (para. 13)

Indigenous elders were given the responsibility to guide the younger generation into the future, and they are concerned that Indigenous knowledge is at risk of being forgotten, (para. 16)

It's very important that we teach our children to take responsibility to carry on our role as caretakers of Mother Earth, to live in harmony with themselves, with their families, their communities, with the larger world, (para. 18)

It's important that our oral tradition with our languages be brought back to be restored amongst the people, for that's our very connection to the spirit world. We must always remember traditional knowledge is the very strength of our identity as Indigenous peoples, (para. 19)

Lakota scholar and Elder, Lionel Kinunwa (1997) studied in excess of twenty- four Indigenous language groups throughout his lifetime. Kinunwa conceived of Indigenous languages as representative of a multi-dimensional meta-model and multi-phased transfer system. He taught that within Indigenous languages there resides the histories and sacred wisdom of Indigenous peoples to be revitalized and transferred in the awakening of vibrational sensory cellular memories that resonate within our bodies enabling one 'to know'. Indigenous educators are encouraged by Kinunwa (1997) to develop and teach methodologies based upon Indigenous standards and principles. The teaching and learning of Indigenous

21 knowledge is considered to reside within a knowledge transfer system wherein repetition is a key activator in the transfer of knowledge to future generations.

Mechanisms such as repetition that are inherent to Indigenous languages are considered to protect the integrity of the structural whole of Indigenous knowledge when another knowledge system encroaches upon the structural integrity of an Indigenous knowledge language system. Kinunwa (1997) encouraged Indigenous educators to actively engage in a 'ceremony of the sacred bundle' interpreted as the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. Indigenous educators are encouraged to access a reflective consciousness in the development of a meta-language that translates meaning in understanding Indigenous knowledge as a philosophy and way of life (Edge, 2001).

Indigenous Peoples Educational Experience

Contemporarily, Indigenous scholarship in the academy speaks to a growing body of philosophy, epistemology, pedagogy, ontology and methodology as a discourse increasingly articulated by Indigenous peoples globally. Indigenous scholars, Marie Battiste (2000), Sakej Henderson (2000), Erica-Irene Daes (2000) and Ruana Kuokkanen (2007) describe some of the many challenges posed by modern educational theory, practice and power relations that continue to uphold colonial aspirations as practiced within western systems of education and faced by Indigenous scholars, researchers and students within the academy.

Battiste (2000) describes how modern educational theory and practice, as understood by Indigenous scholars, act as forces of oppression that contribute to the destruction and distortion of "...the ways of life, histories, identities, cultures, and languages of Aboriginal peoples..." (p. 193). The implication is that the imposed worldview is superior to the alternative worldview" (p. 193). "Cognitive imperialism is a form of cognitive manipulation used to disclaim other knowledge bases and values... Cognitive imperialism denies people their language and

22 cultural integrity by maintaining the legitimacy of only one language, one culture, and one frame of reference" (p. 198). In the absence of consistent policy and legislation concerning the teaching of Aboriginal thought in the classroom, Battiste (2000) calls for "new teaching materials that depict, accurately and adequately, the culture, history, heritage, worldviews, and philosophies of Aboriginal peoples" (p. 200).

At the post-secondary education level, Henderson (2000) considers Canadian universities to support Eurocentric contexts in perpetuating power relations inherent to colonization as embedded within western intellectual tradition, scholarship, pedagogy and systems of education.

When most professors describe the "world," they describe artificial European contexts and ignore Aboriginal worldviews, knowledge and thought. For most Aboriginal students, the realization of their invisibility is similar to looking into a still lake and not seeing their images. They become alien in their own eyes, unable to recognize themselves in the reflections and shadows of the world. As their grandparents and parents were stripped of their wealth and dignity, this realizations strips Aboriginal students of their heritage and identity. It gives them an awareness of their annihilation.

At best, Canadian universities define Aboriginal heritage, identity, and thought as inferior to European heritage, identity, and thought. Typically, however, Eurocentric thought explicitly and implicitly confirms Aboriginal inadequacy and asserts a negative image of Aboriginal heritage and identity. Tragically, before long, Aboriginal students will succumb and inwardly endorse Eurocentric thought and help to lay the foundations of the relationship of domination that will entrench their thoughts, (p. 59)

23 Daes (2000) describes the experience of oppression as that of a "spiritual death" (p. 5), a tool that imparts a destructive and shared personal experience of "intellectual and spiritual loneliness" (p. 7) that teaches people that their feelings and beliefs are irrelevant.

We gain wisdom and self-confidence from the choices we make on this life journey. For the oppressed, however, a stranger is always by their side, blocking their chosen destination, saying to them, 'Not that way.' Eventually, the experience of oppression becomes internalized as an accumulation of implicit, subconscious limitations in freedom. External oppression becomes self-oppression. The victim of oppression travels the road of life thinking at every crossroads 'Not that way,' until the result is immobility, inaction and self-isolation, (p. 5)

As an Indigenous scholar, Kuokkanen (2007) finds Indigenous discourses to be allowed to exist in the university "only in marginal spaces or within clearly defined parameters established by the dominant discourse, which is grounded in certain assumptions, values, conceptions of knowledge, and views of the world" (p. viii). "... To speak of "knowledge" is to consider not only ways of knowing and things known, but also what gets defined as knowledge, who does this defining, and who benefits from the act of defining. Similarly, we must also examine the ways that knowledge acquires authority and legitimacy in realms other than those from which it springs" (p. 58). Based upon her own experience, she comments on the harsh realities as faced by Indigenous people in the academy.

Most often, indigenous students learn to conform to the unwritten, unstated discursive and epistemic norms and rules of the academy, whether they want to or not. This may involve painful negotiation of their identities, cultural backgrounds, desires, and aspirations. They know that

24 their academic success is going to depend largely on their success in integrating with and adjusting to the academic standards set before.vm (53)

In response to finding herself repeatedly facing the challenge as to why Indigenous epistemes "do not seem to fit dominant perceptions of academic knowledge..." (p. xviii). Kuokkanen (2007) observed the term epistemology to be used in Indigenous discourse as a "synonym for system of knowledge, way of thinking, worldview, or traditional philosophy" in contrast its application in western philosophical discourse to denote the theoretical study of knowledge. The term is further refined as a mode of social reality that is taken-for-granted by a particular culture (p. 57).

In speaking from multiple locations, Kuokkanen (2007) understood herself to occupy an unstable position whereby one is both allowed and forced to exist amidst the tensions, challenges and possibilities of several different discourses. The development of an epistemology grounded in Sami cultural practices, concepts and metaphors and the application of a concept-metaphor of a river allowed for Kuokkanen (p. xvi) to locate, contextualize and navigate her thinking and positioning into a context of multiple discourses and diverse intellectual traditions, theories and discourses. The concept-metaphor of the river reminds us each to remain in balance and fluid whilst in constant motion, to be open to multiple perspectives, and reach beyond multiple borders in life in general in our views, perspectives, arguments and interpretations.

As an Indigenous scholar, Kuokkanen (2007) encourages Indigenous people to critique, challenge, and foster alternatives to dominant epistemic conventions in acknowledgement of the confines of dichotomous thinking inherent to a Eurocentricism that "denies the contributions and knowledges of Indigenous peoples, or appropriates their knowledge, or imposes its authority over... [and] denies its significance" (p. xvi-xvii). Indigenous peoples are encouraged to claim the right and responsibility to make individual and collective choices as

25 Indigenous. For example, in the inclusion of literary excerpts by Indigenous writers in the form of poetry in her own work, referred to as exemplar of theoretical discourse in oral tradition, Kuokkanen's choice is "selective, strategic and irretrievably mediated" (p. xxii).

Decolonization and Self-Determination

Sky Woman is our first woman. She is our mother, our sister, and she is part of all of us. From Sky Woman springs our ability to create and our ability to dream. She sings out the story of Turtle Island, and our relationship to the sky world, star world, water world, earth world and dream world. She is our connective tissue. She was the first to move, shape and inspire us. She is our first hero (Laronde, 2005).

Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhawai Smith (1999, 2005), Joyce Green (2007) and Patricia Monture (2008) urge the privileging of Indigenous knowledge(s), as held by Indigenous women, in advocating for a critique of Indigenous women's social, economic and political conditions. A collaborative undertaking by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous feminist scholars identifies significant historical factors as shared by Indigenous women that prompt consideration of issues specific to politics, activism and culture (Suzack, Huhndorf, Perreault and Barman, 2010).

Smith (1999), one the earliest Indigenous researchers to focus on the topic of Indigenous research methodology, notes Indigenous research to be a highly political activity whereby Indigenous researchers have to face multiple challenges such as the exclusion and chronic devaluation of Indigenous perspectives and rendering of "self as invisible or unimportant. Indigenous research is imagined in multiple ways that include historical, cultural and spiritual places where Indigenous peoples locate themselves within a set of multi-layered identities and where the research process itself is more important than research outcomes.

26 For indigenous researchers, a decolonizing framework involves "...taking apart the story, revealing underlying texts, and giving voice to things that are often known intuitively" (p. 3) Smith calls upon Indigenous researchers to resist, "...to retrieve what we were," to make spaces of marginalization located within our cultures and social practices, to engage in "...spaces of resistance and hope" (p. 4).

Indigenous researchers are encouraged by Smith (1999) to be respectful, reflexive, critical and humble in our work, to take action to recover our histories, stories, language and philosophical foundations towards a reconciliation and understanding of our own concerns, worldviews and perspectives in the articulation of decolonizing strategies. Indigenous researchers, in particular, may claim a set of genealogical and cultural experiences that encourages a crossing of boundaries in the negotiation, mediation and transformation of research frameworks towards addressing "broader social issues within the wider framework of self-determination, decolonization and social justice" (p. 12).

For Smith (1999), "coming to know the past has been part of the critical pedagogy of decolonization. To hold alternative histories is to hold alternative knowledges" (p. 34). Indigenous research requires that we tell our stories in multiple ways because our stories need be told as a form of resistance.

In a more recent work, Smith (2005) describes research as a "site of contestation not simply at the level of epistemology or methodology but also in its broadest sense as an organized scholarly activity that is deeply connected to power" (p. 87). In this boundaried territory, Indigenous researchers are encouraged by Rigney (1999) to "...privilege Indigenous knowledges, voices, experiences, reflections, and analysis of their social, material, and spiritual conditions" (as cited in Smith, 2005, p. 87). Alternative ways of knowing that lead to a different epistemology as derived from "...the ancient memories of another way of

27 knowing" can inform contemporary practices and Indigenous approaches to research (p. 87).

Smith (2005) conceives of research as a way for Indigenous peoples to reclaim ways of knowing and to retell stories. "Embedded in these stories are the ways of knowing, deep metaphors, and motivational drivers that inspire the transformative praxis that many Indigenous researchers identify as a powerful agent for resistance and change..." (p. 90-91). The making of meaning as enriched by Indigenous concepts has led to innovative research and new methodologies where by Indigenous research is regarded as a "...highly political activity, that can be perceived as threatening, destabilizing, and privileging Indigeneity over the interests and experiences of other diverse groups" (p. 90-91).

Indigenous researchers are encouraged by Smith (2005) to create new research approaches in the examination of Indigenous knowledge particularly in a neoliberal global knowledge economy where "...researchers are knowledge workers who produce new knowledge" (p. 94). Smith concludes the role of Indigenous professionals to be "a difficult role of translating, mediating, and negotiating values, beliefs and practices from different worldviews in difficult political contexts" (p. 96).

The establishment, maintenance and nurturing of reciprocal and respectful relationships by researchers with Indigenous communities requires a "...critical sensitivity and reciprocity of spirit by a researcher" (p. 97). Smith (2005) encourages Indigenous researchers to strive to decolonize research in an effort to develop alternative research methodologies that contribute to a deeper level of understanding about Indigenous philosophy, epistemology and methodology.

Green (2007) urges the adoption of a political stance in the making of a space for Indigenous feminism in the face of Indigenous women's issues noting there to be very little published about or by Indigenous women (as cited in Suzack,

28 Huhndorf, Perreault and Barman, 2010). Feminism is viewed as a theory and a social movement that analyzes the diversity of women's cultural, political, and specific experiences taking an analytical approach to power relations.

On behalf of Aboriginal feminism, Green (2007) argues emerging literature to be "...a critique of colonialism, decolonization and gendered and raced power relations in both settler and Indigenous communities.... a valid and theoretically and politically powerful critique of the social, economic and political conditions of Aboriginal women's lives" (p. 21). Aboriginal feminism is viewed as providing both a philosophical and political way to conceptualize and resist oppression as experienced by Aboriginal people.

Given that Indigenous women and feminist issues remain under-examined in contemporary feminist theory, Suzack, Huhndorf, Perreault and Barman (2010) identify Indigenous feminism as "...an important site of gender struggle that engages the crucial issues of cultural identity, nationalism, and decolonization particular to Indigenous contexts" (p. 1-2). While Indigenous women's social, economic and political issues remain urgent and critical, Indigenous women's issues remain marginalized in a "white-centred" feminist environment in juxtaposition to the internal dynamics of Indigenous politics and communities. Indigenous feminist analysts and activists seek to understand the social positions, situations, commonalities and specificities of Indigenous women's power, status and material circumstances to "... create the possibility of collective feminist political action," making visible 'internal oppression' and in attending to "...the gendered dimensions of cultural traditions" (p. 3).

Factors identified by Suzack, Huhndorf, Perreault and Barman (2010) that contribute to a common colonial history as shared by Indigenous women include social transformations that have resulted from colonial policies, the reordering of gender relations to subordinate women, political and economic relationships between settlers and Indigenous communities, residential school policies, the

29 disenfranchisement and dispossession of women through the 1876 Indian Act, the sexualization of Indigenous women, sobering rates of domestic and sexual violence, and the systematic disempowerment of Indigenous women where Indigenous women are vulnerable to economic, political, and social marginalization and under-representation as shaped by government and institutional policies.

Culture is viewed as fostering a critical consciousness and in having "...gained particular importance as it has confronted the silencing, marginalization, and invisibility of Indigenous women in patriarchal narratives and social practices" (p. 9). Together, these Indigenous and non-Indigenous feminist scholars address issues of politics, activism and culture towards the construction of a theoretical framework to study Indigenous feminism.

We started something, sisters. Our testament is out there now, part of the wind, part of the people's minds and hearts. We have always been here. We will always be here (Brant, 1994, as cited in Monture, 2008, p. 158).

Haudenosaunee scholar, Patricia Monture (2008) asserts we can learn who we are through stories that teach us about identity, responsibility and how to live life alternatively noting that stories and storytelling are sometime excluded as 'literature.' For example, the early words and works of mixed-blood Haudenosaunee writer E. Pauline Johnson, published at the turn of the nineteenth century, whose works reflect as a "racialized analysis" and critique of others' ways situated in her positioning as Haudenosaunee and use of Haudenosaunee images such as White wampum and moccasin-making (p. 155).

Indigenous voices are complicated, "...a complex matter of gender and multiple consciousness [es]," distinct and diverse within language, tradition and knowledge system and sharing a common experience in colonialism (p. 155). Indigenous voices can be further complicated by the imposition of artificial boundaries drawn

30 between nation states. As a scholar whose work crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries, Monture (2008) says, "I don't write like an academic. Not because I can't, but because I don't. Because that does not fill the silence that has existed between "Indian" nations, our citizens, the women, and power... I am writing to survive" (p. 154).

As a Mohawk citizen, Monture (2008) grounds herself as "Mohawk from Grand River, a direct descendant of Joseph Brant," naming other family names to whom she is related. She gives her Indian name. It is this identity that grounds Monture in her "...identity and direction...strength and responsibility..." that guide the way she sees patterns that ground her "understanding of who I am and what I know" (p. 156). "I am because I know my name, my family, my clan, and my nation" (p. 157). Monture (2008) writes,

As scholars, we want to make patterns and personal understandings into larger structures such as theories or knowledges. Literature has such a structure and often that structure is not welcoming to the written words shared by Indigenous authors and storytellers... It is the required shift in perspective that poses the problem for some readers. Writing, then, for many Indigenous authors is often the act of naming both power and exclusion, as one rarely exists without the other. Often, this act of naming is seen as an act of resistance, when most often it is an act of (re)claiming (p. 156).

Monture (2008) argues to situate Indigenous writing as resistance is an oversimplification that serves to situate colonialism at the centre, "...to freeze our cultures and peoples in the time immediately before contact. It reinforces the campaign to see culture and tradition in a hierarchy of superiority" and ignoring the contributions of Indigenous peoples to the building of nation states (p. 158).

31 In Indigenous literary criticism, Womack (1999) concludes "... autonomy, self- determination, sovereignty are the fundamental units of analysis" (as cited in Monture, 2008, p. 158). For Monture (2008), sovereignty "is the power to not only determine your being but also the power to be responsible to that identity. In Indigenous epistemologies, sovereignty means access to well-being for all our citizens" (p. 158).

A Critical Indigenous Aesthetic Space

Notably, this study in its' entirely responds to hooks (2009) call for a re-thinking of aesthetics. I refer to Indigenous aesthetics as a transformative experience wherein creative expression as enactment of the spiritual dimension of being both engages and enacts a spiritual dimensionality in reality.

In a discussion concerning an aesthetic of Blackness, African American bell hookslx shares a story about her grandmother from whom she learned about the formation of a critical space and aesthetics of everyday life (hooks, 2009). It was hooks' grandmother who taught her to 'look' and 'learn to see' "the beauty of the everyday" (p. 122); where "seeing" is meant metaphysically as heightened awareness and understanding, the intensification of one's capacity to experience reality, through the realm of the senses" (p. 132).

Space is perceived as sanctuary, "... a space that can reflect beauty, peace, and a harmony of being, a spiritual aesthetic" (p. 122). In this space, "aesthetics is more than a philosophy or theory of art and beauty; it is a way of inhabiting space, a particular location, a way of looking and becoming" (p. 122). hooks (2009) describes her thinking about aesthetics as "... one which cultivated and celebrated an aesthetic of existence," in viewing the world with a critical eye, recognizing beauty and using beauty "as a force to enhance inner well-being" (p. 123).

32 Described as a "historical aesthetic legacy" (p. 124), African-American aesthetics is attributed to the "...many displaced African slaves [who] brought to this country an aesthetic based on the belief that beauty, especially that created in a collective context, should be an integrated aspect of everyday life, enhancing the survival and development of community" (p. 124). Cultural production and forms of artistic expression were viewed as maintaining connections with the past and surviving "long after other expressions had been lost or forgotten" (p. 124).

In a critical analysis of the effectiveness and limitations of the Black Arts Movement in America that linked black cultural nationalism and revolutionary politics as a conscious articulation of a "black aesthetic" to artistic production and expression, hooks (2009) encourages a revitalized discussion to "critically conceptualize a radical aesthetic" (p. 130) that "...need not begin with white western traditions and it need not be prescriptive" (p. 129).

"...An important part of any decolonization process is critical intervention and interrogation of existing repressive and dominating structures... [in that] much of what threatens our collective well-being is the product of dominating structures" (p. 131). hooks (2009) calls for a critical re-thinking of aesthetics and aesthetics principles, a "radical aesthetic... that functions as a force that promotes the development of a critical consciousness and resistance movement" (p. 132). hooks (2009) closes by reiterating her passion and commitment "to an aesthetic that focuses on the purpose and function of beauty, of artistry in everyday life... one that seeks to explore and celebrate the connection between our capacity to engage in critical resistance and or ability to experience pleasure and power" (p. 132). Her concern with aesthetics in memory of her grandmother "...stands as a challenge to intellectuals, especially those on the left, who assume that the capacity to think critically, in abstract concepts, to be theoretical, is a function of class and educational privilege" (p. 132).

33 PART THREE - Indigenous Research Methodology

Figure 3. Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 32)

Indigenous Researcher and Methodology

The structure of a single flower varies according to family, genealogy and environment. Reproduction of genetically unique offspring is the primary purpose of a flower. In many cultures, flowers have symbolic, spiritual and cultural meaning.

The primary methodology employed during the conduct of this research project is an Indigenous research methodology. In approaching this study, as a woman of Indigenous ancestry who self-identifies as Gwich'in Cree Metis from the Northwest Territories, the primary questions I had to ask myself were: Who am I? Where do I come from? What do I know and who were my teachers?

These are questions upon which my survival and wellness, as an individual and as an Indigenous women, depends. Within the realm of absence and silence exists the possibility of a dispossession of heart and mind that may only become fulfilled as learned through ancestral voices in relationship to ancient wisdom and knowledge(s) within social, cultural and environmental contexts. These relationships remain foundational, integral and inherent to health and wellness and determination of the self of and for Indigenous women today.

The stories of my personal narrative "exist in relation to one another more as a constellation of experiences where chronological time is less important, but the 34 text inevitably suggests sequence and chronology. Both the ease and discomfort of the relationship between the stories and text-based narrative are significant to this study" (Mike Emme, personal communication, 2007). Contradictions as embedded in writing and research may serve to alert the reader to ways that text hegemony works in relation to other ways of knowing. It is anticipated the reader will remain critically alert and trust in me as an Indigenous researcher and critical guide (Mike Emme, personal communication, 2007).

Critical consciousness, reflective social autoethnography, image schema and personal narrative are encountered in a creative space of storied telling. A multiplicity of approaches unfold as counter-narrative in a decolonization strategy that enacts Indigenous women's voices as embedded and embodied in traditional cultural traditions as evidenced in the cultural production of Indigenous art forms, such as beadwork. The voices of Indigenous women emerge as performance ensuring teaching and learning of Indigenous principles and standards from my positioning and perspective of an Indigenous women, researcher and writer.

This story is about the patterning of a multitude of threads stitched through space and in time where deeper level meaning is sought and found beyond generic conceptual frameworks through which Indigenous traditions are presented as remnants of a historical past having survived change and adaptation. In the writing of this story, a patterning of image schema embedded in Indigenous art forms transitions into a conceptual metaphor to that of beadwork in relation to a conceptual metaphor of this writing.

This story moves beyond that of the preserved and protected silent artifact in urging a reinterpretation of embedded knowledge(s) therein. Here, artifacts become animate, gifted with spirit, representative of the ways of teaching, learning and knowing of Indigenous women in celebration of their resilience and wellness in the sense of an Indigenous aesthetic ontology or way of being.

35 Indigenous Elders, scholars and leaders teach about balance and harmony as integral to an Indigenous way of life and living. Indigenous women, in their participation in the visual arts, creation of art forms and participation in traditional cultural activities and cultural production such as beadwork, are guided by these principles in the enactment of balance and harmony. These principles are evidenced in the body of their work articulated as aesthetic performance in manner imparted through an integrity, strength and beauty of spirit whereby deeper level meaning of Indigenous women's life ways are understood through knowledge production. In this manner, Indigenous women's life ways are retranslated and mediated as a multi-sensory and multi-dimensional way of teaching and learning, knowing and being, as an Indigenous women's philosophy.

The manner in which this study is presented is intended as self-reflective to encourage engagement, interpretation and translation by the reader as critical inquiry towards the emergence of a critical consciousness. This study offers an alternative approach in understanding form and performance as a mode of transmission of the principles and standards foundational to an Indigenous women's philosophy. In light of contemporary realities of lived Indigenous experience in relation to my learning experiences in the academy, I engage multiple discourses to distinguish a multiplicity of levels and layers of meaning as enacted by Indigenous women in the ancient art forms of quillwork, hair embroidery and beadwork.

There are many challenges and tensions inherent to the application of an Indigenous research methodology, a field of inquiry that continues to be debated within the academy and by Indigenous peoples. What is an Indigenous research methodology? How is an Indigenous research methodology applied? Is an Indigenous researcher's lived experience as Indigenous important to the application of an Indigenous research methodology? What is the role of the non- Indigenous researcher in the articulation of Indigenous philosophies? These are some of the questions that play themselves out wherever and whenever there is

36 research amongst, with or on behalf of Indigenous peoples. Oftentimes, these questions, not voiced, remain nonetheless integral to the integrity of Indigenous research.

As an Indigenous researcher, the goal of this study is to make a contribution to the sharing of Indigenous philosophy and worldviews as lived by Indigenous women. This work is intended to assert a positive image of Indigenous women's identity that moves beyond the subconscious limitations of a legacy of cognitive imperialism (Battiste, 2000), not as victims of oppression or to perpetuate strategies of marginalization, but rather through action and engagement to assert perhaps this way... in freedom without constraint.

My positioning and inclusion of approaches in this work is strategic, selective and mediated (Kuokkanen, 2007). I seek a language that guides to an unknown destination. Sometimes my narrative thread is finely woven into a complex pattern. At other times, my narrative thread is fragmented, torn, worn, or absent, similar to my learning experience as an Indigenous woman in the academy, in the workplace and in daily life.

In the absence of the voices of Indigenous women, I am compelled to write to share my worldview because there are far too few Indigenous scholars in the academy (Kuokkanen, 2007). This silence is most notable in Indigenous research contexts." Today and throughout my academic experience, I lament the absence of Indigenous perspectives and voices not only in the academy, but in publications, the workplace and in the classroom. Not only is it a challenge to locate Indigenous perspectives, much of available literature or discourse remains firmly entrenched in a colonial perspective and dominant norms of the western philosophical tradition.

Being Indigenous in the academy and in the workplace is fraught with tension and challenge for Indigenous people. There is an ongoing a struggle to maintain identity and integrity while working collaboratively in contexts where there remains an apathetic or lethargic awareness of the significance and relevance of Indigenous philosophies and life ways to everyday life. Efforts to translate and interpret Indigenous ways of knowing need be mediated" in an everyday struggle of enduring power relations where the goals of colonization to marginalize and oppress Indigenous peoples through assimilation and integration persists within a rhetoric of power relations espousing equality.

Still today, few scholarly publications or scholars incorporate or acknowledge the works of Indigenous scholarship as contributing to methodological or theoretical domains of inquiry. Further, the intergenerational legacy of colonization continues to limit and constrain attempts towards decolonization in ways yet to be fully comprehended particularly for those without lived experience as Indigenous.

There is increased awareness of the limitations of hegemonic paradigmatic assertions in the adoption of oppositional binaries and worldviews. To move beyond the imposition of these constraints necessitates a reexamination of elusive fragmented and distorted epistemologies where knowledge(s) are deemed lost thereby perpetuating the livelihood and viability of dominant epistemologies. As a counter-strategy, it is necessary to revisit, relearn, undo and redo, deconstruct and reconstruct in a manner consistent with established principles of Indigenous autonomy, competency, reciprocity and understanding.

A juxtaposition of competing worldviews aids in the discernment of liminal spaces and transformative junctures where interplay and intersection of the tangible and intangible, said and unsaid, seen and unseen, done yet not yet done, are understood as yet to be comprehended in the engagement of multiple consciousness(es). In this abstraction, there abides a force that resists forgetting, an echo that resonates as a part of the land and landscape, as in earth, water and wind, as signifying action to human life ways.

External pressures to do things the "right way" in accordance with established dominant norms and expectations ultimately functions as a barrier that serves to maintain the status quo in a manner whereby each utterance need be carefully weighed and measured to meet the demands of day to day survival. Voices speaking from positions of marginalization and oppression need strive to nurture wholeness and well-being. In this exploration of multiple approaches in the study of Indigenous women's beadwork, the adoption of a critical interpretive positioning is both a survival and wellness strategy. This approach encourages the reader to assume responsibility in the determination of deeper levels of meaning as located in literature selected as part of this work as fragments or parts of wholeness.

Most recently, interpretation and translation of Indigenous knowledge(s) has further shifted into the domain of established non-Indigenous scholars inspired by social justice or scholarly aspirations. This call is oftentimes taken up due to the absence, exclusion or limited availability of a small but growing body of Indigenous scholars, some of whom surprisingly do not find a place or space in the academy. Further, an increasing number of non-Indigenous scholars whose lives closely intersect with Indigenous peoples life ways, socially, culturally, economically and politically, residing in Indigenous homelands, actively engage in the translation and interpretation of Indigenous knowledge(s) from a non- Indigenous perspective, most often in collaboration and with the consent of Indigenous community members. The question arises as to how to maintain the integrity of Indigenous perspectives and worldviews in light of integrative practices.

An absence of Indigenous scholarship in any given context may coincide with a chronic devaluation of Indigenous scholarship perpetuated by entrenched dominant paradigmatic or worldview tensions and dynamics of Indigenous and non-Indigenous power relations. In the face of critical economic, social, cultural and/or political issues, the goals and aspirations of Indigenous leadership and communities may need be strategic and reflect dominant norms, standard and expectations. These goals and aspirations may not be consistent with the voices of

39 Indigenous scholars urging for the regeneration of Indigenous life ways to strengthen self-determination.

Indigenous scholarship is further marginalized in association with a steady influx of standards and practices concerning best practices, competency, assessment, evaluation, accountability and risk management. Such practices are most often developed in the absence of Indigenous scholars advocating for self-determination of Indigenous peoples. The exclusive of Indigenous worldviews serves to perpetuate entrenchment of dominant norms, values, goals and aspirations.

Finally, there exist tensions concerning the self-identity of Indigenous peoples contemporarily in light of the contradiction of Indigenous populations as minority populations in their ancestral homelands. These tensions are further heightened by the reluctance of governments to recognize Indigenous peoples as Indigenous to their homelands and a failure by governments to honour historical legislative frameworks. Given that these topics do not form a part of standard educational curricula, the average individual has minimal interest, awareness or understanding of the colonization of Indigenous peoples. Nor is there a collective shared awareness of the significance of the global dynamic of individual rights in relation to the collective rights of Indigenous populations by non-Indigenous peoples.

Key is moving beyond the assimilative and integrative legacy of colonization, beyond survival and resilience, to the adoption of a critical consciousness that illuminates Indigenous philosophy, epistemology, pedagogy, methodology and ontology as a way of life. Contemporarily there is increasing awareness of the "value" of Indigenous knowledge(s) as held by Indigenous populations in relation to global sustainability and in keeping with the aspirations of and affirmation by Indigenous peoples towards Indigenous cultural survival, self-determination and self-governance. As An Indigenous Researcher...

An Indigenous researcher faces multiple challenges to envision multiple ways that Indigenous research may be imagined in an exploration of multi-layered identities within which to locate oneself (Smith, 1999). I need and seek to create new approaches in the exchange and production of knowledge, to interpret, translate and mediate alternative research methodologies not only towards decolonization but further towards an articulation, reclamation, repatriation and regeneration of Indigenous ways of knowing (Smith, 1999).

Keenly aware of power relations and power relationships in daily life, I must privilege the Indigenous for I can do no more and no less. Coming to know the past requires the recovery of Indigenous peoples histories, to tell the stories of Indigenous peoples as alternative counter stories is to tell the stories that need to be told. I am sensitive and intuitive to ancient memories and ancient knowledge(s) that I seek to reclaim and retell. I trust that ancient memories and knowledge(s) invoke meaning and transformation in a good way.

In the realm of Indigenous identity, it is our birthright to inherit the lands, territories, knowledge(s) and life ways of our ancestors. To live as Indigenous is to inherit the "blood memory" of our ancestors as intricately interwoven within a webbed network of relationships that bind experience, teaching, and learning in a manner that functions to nurture each individual's potential in relation to the survival of a collective whole in relationship to the universe.

In recognition of the dominance of western notions of patriarchy as foundational to the aims and legacy of colonialism on a global scale, as an Indigenous woman I reclaim the territory and ground upon which I walk in order for there to be change, so that things do not remain the same. I need speak to the power, strength and beauty of heterogeneity, of cultural biodiversity and cultural difference as essential to global wellness and survival. I claim my genealogical and cultural experiences as I mediate a transformative research that addresses broader social issues, specifically concerning Indigenous education and social well-being, of relevance to Indigenous women and Indigenous peoples. As an Indigenous woman, there is no issue of identity as Indigenous; I am here in my homeland where resides a place for my belonging. There is a competition for any space in occupied territory currently available to Indigenous women in which to position oneself from wherein to assert our voices.

Holding in common gender and a lived experience of marginalization and oppression, I seek a comprehensible language of resistance with which to speak by turning my gaze to that of feminist approaches. The voices of early Indigenous feminists emerge in the context of non-Indigenous feminist discourse having succeeded in opening up a tangible and discursive space from wherein to locate a creative space in the articulation of a radical aesthetic.

As an Indigenous woman, I confront the silence, marginalization and invisibility of Indigenous women (Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault and Barman, 2010) in posing alternative conceptualizations of resistance. Listening to the voices of Indigenous writers invokes a multiple consciousness (Monture, 2008). As an Indigenous writer, I need voice my thoughts concerning the social, economic and political conditions of Indigenous women's lives (Green, 2007).

In the spirit of a healthy response and mutual reciprocity lies volition or will (Lane Jr. et al, 1984), to listen, hear and act, in an effort to better understand and accept of the expressions of Indigenous women scholars as authoritative, authentic and legitimate, in contrast to the abeyance of the unheard, silenced and invisible.

Towards envisioning new, alternative and oppositional aesthetic acts (hooks, 2004), I am free to re-interpret that which has been interpreted through the gaze of non-Indigenous lens. To engage in this manner means pushing beyond the constraints of resistance in an attempt to articulate and reaffirm Indigenous women's ways of knowing. My discernment of pattern as image schema may serve to aid others in gaining a deeper level understanding of the critical significance of personal autonomy and determination of self to the enhancement of the well-being and wellness of Indigenous peoples (Monture, 2008).

To position myself in the making of culture in a creative space where transformation is possible, I need push against oppressive boundaries, to confront the "realities of choice and location" (Riche, 2003, p. 38) to envision alternative aesthetic acts. I perceive of alternative aesthetic acts as enactment of an Indigenous aesthetics that incorporates a multi-dimensionality through creative expression, guided as in the engagement of spirit and centrality of relationships as reside in memory, space and place.

I need explore silences concerning place and identity, to undertake a self-critical process, to engage both my mind and my heart in a way of seeing, in the conceptualization of aesthetic and critical alternatives, to engage in a radical cultural practice located at the 'edge' of the 'margin' (hooks, 2004, p. 159).

To theorize critically and aesthetically as a radical cultural practice (hooks, 2004) means to revisit, reinterpret, reclaim and regenerate Indigenous knowledge, culture and traditions. The call by Indigenous scholars and researchers in the academy in recent years urges Indigenous peoples to be knowledgeable about Indigenous ways, to speak from an Indigenous position in a reclamation of Indigenous identity and life ways.

I actively call attention to the fixity of interpretations of the social world, to rename reality, where Indigenous art forms as created and crafted by Indigenous women are recognized as Indigenous knowledge(s) re-interpreted as ancient memories and ancestral knowledge(s).

43 As an Indigenous woman, I too learned about the aesthetics of everyday life (hooks, 2009) from my grandmothers, both present and absent. However, it was in learning through Indigenous teachings as shared by Indigenous women, that I became conscious and cognizant of a multidimensionality in learning and knowing in the sanctuary of a women's space wherein reside an aesthetic of the spiritual as resides in balance and harmony, the beauty and peace of being.

Based upon my lived experience and in the process of learning through this study, I conceive of Indigenous aesthetics as a transformative space whereby engagement in process nurtures a state of being and becoming interwoven and enmeshed in and by the essence of spirit, wherein resides wellness and well- being. I undertook this study in an effort to share my understanding of Indigenous women's traditional art forms and cultural traditions as integral to Indigenous consciousness in the form of traditional artistic craftsmanship and cultural production.

In proposing a radical cultural aesthetic (hooks, 2009), I envision a critical consciousness that encourages critical thought and adoption of analytical abstraction and thinking that shifts understanding from that of the dominant norm where Indigenous women's art forms continue to be stereotyped, minimized and devalued as 'arts and crafts' to that of awareness of Indigenous women's art forms and cultural traditions as enactment of Indigenous methodology, pedagogy and ontology and representative of Indigenous philosophy.

As the voices of Indigenous women seldom appear as written in history, Indigenous women's ancestral knowledge(s) as exists in a multiplicity of Indigenous art forms held in museum collections remains unexplored in terms of potential contribution to Indigenous women's ways of knowing. In the orchestration of a decolonizing approach, I seek meaning in historical, cultural and social relationships towards realizing the significance of Indigenous women's cultural production to contemporary Indigenous women's discourses (Suzack, Huhndorf, Perreault, and Barman, 2010).

My intention is to illuminate with integrity the power, strength and beauty inherent within the artistic traditions, art forms and traditional cultural activities as practiced by my grandmother, as posited by Gramsci (1971) to "reconstruct its form and content so that it serves genuinely progressive social needs" (as cited in Apple, 2009, p. x). This undertaking is inspired by my granddaughter and daughter, mother and sister, grandmother and the many grandmothers before her, and for Indigenous women yet to come.

Visual Arts and Image Schema

For the Navajo, the concept of beauty is a form of experience, organized in relationship to Creation, as projected and experienced through expression and creation. Beauty is a conceptual experience, essential to life in relationship to, among and between humans and things. In this way, "... art is a way of living" (Witherspoon, 1977, p. 2).

The incorporation of the visual arts in this study, given that beadwork and similar traditional Indigenous art forms employ visual images, as image schema, and my objective to learn about and from art forms as crafted by Indigenous women, amidst fragmented knowledge(s), invited a survey of multiple relational discourses, the first of which is that the visual arts.

An introduction to alternative representation in research led to an interest in the use of alternative technologies incorporating image, sound and performance as applied in arts based research as a media for studying self and other (Emme, 2005). That alternative modes of representation in research can be achieved through the use of digital, visual images and image schema allows for the sharing of research outcomes to a broader audience beyond that of the academy, for

45 example, by Indigenous community members who may have an interest in research outcomes beyond that of standard written academic papers or academic reports.

Historically, visual images as photographs serve as a means of representing and documenting the past, yet the use of the visual arts as an alternative mode of representation in relation to knowledge production is not commonplace. Visual images and image schema such as that in Indigenous art forms serve to preserve and perpetuate memory. Yet the viewer need also consider with a critical eye the lens and frame through which the researcher has represented their perspective or positioning as a researcher and in light of the numerous ways in which an image may be interpreted by a viewer (Emme, 2005). The manner and placement of images invite the viewer to become an active participant to the research process, to impart meaning based upon their experience as active participants, through their engagement with the visual and in the reading of story as narrative.

The application of the visual arts and image schema of Indigenous art forms as alternative representation in research invites challenges concerning that of the passive viewer of media whereby there is a disassociation or disconnection by the viewer in the depiction of images or events where the viewer is uncertain if their interpretation of that which is presented as reliable and in light of the limitations of perception, in our ability to recognize order and pattern, to observe, be aware and understand or to be open to new ways of seeing or learning, thinking and knowing (Emme, 2005).

The notion of rigor in the pursuit of and commitment to an idea, as in the use and construction of visual images and image schema as a critical narrative, allows for the creator to take control of the creative process and creative space in a manner that remains interpretive, critical and aesthetic through time (Emme, 2005). That one applies oneself with rigor, in a consistent, methodical and systematic manner with an eye to aesthetic expression in guiding a creative pursuit may function to

46 impose a validity to that creative expression in allowing for multiple readings and interpretations by perspective viewers or readers who in turn impart multiple meanings to creative forms of expression (Emme, 2005).

The creative use of visual media and image schema in research as a rigorous process of inquiry may serve to aid the researcher in conveying elements of the substance of one's culture, experience or point of view in a manner that evokes or elicits a deeper level of meaning or understanding in the sharing of research outcomes with others inviting engagement in the research process through the use of digital visual imagery thereby invoking the visual and aesthetic as alternative ways of knowing.

In adopting an approach as a critical guide and in the employment of visual images, image schema and textual translation, I give consideration to the concept of montage (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005), the act of pulling together multiple facets of images or concepts to create a larger work, for example, as in the splicing of unrelated images or narratives to communicate and express meaning over time in the joining together of an assembled whole in a new form or seamless whole. Each of the foregoing applications occurs within a context of change, with the potential to bring together disparate elements that together transform the elicitation of alternative meanings and forms of knowing.

The application of any of these approaches is complimentary to a positioning where the researcher determines to occupy a creative space within which to assemble available fragmented visual images, image schema and fragmented knowledge(s) to communicate a complexity of meaning through time in a shifting context of power relations. In this context, change remains constant, a place to make meaning and create a space of resistance as a decolonizing strategy, a place from which to speak towards the reconstruction of a coherent identity for Indigenous women deemed silent in the absence of their naming and in their social, cultural, aesthetic and political marginalization and oppression.

47 In recent years, museums have began to display and create access to collections using on-line digital technologies such as photographic databases and virtual exhibits by transforming analog mediums into digital files. Visual access to Indigenous cultural heritage through on-line museum and ethnographic collections is known as virtual repatriation (Hennessy, 2009), a repatriation of knowledge(s) accessed in on-line museum photographic database collections. This form of repatriation is unstable in that photographic images are often removed or become inaccessible, their use requiring engagement in a process to access copyright permission. This requirement may discourage potential use of visual images depicting Indigenous life ways in the context of Indigenous education curriculum development. To engage in virtual repatriation is time consuming.

As a body of potential new knowledge, source domains are unstable as websites are redeveloped and updated and replaced by competing interests. Oftentimes, websites with content about Indigenous peoples are developed from a non- Indigenous perspective with a focus on mainstream colonial histories and historical events functioning to further marginalize Indigenous people's knowledge(s), histories and cultures from Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers alike.

Noteworthy, is the impact of legislation and policy on access visual images depicting Indigenous life ways whereby Indigenous peoples need access copyright permission to access and use visual images of themselves in their homelands from sources such as governments. This same issue is of particular relevance in that visual images of Indigenous art forms most often appear in high- end expensive editions the cost of which is prohibitive. Again, those wishing to use visual images of Indigenous art forms in educational curriculum development are faced with accessing copyright permission, which may or may be given.

48 As part of this research, a review of available on-line photographic databases and virtual exhibits, such as those of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Glenbow Museum and Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Museum, yielded a sampling of photographs of potential relevance to this study. Some of the visual images were of family members, however I chose not to pursue access to copyright permission for their use as the process posed somewhat unpalatable dilemma. Images as available through on-line digital media, in addition to selected images accessed in various publications, were reviewed and considered together with a series of contemporary photographic images in my personal collection, as a visual arts component to this study of Indigenous art forms as created by Indigenous women.

My efforts to assemble diverse facets and available fragmented knowledge(s) gleaned from visual images, image schema, narrative representations, artifacts and available forms of critical inquiry, yields glimpses of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities and beadwork as a potential space of transformative learning and meaning making within the domain of cultural systems of knowledge, teaching, learning and doing.

Embedded throughout this study, are a series of Figures, depicting visual images of the ancient art of quillwork (Orchard, 1984). Readers are encouraged to reflect upon each of the visual images of quillwork as image schema representative of Indigenous women's ways of knowing as relational and reciprocal to study content as a whole. Of considerable note, is a complexity of design and pattern, superior craftsmanship and implication of an unknowing in contemporary times concerning the critical significance of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms to Indigenous systems of knowledge(s), ways of teaching and being.

In the use of digital visual images in relation to Indigenous visual arts, I seek to impart or stimulate an awareness of alternative forms of representation of Indigenous women's ways of knowing. The translation and interpretation of

49 Indigenous aesthetics is both relational and transformative as an exchange of energy and spirit where creative force emerges as a gift in the evocation of and making of meaning in the form of knowledge and cultural production as a way of knowing.

The medium of digital storytelling describes a variety of media production practices intended to strengthen the telling of stories about people, places and events through the use of images and narration (Centre for Digital Storytelling, 2010). The approach of the Centre for Digital Storytelling emphasizes storytelling through thoughtful and emotional writing that emphasizes storylines, the elicitation of memory and the finding of one's voice in the telling of one's story, to stimulate insight and awareness that allows for the emergence of patterns of meaning in a listener/viewer.

The first phase of this study involved travel to the United Kingdom as a Visiting Researcher to the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford in late 2007.xu The purpose of the visit was to work with or visit a pair of moccasins made my grandmother, Mrs. Joanne Edge, previously on display and held in the museum's collections. A personal narrative relates my reflections whilst visiting with my grandmother's moccasins at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.

The second phase of the study involved hosting an Aboriginal women's beading circle in Edmonton, Alberta where a small group of and Metis women came together over a period of several months to "do beadwork" during 2008. The beading circle was initiated in an effort to learn from contemporary perspectives relating to the activity of beadwork and its contribution to Indigenous women's identity, wellness, and lifelong learning. The voices of the beading circle are shared as a verbatim narrative. A reader is encouraged to review this particular section in its' entirety as intended in the determination to foreground direct communication as a preferred method whereby the researcher's

50 authoritative role as translator and interpreter is abandoned in order to maintain the integrity of the voices of the Indigenous women's beading circle.

Three digital stories, Threading the Needle, Coming Home and Artist Unknown, document various phases of research: at the beginning, during visits to Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum and during concluding sessions of the Aboriginal women's beading circle.

Each of the three-minute digital stories was developed during a series of 3-day workshops hosted by the Centre for Digital Storytelling in Alberta over a 3-year period. A 300-word personal narrative accompanied a series of visual images selected from more than three thousand digital photographs taken throughout the study including family photographs. During creation of the first digital story, in the absence of available visual images, photographs were selected from various on-line sources and primarily from photographic databases of museum collections.

The creation of digital stories required the purchase of video, audio, computer and digital equipment to ensure quality management, maintenance and outcomes. A digital story is created using Macintosh Final Cut Express and Photoshop. Related costs were self-funded. Additional time required to manage visual and video digital files was extensive.

Each of the digital stories was shared with beading circle participants, with community members and presented at various gatherings in an effort to share research outcomes in an alternative form. Beading circle participants were requested to review and approve their respective contributions to the study as the use of visual images makes public research participants that usually remain anonymous in research. A database of digital images and video files is available for use by me in the further dissemination of study results in alternative forms in future.

51 As the use of visual images as alternative representation in research was determined as integral to this study in communication of both my and others' learning experiences during the study, and given challenges that arose concerning releasing the digital stories into the public domain, the narrative and accompanying photographs which are personal in nature, a decision was made to translate the digital stories into the fotonovella: My Grandmother's Moccasins, as appears in the Frontispiece of this work.

A reader is encouraged to view the visual images and narrative as appears in the fotonovella in its' entirety and to repeatedly return to the visual images during reading of this work as opportunity for reflection and imbuement of multiple levels of meaning as a reader encounters discourses throughout this reading that may introduce relational concepts accompanied by a language and terms that upon further consideration will enhance a reader's learning experience in gaining a deeper level understanding of Indigenous women's philosophy and life ways.

In seeking a language of resistance as part of a strategy of decolonization, the fields of contemporary philosophy, anthropology, history and ethnohistory and the visual arts are consulted in the remainder of this study. In closing, the study reviews current thinking in the fields of Indigenous education, policy in Indigenous education and Indigenous pedagogy approaches. The critical importance of the value of Indigenous traditions and skills and knowledge inherent to Indigenous women's traditional craftsmanship are highlighted. In the context of museums, cultural repatriation is identified to be critically important to the health, education and well-being of Indigenous peoples.

52 PART FOUR - My Grandmother's Moccasins

"Outstanding Things": Across the Big Pond

The University of Oxford, located in the "City of Dreaming Spires" at Oxford in the United Kingdom, is the third oldest university in the world consistently ranked amongst the world's ten universities today.xm Home to the Rhodes Scholarship, the university offers full-time postgraduate study from one to three years in any full-time postgraduate course. Unique in its' organizational structure, Oxford University operates as a federation comprised of 28 self-governing colleges and halls with 6 permanent private halls. Students at Oxford receive an intensive education taught by academic leaders in their field within multidisciplinary communities where students are supported and intellectually challenged. To be educated at Oxford, means a student will realize their potential and develop skills for life, going on to "achieve outstanding things in all walks of life all over the world" (University of Oxford, 2010).

Over 1.1 million people visit the six museums and collections at Oxford every year. The Pitt Rivers Museum, founded by Lieutenant-General Pitt Rivers in 1884, is located through a doorway at the perimeter of the Oxford Museum of Natural Historyxlv at the University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers is described as an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology. "The Pitt Rivers Museum holds one of the world's finest collections of anthropology and archaeology, with objects from every continent and from throughout human history" (University of Oxford, 2010). There are at least half a million artefacts from all over the world and from all periods of history at the museum. Renowned worldwide, the Pitt Rivers Museum holds one of the world's finest museum collections with items from every continent.

Well-known for arranging collection displays according to type, for example, as weapons, tools, jewelry, musical instruments, footwear, masks, beads, etc, the Pitt

53 Rivers Museum is also part of an active teaching department at the University of Oxford. Permanent displays at the Pitt Rivers Museum include such items as:

Pacific island objects, including a magnificent Tahitian mourner's costume, collected during Captain Cook's Second Voyage in 1773-74; Hawaiian feather in brilliant shades of red and yellow; a wide range of handwoven and looms; a collection of ceremonial brasses and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin; a fine group of early masks worn by actors in Japanese Noh dramas; more masks from Africa, Melanesia and North America; sculpture from all over the world in wood, pottery, metal and stone; boats, ranging from full-sized sailing craft to model canoes; baskets in all possible shapes and sizes; pottery from Africa and the Americas, including many pre-Columbian pieces; costumes from North America including Inuit fur parkas, Plains skin decorated with porcupine quills, painted from the Northeastern Woodlands and a range of decorated moccasins; magic objects including amulets and charms; and body decoration; locks and keys; tools and weapons; musical instruments (Pitt Rivers Museum, 2007).

Also at the University of Oxford is the Bodleian Library, the first library to open to scholars in 1602 and famous as one of the greatest libraries in the world (University of Oxford, 2010). The Bodleian is the main research library with over five million books and eleven million printed items. It is a well-kept tradition that no books are to be loaned from the library, so that all need visit the library in person to access materials.

Rupert's Land: Footwear at the Pitt Rivers Museum

This phase of the study about the participation of Indigenous women's ways of knowing and Indigenous aesthetic of beadwork began, as is said, a long, long time ago; long before I sat as a child at my grandmother's kitchen table watching her do beadwork, moose and caribou hair tufting, silk and wool embroidery, in the

54 making of clothing such as moccasins, mukluks, parkas. These items were usually made for people who came to Fort Smith to work and who, before leaving town, wanted a memento or item of material culture representative of their time living and working in communities with Indigenous peoples in the North.

This story begins long before my grandmother, Joanne Edge (nee McLeod) learned to sew and do beadwork, before her mother, Margaret McLeod (nee Firth), the wife of Hudson's Bay Company factor, John Firth, before her mother, Margaret Firth (nee Stewart), daughter of Catherine Stewart, wife of the trader Alexander (Sandy) Stewart, each of whom made clothing and other items adorned with beadwork and quillwork.

That materials and supplies for beadwork and making of clothing for family and others would be accessible to each of them as the wives of Hudson's Bay Company men. Prior to the advent beads there was a array materials available form the land such as porcupine and bird quills, berries and such as was used in sewing. There exists a likelihood that items made by each or all of these women may have been collected by travelers north on the , Dehcho, at Peel River, returning south upon a network of river systems eastward to the Red River Settlement, later to Winnipeg, and beyond.

An ancestral grandmother may have sat with a granddaughter in ceremony during transformation from girl to womanhood, at first menstruation, instructing her in the practical skills associated with the many Indigenous art forms of adornment such as that of quillwork and beadwork. The grandmother shared teachings about meaningful relationships to non-human dimensions and of Indigenous women's multiple ways of knowing. This guidance ensured a young woman to become capable in the attainment of personal autonomy, self-sufficiency and in preparation to nurture and maintenance of one's family, in support of the extended family and in keeping with the survival of self, family and peoples in northern environments in a harmonious and balanced manner.

55 This part of larger story of this study began in the summer of 200 at the Metis in the 21st Century conference in Saskatoon, . There, I met with a friend and colleague, Heather Devine,xv who shared exciting news. The previous year while attending a Rupert's Land Colloquium at Oxford in the United Kingdom, Heather visited the Pitt Rivers Museum (Centre for Rupert's Land Studies, 2003).

While at the museum, Heather came across a pair of moccasins displayed as part of a footwear collection. The card read the moccasins to be made by Mrs. Bert Edge [Joanne]xvl of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Heather, aware I was from Fort Smith, wondered if the maker of the moccasins could be a relative of mine. This unimaginable and exciting news came as quite a pleasant surprise. I expressed keen interest in finding out more about the moccasins. Heather kindly offered to contact the curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Dr. Laura Peers,xvu on my behalf.

A Pair of Moccasins

In the fall of 2003, Dr. Peers responded to my email query providing a photograph of a pair of moccasins, with scale, and available information from the Accession Book Entry, which read, in part:

1943.2.1 Accession Book Entry - Hudson's Bay Co Hudsons' Bay House Winnipeg (per Clifford P Wilson, "The Beaver Office") 1 pair of moose hide moccasins (structural series X) with floral embroidery in dyed moose hair (line and "bristle" techniques) made in 1942 at Fort Smith NWT by Mrs Bert Edge, daughter of an HBC employee and a woman of the Fort McPherson band of Loucheux (= Peel River Kutchin) Indians (Pitt Rivers Museum, 1943).

56 References to the item included: ""Bristle" technique new to collection, v Speck, American Anthropologist XIII11911 (ppp 5-6); Figured in Occasional Papers no 7 (Turner: Hair Embroidery)" (No Date). A related documents file includes reference to: "Invoice for these moccasins from the Publicity Department of the Hudson's Bay Company, dated 16 December 1942" (Pitt Rivers Museum, 1943). Another Accession Book Entry 1954.11.5 refers to of a pair of moccasin vamps of moose hide embroidered with floral design moose hair. The record indicates the vamps to have been made by "Mrs. Bert Edge, 1953 as material assembled by Geoffrey Turner during the preparation of Occasional Paper No. 7: Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America" (Pitt Rivers Museum, 1954).

The record identifies the cultural group as NW Subartic Kutchin made in 1942 and collected in 1943 by Clifford P. Wilson of the Hudson's Bay Company. Under other information, the record indicates: "One moccasin from this pair (1943.2.LIB) is on display in C.12.A as moccasin number 8. The other one is in the Textiles Store. [JN20/6/2000]" (Pitt Rivers Museum, 1943). There is further note saying the moccasins were obtained from Clifford Wilson of the Hudson's Bay Company magazine, "The Beaver," based in Winnipeg.

Given my background in social and cultural anthropology, program of study in educational policy studies with specialization in Indigenous peoples' education focused on Indigenous philosophies and knowledge(s) and the significance I place upon my childhood experiences in observing and listening to my grandmother engage in traditional cultural activities and the creation of traditional art forms, such as beadwork, the opportunity as arose to actually visit with the moccasins was deemed to afford a once in a lifetime possibility as though a scripted fictitious story one might come across in a book.

57 Visiting Researcher at Oxford

To say that I would be traveling as a Visiting Researcher to visit my grandmother's moccasins at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom was a possibility never considered, indeed! Preparations to travel overseas for a two-month stay during October and November of 2007, away from home and work, necessitated extensive preparation, particularly concerning financial arrangements.5™111

During my stay as a Visiting Researcher, Dr. Laura Peers offered to sponsor a Bodleian Library card on my behalf in order that I could access library materials. I was requested by Dr. Peers to make appointments to work with my grandmother's moccasins and encouraged to attend weekly lectures and presentations during Michaelmas Term 2007. Dr. Peers kindly facilitated arrangements for me to secure reasonable and comfortable accommodation at the home of a family friend at Littlemore in Oxfordshire across the ring road that boundaries Oxford.

Upon arrival in London, following clear direction, I traveled by bus from Heathrow Airport to Oxford, taking a taxi into Littlemore. Once settled, I made my way into Oxford to meet a new friend, Erin Freeland-Ballantyne, whom I had recently met while working on a project in , Northwest Territories. A passionate scholar and recipient of a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, Erin was working on a PhD in geography and environment at Oxford.xlx Erin, together with her daughter Uma and partner, Michael, welcome me to Oxford. Together, we enter and climb into St. Mary's tower to stand amongst the treetops in view of the many spires, colleges, courtyards and gardens that together form the University of Oxford.™ That first day, Erin guided me to the Bodleian Library to pick up my library card and accompany me along a well-traveled route to the Pitt Rivers Museum.

58 Home at Littlemore is a ten-minute bus ride into Oxford and within walking distance. Across the street, down the sidewalk, through the tunnel under the ring road, down the lane past Iffley Church,™ through Iffley Lock and along the pathway running parallel to the River Thames through Christ Church Meadow5001 and Christ Church University5™11 to the main thoroughfare at High Street, about four kilometers distant. The leaves were green upon my arrival at Oxford, changing to golden hues to fall upon sidewalks and roadways on sunny blue sky and wet rainy days alike.

On rare occasions, I awake to discover streets and houses shrouded in a heavy mist, rising quickly in hopes to encounter lingering wisps of mist alongside the river prior to their rising to dissipate in morning sun. The quiet of the morning is broken only by a punctuated rhythmic sound of single, double or multiple rows slicing water, repetitiously guided by lean rowers gliding by with purposeful and disciplined intent.

One afternoon I encounter an elder woman sitting on a bench at midpoint alongside the pathway crossing Church Meadow. Warmly dressed, in the manner of those accustomed to spending time outdoors; a covering of a heavy material etched with images of tree branches bare of leaves covers her lap. A seller of art cards and books of poetry to passersby who delights in conversation with all folk, arrangements can be made to special order a book of poetry hand-wrapped in silken ribbon and fabric. She is a philosopher, poetess and artist of flora, has lived here for forty years and was once employed as a professor. I do have a Scottish look to me she says, about the eyes. Upon reflection, I ponder if she is perhaps a descendent of Alice of the Looking Glass from Christ Church? On another day, we meet for coffee at Modern Art Oxford on Pembrook and later, outside the entrance of the Museum of Natural History. She urges me to visit the many gardens of Oxfordshire. I see her from the bus on more than one occasion walking along sidewalks of High Street before the supper hour.

59 During my stay it becomes a weekday routine to ride the bus into Oxford from Littlemore. At Starbucks, I half-heartedly attempt to journal my reflections midst a competing clamor of lilting voices, (being a copious verbatim note taker and possessing an excellent oral memory). I am impatient to arrive at rhy destination, to walk along the cobblestone roadway past Radcliffe Camera Library5™" along Parks Road, through the Natural History Museum and into the side main entrance. Alternatively, I walk down the back roadway to the rear entrance of the newly renovated offices past the Balfour Library and into the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Some mornings I join dozens of bright young students, most in their early to mid- twenties, to attend a sampling of daily tutorials, seminars, sessions and lectures on topics such as material anthropology and museum ethnography, research methods in material anthropology and museum ethnography, and cultural representation, these topics serving to establish a context whereby material culture, as objects of knowledge, serves to contribute to our understanding of cultures, societies and identity.

The sessions and lectures offer a refresher as background to my diverse roles as a Visiting Researcher to the Pitt Rivers Museum, an Indigenous woman from Canada with a privileged role as a doctoral candidate with specialization in Indigenous peoples' education, and as a granddaughter come to visit a pair of moccasins made by her late grandmother in the museum's collections.

After attending these events, I browse computer databases at the Balfour Library seeking resources and references. I sit on the floor, leafing through piles of books whose pages are seldom turned, about Native American Indian traditional arts and art forms. There are not very many books focused on these topics commonly available in Canada. Older editions are entirely inaccessible. I stand, my head tilted sideways, until I get a crook in my neck, skimming shelves to locate book after book after book, possibility upon possibility, their physical presence, the likes of which I have never seen assembled all together on all topics related to

60 Anthropology .xxv I laboriously copy select photographs of North American Indian and Athapaskan clothing and Indigenous art forms from museum collections and rare books I will never view at home.

Before leaving, I pace the dimly lit aisles of the Pitt Rivers Museum gazing at the artifacts on display—surgical instruments, dolls and puppets, playing cards, games, puzzles and toys, North American Indian baby carriers and moss bags, neck and body ornaments, brooches and pins, beads of stone, glass and pottery, beadwork, beads and beadwork, worked beads of seed, shell and wood, trade ornaments made in Europe, trade beads, ornaments, birds, feathers and feather work, body arts, chain work, breast ornaments, ornaments of teeth, claws, quills and bone, bags and pouches, (I avoid eye contact with the shrunken heads), pondering their antiquity, origin and meaning, conscientiously stopping before exiting to pay homage to the North American clothing display, reflection upon the import of Indigenous women's art forms, the complexity and intricacy of pattern and design. Fractals of an Indigenous aesthetics permeate as of an air suspended in time. I locate each North American item on display, just as I am sure other Indigenous visitors do. I search for northern Athapaskan items I might somehow recognize. I reflect upon Indigenous women's unknown and unseen contributions to the Pitt River Museum collections in period since the museum opened late in the nineteenth century.

My visits to the Pitt Rivers are followed by a visit to the Bodleian. The Bodleian Library—a wondrous place! Patrons need weave and out of varying numbers of tourists gathered about the Quadrangle. It is a requirement o show one's library card in order to gain entry into the inner sanctums of the Bodleian. Photographs inside the building are not allowed. At home in the evening, I go on-line and with the stroke of a computer key order up several actual books to a maximum of ten books be picked up next day, books I have only ever read about, not seen and or entertained access to.

61 Each day I look forward to the oftentimes silent and solitary walk up the flights of wooden steps to the upper level of the Bodliean, these same stairs traveled by countless footsteps, one step at a time, as though an entryway to future potentiality. I access my pile of books from the librarian at the counter to occupy a study carrel sitting in a wooden chair next to either very elderly or very young patrons, to skim my stack of books, one by one, noting reference or passage of relevance or interest for late review, to be photocopied and mailed home. I luxuriate in every moment at the Bodliean at Oxford in temporary possession of a Bodliean library card!

I go every day—I can't get enough. It is as though I had fasted or been denied sustenance, to arrive at a bountiful feast the likes of which I never dared dream or imagine. I, a voracious consumer of knowledge(s): books, books and more books, the contents of which made me somewhat dizzy and euphoric—the knowledge, the possibility, the potential! Can I have some more? Please, sir? Astounded, I waver caught in a fantasy as a voyeur of privilege, its inherent and exponential possibility. I image what it might be like to be a student at Oxford, the privilege to attend lectures, study and write, to achieve one's potential and "outstanding things" anywhere in the world.

Why was I unaware of the existence of such a place? Why had no one told me as a young person that one could aspire—to be oneself—doing that which comes as inherent, to learn, explore one's potential and make a contribution during one's lifetime, to be capable? I wept. Given the stark reality I would be here but for a few meager weeks, not to mention the seemingly mundane, in contrast to the promise of potential, roles and responsibilities to be reassumed upon return to home; it seemed I had but arrived only a few decades late, my twenties long past. What could I possibly learn or achieve in such a short time?

I could not fathom, nor make sense or logically comprehend how a people from a place as wealthy, in the sense of a multiplicity of knowledge(s), not to mention

62 the evidently superior quality of goods and services, as in the United Kingdom, clearly evidenced in a seemingly boundless number of books, not to mention the impressive antiquity, sheer beauty and enumerable hand carved stone buildings embedded within and throughout the landscape, could, with intent, set out to colonize the globe, at the expense of the lives of millions of Indigenous peoples in the brief period in the span of history of but a few centuries. Familiar with the history, cultures and traditions, and social contexts within which Indigenous peoples in Canada live contemporarily, with a basic understanding of colonial history, it seemed beyond knowing towards attainment of any semblance of reconciliation; without the acknowledgement of Indigenous-sought principles of harmony and balance towards well-being it might not be endured.

Amidst this passionate and somewhat brief tawdry affair, most often when leaving the Bodliean in the early evening whilst standing on the cobblestones in the dark in the rain whilst looking up at the brightly lit windows on the upper level, I am struck by conflicting emotions as a deepening sorrow and steeped anger threaten to overwhelm and consume me, unbidden, as my thoughts turn to that of privilege and education.

In Canada, described as one of the best countries in the world, I need consider myself as privileged, a woman of Indigenous ancestry with post-secondary graduate level degree intent upon completion of a doctoral degree. Particularly given nine percent of Metis, seven percent of First Nations and four percent of Inuit hold a university degree in Canada in comparison to close to one quarter of the non-Aboriginal Canadian population50™1 and where one third of Aboriginal adults aged 25 to 54 had less than a high school education in comparison to close to thirteen percent of the non-Aboriginal Canadian population in 2006. (Statistics Canada, 2010).

As an Indigenous woman, I need acknowledge I am doubly privileged in holding a keen awareness of the breadth, richness, power, strength and beauty, and critical

63 significance of the teaching and learning of Indigenous life ways of knowing and being as embedded and embodied within Indigenous philosophies. This awareness serves to stress the critical importance of the nurturing of Indigenous knowledge(s) as necessary to the maintenance of Indigenous people's relationships that serve to enhance, strengthen and perpetuate our well-being and upon which our survival is dependent. Indeed, it is this privilege that brought me to Oxford as a Visiting Researcher. I remain humbled, grateful and thankful.

I need acknowledge the inherent right of Aboriginal peoples to claim Indigenous ancestry as a birthright, as descendent of First Peoples of the land, in recognition that Indigenous identity, not only as a point of reference, need be strengthened through direct and lived experience as Indigenous throughout one's lifetime. Further, as a woman of Indigenous (First Nation and Metis) mixed blood ancestry, I need honour all of my ancestors. Those of Indigenous women who are my grandmothers, craftswomen extraordinaire of Indigenous art forms, whose voices I seek to learn from in this study of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities and traditional art forms. Those of men of French, Scottish and English ancestry whose lives are imprinted within a colonial history of the fur trade in North America in vast territories that would come become known as Rupert's Land, the North West Territory and, in 1867, as Canada.

That these relationships occur within a context of British imperialism and global colonization of Indigenous peoples is not lost, as remains located in colonial histories and evidenced in vast museum collections around the globe. This is not lost though located in hushed spaces in the absence of Indigenous voices. We need urgently seek to learn from Indigenous knowledge(s) peoples and, particularly in Canada, in light of a shadowed aftermath of the intergenerational legacy of residential schools that continues to directly impact multiple generations of Aboriginal peoples (Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools, 2010) the consequence of which remains yet to fully comprehended. The context as a whole and complexity of relationships therein are intricately stitched, whereby one's

64 positioning remains embedded and embodied within a multiplicity of pattern and design, created and crafted through time as located within museum and colonial contexts, Indigenous knowledge(s) and in our day to day lives contemporarily.

Autumn waned. I look forward to my stop at Olives Delicatessen, a greeting of Bonsoir, Madame, ordering of baguette, before catching the bus on High Street, my attention caught by the low intermittent hum of countless bicycles tires as ridden by Oxford scholars and students alike, perched and laden with backpacks, competing for open spaces alongside a steady stream of braking buses at the supper hour. I enjoy the evening bus ride with townsfolk to Littlemore.

On All Soul's Day, I attend an Anglican mass at the chapel at Magdalene College founded in 1480, at the invitation of Laura Peers, listen to the voices of the choir.

During my walks about and travels, I observe there to be a diversity of appearance amongst those affiliated with the University of Oxford and that of the townsfolk, the many tradesmen, young and old, shopkeeps, servers and shop clerks, young folk poorly dressed, girls pushing baby strollers; I assume the employment of many to be supported by that of the ominous infrastructure of Oxford.

On a Friday at Cornmarket, there is a gentleman dressed in black, standing immobile in the posture of a statue of antiquity, outfitted in a period costume, complete with , wig, frock hat and walking stick. A young man and woman, both from the Middle East, pass by, wearing traditional clothing in silks of white and blue whispered against flesh, of a superior material and quality of craftsmanship, I have naught seen before.

At High Street, an elderly silver haired gentleman sits comfortable on a stool, as though in his kitchen, blue and white checked shirtsleeves rolled, showing evidence of hands worked in soil earlier in the day. He plays a haunting melody, bow and fiddle, fiddle and bow, worn leather booted feet alternately pressing

65 peddles of a homemade contraption housing not only a guitar but bells and other ingenious items that join together to accompany him in a seamless polyphonic symphony. A fiddle case interspersed with coins of varying denominations, an open invitation, at his feet. I toss in two pounds.

I am spellbound by everything English. I ask my father, did he know he grew up in an English household? Did he know my grandmother's house was that of an English household? I recognize many items of Englishness as common everyday items of home, not only at my grandmother's, my parents, and my own home today. A preference for thick cream, good quality china teapots, cups and saucers, the ritual of afternoon tea accompanied by fresh-baked scones or shortbread cookies, on special occasions with cream puffs, lemon or mince tarts. Hearty meals of items carefully selected from a variety of meats, potatoes, vegetables and fruits; fresh breads from the local market. Of course, there is the innate preference for English wool, fine linens, leather and tailored . And the English gardens, oh! The gardens, reminiscent of my English grandfather's flower gardens at Fort Smith, my grandparent's huge vegetable garden, acknowledged by all as the "best garden in town." There would be no opportunity to visit my grandfather's home at Stoke-on-Trent. Whilst there, so much to do!

/ impatiently await the annual arrival of seeds ordered by catalogue whilst snow is on the ground, the warm humid and earth odors that accompany the careful transplanting of tiny seeds in small containers, nurtured whilst snow lingers, awaiting their careful transplantation into freshly thawed ground and emergence as new shoots birthed into air.

I visit the British Museum, accompanied by a young Anthropology student of colour who makes her home in London. Our first stop is the First Peoples exhibit; I am surprised at the small number of items on display, expecting there might be more space dedicated to the history of North America. A sign entitled "First Contacts: Native Peoples of North America" reads,

66 This exhibition introduces indigenous people and aboriginal cultures from across North America, focusing on initial European contact and colonization. In the 16 century, at the time of European contact, there may have been between two and ten million Native inhabitants in North America. Having no immunity to Old World diseases, this population suffered catastrophic decline, falling to perhaps 300,000 people in about 1930 (British Museum, 2010).

Amongst items of antiquity are a woman's , woven Metis , quillwork moccasins and beaded moss bag, quillwork pouches, a war , headdress and saddle. Next to model sized birch bark canoes adorned with quillwork, there is a bottle of Moosehead Beer sitting right next to a same-size statue of Liberty, placed by someone to be representative, perhaps, of modern times?

I return to London by bus on the occasional Saturday, tour the sights of the city, visit the National Gallery to view works by the great masters and attend Evensong in the Quire at St. Paul's Cathedral where I light candles for family members. Astounded, once again, I think about the Roman Catholic Church, Rome and the Roman citizen, Paul the Apostle. Everywhere there is history, history and more history. So much to learn!

As a child in , Northwest Territories, I attend St. Paul's School. I take my first confession in the confessional at the back of the church and receive my first communion along with my classmates. I have a black and white photograph from 1962, girls on the left and boys on the right, standing in rows on the front steps of the church.

Then there is the affinity with Scotland—the land—the lochs, hills, rocks, streams, mosses, the dormant heather! I fell in love with anything and everything Scottish, the clans, tartans, music and language, Gaelic—Scotland's bloody

67 history. I visit Wallace Monument, a tribute to Scottish heroes and Scottish nationalism built on Abbey Craig near Stirling in the 1860s. On a national holiday, I take a solitary walk along deserted pathways tracing the hills around Loch Lomond, the largest loch in Great Britain. I listen to the story of the "low road" as sung in the song about Loch Lomond, about "the Celtic belief that if someone died away from his homeland then the fairies would provide a route of this name for his soul to return home."50™11

At Edinburgh, I buy warm Celtic woven wool blankets to bring home. I find a meticulously researched book about the McLeod family. The story begins with a Nordic woman by the name of Ardur, the Deep Hearted. Upon the deaths of both her husband and son, Ardur takes all of her family members and possessions to a ship hidden in the forest that brings them to settle on a fjord at Iceland, as sung about in Icelandic sagas. Only a lack of resources kept me from making trips to Stromness in the Orkney Islands, homeland of my great-grandfather, John Firth, and to the Isle of Lewis in the Western Hebrides, homeland of my other great­ grandfather, Murdock McLeod. The motto of the McLeod clan is "stand fast." I do.

My great-great-grandfather, John Firth, was born in the Orkney Islands in 1853, traveling from Stromness and joining the Hudson's Bay Company in 1871. He married Margaret Stewart, daughter of Alexander Stewart and a Loucheux woman. Firth worked with the HBC for fifty years, becoming Chief Factor in the Mackenzie district, retiring in 1921 at Fort McPherson, where he died at the age of eighty-five at his home in the Northwest Territories (Up Here, 1988). A passage in the 1939 issue of the Beaver says, "Only once in all his sixty-eight northern years did he go "outside. " In 1901, he and his family—he had married a little Loucheux woman and had twelve children—traveled as far as Winnipeg, where they spent the winter. But the next spring they went back to Fort McPherson" (TheBeaver, 1939, 48).

68 Another publication notes, "In 1901, John Firth made preparations for the family to visit his homeland in Scotland. These plans were aborted as illness struck on route and the winter of 1901 was spent in Winnipeg instead" (Overvold, 1976). A story about the travels, exploits and memories of remarkable men encountered along the great rivers of the Mackenzie watershed early in the twentieth century, as told by a former assistant-commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, remarks,

Old John Firth of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort McPherson was the doyen of them all... He had spent his entire life within the Arctic Circle trading with the Mountain Indians and the Mackenzie Delta Eskimo. When he retired he lived on at McPherson where he was at home. John's favorite seat in summer was a bench overlooking the Peel River and the distant mountains of the Yukon, and from there he received everybody with the dignity becoming his long white beard. Shortly before he passed on, a summer visitor expressed the hope that he would see him again next year. "Well," said John, "if I am not here they will show you where I am (The Beaver, 1948,24).

I fancy inhabiting a cottage on the windswept moors of another homeland, warmly dressed in layers of wool, warmed by firelight, devoting my efforts to scholarly pursuits of mine own choosing. I 'stand fast' enfolded by ancestral memories that bind me to energies of space and place where meaning is held, to multiple ways of teaching, learning and being. I aspire to come to know my Scottish and English ancestors, their life ways.

In a struggle to reconcile the euphoria, tensions and conflicts, I come to know a deeper level of meaning in the articulation of resistance texts as uttered through the voices of Indigenous peoples living within the boundaries of injustice, the voices of women, of 'others' who urge resistance to the pressures of integration and assimilation who encourage revitalization and regeneration, to 'stand fast' in

69 celebration of people's ancient ancestral knowledge(s) to honour freedom in being through time.

My notes from the presentations and lectures on research methods in material anthropology and museum ethnography and cultural representation I am attending at the Pitt Rivers Museum in the mornings are interspersed with passages of notes from books I am reading at the Bodleian Library in the afternoons. I read from amongst a select and expanding collection of diverse writers whose works I enjoy. I read about cultural landscapes, experimental memoirs as cultural sites, of dreams and fantasies, of interpretation and critical consciousness. I read about writing as an act of resistance and the struggle to gain critical insight of self- reflection, of separation of mind and body as experienced by some during childhood, about crossing boundaries, failure, pain and unhappiness, and the power of beauty (hooks, 1998). These voices seem very far away even though I read them amongst privilege at Oxford.

I read about challenging the status quo, backlash by a capitalist patriarchy (now neoliberal), ongoing struggle to resist devaluation, and importance of keeping our own ways of knowing and understanding (hooks, 1993, p. 4). I locate earlier articles by hooks not easily accessed at home. I read about hooks at a prestigious university, grieving for a new generation of young black student, "...amazed by their lack of self-awareness and understanding, their lack knowledge of black history and culture, and the profound anxiety and despair that was pervasive in their lives" (p. 12), her response "...to develop meaningful strategies of personal and collective resistance" in choosing "..."wellness" as an act of political resistance" towards healing and well-being (p. 14).

I read about the difficulties encountered by individuals lacking material privilege "...to make the elaborate shifts in location, thought, and life experience cultural critics talk and write about as though it is only matter of individual will" (hooks, 1994, p. 29). I know this space. I contemplate border crossing, strategies for

70 decolonization, critical consciousness and freedom towards an "... exchange of knowledge for the formation of new epistemologies," in a "politics of space" (p. 29-30). I relate to these writings conscious that such voices are rarely heard where I come from, not to mention appearing in print in black and white letters inscribed upon the page into perpetuity.

There were many, many people from many, many places around the globe at Oxford. I look to see a Native American Indian whilst there, at Oxford, and during my travels amongst the throngs of crowds on the streets of London, Scotland, at Edinburgh and Loch Lomond, on the flights, there and back, at the airports, and though I kept an eye out, I never recognize another, and I yet a mere visitor!

Dozens upon dozens of references, some with catalogue numbers, line the pages of my notebook, interspersed with lecture notes and summary notes of readings on topics such as: North American Indians, Athapaskan peoples, beads and beadwork, language, culture and identity, epistemologies, ways of knowing, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous education, aesthetics, ethnography, methodology, visual representation, feminism, resistance, social life, power, narrative, tradition, critical pedagogy, critical writing, decolonization and repatriation.

I spend over three hundred English pounds to mail large envelopes of articles to myself in Edmonton the contents of which seem as though to be thousands of miles away upon my return to project work in the fields of Aboriginal health and Indigenous education in Alberta. Once home, I grasp the luxury of privilege to include not only access to knowledge(s) but also that of a luxury of time, to read, reflect and write.

71 Visiting with My Grandmother's (Wrap Around) Moccasins

At first visit, Laura Peers carries a medium-sized dark brown box into the room, sets it upon the table and removes the lid, revealing my grandmother's moccasins, nestled inside with tissue paper. They are perfect in their craftsmanship, breathtaking in their beauty.

I need tell Laura Peers these are not moccasins; these are wrap-around moccasins and they are folded wrong. Together, we gently re-adjust the moccasins, positioning each into their proper upright shape with tissue paper, wrap and tie each string round each ankle, as they should be. I tie a double knot so they won't come undone. A comforting motion, repeated countless times by a wearer of wrap-around moccasins as I have been.

I gather up the moccasins, gently, hold them close to my chest, looking down upon the moose hair tufted flowers, as though worn upon my feet. I inhale; seeking the familiar and comforting scent of smoked tanned moose hide, I inhale, finding only a faint whisper amidst that of a stale air one finds in places that do not see the light of day where there is no circulation of air.

I am conscious of and sensitive to an echo or whisper of energy fractals, reminiscent of my grandmother. It lingers, still, comforting me. I consider that my presence, the exposure of the moccasins to other energies and fresh air, might serve inadvertently to speed dissipation of a gentleness of energy that accompanies the moccasins into the Visiting Researcher Room.

During my visits, while sitting with my grandmother's moccasins, I visit memories of my grandmother; beading, embroidering, tufting, sewing, gardening, cooking and cleaning—her gaze—and character, that of determination, love, joy, fortitude and acceptance. I can see her at home, material and supplies of her work about the kitchen table, hear the Singer sewing machine, cutting moose

72 hide, wool stroud, and fur, needle and thread stitching, beads spilling into a china saucer.

My father requests that I be sure to tell them at the Pitt Rivers Museum that my grandmother, Mrs. Joanne Edge (nee McLeod), worked hard to raise a family of four children without running water or electricity at her home in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. I ruminate upon my shortcomings and seek to find strengths.

Whilst sitting together with my grandmother's moccasins, I talk with Laura Peers as though I am visiting with my grandmother, a running dialogue of thoughts, experiences and observations of recent years that seem momentarily to be of relevance, revealing much more than I prefer. I mention my grandmother's sisters, Violet Bouvier, of and Hay River, well known in the north for the exceptional quality of her moose and caribou tufting, her sisters Ruby McKay of Hay River and Laura Loutit of Fort Smith.

There are contradictions that need be mentioned, as I would tell my grandmother. Upon entry into the museum it is necessary to check in with the receptionist concerning one's appointment with a staff member. One is accompanied into the Visiting Researcher room through a series of locked doors. It is quiet in the Visiting Researcher Room. There is a wall of wooden cabinets occupied by drawer upon drawer of original record cards of the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Natural light flows into the room from a skylight on the floor above. I can hear the murmur of day-to-day conversation, assertive and authoritative voices, footsteps down the hall and jangling of keys held by passersby. It is required by museum conservation and preservation methods and policy that a Visiting Researcher working with items from the museum's collections of antiquity to wear white cotton gloves.

73 The moccasins are small. They look to be a size five. I stop myself from asking if I can trace the foot on a piece of paper to bring home with me.

The wrap-around moccasins are gently placed in their medium sized brown box, surrounded by tissue paper, lid secured upon top. They will go back into their rightful place in storage at the Pitt Rivers Museum. I know they will be there— safe. As I depart, I ponder as to when I might return: to visit.

Postscript

During our last meeting at Laura Peer's office at the Pitt Rivers Museum, prior to my departure in early December, I receive words of encouragement; "dream big," she said. I have wondered since, dare i?xxvm We discuss the potential of curatorial study in future.

Special mention need be given that I am gifted with the privilege to smudge with sweet grass in the Visiting Researcher room at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the first Visiting Researcher to do so—an honour to my grandmother, Joanne. I smudge twice with sweet grass and my eagle feather (unaware that it unlawful to carry an eagle feather across international borders) at the second and closing visits, an opening and closing ceremony of thankfulness, honour, remembering and hopefulness. A staff member comes to shut down the smoke detectors, a rare occasion. A whispered scent of sweet grass wafts upward rising to linger and dissipate about the museum. I trust prayers to not disturb any ancient energies sensitive to remembering; my intentions are good.

A legacy of my travels across the big pond is the current on-line record of my grandmother's moccasins at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, as described under details located on the museum objects database under Accession Number 1943.2.1.1, indicates the following:™"

74 Description: NB vamps should not be folded over. Lois Edge and I re- wrapped both moccasins with the vamps straight up as they should be worn. Left moccasin: dye on quills has faded from exposure to light (this moccasin was included with others in a former PRM display). Right moccasin: small pieces of quilled edging around vamp are broken. L. Peers, 06/02/2008 (Pitt Rivers Museum, 2008)

Research Notes: Laura Peers has corresponded with Mrs Edge's granddaughter, Lois Edge, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta. The Edge family wish it to be recorded that these moccasins, and the vamp 1954.11.5, were made by Mrs. Joanne Edge (McLeod). LP, 17/01/2007. Lois Edge visited the Pitt Rivers Museum and worked with these moccasins in October and November 2007 (Pitt Rivers Museum, 2007).

By the time I depart in early December, the trees long bare of leaves, an aching and cloying dampness has seeped into my bones even though I am warmly dressed in leather boots, layers of good quality wool, and warm fingerless gloves purchased from the many shops along High Street.

Upon my return home to Canada, I create a digital story entitled Coming Home about my visits with my grandmother's moccasins sharing a personal narrative and photographs taken during my travels to the United Kingdom.

Later, while visiting the Pitt Rivers Museum website, I find mention of my visits as one of the many activities undertaken on behalf of the Pitt Rivers Museum by Dr. Peer's where it is noted, "Prior to starting her sabbatical she received fifteen overseas researchers, including Lois Edge, a Gwich'in First (sic) Nation(s) (sic) [Gwich'in Nation] researcher, who as part of her doctoral research came to study a pair of moccasins in the Museum's collections that had belonged to her grandmother" (Pitt Rivers Museum, 2007-08).

75 As curator for the Americas, Dr. Peers remains actively engaged at the Pitt Rivers Museum as a scholar the fields of museum anthropology, material culture and knowledge repatriation500' and as an authority on museums and source communities.500'1 Appointed as an Ashley Fellow during 2008/2009 at Trent University,5™5'11 Peers illuminates the potential of material/visual representation in making Indigenous material culture accessible to Indigenous source communities. She continues to facilitate opportunities for Indigenous tribal groups in North America to engage with items housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum collections in support of the repatriation of Indigenous knowledge(s) by Aboriginal peoples in Canada. A Fact Sheet entitled "To Please the Spirits ": Native American Clothing, located on the Pitt Rivers Museum website states:

For thousands of years, Native American women have made beautiful and functional clothing for their families...Native American people were discouraged from wearing traditional clothes under government policies which encouraged them to assimilate. From 1914 to 1951, the Canadian Act forbade the wearing of "aboriginal costume" on penalty of either a fine or a month's imprisonment. Even during this time, Native women made beaded and quilled clothing which their men wore with pride on important occasions. These distinctive clothes became defiant symbols of Native identity, and their wearing signaled resistance to assimilation policies. Today, many Native people in North America wear beaded and quilled jackets, moccasins, and other traditional garments on special occasions such as weddings, and Native artisans are in great demand to produce such clothing for their families and to teach children the traditional skills (Pitt Rivers Museum, 2010).

76 PART FIVE - Voices of the Beading Circle

Coming Together in the Beading Circle500'111

I belong like beads belong in our grandmother's hands, like beads belong against time, like beads belong on moccasins, like beads belong against brown skin and memory. I belong here. In a circle of women who sew brightly coloured beads stitched through time held together by a whisper of the memories of their grandmothers. (Personal communication, April 2008)

It is very interesting how we have come together as women. It was not something I anticipated but I have a high degree of appreciation for the energy and the efforts of each of the women who come here to this beading circle, especially in terms of taking time away from your busy lives. It's about making time for each of you. I really look forward to making time for myself at this beading circle.

We are privileged to be here working together in this undertaking because I know that we are each going to be given something that we are going to be able to take away that will not only enrich ourselves collectively, but others into the future.

I think of my grandmother, my mother, the grandmothers before, my children and grandchildren yet to come, and what does all this mean?

Beadwork is an activity and traditional art form that my grandmother and other Indigenous women have practiced for many, many thousands of years. (April 2008)

I like listening. When it is quiet. I like the sound the thread makes when it is going through cloth. You put the needle through the cloth and the thread makes a sound. It is a very comforting sound for me. I like it when it is quiet and everyone is just sitting. Looking at their book. Or doing beadwork. When we are all together. It makes me feel good. (April 2008)

I left the last circle feeling as if I was so lucky almost as though I had a secret place, a place of safety, of sanctuary, of laughter, food and learning and an integral part of something special. This is a place of joining, of connecting, of ongoing relationship, how lucky is that? (Personal communication, May 2008)

I feel like I was sitting with my sisters, women I have known for many years and from different periods of my life. It is so grounding to look across the table and share a memory from years ago together. These are like the lines that connect me, and I can imagine that groups of women working together through time have felt this. This intersection of time like

77 spokes in a wheel that we revolve around in the Aboriginal community, all the while sewing on beads one at a time. Without noticing, I sewed on three lines of beads moving closer to completing another flower on my pattern. Who else could I share these vulnerable feelings with, of experiencing alienation. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I came with a desire to bead today unlike most other nights when I have other needs and thoughts on my mind. It felt so good to focus on those bright green jewels as they become the flower petals that they want to be. It offers such a contrast to the headspace I live in all day. There is no one to judge the quality of my work, no one to question whether what I am doing is important. It may be the most productive and creative thing I have accomplished in longer than I care to remember. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I don't sit down and do this at home. It is because I think there is creative spirit here and creativity is a spirit and I catch it here—because it is inspired by each of you. It is interesting because beading and being in this group has brought out some writing for me. I would sit here and I wouldn't even know what I was going to write and out it would come. That wouldn't happen, if I was not here. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I've written a fair amount away from the group and starting to do more and more research because I am crazy about this kind of stuff. It deepens it for me. What really enriches it the most, I've known all of you from different parts of my life but then to come here and to share and laugh, the whole sharing part of it, is in terms of my own emotional life or mental life, it's fabulous. (Personal communication, July 2008)

The other thing I realized was with the previous project that I worked with on, the people got to know each other better and got really close and there was a sense of community. I kind of anticipated that would happen and looked forward to that with the meeting of our group. This is great, this is how it was meant to be. Tonight I thought, this is exactly how women from our culture learn from one another, pass on information. I can't do it with my sister's, they live in another city; I can't do it with my aunties, none of them are living any more. This kind of becomes a place like that for me and I hope it continues because I want to do other projects.

Because there is knowledge and skill being passed on in these circles and gatherings, these times we get together. We support each other; we hear each other's trials and tribulations. Other people listen to us. They hear us—other Aboriginal women. There a lot of things you don't have to explain or say, so it becomes a place where you can talk about things in a safe and trusting environment. I like the humour, the belly laughs and

78 laughing at ourselves. I like the whole fact of us aging, coming together and being able to talk about that and laugh about it. I know that's what my mom and my aunties did when they got together. (Personal communication, July 2008)

The discussion we had tonight was hilarious. It was like being in the middle of a busy intersection trying to cross and there is no traffic cop to bring order out of chaos. It was also scary, revealing, what I wanted, what I needed, fears. I don't feel like I am moving away from the circle but settling into another level of comfort. It reminds me of sitting in a room with my mom and my aunties, laughing, joking and ribbing their husbands, in a verbal contest of wit, their language, English, mixed with Cree. The foul language disguised in Cree. This was one of the cues when we were kids that the adults were discussing something not meant for our ears. But the beadwork and this atmosphere has had the effect of deepening my art practice. I love the exploration of working with textiles and being moved to write about it.

The beading and the circle have affirmed my commitment to create in whatever form I am moved to create in, to move from text to beads, and other traditional art forms like quillwork and finger weaving. With the affirmative power of the group, as a grounding, I have been motivated to finish my beadwork and to plan to do others. I would like to try a quillwork project, perhaps silk embroidery and finger weaving. What excites me about learning a diversity of traditional hand forms is how one supports, informs, deepens another form. The other exciting possibility is combining beadwork with writing, within a collage work. (Personal communication, July 2008)

It's one of the best things I've done. It is something I am glad I didn't miss out on because I would have missed a lot. Just being reacquainted, I'd have missed out on the connections to the women here and that is huge. So it would have been a real missed opportunity if I had not taken up the beading circle. (Personal communication, July 2008)

In the beading circle, we always bring our tears, our laughter, our innocence and our wisdom. Everyone holds a story in their beading project, the story of what was happening of when they were creating their lovely and colourful floral pattern. Together we learn how to bead and learn how to be more of who we are as people. I think every time we stitch a bead, it comes alive, and a part of us, to show to the world. (Personal communication, July 2008)

/ dream it, I walk it, I talk it, it is where I am living my life right now, it's brought me here to sit with you in this circle and it will bring me to sit in other places. This is very important to me. If in some small way, if I can draw people's

79 attention to beadwork and to Aboriginal women, then I am very happy with that. This work is bringing attention to beadwork. I can't wait to bring it all together as best I can in the way that I can. I have to be mindful. (July 2008)

I don't have to finish my flower in three weeks? I would love to do more beadwork but I would love to do it here. (Personal communication, November 2008)

Part of what has fascinated me all through this circle is the things that we do talk about that are relevant to us in our lives. I get this sense from others that people don't really know a whole lot about Aboriginal women. There is something alive and beautiful that functions when we come together that I would like to share. (November 2008)

Traditional Art Form of Beadwork

Not all beads are the same and not all the beads that one wants can be collected in one place. This has made me appreciate the process of beading, the process the journey is just as important as the art, as a finished project. Knowing what size of bead one wants to work with, what kind of , opaque, transparent, cut-glass, transparent, etc.

This is similar to the learning that any artist does in the practice of their art. This has made me realize another way in which Aboriginal women's work has been marginalized. Knowing how to acquire the right materials, everything from beads, thread, stabilizing material, to beading needles, a pattern, all of these aspects are part of what skilled beadworkers know. (Personal communication, April 2008)

What I am going to do is I am not actually making anything. My purpose is to learn how to bead. I found out trying to figure out what I was going to make was getting in the way of my beading. I couldn't decide what to make so I decided I was just going to learn how to bead. I am a child of the universe. (Personal communication, April 2008)

But I am getting the hang of how the beads work. I know what you mean about the tension. I think if I had maybe my tension would be better. (Personal communication, April 2008)

When I bring my glasses back next week it will be much better. But look, I've even done some beading. I haven't threaded down these top three because I haven't been able to get my thread through the needle. These are actually threaded in. You can feel they are uneven. So I learned a lot about beading. There it is my first line of beads... This is my first line of beading and I am very proud of it.

80 I feel accomplished and proud of my first attempt at beading. I like the way the beads feel on the cloth, all snug and smooth. There is something calming about beading. It makes me happy. I look forward to sensing more about the tension of the beads. It is an art and I have never felt very artistic. I like the aspect of the legacy of beading.

The thread pulls the beads tight to the cloth and pulls out of each of us stories from our past. Some are as brutal as the beads are delicate, as dark as the beads are colour filled. And as the thread passes by each bead the stories change to laughter. So we do survive after all. (Personal communication, April 2008)

I am in B.A.—Beader's Anonymous. (Personal communication, June 2008)

How did they bead without lights, in the dark? How did they find time in the day? Maybe they did beadwork in the wintertime? They would have been too busy in the summer, gathering food. (Personal communication, July 2008)

The thing I like is that it can be so metaphorical about life, is that when I am trying really hard to do a really good job, pressing the beads and practically breaking them and the thread gets tight and it looks kind of puckered, and if I relax and give over some control to the materials, it tends to work out a lot better. For me, it was kind of symbolic about life and creating, if you want to control it so much in a certain way you miss out on accidents, so that's the question of the tension with the beads. Emotional tension. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I am a slow learner. I am in remedial beading. I need a seeing-eye header, a dog that beads; come on Rover, help your mommy. (Personal communication, October 2008)

I can't thread my needle. I just want to get a needle threaded. Last time it took me forty-five minutes. (Personal communication, October 2008)

It really does need to be celebrated. It just doesn't get the kind of recognition as an art form that it deserves. It's like devaluing Aboriginal women, devaluing women, then devaluing Aboriginal women, their work, their artistry, the complexity of their lives. It devalues the complexity of their lives, and what depth they might have, in terms of their connections to their lineage, to their history and their spirituality.

I wanted to be a bead and speak from the point of view of a bead. That's how small I wanted to get in terms of its perspective because every bead you put on, you feel, you hold it in your hand, you hold it in place. You

81 want to get down to that microscopic level to express, convey that experience of dedication, discipline, the labour of love that it is. But they were very hard to write. It is easy to come up with the cliche and easy to come up with the trite. I found it difficult to come up with original ideas. Some of the ideas, like she considers blue beads of holding a piece of the sky, that was from research that I did, one of the lines was at one point blue beads were difficult to acquire, so acquiring them was like having a piece of the sky. Things like that help to write the poems but I really did want to try to get to another level where it wasn't about beadwork as it was about the beads speaking or the process of beading speaking. (Personal communication, October 2008)

This called with Second Sight.xxxlv And with second sight she pushes, sitting close to light falling through a window, glancing down a needle, along a thread, to the centre of a bright bead, is her belief, in petal, stem and leaf. She directs a long thin needle, picks one tiny seed bead, after seed bead, after seed, from a saucer, until she has drawn a long white string with her fingers at the end of a needle. Her fingers nudge their seeds, side by side, looping their weight into a petal, laid flat against the fabric nap, each bead pressed against the cloth, by the thumb and finger of her left hand, while the thumb and forefinger of her right, plumb the unseen side of the fabric, with another needle and thread. And with second sight she pushes, the needle and thread, up precisely, where her eye wants to meet it, on the surface of the fabric. Then down between each bead, by seed bead, seed, over and over, repeated, this gesture, petal; takes patient shape. The bead's colour makes no sound, but it is, cranberry, moss and fireweed. It is also wolf willow, sap and sawdust, as well as chickadee, magpie and jackrabbit. A bead is not simply dark blue, but Saskatoon blue. It is not merely black, but beaverhead black. And it is not just a seed bead, it is a number eleven, pearlized bead, or a number ten two cut glass bead, or a number ten French white heart. The fabric, weightless, supple through her lissome fingers, the waxed thread, yielding, and the bright beads, obedient as good children, lining up in straight rows, inside the white outline of a petal. But as she shifts to light falling on her beadwork, her thoughts turn to stem, how it attaches to petal and leaf, slim stem, bloodline to root and back to leaf; and she, the link, like stem from rich root to sprouting leaf, her children. She, this link, holds each bead berry, a thought, each bead berry a word in prayer, for her son, for her daughter, for her grandchild. She considers blue beads as holding a piece of the sky, reflected in berries. Her same fingers gather saskatoons draped from branches, bent blue with fruit, and releases them to the lard pail tied to her waist; their dropping, the sound of small drumming in the pail. Her same fingers scoop saskatoons, the fruit of feast, from a bowl in the sweat, that place of gathering self, and others, back to womb. That bulb of life in her mother, each bead, a birth, she senses, as light grows faint as thread. Each bead, a birth, she sees, her eyesight fine as thread. Each bead, a birth, she listens. Each bead sewn down, a word, in prayer. (Personal communication, July 2008)

It's called Halford Hides.500™ You could get it at Halford, was my mother's standard response when talking craft with anyone who like herself did beadwork or made traditional crafts from animal fur and hide. Every year my mom dutifully tried to make a beaded gift for each of the grandchildren, until their numbers grew to be more than she could cope with, at which point her beadwork relaxed from cultural mission to leisurely pastime. It was during the time, my father, when asked to drive her to the bead store, would quip, what do you want more beads for, you got more damn beads than the damn bead store. To which he would be basically told to stuff it. While my mother bought more beads, hides, scraps of fur, thread, awls and needles, all from Halford Hides. So for me, Halford Hides became the supplier of the authentic and difficult to acquire materials for traditional bead and leatherwork. And all I knew was that it was located in some obscure warehouse district in Edmonton. I heard other craftspeople refer to it frequently, and I imagined it to be this warehouse near a slaughterhouse stocked with the unusual, treated hides, furs, deer hooves, elk teeth, bear claws, horse hair, sinew and beads. I imagined it smelled of unidentifiable animal smells, hide and fur and that only the dedicated to this specialized pastime, frequented it. In overheard conversations about preparing tanned hides, aficionados would confidently refer to Halford Hides where one could purchase all manner of animal hide and fur to make moccasins, mittens and jackets. Where one could also buy porcupine quills, horsehair, elk teeth and bear claws for traditional regalia. And pay to have an animal hide home tanned or factory tanned. Halford Hides had drifted far back into my consciousness until decades later and I began doing small projects in flower beadwork and began looking for supplies. In particular, I needed cut-glass beads in one or two colours and Halford immediately came to mind. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I definitely like this thread better. It is lighter. It is not tangling—such a simple thing, getting the right thread. (Personal communication, November 2008)

Lately how it is for me, it is frustrating, because I have so much beading to do and I don't feel as though I have become a very good header. So it is frustrating. I wish I was further along. I am looking at my beading and I feel quite disappointed. Look there are threads all over. I didn't see that before. Look you can see the threads. I think I want to take this apart and try to do a little flower. I think that's what I am going to do, do something more simple. Don't bother taking it out, just do another flower. (Personal communication, November 2008)

83 It needs another petal. I am not sure what I am doing here, I am making a border, stringing all the beads on, then I am going to go back and tie them down. (Personal communication, December 2008)

Can you see if you can get my needle out of here? I can't get the thing out. Usually it pulls it right through. I can't thread the needle. I think I broke the needle threader. Mine broke because I was trying to pull it through the eye of the needle and it wouldn't come through the eye of my needle. These needles are roadblocks. (Personal communication, December 2008)

Family Relations

That was my sister. She got a black eye. I, on the other hand, would sit in the closet. I found this linen closet. I was small enough so that I could climb the shelves and actually get on the top shelf and kind of close the door, not completely shut, but shut enough. I would climb up there and just wait it out. I hated the parties because they were always having fun at the beginning. Then you'd wake up and the whole place would be like going boom, boom, because they'd all be dancing. They'd be playing Hank Williams songs and everyone would be dancing, boom, boom, you'd hear them on the hardware floors. Then we'd be like trying to peek at everybody and then all hell would break loose, and then, oh crap, here we go- But the thing was I was lucky because we were like, with my siblings, we were like a pack of foxes, cause we would always hang on to each other. I just can't imagine, I have a cousin who is an only child, I just can't imagine what your life is like cause you have no one to go to, when hell breaks out you have no one to go to you and are all on your own. I remember when he was a kid I felt sorry for him because he had no one. Because it was sort of like rampart in my whole family, all my, my mother and my aunts, they were all like beaten up by guys. It was like, I sort of thought it was normal. I remember I always used to fall asleep in school. That had a lot to do with it. Cause you would be up all night.

I used to think God all these people are just so stupid. Cause they start out real happy and don't they know, it's just going to turn into, the shit hits the fan, you know what I mean, don't you have any idea what's going to happen. It would always start out with a gay time and pretty soon there was fist fighting. Jesus, these people.

I used to remember getting really pissed off at my mother. I would think, oh crap, Dad's going to beat you up, why do you have to do this, stop it! Cause when she was drunk she was really flirty and she was a good- looking woman. She was really flirty and stuff and she would be flirting

84 away and I would think, oh Christ, here we go. (Personal communication, April 2008)

I remember my brother and I one Christmas, we were so pissed off. It was Christmas Eve and my dad, of course, was out drinking. My mom was getting more and more furious with every moment because he wasn't coming home. I am sure she still had to go out and buy our presents so she was just furious. My brother and I kind of knew what was up I think so we decided we were going to run away. We climbed out the second story window onto the porch in our and we made it as far as the outhouse and that was about as far as we got with our running away plan. We thought, we'll show them, on Christmas—we'll run away. No place to go. (Personal communication, 2008)

My mom was in an unusual situation because she lived in the city. She lost five siblings in the course of six months, one to fire, one to measles, one to crib death, two in the war, just bang, bang, bang. Her father left the reserve devastated. She went along. She had huge tragedy in her youth. (Personal communication, July 2008)

My brother was sick and lived in Ontario. I couldn't afford not to go. I went to visit my brother during his illness once a month for about a week, 5-7 days, sometimes I would pay about nine hundred for a return fare, which is high, but sometimes it was the only time I could go. There's nothing anyone could do. This was the only thing I could do. (Personal communication, October 2008)

They have good friends. They set up a on his birthday because we were all there for his birthday. So the tipi stayed up and they had ceremonies, like talking circles. That was incredible because different friends and family arrived at different times. People cried, people laughed. One of the speakers read his favorite poem, If, by Rudyard Kipling, if you can keep your head about you when all those about you are losing theirs and blaming you. It is an amazing poem. That was his creed to live by passed on to him by our dad. The very first time I went there was when he was talking about that poem, he said you know that poem. It was in the frame outside the bathroom, it was there for years. He said Dad made me memorize that; he recited it for me. (Personal communication, October 2008)

This poem is called The Crusades.500™1 Cleaning was her crusade. Driving evil and dirt from our house. Casting scatter rugs from the doorway to lie discarded in dusty folds in the mud porch along with empties, wood box, work boots and our dog Chimney; their heaping presence, a warning to anyone casually entering that purging was underway. Living room rugs and chair coverings were stripped and plunged in hot soapy water in the

85 wringer washer. It's rhythmic squishing, a metronome to her mission. Kitchen table was shoved across the linoleum floor near a wall. Chairs stacked on top, their upside down legs, parapets against anyone innocently strolling the kitchen. Windows were propped; doors flung open to restorative breezes, the house, a vessel bared; awaiting absolution. Scalding water and bleach were standard agents in her crusade, not only against the errant ways of nine kids, friends or relatives but more importantly against those who dared to transport alcohol into our four walls. Beer spills, like transgressions, were scoured with flannelette rags and string mops. Her hands grappled the mop handle and mimicked wringing the necks of those transgressors. The squeaking sound of windows washed, their screaming. After beating rugs, the dust on her , resembling the effects of wrestling someone in the yard, sweat dripping from her nose. Then her final sweep of the porch floor, the force of her arms summoning, a disinfecting wind, evacuating any odor of their alcohol-stained breath with them and this told us the house was safe to enter. (Personal communication, July 2008)

What happened is my brother was getting engaged. He gave the woman a ring at Batoche. My brother sang a song especially for them and they got up and danced, waltzed to it. The song is a Sonny James song, called Young Love, and it kind of goes, young love, first love, something shared, anyways it is a beautiful song. The way my brother sang it, it was like the world stopped. There was a sense, of bitter sweet, my brother that was getting engaged was close to sixty but it was kind of like the first time he had been in love.

When you go to my friend's house, they always have mint tea. That's what they drink all the time. She is like eighty-some years old but still so active. She has a hard time on Remembrance Day because it was such a big day for her husband. I don't know how it happened but she was alone and crying and my friend went over and he got the guitar out so it was the two of us hanging out with kohkum?**™ Next year we need to have a dinner so she doesn't spend time alone. She doesn't like being alone. She won't stay in the house alone. (Personal communication, November 2008)

/ watched the ceremony in Ottawa every year. My grandfather passed in 1971 when we were in Edmonton, when I was in Grade 9. I can't remember if it was Grade 7 or Grade 8, walking in the parade in Fort Smith in my girl guide , and my grandfather with his medals and his with the Royal Canadian Legion up at the front. He was in the front with the veterans and I am in the back with the girl guides. It was winter and it was freezing cold, there was lots of snow, not really cold, it was winter and there was lots of snow. It was snowing and I was young and it was a real thrill. (November 2008)

86 Leaders and Elders

There was an Elder at the meeting today from down south. He was talking about if you have an Indian and a white person that the Indian will always be under scrutiny and the Indian will never be believed. What he said, I found intriguing, he said that white people do carry the guilt of their forefathers. They know they 've done something wrong. We talk about cellular memory and blood memory. What do you think of that? (June 2008)

My grandfather was a really smart man. He was one of the original people from across the country, that era back in the forties and fifties that fought for the right for Indian people to vote and that got the provincial organizations to fight for rights. He talked about trying to build a union of Ontario Indians. He said, all those old leaders, they used to hitchhike to Ottawa. Cause they had no money. They had no money personally and as an organization didn't have any money either. (Personal communication, July 2008)

That's what I love about people up north. I remember once being up north we were in the band office waiting for the chief who forget we were coming. This guy comes in and says you will be here for awhile. So we waited and waited, and he doesn't come. So this guy, he comes back and gets us, he took us home for lunch. I think he went and he must have talked to his wife, there was like pork chops and mashed potatoes and it was a really big meal. (Personal communication, October 2008)

They treat you good, kind and welcoming. I mentioned it last time, when we went to that cultural camp; the Elder said he was going to go somewhere. I really liked him. He was really good. He was going to go home to get his boat. When we got there, he said, I am the Chief here; I am the Chief of this camp. The next day, he said, I am going to go and get something from my house, and while I'm gone, if anyone comes here, you offer them something to eat and give them some coffee or tea. If anyone comes here, make sure to feed them. That was his instruction, very, very clear. No, should I, or shouldn't I? It was very clear. (October 2008)

He is a big guy, big as a moose! He has a picture, when you walk into his house, there is an old picture from a newspaper, it must have been from 1970 and his hair is down to his waist and it is loose. He is really young. I remember him. It would have been probably in the late sixties, into the early seventies, around that time, those boys started coming down south. Some of them went to Morley, and started going to ceremonies, meeting Indigenous leaders from the south, and people that worked with AIM.

They lived down the block from where I lived. So I was walking somewhere, and there they were, the two them, they both had long hair and they were both

87 wearing braids, cause nobody wore braids, nobody wore braids back then. Everyone had long hair, like the hippies, like people were not cutting their hair. So they both had long braids and he was wearing a buckskin with fringes. Oh, my gosh. I thought, they were really Indians! (October 2008)

He was great. He is amazing. He is an orator. He spoke at this church and honest to god, he said something about self-government; that people come and ask us about self-government He said, I don't think anybody went to John A. and said what to do you mean by government. The way he said it, he was saying things like as Aboriginal people you don't need anyone's permission to be healthy, you don't need anyone's permission. People in the church were applauding. He was moving and stirring. He is very charismatic. He is very private. (Personal communication, October 2008)

I think there are people who embrace their identity for benefit to them[selves]. I don't think this applies to this situation, because from what I have read, and when I have heard him speak, he comes across as genuine. In his writing, what I found so remarkable was the eloquence and the depth of understanding about ceremony that I had not seen before, or read before. Who is this half-breed guide probably from the city who is able to speak this way, because it touched me. I thought he had to be speaking from personal experience. That makes me think he is real. He is not making this up. I have read lots of stuff from people who have not felt this in a deep and personal way, and it comes across that way. That is what struck me.

I know both sides of that argument and you have to kind of demonstrate something, it is really a personal decision that you make or a personal understanding that you reach. (Personal communication, November 2008)

Do you want some tea? It's medicine tea. It's bush tea. You better have some. It reminds me of my grandparents. It is made from plants from the bush. People would always have this on the stove. I have mixture of seven medicines from an elder from who is a traditional healer and medicine picker. He goes into the bush and gathers medicines each spring and summer. He goes where it is clean. He gave me a dozen packages and each package makes four batches of the tea. People take it when they are ill. I like to drink it once per season and particularly around this time of year because it keeps away the colds and the flu, it makes you strong, it strengthens you physically in some kind of way. (November 2008)

There was this older woman, friend of my sister-in-law and my brother, an older lady, she must have been about seventy-five years old. She was close to my sister-in-law, and my brother who passed away. Whenever we came around, she brought our favourite food. She is so adorable. I love spending time with her. I would like to hang out with a person like that who has a

88 really good outlook on life. They teach us how, it is easy to be happy when you are young, but if you can find happiness when you are old, you have achieved something. It's true. I would like to hang around with someone like that so it rubs off. (Personal communication, November 2008)

When I think of my grandmother, she lived in a senior's home. Really, you are left with yourself, with everything that comes before. It is not always easy. (November 2008)

My father's mother and mother's father both ended up in the same old age home so when the grandchildren came to visit they could go visit both. I remember my sister saying, you know, grandma; my grandpa is a pretty handsome guy. Maybe you should date him. She laughed. It was so cute. And then he died. He got the flu. He was ninety-eight years old and he got the flu and he died. My uncle went and told her my grandfather passed, she said, oh it can't be, I just saw him making one of those ducks in the woodwork shop. I always thought it was great because they had grandchildren in common, if one of them got visitors, the other got a visit too. (Personal communication, October 2008)

She is an elderly woman, ninety-four years old. She has a little oxygen tank. She is cantankerous, and she will say things that are rude and shock you. She goes to bingo two times a week. Her adult children live with her. What I like about elderly people in general is that they are kind. They are much kinder than younger people. So I enjoy sitting with her. (November 2008)

Indigenous Identity and Non-Aboriginal Social Relations

Back in the eighties we went out to this Aboriginal organization and we met a fellow who talked about going to residential school. We accessed some funding and traveled north and interviewed a number of people about residential schools.

We developed a script and when they read our script they looked at us and said the script reads like the Nuremburg trials. You are bringing up witness after witness. They couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe how much sexual abuse we encountered. So many people just broke down, this was the question they always broke down to - so what do you remember about the first day that you went to that school and they would break down and cry.

There was this one fellow and the whole family was there, three generations, the father and the grandfather. The whole family was there. He was a big macho guy so I asked him that question and he started almost hyperventilating trying to hold it back. I told him it's OK if you

89 don't want to answer this question. He said no, he wanted to answer the question. What was amazing was that his father, the grandfather, said to the son, I never knew you felt that way. I never knew that's what it was like for you. But it's good; it's good for people to cry.

This has to do with when you are Aboriginal and you say something and people don't listen to you but let a white person say something and they listen. So they would not go with the film. We also interviewed nuns and priests and they all said everything was OK, those things never happened. We even heard stories about babies that were buried. We kept saying if we had been white filmmakers who found this out, the film would be made. They were afraid of it. They didn't believe us because we were Aboriginal. They didn't believe us because we were Native. It would have been the flagship film in the seventies. At that time nobody knew about residential schools. (Personal communication, June 2008)

When I was teaching the course and talking about the idea of Indigenous governance as a movement in history, Indigenous governance described as a social movement in history, with the emergence of Indigenous scholars in recent years, talking about pre-colonial times, colonialism, post-colonialism, decolonization, cognitive imperialism, the thought did occur to me while I am standing at the front of the classroom talking about these things that if it was another country where I was talking like that, you just couldn't do that, to talk about education, knowledge and power. (June 2008)

I'll tell you a funny story there was this lady and it was the first time she was at an Aboriginal event. They were having a feast and this Native guy said to her, are you going to have the moose and she said, no, I think I will have it later with my coffee. (Personal communication, June 2008).

One time we went to this building downtown and this guy was asking me all these questions and he said that was so interesting. It's actually so nice when people ask you about Aboriginal people. This guy at work asked how did we end up with Metis Settlements, are they like reserves and do we have them across the country? I like it when people ask me. At least, they become knowledgeable. It just seems odd that they wouldn't know. (Personal communication, June 2008)

How would they know? The only people who know anything are those who actively pursue the knowledge out of curiosity about it or someone who brings it to them. Here, we have Aboriginal Studies 10-20-30 and a revamped Social Studies curriculum. They don't have to take Aboriginal Studies but they have to take Social Studies in the earlier grades. They still don't have a lot of teachers that teach the subjects nor is there professional development readily available to teachers. (Personal communication, June 2008)

90 Speaking of colonization, I was reading something and they used the word colonization and it was defined in the marketing world that colonization is taking something that anyone can get for free and turning it into something that they have to buy. So they use the term in that way, colonization. Anything that normally anyone can get for free and turn it into something that people have to buy, like bottled water. (Personal communication, June 2008)

I would like to do that quiz about Aboriginal people with everybody. Tomorrow is National Aboriginal Day and I want to share that quiz. But I better know all the answers. People are always asking me questions, At least they ask, if you are First Nations, then you are not Aboriginal? The other day somebody said, can I say Indian reserves or do I need to say First Nation communities. Well, they are Indian reserves but say they are First Nation communities because First Nations like to be acknowledged as First Nations. (Personal communication, June 2008)

When I first started writing that was one the things I explored with my writing, those kinds of feelings. I asked myself, when as a child did I first become aware of them? When was I cognizant, when did it move beyond the cognizant to the visceral and what are the connections therein? Where do we go now today each time we encounter one of these experiences? When you say out-of-body, I find that so interesting. I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach. I recognize the feeling when it comes, a feeling of vulnerability, of being at-risk. The first thought that came to my mind was those five hundred missing and murdered Aboriginal women across the country. (June 2008)

I always find it sad that they disengage from their history, that their forefather, when they signed the treaties in Canada, they disengage from their history, they make it our history but it was their history too. (Personal communication, June 2008)

I went home and watched Harper's televised apology about residential school. I was sharing that with some people from work who were talking about it the next day. They had no idea. Everyone had heard about residential schools but they didn't get it that they took these children away from their parents at age four and five years old, never to see them again, for sometimes eight to twelve years. Watching the televised speech brought them closer to the story of it, and the feeling of it, than they had before in any newspaper article. (Personal communication, July 2008)

Tonight for me beading slips into the background and conversation is in the foreground. We joke that the beading circle has become a secret circle. In some ways, maybe this is true, because in the circle we can talk about what it is to be Aboriginal in our mostly non-Aboriginal world. We can

91 say things to each other that would or may be denied, argued, thrown back at us, and have been at times, by non-Aboriginal people. Non-Aboriginal guilt, denial, whatever, has thrown these kinds of conversations underground. It is a one-sided conversation that we can have with each other, conversations that the other side cannot, will not, have with us, but one day it will happen. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I said to him, well, what do you think their life is like? He says probably not very good. I said that's what happens when you break down a whole society, and it doesn't come back for generations. That's why you see this as a continuum, we are not just talking about me sitting here, we are taking about how many generations came before me. When you see people without hope and despair and alcoholism, that's where it comes from. I was indignant. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I remember one time we were at Fort Edmonton. My friend's hair was longer then and he had his hair back in a ponytail. We were sitting inside a tipi. These two little girls came up really fast. They saw us and they stopped. I said, its OK come on in. They came in really shy and they looked at us and they said, are you real Indians? I said, yes, we are! (Personal communication, October 2008)

We watched a video, a historical film with real Aboriginal people, about a young girl and her grandmother. This Scottish guy wants her to participate in the fur trade. The father wants muskets and decides he doesn 't want to trade with the Cree anymore. He goes with the Scottish guy, so the Scottish guy takes the young woman, takes her into the bush, over there where they trap beavers. She does all the work, sets up the tipi; processes the hides. She has three or four babies. He goes to the fort where the other people from the HBC are and he sends the oldest boy away to school with his Scottish buddies, without talking to the mother. One day there is her kid going off with the white guys. Meanwhile there is smallpox at the fort. She has been nursing this woman with smallpox, now she leaves him because he has sent the oldest boy away to school. She goes back to join her family and the smallpox appears and she has to send away the next oldest child, maybe four or five, has to send this boy away alone because everyone in the village has smallpox and is dying. This was the story.

So you are feeling kind of down and now you are super depressed. There are all these young women who come to class, you are so happy they even came, good for them, they came to class. Then you show them this video. It was poorly done. Nobody combed their hair! All the Indians had messy hair. They never combed their hair, not a single one of them. It was stereotypical. Well for god's sakes the least they could have done is comb their hair. This beautiful young woman, she is walking around, and her hair is like all over, all the time. Her hair never changed for seven years! (November 2008) The class is about Aboriginal women, so I am learning things that I might not have known before, about Aboriginal women, their history, and about Aboriginal people in Canada. To have a deeper understanding of colonialism, of its impact and how it continues to impact us today, systemic racism and all of those challenges that everyone faces, and how bad it was, how really bad it was for people. It is challenging to balance the weight of history and hope contemporarily, so that students leave the classroom and are not totally depressed or angry about their history. (November 2008)

I am learning a lot about writing, structure, and communication, about the lack of awareness about Aboriginal people in Canada, never mind anything that is complex, like the difference between Metis and First Nation because people don't even know that. (November 2008)

It's common for people to reconcile their identity in different ways, and by reconciling it is how you feel about yourself based upon what society imposes upon you as being inferior and having to come out on top of that, I think it is common, it doesn't surprise me. (Personal communication, November 2008)

When I was in a previous job, there were well known Aboriginal actors, who said, she never talked about being Aboriginal before. I could never get it, like she's Aboriginal and she does all these great things, everybody knows she is Aboriginal and it only helps us. (Personal communication, November 2008)

I would like to see beadwork in art galleries. A fusion. Like it is in art galleries but in a different way. (Personal communication, December 2008)

Relationships to Land and Environment

I do notice that some of my strongest imagery comes from before I was five years old when we lived in town. Like you, my mom would be cooking in the cook shack. We would wonder around in the trees and make mud pies and build little houses and go the skid horses. Sometimes if the men were working close enough we'd go and watch where they were working or play in sawdust piles. It's interesting. It's endless. I loved it. (Personal communication, April 2008)

I grew up right beside a river from when I was four until I was eight years old. It's a time in my life that I absolutely adore. I remember it like it was yesterday. My favourite part was to be outside by the river. I told Rene Fumouleau, when we met at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Museum in Yellowknife. He said, yes, he said, people who as children grow up on the land are given something

93 special. He said you have something special inside you as a result of that experience. It's true. (April 2008)

There is an image that comes into my mind. It's an image of a woman. I can feel the weight of leather on my body. There's a special feeling that you get when you wear leather. It's heavy. It has a weight to it. There's a certain feeling that comes with the wearing of fringes, whether they are short fringes or long fringes. There is a feeling that comes with those fringes. There is a feeling that comes when you wear moccasins outside, when you are walking on the ground, when you are wearing your mukluks walking in the snow. There is no feeling like it. There is a freedom that goes with that feeling of the earth beneath your feet. (April 2008)

I was driving down the highway. I don't have a car; so I'm driving down the highway, which I adore. I am driving down the highway. I've got the music on full blast, driving down the highway. The sun is shining and the sky is blue and all I can see are all the wild roses out in full bloom. Mid-June. I caught that small window in time when the Labrador tea flowers bloom. So I'm driving down the road, and all the little wild rose bushes are there. As the one Elder told me years ago, the Creator put it there, just for you! He said that to me. I'm driving down the highway, and all the little wild rose bushes are lined up and all the Labrador tea flowers are all lined up too. I can't help but notice how great I feel, driving down the highway, green grass, blue sky, doesn't get any better than that, all the trees that I adore. I feel like I am free. I feel like I can breathe again. I feel like I can move forward. I feel like I left something behind. I am happy. I went and I will go again. (June 2008)

Sky Berry and Water Berry.5™™111 Her sisters, the flowers, her brothers, the berries, emerge from her beadwork. Chokecherry red, goldenrod yellow and juniper berry brown. Sky Berry and Water Berry, swell from her fingertips, sprout runners and cleave, to stems near the scent of warm saskatoons and sour gooseberries. Petal, berry, stem and leaf, sewn down now, in seed bead lines, flourish bright from her hands. Through her fingers, stretch fields of strawberries, their starched white petals, raised heads, above layers of green leaf. Through tiny seed beads, she is linked to lineage, through the inheritance of her mother's awl case, knife sheath and hide scraper. She is acquainted with moose and deer, their velvet smoked tanned hide, what they have given up, what they have shared, with her, with her mother and grandmother. How they have sacrificed themselves, to Sky Berry. Water Berry. Like the life liquid of berries, her brothers thirsted for, in ceremony, are recalled now, in colour, their small fruit, tasting of blossom. (Personal communication, July 2008)

The first night of the sun dance, everything began. They had a feast and by the time they had the feast there was ice on the tables. It was really cold. I was so freezing. I had an anxiety attack I was so cold. There wasn 't anything I could do. I had to smudge, in the dark in the middle of the night, because I was freezing

94 cold. I just wanted to go to sleep. When I woke up when the sun rose I put my nose out the tent and all the camp was covered in ice. The whole camp was covered in ice. It went down to minus two. All the camp was covered in ice.

It is outside of town and you are driving alongside a huge lake with great big whitecap waves, and you keep going up, up, up, you go up through a reserve, and you keep going up, up and up. So when you get there it is in a place where there is an indention in the earth surrounded hills all the way around. You go down a little hill and there is a creek, a mountain water creek running through. The stars in the sky, oh, my gosh! There were a million stars in the sky. It was so beautiful. It was unbelievable. (July 2008)

Culture, Ceremonial and Community Events

So people are camping and setting up camps. I got there and it occurs to me that I have only ever been camping with somebody else who lights the stove and chops the wood. So I have a tent but I didn 't know what to do with this stuff. I didn 't have a table. No one else is cooking on a stove alone. What is that woman doing cooking on that stove alone? I tucked the stove away in the bottom of the pile in the truck. The old guy says, aren 't you going to set up your stuff? No, I don't how. What do you mean you don't know how? What kind of woman are you? I don't know.

The first day, I don't say can I help, I don't know if I can or should. The morning of the second day I bravely approached his wife and asked can I help. So she says go in the back of the truck, there's toilet paper there, take it and go and make sure there's toilet paper in each of the porta-potties. I'm looking at her, OK, happy to do it. Thinking, this is punishment for not helping yesterday. So I go and grab this little bag, I can do this, other people do this, they do this for a living, someone has to look after the porta-potties, someone has to do this. She says, don't go to that one, it's full. Mind you, I've been going to the far one because I don't want to go where there are lots of people. It's hot out.

So walking around the camp perimeter, you 're in public with toilet paper, in public! It's not in a big shopping cart, it's loose and everyone can see that woman is walking with toilet paper. I can do this; it's not a problem. I survived it. I never learn. Later in the day, I said to her again; can I help? Happy too! That was when she said that one's full don't go there. Later that evening she said you didn't put any toilet paper in the one that was full. I said you told me it was full. She told me they are still using it. I never went back. I stayed in that kitchen. Every time I saw her, I was chopping vegetables, chopping vegetables. But I kind of missed it the next day, that special role.

I was working in the kitchen. I have never worked in a community kitchen in my life. The first day, it was like can you cut vegetables? I said yes, I can do it. And then there is no one else around but the head woman and there are all these dirty

95 pots and pans, so you say, can I help? So there you are cleaning pots and pans. They put up a tarp on the second day, it was their first time too so everyone is learning what you need to do. The next day there was not really anybody around, there was this older lady, it was up to her to run the kitchen and there was no one else around. She was like, light the stove. Light the stove, I said, light the stove? The whole time we were growing up you were not allowed to light the stove or go near the stove.

Teaching and Learning, Learning and Teaching

I am learning to appreciate the skills I came to the beading circle with. It has made me appreciate watching my mom sit down in front of a project night after night and work on it until it was completed. It has made me recognize why she acquired so many beads because I spent a considerable amount of time last week and earlier this week in a quest to find the right size and kinds of beads for my project. (Personal communication, April 2008)

It's been interesting to see each of us at some point in time realize that we don't know what we are doing and we don't know how to do it but we 've committed to this and we need to find our way. It's very tentative. We go to what is familiar; we go to books. We are all in the books, in the books, in the books.

Every once in a while, there is a tentative asking for help. But it doesn't come easy. We are not used to it. It is unfamiliar to not know what we are doing and how to do it. I think it is just a difficult place to be, not knowing.

So we turn to the books. We turn to paper and we turn to pen. Just for us to be able to talk to say what we think and what we feel. It's very helpful for us if we can work with a pen and paper so I am starting to think and have long thought about, the relationships with the needle, the thread and the bead; the pen, the paper and the voice.

It's a really beautiful thing to see. Even though one hesitates, and might not know what one is doing, there is a steely determination, there is an intent and an earnestness, a determination that I've made up mind, I'm going to do this and I think everyone is going to work their way through to whatever project they are deciding to undertake. (April 2008)

The process has really touched me deeply and it's what I love about it is the slowness with which you have to do it and the care. It kind of reminds of making poetry because each word has a weight and a colour and a texture and you have to take each word and place it next to another word that is carefully chosen. It reminds me of that whole process. (Personal communication, June 2008)

96 I guess one of the things that really deepened for me, it wasn't in a lesson plan, I guess for me I started to think about what beading means at a deeper level, not just sewing beads on fabric.

It's made me think about wanting to do more research on beadwork that women in my past have done, try to find it and maybe replicate it. It has made me want to do more study in this whole area. Maybe do something that is Cree-Metis. It has deepened my appreciation for beadwork and the depth and breadth of the field of study. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I have learned some technical things, the waxing of the thread, sizes of the needles, the beads. We learned about beading and about smoked tanned as opposed to factory-tanned hide, the nitty gritty technical things that you wouldn't be able to go to anybody because they wouldn't know.

It was encouraging to have younger women, they have inspired me because they have made concerted efforts to study it and learn about particular bead styles and their drive, interest and curiosity has led them in different directions. It gave me confidence and inspiration to think, you can do that too.

I didn't have my grannies teaching me. In fact, my mother didn't teach me, because I wasn't really interested when mom was beading when I was a teenager. I was like, it was so bloody tedious, who would want to do that so it didn't interest me then, but it does now.

It would have been interesting if it had been an older woman, the kind of things that we could have learned from her, maybe on a spiritual level. (Personal communication, July 2008)

One of the things that happened that I wasn't expecting was I didn't realize how set in my ways I was about colour. I chose a colour I mistakenly thought was red and it ended up being more of an orange. It wouldn't have been a colour I would ever have selected but when I put it on the pattern, it was exactly what this needed. It was an accident but it was a great accident. Stuff like that, I started to think about why do I choose the colours I do, why wouldn't I have gone to that orange. I learned to be more open when thinking about designing something, to be more open to different colour combinations. Now I look at beadwork very closely, what lines did they make around certain forms, so I learn a lot from just looking at some of the books on collections of historical beadwork. (Personal communication, July 2008)

My beading teacher is my friend's mother who is a lady who does beadwork. She is 94 years old. Her name is Mary Pruden. She was a Gairdner from Grouard. I

97 go over there and she is showing me how to bead. It's nice. I like it. It's good. I like the way it feels. It is what I thought it would be, to actually sit there and do beadwork. For me, it is not just getting it done, it is very special to me in a magical sort of way, it brings me to a space and place that takes my breath away.

These are moccasin vamps. It's how young girls learned how to do beadwork, was by practicing on vamps. You could make mistakes. It wasn 't a major thing. I am very proud of them. I had to take that apart three times. Three times. Yes, she made me take it apart. I made this and she allowed it to pass.

She has given me these. These beads are the best part. She has given me these beads. The quality of beads varies considerably. These are the good beads, described and referred to as Indian beads. So these ones are Indian beads. The shiny beads like we are using here, are moniyawxxxlx beads. These ones are not shiny. If you look at them closely they are perfectly rounded. So they are easy to sew, they are easy to manage. The worst beads to sew with are the square, the flat cut, shiny ones. She has give me her beads that she doesn't like, these are moniyaw beads, these are Indian beads, and these are moniyaw beads. Every time I go, she gives me more beads. And she said, when you come back, I will give you more beads.

I met her daughter on my first day at school in Cree class and we have been very good friends for more than twenty years now. She forgives me all my human foibles; we accept each other's foibles.

I am instructing you girls. This is how she showed me to do beadwork. To begin, you should have a cloth upon which you place whatever it is you are sewing with, you keep everything together in a little box. You will see a lot of women, they will use whatever tins they can get a hold of, cans for chocolates, for cookies, those kinds of things. It is worthwhile buying these so you have a nice little container to keep your beadwork stuff.

The best needles are not the ones we have, these short needles are the best ones. The long ones are used mostly for when you are doing loom work. This is the best thread. This is the best kind of thread. She gave me some thread. It turned out I had actually bought three of these so I have the right kind. I got this thread from either Belcourt or Halford. It is the best thread. Where is your needle? We will try this thread and we will try this needle. When you thread your needle, do you cut your thread at an angle? See, you cut your thread at an angle. See how long it takes to thread a needle. I can see it. Where is the needle threader? It is in the package. Here is some good thread to try. Pull your thread a little bit.

What I love is she sits there and the way that she teaches, she shows you how to do one thing and then you do that one thing. When I forged on ahead, thinking I knew what I was doing, I had to go back to where we had left off, where, as much as she had showed me, I stopped, and I had to go back there, and she shows me

98 the next step. But I'm stubborn, right? I think I know what I am doing. I think I know what I am doing so I go on to the next petal. But no, that is why I only have four petals, because I am stubborn. Had I been patient and waited for instruction, I would have had the five petals that I should have. Therefore I am going to learn from myself.

The other thing that was amazing, is do you know how you get the same pattern on the other vamp? You do one side like this, my dad had never seen this before and he watched my grandmother. See, you take this vamp and you put it on this other vamp and you go like this with a little hammer. See, the beads make an indentation, then she takes a pen and she makes a little outline.

You actually have to count the number of beads in the perimeter in your circle, the exact same number of beads of each petal, the exact same number of beads around the perimeter of each flower, and inside each flower, that's how you get perfection.

My friend went out and bought the tiniest little beads in the world. It's her mother. My friend does not bead. That's why her mother is just thrilled, because my friend, her daughter, is sitting there beading with me. She bought these tiny beads in these beautiful colours, a light blue, an orange, a frosty light green and white. The colour combinations are unbelievable. That is an art. I would never pick those colours. I guess you develop an eye for it.

For the perimeter of each petal are eighteen beads. Yes, you go up and you go down, between every second bead. But there is a special way when you do the leaves, where you go all the way over and go back through the first one, then you put all the other ones on, along every second one. I had to do this one three times and I still haven't got it.

The way that she does it, you hold your thumb there to make the line straight and you come up between each of the two beads. She comes up through each of the two beads, comes up and goes down, so you are going down over every second bead, and you are not pulling it tight. That's what causes the beads to out of place.

It has to be like the thread is lying on the surface of the material. It is not. You know how those beads are like they are lying on the surface of the velvet, right? That's because the person is anchoring beads into place with the thread, there is no tightness whatsoever.

The tension in the sewing is like the tension on a sewing machine, where you have to have the same smoothness, like a repetitive movement, that you repeat over and over again. But we get distracted with whatever is happening. (November 2008)

99 / didn't know anything about beading. That's what it is all about, someone teaching you how to do it. The little bag I made you, it is a beautiful bag, it is filled with good intentions and good thoughts, I didn't know how to do it but I did it anyway.

That's the thing, the teaching and the learning, is we take so much for granted. When I say that, I mean that it is presumptuous, it is not as easy as just going and buying the needle and the thread and the beads and sitting down and doing it.

I love it, I can't tell you how it made me feel to sit there with that elderly woman as a teacher and her showing me what to do. There is something so kind about that, so gentle. There is a deep respectfulness. (November 2008)

Beading Knowledge and Instruction

But for this circle, I really felt that these particular women know who they are, what they want to learn and do, and believe in themselves. Then they bring that to their work. I love being surrounded by positive female power and energy. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I wanted to have more of a connection to my cultural roots. I was always doing something artsy when I was a kid. Because my mom and dad split up, always got back together, and split up, that kind of thing. We didn't have that constant cultural connection. With my grandmother going to residential school we didn't have those teachings passed to us. (Personal communication, June 2008)

This bag is a Metis fire bag. It is called a fire bag because the men carried it on their sash. Whatever they need to start a fire with, the flint is carried in that. The woman is, his betrothed, his promised one would make this beautiful bag and design it, bead it, or embroidery or quill work. Her workmanship went into that and it showed how much she loved him. When he wore it after they were married it was his way of showing off his wife's skill. I have this skilled wife and look at her work. It was bringing that honour to the woman and he would wear it proudly on his sash. (Personal communication, June 2008)

Teaching beadwork to women I really admire and respect and who are so successful made me a little nervous. I didn't expect to see a room full of beautiful, successful and highly accomplished women in my class. I am not saying these women aren't out there in the world, it's just that I wouldn't expect to see so many in the same room. I have taught many people, inner city people, youth, educated, under educated - I don't believe anyone is actually uneducated - cultural people, people raised without their culture, Native, non-Native, the list goes on. (Personal communication, July 2008) I am kind of more self-taught. I was raised in Edmonton so I kind of learned everything on my own. We always had people, Elders, teachers, always continuing coming to our circle. The instructor just had this beautiful way of attracting people, Elders and teachers. So we got to learn from all these people. They would come and do little workshops here and there and I watched by learning and looking. (Personal communication, June 2008)

I would love to have a school where if someone wants to learn these things then we are going to learn them and you are not going to be a professional header when you finish in a year because it is going to take you five, ten or twenty years. I think sometimes in this fast-paced world that we live in that we have to stop and think about those things again and how important they are and how we need to take some time. It does take time and we can't rush it because we need to allow it to unfold it the way it should. If that means researching our roots to make sure that we know where we come from so we can attempt to bead in a that our ancestors did or include our own contemporary style and design. I think we need to know where our roots begin so we can tell that story through our work.

My passion is my artwork. My artwork stems to the traditions of our people and our cultural roots and making that connection. For me as a Metis person wanting to make that connection was highly important so I needed to know the foundation of where those things began. I needed to know how to tan hides, how to do porcupine quillwork, how to do moose hair work and how to do beadwork. I wanted to know where these things all began and why they are so important to me.

For me, I had to seek out ways to understand and learn. For me, I think that all Aboriginal people are artists in their own way. That life is art. So we need to reflect that in who we are. Culturally, it is a strong statement to say what our roots are and where we come from. I had to learn those basic foundations of understanding, hide tanning, porcupine quillwork, beadwork, moose hair embroidery and horsehair wrapping. All those things that were traditional crafts or artwork, embellishment, were my reason for being, my passion. If I could do it full-time, everyday, I would like to see where it could go. I think there is so much potential there. I get ideas all the time I have to scribble down or sketch out. There are some things that are so amazing I don't want to have to let go.

It has given me so much. It has given me pride in myself as a Metis woman. It has given me understanding. It has taught me patience and respect. Respect for things around us, for our cultural roots, our Elders, respect for self, that we can take proud in who we are as Aboriginal people. It has given that to me. It has given me that sense of pride, connection and respect. I think it would be so awesome to have a school where artists can come and learn. Like they do at the Banff Centre but more on a cultural level. That if you want to come and learn quillwork that's all you are going to learn and we are going to teach you right from the basics to where you can do woven quillwork and bring back those old cultural things that are so important. We need to keep them alive with proud. Not just putting something together and saying I've done quillwork and here it is.

Because you have to go through a process, we have to learn. It's like we all go through a fire, like when a pot is being fired, it changes it but it changes it and makes it harder. We go through that process as people so when you are learning something you have to go through that process and sometimes it's really difficult or it's really hard. But if you have that inspiration or that desire, to know something, it will eventually be easier and eventually it shows you what it needs to work with, you hear that from carver, that say it is the wood that tells me what to carve, it's the same with beads, it's the same with quills. It's the medium that you use, if you know it and you work with it enough you know what it will do and you understand it because it is teaching you something, it is showing you how to do it but you only get there after you have done it for awhile. I've been doing my stuff for about twenty years and I still feel like I am learning; I still have a lot to learn. I am still at that point if I could just immerse myself into the process and really connect and just be there with it that I would know that I would learn and develop that much more. I want to share those things.

The thing that I really appreciate is something I have been feeling. It has to do with the difference between what we can see and what we can't see. What we cant's see in a lot of the work that you reminding us is the years of people's sharing in terms of design and materials, the culmination of many people, mixing and trading, and learning from one another, just a deep sense of connectedness to place. That beadwork isn't just about putting beads on fabric—it is about a philosophy and way of life—a tradition, that is really old. It isn't just about putting beads on fabric. It is more than that.

When I am doing beadwork I want people to see it and see that it is alive. It is alive because I am alive. What I bead on is hide and it's alive. To me there is movement in life. With my beadwork, I want it to tell a story. I want people to see that that flower once was a tiny seed, that the earth that nourished it, it struggled to break through the soil, the warmth of the sun and the rain that brought it to life, in a sense, how it was a bud and now it is open, and it's honouring the Creator and everything around us. It is not just a flower. It is not just a pan-Indian flower. It comes from a place and a tradition and a people. There is a reason why they sewed that flower. It is because it is connected to that plant and that land. I appreciate you bringing that message.

Not that we didn't know it, it reminds us that this is grounded in something more than decoration. This is grounded in philosophy and spirituality, social connections between people. There is all of this history and tradition underneath. For some reason, that kind of depth of practice, depth of creative practice isn't recognized in beadwork. People don't recognize the years of learning, the tradition behind, knowing which needles, thread, fabric, and bead. (Personal communication, June 2008)

I feel sometimes those women are still with us. They are sharing that with us. I also believe that we need to take back and honour those women and the legacy that they left for us. They taught so much. Through these things they taught us patience, and love, and respect for self, and pride for one's work and workmanship. (Personal communication, June 2008)

I am kind of struggling with one of my little bags. It is a strawberry bag. It is really special to me because of my Mohawk ancestry and my connection to the first roots and that Creation story with Sky Woman falling and landing on turtles' back and how the earth comes to be on turtles back. How there is ceremony with the first roots of the strawberries.

This is a replication project that I am doing with a collection that the museum purchased a year or so ago so I have tackled this replication project but it is quite challenging because I am following somebody else. I am following the master worker. Her beadwork is different from my work. How she puts her beads together is different than how I put my beads together. It's a process and I am learning from it. I am learning from her. Because she has strawberries on that bag I believe that her ancestral roots also come from down east. That is why the strawberries are special and important to me.

When I made my strawberry bag I thought strawberries was a contemporary thing and I am still learning about the Haudenosaunee people and that part of me. I only recently found out that strawberries were part of a ceremony down east and how important they are because they are the first fruits. So when I made my bag, and I saw this bag, you fall in love with it because it is so beautiful. (Personal communication, July 2008)

Beaded Philosophy

In the books that I am looking at there are a multitude of patterns, of seemingly endless variation of how to bring the needle, thread and bead together. I'm intrigued by the relationship between the needle, the thread and the bead. There is a depth of meaning that we will be fortunate if we are able to momentarily glimpse what that depth of meaning might be.

I am entranced, enthralled with beadwork, with its complexities, nuances and beauty. The beads, their colours, colour combinations, intricate designs and regional variation where one becomes familiar and at a glance is able to distinguish as to whether an item is , Subarctic, or Lakota.

Just as we are able to recognize regional variation, in terms of the colours, patterns and designs, I am becoming confident that if one spent enough time that one would be able to recognize the work of an individual at a glance. It would be fascinating and wonderful to be able to do that. I would like to be able to find other items of my grandmother's beadwork, for example.

I am amazed and astounded at the volume of thoughts that I need in order to make a decision in terms of beadwork. What design am I going to make? What colours am I going to use? What pattern am I going to use? What is my intent, the material that I need to employ, how do I learn the stitches that I need to learn to do?

I also have come to realize how little we know in terms of the preparation that goes into doing beadwork, of the knowledge, not only knowledge, but skill set that an individual needs to have in order to beadwork. I can see why it was something that was taught to young girls and that women practiced all of their life.

I need to practice. I didn't think I would have to practice. It is so complex and so sophisticated in terms of the thinking. I don't think we really have a conscious awareness of the complexity and sophistication of traditional art forms.

I am thinking about meaning. I am thinking about intent. I think intent is very important. It is an important part of this. I am not sure where it fits but I think it is important. (April 2008)

I think my thoughts are a bit disjointed and maybe it is because I haven't been beading. I am not in that space. Anyway, I do think about the beads and I have been thinking about the beads, their colours, textures, shapes, sizes, their uniformity and uniqueness.

I am drawn to the patterns. I am drawn to the patterns. I am intrigued by the multitude of patterns that there are, the textures and techniques, the love and care and attention, the creativity and spirit that has gone into the work.

I am caught by the movement—the movement—the pattern of the movement. You thread your needle and you pick up the beads one at a time, and you sew them. You tie the beads down. You make a pattern and design. Somehow through the motion of pattern, it's timeless. It's almost as though, as we go through the motion, it stops. There is a stillness there. It's almost like you want to hold your breath. It is a motion that has been repeated through time, countless times. As if we can step into the motion, step into the movement, and re-access a time, a space, a place, that is important to us as individuals, as women, as human beings. In accessing that space, part of that is going into our memories and little bits and pieces come to the surface, or re-emerge. I am intrigued by all of this and will be mindful of these thoughts I have. I would like to express them in a way that I'm not sure if I can with words. Anyway, those are my thoughts.

It has to do with time and space, motion and pattern, the past and the present, memory and something about there being no motion or being frozen or suspended. I can't find the right words, I am sure there would be words in Aboriginal languages. Anyway these are the thoughts that come to me in between these sessions when we come together.

I don't consciously, intellectually think about this but I get little glimpses, or feelings or thoughts that come to me and catch my attention. Just as the beads will catch your attention, these thoughts catch my attention. (April 2008)

I sense myself feeling at a loss when trying to communicate the physical action of sewing beads on. I feel like I have no words to describe beading with two needles, for example and I find myself searching for the language of technique and not finding it. So I resort to drawing pictures or showing by taking it and doing it as demonstration. I find this lack of language to describe fascinating and wonder what descriptive terms exist in Cree, in , and in English. I am sure the terms will be regionally based or even family specific or teacher specific. What words would women use to describe threading a circle at the centre of a medallion for example. What would these words sound like and would they be words taken from nature. From the shape and size of a berry or the angle of a vein in a leaf. (Personal communication, April 2008)

I haven't had anyone show me their techniques of beading and I can see how women in a group would have shared their knowledge because there was so much to learn about beading, about the tools and colours. I look forward to lifelong learning in this area. It is exciting to discover the different ways teachers teach their techniques. I am beginning to really like how my design and colour is taking shape. This is my most striking design by far. The design is larger, bolder, more confident, and the colour departs from any other colour scheme I have chosen before. (Personal communication, May 2008)

Today is about relationships not only between each other, but between the beads. The colours of the beads, it's about the relationships between the colours of the beads. The colours we choose or that we are attracted to are significant to each of us as individuals.

For a few brief moments, it was obvious whose hands belonged to the learner and whose hands belong to the teacher. The teacher is the student, and the student, the teacher.

It gave me great comfort to see her hands here today, to watch them pick up the needle and the thread and the beads. There was a confidence in them, a dexterity and presence that very much reminded me of my grandmother. (May 2008)

I am thinking of the beads, the many different colours of the beads. I am always enthralled and entranced, as I've said before, by the colours, the patterns, the mulitiplicity of colour and pattern, the repetition, the uniqueness, the distinctiveness, as though it is a language that is speaking to us and we are trying to listen. The beads speak to us from spaces and places through and across time. They speak to us from spaces and places of distant spaces and places, they resonate and there is an energy that resonates and echoes through and across time so that we imagine, or envision, or engage or become aware of or sensitive to the grace of the women who sat there and sewed the beads. There are a multitude of beads, patterns and voices that are each complex and unique and distinct. These voices are speaking to us.

We don't speak the languages any more but we do speak of cellular memory, and blood memory and genetic memory. The beads keep coming together into a pattern that I am struggling to comprehend. Today I learned that the beads come to you. I knew that things come to each of us but it never occurred that the beads would come. (June 2008)

Do you remember when people started talking about traditional knowledge and Indigenous knowledge and there an emergence of voice, the voice of Indigenous scholarship, then the voice grows, that kind of thing.

There is sort of a buzz going on out there about beadwork. There are things happening out in the big world that have to do with beadwork. (December 2008)

A Sacred Place and Space

The beading nights always feel like a ceremonial process. The ceremony of gathering with the open-hearted spirit of Aboriginal women. There is a strong sense of kinship, of familiarity, of being home.

My grandmother's steady hand that could cut a paddle noiselessly through water; fits over mine, gentle, as exuberant beads dance up to my needle. (Personal communication, April 2008) A young woman comes into the beading circle tonight and the grandmothers move all around her. I see them first in the way she gestures with her hands. I have seen these gestures before, down south, up north. She moves her hands the way traditional people move theirs. I think that the grandmothers are in love with her. She is an open vessel for the teachings, she knows the hard work of beading and she knows the hard work of living the teaching of the beads. (Personal communication, May 2008)

My stitching is tense, I always make things way too complicated, sometimes I am lazy, sometimes I am patient and in the moment. The beading awakens my grandmother. There have been many times, one in particular, when a young woman was here and I felt she was absolutely surrounded by spirits, it's like they were in love with her. (Personal communication, July 2008)

Beadwork was very much a part of rites of passage, during puberty, a women's first menstruation, when you were in seclusion, because you are being given the gift of life, to procreate. As part of that, the relatives or older women would teach the young woman to do quillwork or beadwork, or those types of activities, to learn to sew and make clothing. Women are not allowed to participate in ceremonies when they are on their time, because you are at your most powerful in terms of energy as a giver of life. I am thinking that the work that you did at that special time would have been very special. I think there is a lot more about it, there's more about it that we don't know, than what we do. (July 2008)

I guess when you are sitting there hour after hour putting the beads on you start thinking about the women that have sewn and beaded incredible things, like the colours on the traditional women's regalia, and you think about how many hours they spent, what they were thinking about when they were doing it, who they were doing it for, it has to be a prayer, it has to be a meditation and a prayer when you do it because otherwise you wouldn't get through it because otherwise you wouldn't get through it. It's just one bead at a time. It is a real labour of love.

What commitment and dedication for women to do that for others and then to just give it away. In some ways it makes you think it may be symbolic, all of the things women give of themselves, to their families. The beadwork is kind of a manifestation of all these in some ways, all the meals that you cooked, all the clothes you washed.

I am really glad I can do the beadwork. It makes me feel like one kind of conduit from the whole history of women who have been doing it. If I can keep it up and someone can learn from me; that it can continue on. You become this kind of vessel, or vehicle, in which the art form can continue. And it is not merely an art form; it is more than an art form. It's a culture, it's a history, it's spirituality. (Personal communication, July 2008)

I was honoured in being asked to be a part of this beading circle. Whenever I am in circle, a talking circle, a prayer circle, the sacred enters, so this experience is filled with the sacred. A young woman who came to the circle one night who said each bead is a prayer and I think every person in this circle is a prayer and an answer to a prayer. I think there is magic in the beading. It is not easy and it reveals myself to me. (Personal communication, July 2008)

The fellow that was teaching, he described ceremony as the safest place where you can be. It was the most beautiful place I have ever been. It is where everyone is accepted, unconditionally, and that is just how it is. Just to go away for a few days, and you are a part of something, you are part of something that is timeless. And you are all together, that's how you feel, totally safe and totally nurtured.

You really do go away to another place and then transition back from the ceremonial to the everyday. The first day, I don't think I was all here, like all of me hadn 't caught up yet. Today for the first time, I was feeling all my normal aches and pains. They were gone the whole time I was there. It was very powerful, very powerful experience.

Afterwards, everybody got in a line, it's over now so you go in a line and go around and everyone started coming in the line, going around, going around, then you have this huge circle of a couple of hundred people, and there is a circle of everybody holding hands, going in a circle. I will never forget it. (July 2008)

A big part of it is whom you are sitting with and the state of mind you are in. Sometimes we bring things to the table with us that interfere with that harmony and that rhythm that we need to do the work.

It is almost like a meditation, your energy cannot be cluttered. I prepare myself the day before for this engagement. I do work at centering and stilling myself for this experience. I am not always able to do it, depending upon what is going on, but when I can and I do, it's like a wonderful moment when time and space merge, and it is a very special place to be. What is magical about it is to be able to access that space. It's different for everyone. (December 2008)

I have always left the beading circle feeling centered and balanced, much, much better, on many different levels—physically, emotionally and psychologically. Beadwork, coming here functions in that way for me in some ways. I don't prepare to come here. I look forward to it for different reasons. I don't prepare for it but I always feel leaving the same way. I feel calm, I feel relaxed, I feel balanced, I feel somewhat fulfilled because I have sat with women. Sitting with women regardless of the purpose, always does that for me. It fills me up. It's a part of my wellness; a very important part of my wellness is to sit with women. For different reasons, I leave here feeling whole and healthier and balanced and in more harmony, which is what I seek, and is probably what we all seek. (Personal communication, December 2008)

Making Digital Stories

The researcher is usually separate from the subject. There is participatory research, where you participate. There is also community-based research. There is participant observation when you might sit in a ceremony while you are observing. As a researcher you are supposed to put your objective hat on, but as an Indigenous researcher you are supposed to be participatory and objective at the same time. Oh, oh, I have too much tension here. (July 2008)

The previous two stories were easier to do because I had been reflecting upon their making for many months and many years. There needs to be time for reflection so I treated this as a beginning. There are no conclusions. This effort is an introduction to the short time that we have been together.

I had written something longer and more extensive. I was worried if we had taken out the heart of the story, like when we talk about our families and our loved ones. It has to be three minutes only in length. I took a risk in using abstract terms to talk about marginalization and exclusion, those are abstract words and they can function to alienate the viewer or listener. They can also educate.

The comments I got back after the week were very positive. People appreciated the opportunity to learn something about Aboriginal women. They appreciated the opportunity because it is so rare. The digital story it gives you a window to who we are as women and our lives in a way that I don't think is invasive or disrespectful. It is about the ancestors who are unknown. The story can also be interpreted by non-Aboriginal people as not knowing Aboriginal women because they are often excluded from who we are, in a way they are also marginalized from our traditions and our cultures.

There are different perspectives and layers. I put myself in the position of a non- Aboriginal person who doesn't know anything, because of the people in the room at the workshop. The story can be seen from multiple perspectives. I tried hard to make it balanced, and un-offensive, but at the same time I took a risk using those words, because people think, here we go again and shut down.

People really loved the pictures. One of the comments from a professor was there was no doubt in his mind that these were very strong women. This comes across, in terms of personality and characteristics. I tried to be sensitive in using better pictures. I start off by selecting about a hundred pictures, then narrow, narrow, focus, focus on two or three dozen, that is manageable. There are a lot of really nice pictures that I wanted to include. What they said, the people who have seen the three stories together, the people with the Digital Storytelling Centre, they say they can see the connections when you see the three of them.

There are a lot of decisions to be made in terms of how to do it, what to do. But the nature of digital storytelling is that it is personal. These are personal stories about real people with real lives. (October 2008)

I think you have captured the whole essence. I like how you said it was hard to begin, that there were so many decisions to be made. To have the dynamic of the circle, it's about everything.

The third one is really different because it is much more complex. It is a much more complex story where the others are very focused, talking about one thing. This is a much more complex story.

I really like the way, if you took out the narration and took out the progression of the pictures, you Could see the story unfolding. I like that you started off with all of us sitting there, looking at the beads, cause there were lots of decisions to be made. All these beads in the middle, and then you go to this really complex piece of beading.

I love that, you always take it back to where this all started, in your home with your grandma, in your territory. Because you are documenting, it is a documentary, you are putting together a documentary.

My feeling would be to do it and the reason is to do it because it brings such a reality and depth to your grandmother's moccasins that they are not just a museum piece. There is a whole life and a whole culture. And to have the granddaughter speaking as eloquently as you do, brings it all to life. They are not just moccasins. They represent more. They are not just some piece in a museum done by a savage in Canada. It teaches people. It shifts. People would actually hear your voice. This is the granddaughter of the woman who made these moccasins. (Personal communication, October 2008)

Do moccasins have a passport? (Personal communication, October 2008)

If I went back and did it again I would do it all different. I like how it is revealing. For the first story, I had to find pictures to use. I didn't have pictures. I had to go and find art works created by Athapaskan women that resembled the work that my grandmother did. The are from someone in the north, the is by a Gwich 'in woman, the moss bag is a Gwich 'in moss bag. Even the art work is by Christi Belcourt. I didn't have any photographs with me and we couldn't find anything that was suitable or appropriate. So Robert Kershaw from the Centre for Digital Storytelling asked Heather Devine if we could use the image from her

110 book, and she said yes.x So it was like little bits and pieces that I could find, to help me pull together, to help me tell the story that I wanted to tell. Even the images of the flowers and plants, I had collected from different places. If I find a nice image of a plant, I would keep that.

It's a part of the story, so now as you go through, visiting the moccasins, it's all about the moccasins and the inaccessibility of items in the museum, behind glass, literally, at the Pitt Rivers. Now here we are sitting at my kitchen table, and our beadwork is right here in front of us and we are actually doing it.

It is the background music to the story about the Pitt Rivers and the moccasins. It is a beautiful song. It is by artist by the name of Martin Bennett who died tragically from brain cancer in his early thirties. He had a brilliant career. His mother has a PhD in ethnography and sings ancient gaelic songs. She is famous as a woman of Scotland. He grew up in her household and began his own very successful music career doing a lot of work in the area of fusion, traditional Scottish and contemporary music. It is that song that you hear in the story sound track. He was born in Nova Scotia. They lived there for nine years before they moved back to Scotland. He has Canadian roots. They both have websites. I discovered Marilyn Bennett on a BBC special about the music of Scotland when I was at Edinburgh at the hotel. It was serendipitous; when I was leaving Edinburgh I stopped at HMV, went to the Scotland section, and grabbed a Bennett CD. I was listening to it and I hear these drum songs. The song is called "Oran Nam Mogaisean (Indian moccasin song). (Bennett, 2002). Could have blew me over with a feather. (October 2008)

Closing the Circle

/ give thanks for the women who are gathered here, who have brought their spirits within this circle and all the beauty that is unfolding by each of us giving of ourselves in a small way. I give thanks for the gift of that unfolding, for the healing, joy, pride that is and will give to people. It is and will continue to give to people. It is hard to fully understand at all levels how rich and how special this is. I pray for everyone who has come to this beading circle, for everyone who came and shared of themselves. I give thanks to the ancestors for the many, many gifts they gave us, the time they were beading and continue to give us by being here with us in this seemingly small and insignificant activity that we agreed to undertake. I know they celebrate just being here because we honour them, their memories; their spirits, and in so doing, we honour those who have yet to come.

I am grateful to be apart of the work and wish to express my appreciation to both you and the support you have shown me, taking time out of your busy lives, your work, and showing up. I am not always the easiest person to engage with, my intentions are good and I appreciate your patience and understanding. I know good things are going to continue, there will be ripples, there already ripples and

111 there will continue to be ripples. It is unfinished and will keep going. If you want to bead, you are welcome to come to bead. I am just beginning. (December 2008)

Beth Brant talks about a special and sacred place that we each have within us that has not been touched by colonization. We are each able to find and access that place within ourselves. I think in this whole activity that we do, every time we sew a bead, we access that sacred place inside ourselves. It has been very special for you to come and join me. This is from an article by Indigenous scholar, Beth Brant', that I would like to share it with you:

In Mexico, a story is told of La Llorona. It is told that she wanders throughout the land, looking for her lost children. Her voice is the wind. She weeps and moans and calls to the children of her blood. She is the Indian, the mother of our blood, the grandmother of our hearts. She calls to us. "Come home, come home," she whispers, she cries, she calls to us. She comes into that sacred place we hold, inviolate. She is birthing us in that sacred place. "Come home, come home," the voice of the umbilical, the whisper of the placenta. "Come home, come home." We listen. And we write. (Brant, 1999, as cited in Champagne, 1999, p. 100). (December 2008)

I love the thought of that being part of all us. It was years ago and that we shared, when we first started hearing about Indigenous knowledge and cell memory, blood memory. I remember us talking about it, two decades ago, that we all have that blood memory or that cell memory, that part of us that, I guess it is the same thing, that has not been touched by colonization, and how we bring it alive, is through ceremony, through hearing the language, and by being in a spiritual way, that is how you access that part of your identity that is there. I love that. I love to know that I have that and that we all have it, that we all have access to it if we can find our way to hear the language and be in ceremony. (Personal communication, December 2008)

We sat together and shared our lives in those circles. We laughed, we cried, we brought our struggles to the circle. (Personal communication, December 2010)

Thank you so much for sharing this. It brought me back to those nights when we gathered around your table in your apartment and ate stew, beaded, smudged and talked, laughed, revealed, trusted, shared, felt safe, nourished our hungry creative spirit, found our circle together inside of the urban, concrete construct called a city. [This experience] lets me know who I am - in the most meaningful and important way. (Personal communication, December 2010)

Participating in the Aboriginal Women's Beading Circle was a rich experience on multiple levels, simultaneously. It provided a space for Aboriginal women to reflect on our identity through beadwork, on our upbringing and appreciation of the knowledge of our female ancestors and their relationships with artistry, discipline and sacrifice in the practice of beadwork. It evoked an interest in the deeper meanings of the designs the women selected, developed, and perfected with the materials available to them. Gathering, learning and practicing beadwork as Aboriginal women, - stirred our ancestral memories of being in extended families of women where learning was filled with humor, acceptance, gentleness, and commitment (December, 2010) (Dumont, 2010).

The Beading Circle

The hosting of a beading circle attended by First Nation and Metis women in a contemporary urban environment is another phase in this study of Indigenous women's participation in traditional cultural activities and of Indigenous art forms. During 2008, I hosted a series of eighteen beading circles attended by several First Nation and Metis women over an eight-month period occurring between March and December at Edmonton, Alberta.

The beading circles took place at my home located in the heart of downtown Edmonton. Each beading circle began with the sharing of a home-cooked meal. Project related expenses such as photographic and video equipment and supplies, beadwork materials and supplies, meals, tobacco and honoraria were the responsibility of the researcher. The beading circle participants incurred the costs of purchasing beading materials and supplies in putting together their individual beading kits.

Eight women joined the beading circle sessions. Most knew of each other, socially and/or professionally, as friends and/or colleagues and as First Nation or Metis women of the urban Aboriginal community in the city of Edmonton. Six of the nine are members of a First Nation and three are Metis. Two are of Ojibwe ancestry, the remaining six, excluding myself, are Plains Cree and/or other First Nation and/or Metis ancestry.

Of the eight women, six committed to undertake a beadwork project. Four attended the beading circles on a regular basis. Two were not available to attend after their initial engagement due to demands on their time relating to work, family, other commitments or life events. Three brought their knowledge and expertise of beadwork to the beading circle on one or two occasions.

Of the six who participated in the beading circles, five of the women had attended university, completing either undergraduate, master's or doctoral degrees, or currently engaged in completion of a degree program. One participant had completed high school and had not accessed post-secondary education. Of the six women who undertook to complete a beadwork project, five are in their fifties and one, her forties.

Four women are employed in fields directly associated with Aboriginal people; one is employed in the creative arts and the other in a professional capacity with government. Only one of the women had previously researched and completed a beading project. The remaining five had minimal or no previous direct experience with the activity of beadwork.

Each of the women was asked to commit to completion of a piece of beadwork over the duration of the beading circles. As appropriate, each was offered tobacco, the offering intended as a demonstration of mutual respect and commitment to the undertaking of the beading circle.

During some of the earlier sessions, participants shared thoughts in a journaling exercise to stimulate reflection about the experience of the beading circles however the activity of writing was consensually discontinued in light of an expressed a preference to dedicate available time to the activity of doing beadwork.

Of the three women who brought knowledge of beadwork to the beading circles, ages range from mid-twenties to early forty. One has an undergraduate degree, another was close to completion of an undergraduate program and one had withdrawn from an undergraduate degree program.

These three included an individual with considerable historical knowledge who had completed numerous complex beadwork projects including replication of museum collection items, another actively engaged in beadwork crafting beaded powwow regalia for family, and the youngest, who had received formal training in the making and teaching of Native arts and crafts at a post-secondary educational institution in Alberta. One is employed in with government, one is an entrepreneur and the other employed in various occupations. These women were compensated with honoraria for sharing their knowledge and expertise with the beading circle participants.

The youngest women shared her beading kit and beading projects, offering suggestions concerning beading techniques, types and colours of beads, and design. The second instructor, brought with her a considerable expertise immediately evidenced in the surety with which she expertly threaded a needle and began guiding each of the learners with instructions and tips on how to best bead. The third expert, a woman with extensive knowledge and beadwork experience as a Metis artisan dedicated to the teaching and learning of beadwork, shared her rich background working in a museum environment. Her skill level was such that she was actively engaged in the reconstruction of complex intricately beaded artifacts held in museum collections. Each of the women's knowledge of beadwork was extensive. Each shared a passion for beadwork that served to inspire each of the women of the beading circle. Each of these experienced beadworkers brought a positive energy that served to inspire all in our aspirations to learn more about traditional art forms as crafted by Indigenous women.

The proceedings of the beading circles were documented with a video camera and a digital camera. Attending to technologies served to inhibit my participation in the activity of beading although I remained an active discussant and participant in the activity of beadwork as was possible during the beading circles.

A total of twenty-nine video recordings were transcribed, reviewed and analyzed to identify and summarize themes and select direct verbatim quotes that reflected the richness of the undertaking and to elicit meaning in the shared experience of the beading circles. Each of the participants brought to the beading circles their own perspectives, knowledge and experiences as Indigenous women of First Nation, Metis and mixed ancestry.

As an Indigenous researcher, I determined to offer direct quotes to the reader as a demonstration of respect for the First Nation and Metis women who participated in the beading circles, to honour the integrity of their words and their identity as First Nation and Metis women who took time from their busy lives with work and family to actively engage in the beading circles as part of this study.

Relevant themes based as selected upon a review of verbatim proceedings, include the beading circle, art of beadwork, family relations, leaders and elders, Aboriginal identity and non-Aboriginal social relations, relations to land and environment, cultural and community events, teaching and learning, learning and teaching, making digital stories, philosophy of beadwork and the sacred place and space of beadwork. The topic of work is not included as a theme, however it current and work-related events that most often dominated many of the conversations during the beading circles. Also not included are discussions of a personal nature. The identification of the foregoing themes is based upon a subjective identification of topics and issues determined as relevant to this study from a researcher's perspective.

For many years, researchers have interviewed Indigenous peoples, translated, interpreted, summarized and paraphrased verbatim transcripts into varying formats. The intent of the verbatim transcript of proceedings as presented is not to conduct an objective critical analysis rather my intent is to share the story of the voices of the beading circle in a facilitation of opportunity to make meaningful for the reader the active engagement of First Nation and Metis women's participation in a beading circle. In recognition and acknowledgement of the absence and silence of Indigenous women's voice, it seems critical to share the voices of these women as spoken in their own voices, which together become the voices of the beading circle. Further, application of a reflective social analytic autoethnographic approach in this study supports this form of sharing the voices of the beading circle.xh

I have attempted to accurately reflect discussion in a manner that is respectful and serves as representative of the contributions of each of the women and of the beading circle experience, as a whole. I need acknowledge content may or may not accurately reflect individual points of view. Participants were provided with opportunity to review a summary of proceedings and to encourage revision at each individual's discretion.

Consent was requested and received to share visual images and proceedings of the beading circles in this work. Care was taken to maintain the anonymity of each participant. Names are withheld. One of the beading circle participants expressed a preference to be identified as a participant. A rule of thumb was applied in that if content had the potential be harmful, such content was excluded. Learning to Do Beadwork

It is my belief that our identity and integrity as Indigenous women is intricately woven and embedded within the threadwork of beadwork. The beading circles presented an opportunity to actively engage in a traditional cultural activity and to learn about traditional cultural activities and art forms.

At the initial beading circles, I shared samples of beadwork and other traditional art forms as well as a collection of publications, referred to elsewhere in this work, depicting Indigenous art forms, clothing and other items. These resources offered a vast array of design, technique, colour, motif and description of items from multiple Indigenous nations and regions throughout North America, each unique and distinct, most geographically identifiable once familiarity is gained, as commonly held in museum collections around the globe.

Each participant spent a fair amount of time poring over available publications in an effort to identify a project and choose a manageable technique given limited skill sets. One individual sought further information at the local library. It was immediately apparent we did not know a lot about the activity of beadwork and that there were a multitude of decisions to be made before picking up a needle and thread to begin to bead.

Numerous questions arose in the determination of one's choice of project: Does one have to be Athapaskan to employ an Athapaskan design? If Ojibwe, should only an Ojibwe design be used? Can a design be used for both men and women? How can you tell which tribal group or region the design originated? Does it matter if you use a cultural symbol commonly used by another tribal group? What were the meanings of the cultural symbols? Would it be possible to learn and apply one's preferred technique? Where could rare materials no longer commonly available such as smoked or bleached moose hide be accessed? Would it be possible to complete a project without prior knowledge of beadwork and beadwork techniques? How much time would it take to complete a project?

One of the first tasks in assembling a beading kit is to choose from a vast array of materials and supplies: beads of preferred colour and size, type of thread, size of beading needle, and material upon which to bead depending upon availability. The making of these multiple decisions is based entirely upon previous knowledge of traditional art forms and beadwork, research, level of expertise, personal aspirations, degree of courage and fortitude.

Not only was it necessary to be "creative" and possess a discerning eye for colour, light and design, the activity of beadwork required a high degree of fine motor control, manual dexterity and exceptional eyesight. Confidence in one's own capabilities and level of commitment to project completion became important factors in item and design selection. Could we really learn how to do beadwork and successfully complete a project in the brief amount of time allocated to such an undertaking?

At the outset, it proved to be somewhat of a challenge to access beading supplies and materials within the city of Edmonton. One of the women who had completed a previous beadwork project, keen to compliment her beading kit, shared a story about her attempts to locate a beading supply shop. The challenge began with the first step in trying to access a telephone number for "Ken Belcourt Furs"x " in the telephone book and through directory assistance. After several attempts, the business name was located under the letter "K" (rather than "B" where one might expect). The story and discussion led to the observation that knowing where to purchase beading supplies and materials requires specialized knowledge held by few and that one need be "in the know" to access beading supplies in the first place. In an effort to assemble a respectable beading kit, three of us made a field trip, chauffeured by my father, to an industrial neighbourhood located in northeast Edmonton, to visit Halford Hide and Leather Co., established in 1927 as an international importer and exporter of hides (also known as Slutker Furs).x m The shop is unique, specializing in numerous hard-to-find materials and supplies, many of which are used in the crafting of traditional art forms. We departed having purchased an array of beads in various colours and sizes, thread, needles, thimbles and a sampling of how-to books with step-by-step project directions, deeming the field trip to be a resounding success. (My father aptly observing that we each must have a lot of excitement going in our lives for the trip to be deemed such a resounding success.)

There were accessories available, depending upon one's needs, such as a tool to thread a needle for those challenged with the insertion of beading thread into an exceptionally thin beading needle. The individual with previous beading experience immediately purchased a large magnifying glass that remained perched upon her chest at each session to better see the interaction of thin beading needle, thread and cut glass bead. Another donned reading glasses, if and when she remembered to bring them. Notably, all with eyesight issues remained challenged with the threading of beading needle, a first step that proved frustrating for all for the duration of the beading circles.

Foremost, a beadworker need possess background knowledge and, ideally, direct experience with the construction, design and making of items and garments made or designed by Indigenous women. The selection of needle, quality of thread and size of bead, use of one needle, choice of one ore more needles, stitching of every bead, second or third bead, and determining thread tension which in turn determines the resting placement of each bead upon the surface of the material, are all steps that require care and attention to detail. Beadwork became all about the tension of the thread, the objective being for all the beads to skim the surface of the material in smooth and uniform rows. Each bead need be perfect in its' circularity in order to balance in a symmetric and harmonious manner with each of the other beads. Each stitch need be uniform in the tension of thread, in pattern and structure, to balance and maintain the work as whole, suggesting an exceptionally high quality standard in an Indigenous aesthetic of beadwork.

If a mistake is made, a beadworker need undo the work. Beads with imperfections are broken or discarded. A trick is to use a small pair of pliers to break the bead whilst avoiding the tangling of thread and having to rethread a needle. If a work is not done satisfactorily, the beadworker must undo and repeat the sequence until the beads are placed properly. A novice beadworker will find herself doing, undoing and redoing a work until such time as completed to an appropriate standard. There is expectation that beadwork adhere to an unspoken uniform standard of acceptable quality. Imperfection does not serve expectations. Not all of the participants, myself included, possessed either the required level of expertise or allowed for the necessary time and effort required to meet these unspoken standards of beadwork as evidenced in our outcomes.

In the absence of having been taught traditional cultural activities as part of our developmental, learning or educational experiences as an acquired skill set historically essential to survival and well-being, it became increasingly apparent that minimal progress could be made in the absence of a knowledgeable and experienced teacher, instructor, mentor or guide at one's side. This observation brings into question, where are the beading teachers, instructors, mentors or guides, the placement of whom it is assumed to have been firmly established as integral to Indigenous women's lifelong learning. How then can a contemporary Indigenous woman learn about beading not to mention actually learn to bead? For those without previous beadwork experience, the absence of a teacher or guide coincided with slow progress or inability to successfully complete a project. There was increasing frustration and disappointment when attempts to bead were not met with success. Proceeding with one's project without the benefit of a teacher, allowed for the novice beadworker to engage in a series of mis-steps in an effort to slowly progress in a series of mini-steps. Making the wrong choices early on in the process proved to be time consuming later on, usually requiring the novice beadworker to begin again, until initial rudimentary steps are mastered, one by one, sequentially. This proved to be a challenge, when accustomed to moving forward in the successful completion of activities, in that it was necessary to return to repeatedly return to the initial steps in beading.

These experiences further highlighted the necessity in having a teacher, instructor, mentor or guide in the acquisition of knowledge and skills upon which successful completion of beadwork is dependent. In other words, a beading teacher is necessary as learning beadwork is not easy.

The beading circle participants shared experiences implicit within their lives as Indigenous women, the explicit struggle and challenge to maintain and retain identity and integrity as Indigenous women in a social context where Indigenous peoples are poorly understood, where negative stereotypes or misperceptions prevail and where oftentimes there exists an apathy, limited or absence of awareness or understanding concerning the histories or aspirations of either Indigenous women or Indigenous peoples.

Gathering together as Indigenous women in the form of a beading circle served as a place and space to come together as Indigenous women and share experiences in a supportive and nurturing environment. Individual strengths and weaknesses were accepted without question or judgment, and each could be safe, secure and nurtured in one's identity as an Indigenous women. Participants unanimously expressed deep appreciation at the invitation to engage with other Aboriginal women in the beading circle, for the opportunity to further explore one's culture and in sharing a desire to learn more about our own grandmothers through the activity of coming together to do beadwork. A need to engage in an environment described as safe, secure and comfortable with other Aboriginal women became obvious at the outset as participants looked forward to the sharing of day-to-day activities and events, challenges and successes, at home, in the workplace and with others in a broader social context.

The legacy of colonization and history of Indigenous peoples in Canada was often acknowledged as relevant to our daily lives and experiences. Discussions concerning the negotiation and mediation of Aboriginal/Non-Aboriginal relations remains a constant in each of the beading circle participants daily lives as participants sought to reaffirm their positioning and decision-making in these contexts, most often in work-related environments. Families remain as integral and foundational to Indigenous women's well-being, irregardless of immediate proximity. Each of us is impacted in varying degrees in the realm of social relations, by the experiences of previous generations and that of a colonial history as First Nations or Metis, in perpetuated legacies of colonization amidst a rhetoric of decolonization and urging of a regeneration of identity as Indigenous women.

Ongoing reflections were shared concerning Indigenous philosophy, culture and traditions, the challenges inherent to Indigenous research and day-to-day engagement in social and cultural events and contexts. Foremost, is the challenge to learn about Indigenous cultures and traditions in a context where many have moved from their home regions to urban centres, where access to First Nations or Metis Elders is limited or constrained, at a time when there are fewer and fewer Elders with direct and lived experience from whom to learn. Noteworthy, is that it is at university where Aboriginal students may for the first time in their lives be learning about Indigenous histories, philosophies and life ways. Upon review of this summary of voices of the beading circle, one of the women noted a permeating silence concerning Indigenous women's cultural activities and Indigenous art forms. This silence may be interpreted that perhaps Indigenous women's ancient and ancestral knowledge(s), as unspoken, are no longer present in Indigenous women's everyday knowing contemporarily.

At the close of the beading circles, I inherited two fully assembled beading kits, in addition to my own, each holding a vast array of beading treasures awaiting a woman gifted with the necessary knowledge, expertise, skill set and aspirations to undertake beadwork projects. It seemed beading was to be abandoned as not an option for some of the women facing multiple competing priorities in daily life.

Nonetheless, at the close of the beading circle, there was consensus that our participation in the beading circles proved to be an enriching and rewarding experiencing for all.

In the enactment and engagement of a timeless spiritual dimension that resides with the activity of beadwork, in movement of needle, thread and bead, a beadworker becomes "still" in their involvement in the process of exercising one's creativity, as in an awakening of consciousness in a spiritual sense. To experience such stillness is to experience a sense of timelessness, power, strength and beauty, communally. It is as though time is suspended, that all of the women who each engaged in the activity of beadwork both past and present, are joined as one with needle, thread and bead through and in time, "just as hearing an Indigenous language spoken awakens our inner and sometimes dormant spirituality connecting with and in connection to our ancestors."xhv

Mahsi and megwetch to all the women of the beading circle in sharing your lives, kindness and wise words in the facilitation of an opportunity for a reader to gain a deeper level understanding of Indigenous women in relationship to traditional cultural activities and Indigenous art forms in relation to our identity as First Nation and Metis women an outcome of which further stresses the critical juncture of the formation of traditional teacher/learner relationships that in turn are integral to the formation of lifelong social and cultural relationships, contexts and environments. PART SIX - Ancient Women's Art Forms

Figure 4. Double-diamond Quillwork (Orchard, 1984, p. 35)

Floral Art of Beadwork

In Canada, the floral art of beadwork is said to have emerged from the Great Lakes and Red River regions. The Flower Beadwork People tells the story of Metis as "an important part of the story of Canada" (Racette, 1991). This is the story of Metis and floral beadwork:

A long time ago, a French nun came to live in a Metis community. She was very good at embroidery. Metis women had never seen silk thread before. They traveled many kilometers to watch her work. After watching carefully, the women went home and tried the new flower patterns on deer hide with porcupine quills. Next, the women tried using some of the new trade goods that were coming to Canada. They experimented with silk thread, cloth, ribbon and beads. They discovered many beautiful ways of using the flower patterns. They did silk embroidery on white deer hide. They used tiny glass beads on leather and wool cloth. The decorated almost everything with their new flower designs. Their art became famous. The Dakota people gave the Metis a new name ... The Flower Beadwork People, (p. 12-13) Words in a Story: A Visual Repertoire and Restorative Space

Racette (2004) writes she "...unknowingly picked up a needle to an aesthetic tradition that [her] grandmother had put down" in a study, "...done with the greatest respect for the women" today and long ago who continue to guide this type of research. Metis are seen as a "visual collective" with a unique "aesthetic and clothing tradition" (p. 1). For Metis, clothing is as an "active construction of group identity... communicating histories and current social realities... [reflecting] the fur trade, changing economies, resistance and displacement... balanced by survival, persistence... renewal and regeneration" (p. 1-2). The study of clothing traditions as a shared aesthetic expression and communicative visual art is said to bind people through an evocative response "...to what is culturally defined as beautiful or well made—the collective linking of eyes, hands and heart" (p. 2).

Not surprisingly, scholars have not been able "...to trace an evolutionary path for the development of floral beadwork" given the application of "...Western aesthetic sensibilities" and predominant worldview of early theorist, however there is general acknowledgement of a distinct visual repertoire and artistic production (p. 8). Racette (2004) notes a previous developmental analysis of the floral tradition of beadwork in the early 1800s to have proven problematic due to "...complex and overlapping cultural communities in the Red River region and the lack of adequate provenance in museum collections" in association with the widespread migration of Metis and diffusion of Metis style throughout the northern plains and into the North West Territory (p. 5).

An extensive design analysis by Blady (1985) determined "beadwork as a social text", "...a window into the resilience, ingenuity and strength of Metis women" (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 7). Racette (2004) notes, "most scholars recognize two contemporary distinct regional styles: Red River Metis and Mackenzie River delta or Subarctic Metis" (p. 7). Towards a Metis theory of identity development, consideration is given to the concept of a "third space" of hybridity as brought forward by Bhaba (1994), a fluid and shifting space (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 10). Hill (1996), in discussing the Metis experience of ethnogenesis, proposes recognition of the "...context of drastic change, discontinuity and dominance from which new identities..." such as that of a bi-cultural identity, emerge (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 11). It is this perspective that is thought by Racette (2004) to "...help us understand the emergence of cultural expressions that integrated elements into new linguistic, aesthetic and social forms" (p. 11).

In the construction of culture and identity, Holland and Lachicotte (1998) propose material culture in the form of "cultural artifacts," perceived of as animate, with "considerable power to evoke, to connect and trigger" in a manner whereby identities are constructed and expressed as "both instrument and collective remembrance" (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 14). As distinguished by Appadurai (1986), clothing and the decorative arts can be said to have "lives and stories of their own" with shifting meanings (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 15).

The greatest challenge in the study of clothing and the decorative arts is identified by Racette (2004) to be the "...relative absence of women" where "...with few exceptions, the historical record is silent," particularly in the business records of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada and as evidenced by a gap in visual historical records as edited by travelers at the time (p. 16).

Notably, Racette (2004) identifies the transformation of oral texts about clothing and the decorative arts into writing by posing a significant question, "whose voice do we hear?" noting the complexity, contradiction and absence of texts ".. .filtered through a transcriber-editor," where texts alternate "between an oppositional "them" or an inclusive "us" and "me"" as illustrative of "the complex social and historic realities from which they emerged" (p. 18). This study brings to light the emergence of a Metis collective identity, of a Metis space through time and in place, as a complex and interconnected social network, where "...Metis consciousness grew among individuals, families and entire communities who moved from one location to another, from one metis space to another" thus creating "communities of resistance" and "restorative spaces" such as within that of the decorative arts both historically and contemporarily (p. 62).

While teaching her stepdaughter to make a beadwork bag, Racette (2004) observed:

... there was a lot more than technique in our conversation. As we beaded, we visited and I found myself telling her things that I hadn't told her before, teaching her things that I thought I had already taught her. I realized that the context had never been right. Afterwards, I spoke to my mother about sewing together and the way it connects people. The experience of sewing together creates the environment for certain kinds of sharing. The process provides opportunities for teaching values and the 'right way' of doing things. The silent spaces between stitches invite confidences and stories. I realized that when we sew with our children, we are really passing on generations of accumulated women's knowledge and strengthening the bonds between ourselves, (p. 331-332)

Inspired by the importance of remembering and the rights of Indigenous peoples relating to ancestral knowledge(s), the works of hooks (1990) and Smith (1999) serve to "...reconstruct the lives of the artists and the world from which their work emerged" as a significant contribution to the revitalization and repatriation of knowledge for First Nation and Metis people seeking to reclaim their traditions and visual identity in the study of clothing and the decorative arts (as cited in Racette, 2004, p. 23). Voices Inscribed in Beadwork

More recently Racette (2005) describes the commodification of Metis women's artistic production in her examination of the social role of sewing in the fur trade economy, noting "both Indigenous and European traditions... provided an area where values from diverse cultural heritages overlapped... and sewing became a means to integrate the two knowledge systems" (p. 23-24).

By the mid-1800s Metis women were sewing clothing decorated with quills, beads and embroidery silk. Their work was either commissioned or bartered in exchange for credit and purchase of goods at the local Hudson's Bay company store. Women learned to sew at home, with their mothers, grandmothers or other women, and/or at school, taught by the Grey nuns who were known to have excelled in floral embroidery. The schools where the nuns taught are acknowledged as "...distribution points for European designs and sewing techniques" (p. 41).

Racette (2005) suggests the production of clothing by Metis women to raise questions, "not easily answered and speaks to the complexity and variety of contexts in which they lived and worked," of their "...economic and aesthetic influence. .. .While women across Indigenous North America produced useful and beautiful clothing and other decorative items, no other group of women had their work commodified to the same extent" (p. 41). The success of the commodification of Metis women's work is described as "...documented in both visual records and museum collections" as evidenced in the "...similarity of clothing and accessories worn by men across a broad terrain" (p. 41) to the extent whereby Racette (2005) asserts, "collectively, Metis women can be seen as creators and manufacturers who used their work to inscribe their voices on the canvas of the male body" (p. 42.) In a recent study of painted hide coats embellished with porcupine quillwork located in museum collections in Europe and North America, Racette combines linguistic memory, visual analysis, archival research and knowledge as embedded within the coats themselves. "... part of the challenge that I've taken... is naming these women, because I think they matter. I think they matter. It's not so much what I'm doing matters, it's that what they did mattered, because they're faceless and nameless and unrecognized, and so that's what I'm trying to do" (Material Culture as Encoded Objects and Memory, Why does your work matter, para 1). Her goal is to replicate the coats to reclaim and repatriate knowledge, "...the reason they are so valuable is that they represent what we have forgotten and what we have lost" (Material Culture as Encoded Objects and Memory, Why does your work matter, para 4).

Traditional Art Forms: Enactment of Multiple Knowledge(s)

In North America, activities such as beadwork quillwork, hair tufting and embroidery enact a highly specialized skill set requiring multiple knowledge(s), a high degree of technical expertise and specialized abilities acquired through direct experience, gained by repetition and practice through time, often under the guidance of a skilled instructor with many years of lived experience and accumulated diverse knowledge(s), not to mention exceptional patience and fortitude. A creative undertaking, these traditional art forms engage and enact multiple intelligences, knowledge(s) and a broad diversity of specialized skill sets. Each individual's work is unique and distinct to the individual, contributing to a collective of art forms that are distinctively recognizable as representational of Indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledge(s) located at specific geographical regions globally. Culture and Cognition: Early Beads

Early beads were made from natural materials such as bone, ivory, stone, seeds, berries, shells, metals, clay, wood, semi-precious stones, copper and other natural materials. Indigenous bead making was extremely labour intensive, "Obtaining material and shaping, polishing, and drilling each bead by hand made bead manufacture difficult and time consuming" (Dubin, 1999, p. 172). The materials were drilled and most often used as adornment.

Archaeological sites sometimes yield ancient remains at various locations around the world.xlv Archaeologists have identified bead-like shells with drilled single holes in Israel and Algeria, similar to shell beads found in South Africa, at sites contemporarily re-dated to 100,000 and 135,000 years ago (News in Science, Shell beads suggest new roots for culture, para. 3). These dates are interpreted to suggest early modern humans to have been both culturally and cognitively similar to modern humans much earlier that was thought. Evidence of bead-making using shell beads covered with red ochre found at a limestone cave in Eastern Morocco, initially discovered in 1908, and excavated decades later, were dated by luminescence and uranium-series techniques to approximately 82,000 years ago suggesting early bead-making in Africa prior to the appearance of similar cultural manifestations in Europe (Bouzouggar et al, 2007).

Human origin experts interpret the antiquity of the beads to suggest widespread symbolic behaviour by early modern humans (Natural History Museum, Beads confirm ancient jewelry making, p. 4). A recent finding of beads in Eastern Morocco dates their antiquity to 110,000 years ago. The date has led to a debate concerning the origins of modern behaviour in early humans as shell bead ornaments are seen as proof of a sophisticated symbolic material culture. Bead- making is attributed to be "a much longer tradition of bead-making than previously suspected..." (World Archaeology. World's Oldest Beads Just Got Older, para. 2). In North America, the Paleo-Indian bison hunters are said to have worn the earliest recorded 'ornaments' based upon material remains dating back to c. 8800 B.C. "A bone bead, a circular lignite bead engraved with lines radiating from a center hole, and perforated hematite ornament—were unearthed at the Lindenmeier site in northeastern Colorado..." (Dubin, 1999, p. 239). Early images from about 2500 B.C. are described by Dubin (1999) to convey historical, social and religious information through a "... a symbolic visual language— paralleling Native oral tradition" (p. 265). Early beads were made from elk and bison bones.

Beads, Trade Beads and Seed Beads

The term "bead" is defined as "a small round object of glass, wood, stone, or the like with a hole through it, often strung with others of its in necklaces, rosaries, etc." The origin of the English term, bead, or "beed," is defined as "prayer" or "prayer bead" in Early English, "where, on a rosary each bead symbolizes a prayer, the word for the notion symbolized was transferred to the designating object" (Dictionary.com). Prayer beads are used by members of various world religions such as Roman Catholicism, Angicanism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, amongst others, to count the repetitions of prayers, chants or devotions, in meditation, for protection or relaxation. In Catholicism, the rosary, a Latin term meaning "rose garden," is composed of 54 beads with an additional 5 beads used to combine a sequence of prayer, called "decades" with other prayers.x V1 The beads of early rosaries were made from compressed roses.

By the end of the 14l century, the first glass beads were being made on the island of Murano in northern Italy, a region famous for its' beads. There are several types of beads, usually made from glass, categorized based upon origin, material, manufacturing process, patterning and shape. Some are widely known as 'trade beads,' highly valued as collector's items amongst bead enthusiasts. Beads have played an important role in world trade as a trade item particularly in the fur trade in North America, traded by Russians to the North and the Spanish, French, Dutch and English to the south. Chevron beads were created by glass bead makers in Italy towards the end of the 14l century and distributed throughout the world to West Africa, the Americas and Peru. These early individually made beads, also known as Rosetta, or star beads, consist of 4-12 layers of alternating colours with several facets. Trade beads include pony beads, Russian or Siberian trade beads, Chevron trade beads and the most common, small seed beads.

The earliest seed beads on the continent are tiny white beads from the Great Lakes region, firmly dated, to the early 1770s (Fair, 2006). Large glass beads and pony beads were brought to the central Plains by about 1780. Blue and white glass pony beads, transported by pony pack trains, were introduced to the Northern Plains in the 1800s (Her Many Horses, 2007). Seed beads became available by 1830. Due to increased availability, pony and seed beads were widely used in generalized geometric style. Faceted glass beads, introduced in the early 1900s, also known as cut glass beads, remain popular today as the beads sparkle when light hits the beads at a certain angle.

Motifs and Symbols: Pawn Shops and Museums

[Around 1862] the sky was perfectly clear, when we heard a distant rumbling sound, which we thought was thunder. ...Soon we saw a cloud of dust rising in the east, and the rumbling grew louder and I think it was about half an hour when the front of the herd came fairly into view. ...From an observation with our field glasses, we judged the herd to be 5 or 6 (some say 8 or 10) miles wide, and the heard was more than an hour passing us at a keen gallop. There seemed to be no space, unoccupied by buffalo. ...As far as we could see was a seemingly solid mass of buffaloes (Langford, 1862, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 238). As late as 1871, buffalo outnumbered people in North America. In that year one could stand on a bluff in the Dakotas and see buffalo in every direction for 50 kilometres. Herds were so large it took days for them to pass by. Wyatt Earp described one herd of over a million animals stretched over a grazing area the size of the state of Rhode Island. Within nine years of that sighting, the buffalo had vanished from the Plains. U.S. government policy was explicit. Exterminate the buffalo and destroy the cultures of the Plains (Davis, 2009, p. 169).

During the 1800s, the Plains peoples were decimated by settlement, warfare, disease, and conquest. By the late 1800s the people experienced the extermination of the buffalo and were restricted to reservations. "...Artisans, reacted to this profound upheaval with remarkable creativity, often by reinforcing and reviving traditional forms and practices" (Dubin, 1999, p. 238). "After 1870, beadwork became more intricate and varied with recognizable regional, tribal, and reservation styles. Plains beaded designs typically evolved from simple to complex," with early beadwork designs reflecting geometric patterns from traditional forms (p. 273). "By the reservation era, beadwork was the Plains peoples' major form of artistic expression. While sacred motifs continued, narrative imagery, reflecting social and historical change, was greatly altered" (p. 265).

In Canada, items adorned with beadwork, or other handwork, are common: as handicrafts, or arts and crafts, readily available for purchase, as mechanically produced reproductions or expensive hand-sewn creations in contemporary high fashion, some made of inferior "faux" materials for sale as tourist trinkets, to be repurchased or on sale at a reduced price at a local pawnshop, oftentimes tucked away as valued memorabilia in people's homes, or, on display, carefully preserved and maintained in the vast collections of museums around the globe. An on-line search yields an incalculable number of items, as works of art, clothing, functional items, etc., crafted through traditional cultural activities such as quillwork, beadwork and other handwork, to be found exclusively in museum collections. A sampling of items is available for public viewing at on-line photographic databases or as a part of former special displays as researched by museum curators.

The art of beadwork is considered an art form as practiced by Indigenous peoples in North America. Today's Native artisans are viewed as adding "...an important dimension to oral tradition, recording the beliefs of their people in a visual language of motifs and symbols," evidenced in themes worldwide in the form of symbols and images as recorded in rituals and seen in petroglyphs, tools, garments, adornment, ornamentation and regalia, the meanings of which have remained constant, changed or become obscure (p. 28).

Like the generations of Aboriginal beadworkers before me, my art celebrates the beauty of flowers and plants while exploring their symbolic properties. I follow the tradition of Metis floral art, inspired by the traditional beadwork patterns of Metis and First Nation women, and use the subject matter of plants as a metaphor for our own lives to relay a variety of meanings which include concerns for the environment, biodiversity, spirituality and awareness of Metis culture. This journey has led me on an exploration into traditional Metis art, Metis history, traditional medicines and contemporary issues that face Metis in modern times (Belcourt, as cited in Green, 2007, p. 13).

Wampum: Interpretation of Histories, Laws and Rituals

Amongst the most well known beads in North America is Wampum, beads made from the channeled whelk shell and, quahog, or hard-shelled clam, of the North Atlantic. Whelk shell provides a white colour and the quahog shell a black or purple bead. The shells were gathered and drilled, using stone drill bits of flint knapped quartz, chert or flint, then smoothed on grinding stones in sand and water. The purple, white or black beads were strung or woven using various fibers, such as milkweed bast, or materials, such as deer sinew, into Wampum belts and other items. Wampum beads have been dated to 4,500 years old and some of the wampum belts contain up to 10,000 individual wampum beads, each individually made (NativeTech: Native American Technology & Art. Woven Wampum Beadwork: Wampum History and Background, para. 1 & para. 10).

During the 17th century in New England, Wampum began to be used as a currency of trade between North American Indian tribes and European colonists. Subsequently, Wampum began to be manufactured in factories by the colonists until being devalued and replaced as a form of currency in the colonies. Wampum, beads made from shells, functioned as money, as adornment, necklaces, bracelets, ornaments on clothing and on weapons. Strings of wampum and belts of wampum were important in ceremonies, in councils, as public records and to mark exchanges such as marriages. The making of treaties and of alliances was concluded by the presentations of one or more wampum belts.

Connelly (1899) and Smith (1883) recount the legend of "The First Wampum" whereby the Wyandot people encountered "...the first wampum bird ever seen in this lower world", a bird, "... covered with wampum, its only plumage. Purple wampum covered its wings; white wampum covered its body" (as cited in Clark, 1960, p. 55-56). The bird was eating cranberries and the people determined to obtain the wampum. The warrior who slayed the wampum would have the Chiefs beautiful daughter for a wife. A young man, a stranger from another tribe, shot the wampum bird with an arrow that pierced its head. He brought his people to the Wyandot council, who

... recognized the Delawares as their nephews, and the two peoples made a treaty that has never been broken even unto this day... To confirm the treaty between the two tribes and make it binding, they passed back and forth strings of wampum secured from the bird that the young Delaware had slain. Since that day, the Wyandots have never concluded a treaty without passing the wampum . The Wyandots and their nephews the Delawares lived side by side for along time. Then the Wyandots came from the north country to live on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, (p. 55-56)

By means of designs and colour symbolism, the beads could be arranged to communicate ideas. White wampum, when used ceremonially, expressed peace, health and prosperity. Purple indicated hostility, death and sorrow. Wampum belts and wampum strings were an approach to writing; they preserved the history, the laws, and the rituals of several tribes.

Wampum belts are of particular significance to the Hodinohso:ni, historically known as the Iroquois League of Nations, as codifying the 117 articles of their founding constitution, the Great Law of Peace. Symbols or designs on Wampum belts represent specific meanings, similar to a writing system, to those familiar with their interpretation. Based upon oral tradition and interpretation of Wampum symbols, the Great Law of Peace, brought to the Hodinohso:ni by the Peacemaker, is dated prior to the arrival of Europeans to North America.x ™

Jacobs (2000) examines the historical political relationship of the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy with that of the European colonizers and Great Britain asserting a nation-to-nation relationships as practiced by the Hodinohso:ni who entered into international treaties with other nations, "...international relationships were recorded through the use of wampum and creating wampum belts" (p. 35). Gahswehda, Two Row Wampum Belt, is the most famous wampum treaty, "the original treaty that defined the present and future relationship between the colonizers and the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy" (p. 36).

There is a bed of white wampum which symbolizes the purity of the agreement. There are two rows of purple, and those two rows have the spirit of your ancestors and mine. There are three beads of wampum separating the two rows and they symbolize peace, friendship and respect.

These two rows will symbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the Indian people, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship will be for the white people and their laws, their custom and their ways. We shall each travel the river together, side by side, but in our own boat. Neither of us will try to steer the other's vessel, (p. 37)

Jacobs (2000) strives to offer an alternative new vision towards liberating possibilities by contrasting the Hodinohso:ni way of life as "traditions, ceremonies, customs, values, and principals," as the natural laws of the Hodinohso:ni, with Eurocentric international law (p. 7).

"Every law recited and recorded by the Hodinohso:ni: was passed through the use of a string or belt of Wampum and was memorized by those who were capable of memorizing all of the words within the message of the law" (p. 8). In order to understand Hodinohso:ni teachings, a person must have a "good mind." Jacobs (2000), describes Wampum as part of oral tradition, "formed and utilized for official and ceremonial purposes" and "exclusively sacred."

These Wampum were used as a means of communication and a means of remembering events and stories that accompanied the event—each string of beads represent a thought or is a representation of a principle or value that is being taught. Wampum was also used as a means of healing. It was used for cleansing and consoling your mind and spirit and was used as part of the condolence ceremony, (p. 11)

The Great Law of Peace, recorded on wampum belts, teaches the basic principles of peace, power and righteousness. Jacobs (2000) writes, "The most sacred record of the political/governmental organization is set out in the Wampum Circle of Fifty Chiefs" (p. 11). The reproduced image shows a large circle made of two rows of wampum strings wrapped together, representing the Great Peace established amongst the nations, to which are attached 50 individual wampum strings, each representing one of the fifty Chiefs belonging to the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy.

"The Wampum Circle represents and symbolizes the invitation that was made by the Peacemaker to each of the fifty Hodiyanehso" (p. 11) to enter into a relationship of spiritual and political strength. "The Peacemaker was the messenger of Shogwayadihso, the Creator of Mother Earth, the sun, the moon, the thunderers, the winds, the waters, plants, vegetables, medicinal herbs, trees, animals, and all living things" (p. 12). The Peacemaker brought a message of peace and unity, and the values and principles of peace, power and righteousness that the Hodinohso:ni people were to follow and live by.

The messages that the Peacemaker delivered symbolized that everyone would become united; that all men, women and children of every nation would become one: meaning they will have one mind as though they were a single person with only one body, one head and one life. Life and respect was an integral part of the message of Gayanehsragowa which generated our people to change their way of life. When everyone lived according to the principles of the Gayanehsragowah and Ganikwi:yo, all nations had peace and had strength through the power of unity, (p. 12)

Symbolizing the union of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League, the Hayewahta wampum belt depicts the union of the five nations as the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy. All fifty Hodiyanehso gathered at Grand Council to "discuss the issues or difficulties and make decisions that benefit and provide for the betterment of all Hodinohso:ni" (p. 22). Amongst the Hodinohso:ni, women held a major role in acknowledging and accepting the messages with Gayanehsragowah. Clanmothers who were heads of households in which Hoya:neh titles were vested, received two strings of wampum, representing "that the females of the family have ownership of the Hoya:neh title forever" (p. 15). Leaders were selected by clanmothers based upon characteristics that determined the individual to be "strong-minded, courageous, patient, tolerant, honest, compassionate, responsible" (p. 23).

A Hoya:neh, one of the fifty Hodiyanehso of the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy Council, "is given four strings of wampum one span in length bound together at one end. This is evidence of his pledge to the Creator that he will live and abide by all principles and values of Gayanehsragowah" (p. 24). "When a Hoya:neh is to installed or condoled... This is evidence of his pledge to the Creator that he will live and abide all of the principles and values of the Gayanehsragowah. A Hoya:neh acts on behalf of the Creator" (p. 24). "...a Hoya:neh is capable of forming wampum strings or belts to record matters of national or international importance. These wampum belts are used to record the pledges made with an external nation. It is like an agreement that is binding as soon as the strings are exchanged by both parties" (p. 25).

Gaihwi:yo, the Code of Handsome Lake, is a part of oral tradition sent by the Creator to advise the Haudinohso:ni on a way of life and how life should be lived every day, to give thanks each at the beginning of each day and to "analyze our thoughts and actions during the day," (p. 34) to remain in balance.

Art of Early Quillwork: Stitching Time

Long ago Gwich'in used the tsi'it [porcupine] quills to sew and decorate clothing. The quills were dyed different colours with ochre powder, ashes from red wood, berries and other plants off the land. These colourful quills were then used to make jewellery, , jackets and other clothing. The different colours made nice decorative designs on the clothing. The quills must be dyed when there is good weather or they will not turn out. They should also be kept damp and rolled up in vadzaih [caribou] skin to prevent them from drying and breaking up (Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board, 2001, p. 44).

Evidence of early quillworking, found in the remains of quillwork and quillworking tools, led Beddington (1982) to suggest "...the ancient woman's art of quill embroidery" to have been practiced for many centuries, if not longer, in North America (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 265). Oral traditions explain quillwork beginnings, as described by the , as originating from "...an old woman who is eternally quillworking while her dog lies beside her. When the woman sleeps, the dog tears apart her work, and she begins again. They believed that if she ever completed her , it would signal the end of the world" (Dubin, p. 265).

One of the earliest art forms know in North America is the unique use of porcupine quills as a principle means of decoration. An early work by Orchard (1984), first published in 1916, remains one of the best sources on quillwork. The practice of quillwork extended throughout North America amongst many Indigenous tribal groups, including those of the Athapaskan peoples to the North. Orchard, renowned for his work and appreciation of the complexities of quillwork and beadwork techniques and designs based upon his fieldwork and examination of museum collection items, considered porcupine quillwork to be a fine art.

Orchard (1984) meticulously describes the materials and dyes and implements. Several kinds of stitches, using sinew thread, are identified to include: the spot- stitch, back-stitch and loop-stitch, splicing and fastening or telescoping, folding, crossing and folding, weaving and checker-weaving several quills of contrasting colours, plaiting, and plaiting into diamond and double-diamond patterns.

"Some of these braids—the product of earlier workers—measure only one- sixteenth of an inch in width; modern work [in the early nineteen hundreds] is rarely so fine, often measuring an eighth of an inch or more in width" (p. 53). Very old specimens employ circular forms of quillwork on buffalo and medicine bags using a wrapped coil form where the foundation of the coil is composed of horse hair, on some specimens, and on others, "the appearance of human hair... and in others the long hair of a buffalo-tail" (p. 46).

Various specific or complicated methods were applied in wrapping, fastening, tying, looping, knotting, twisting, plaiting or securing quills to items such as pipe- stems, club-handles and spoon-handles, in addition to various techniques using quills for edgings and in the folding, threading and stitching of quills in line work. Quillwork designs are described as angular or geometric on the Plains, or as influenced by plant life as employed by the Woodland Indians to the east. One example, of unknown origin, depicts several rosettes constructed using a method of folding the quills to produce a circle, using two or more colours. Various methods are employed in the wrapping of fringes, with or without thread. Quillwork was practiced using soft tanned leather or birchbark.

Orchard (1983) accessed historical resources concerning methods of dying quills. Various materials, dependent upon the region, were used. In the Rocky Mountains, a lemon-coloured moss that grows on fir trees achieved a beautiful yellow colour and a root, a beautiful red dye. East of the Canadian Rockies, the colour black was made using a chocolate-coloured stone, which was burned, pounded fine and mixed with hazel-nut tree bark. After simmering in water, the quills are dried before a fire, then rubbed with bear's oil, making a beautiful shiny black colour. Mosses, roots and berries are used for other colours, "these colours never fade" (p. 10).

In 1911, Orchard also traveled to North Dakota and South Dakota to gather information from the Sioux on the materials and methods for preparing quills. "Four very old people..." identified buffalo-berry, squaw-currant, dock-root, wild grape, hickory or walnut, wild sunflower, oak-bark, cattail roots, pine bark, tamarack bark, spruce cones, sumac berries, black willow, fox moss, hemlock bark, blueberries and larkspur as materials that were gathered, mixed and boiled to produce a variety of colours in the Dakotas.

A "dark-colored fluid," was made for "marking out patterns and for picture- writing on skins" using a fine black powder from a river-bottom to the northwest, mixed with water, "sometimes a small quantity of blood was added as a binder" (p. 16). To the east, amongst the Ojibwe of Georgian bay, tamarack, sumac berries, black willow, fox moss, hemlock bark, blueberries and larkspur were used as dyes to colour porcupine quills, prior to the introduction of aniline dyes on the continent.

Art of Early Hair Embroidery: Complexity of Form, Technique and Design

Another early art form, described as "hair embroidery" in Siberia and North America, is based upon the meticulous examination of material culture specimens held in various museum collections by Geoffrey Turner, an Honorary Consultant at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, for close to seventy years (Turner, 1955). One of Turner's primary concerns was that moose and caribou embroidery is often incorrectly described to be that of quillwork, bird quills or horsehair, in items in museum collections.

Moose or caribou hair appears in porcupine quillwork made by the Kutchin, Chipewyan and Slave in northern Canada, and, in southern Canada, by the Cree, Montagnais, Naskapi, Iroquois and Huron. For the purposes of this work, the topic of moose and caribou embroidery in North America will be reviewed.

Noteworthy about Turner's work, is the acknowledgement and contribution as made to my grandmother, Mrs. Bert Edge [Mrs. Joanne Edge nee McLeod] of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Turner describes the hair used in embroidery to come "...from the mane, cheeks and rump. Mrs. Bert Edge, a modern embroiderer living at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, uses hair from the bell," which is white, sometimes with a dark tip (p. 17). Turner describes each type of the material, their use and application. "Mrs. Bert Edge, at Fort Smith, works largely with hairs from the bell of the moose, a single animal providing material for the decoration of from six to twelve pairs of moccasins according to the complexity of the design" (p. 29). Plate XIII is a photograph of "Modern Northwestern hair- embroidered moccasin by Mrs. Edge, Fort Smith" (p. 29).

Three basic techniques are described using moose or caribou hair, that of applique, or , weaving on a sinew warp, and false embroidery. Turner notes, "True embroidery, which had a restricted distribution in Canada, was almost certainly introduced from France" (p. 29). In the applique, or couching technique, a bundle of hairs are sewn using a simple over-sewn line or meander, or with diagonal stitching with hairs twisted. Hairs are also wound over straight stitching. The bristle technique describes a bundle of hairs tightened with a loop stitch and trimmed with very sharp scissors to achieve the desired three- dimensional effect.

Other techniques for working moose or caribou hair include the use of a solid or serrated line to produce zigzag or double serrations, the coiling of hairs around a core or filler consisting of single moose hairs or skin , a coiled edging technique with skin filler using 3-4 hairs, two pairs of hairs laid over cut-out skin pattern, criss-cross braiding of 2 single hairs on a skin strip, criss-cross braiding of 2 single hairs stitched at centre, creation of motifs, such as a hollow diamond, using a sequence of designs at regular intervals made up of paired hairs, edging using 2 single hairs, continuous edging using 3-5 hairs, the intermittent weaving of hair and porcupine quills using a supporting sinew warp and sinew weft where 4-5 moose hairs are introduced at regular intervals to form a stepped diamond pattern, and twined weaving integrating single beads (Turner, 1955). In the North, the use of floral patterns is documented in 1860 as practiced by the Kutchin based upon a moccasin collected in that year for the Scottish Museum. Both porcupine quill and dyed moose hair are used in the flowers: "porcupine quill is used for the body of the leaves and petals, dyed moose hair coiled over a moose-hair filler for the margins and ribs" (p. 45). The use of double curve scrolls is attributed to the Iroquois who are said to have "travelled far and wide in the employ of the fur trade" (p. 46). Turner notes Alexander Mackenzie to be an expert on embroidery, based upon comments in his journals of the Dene he encountered in 1789; their shirts, "are decorated with an embroidery of very neat workmanship with porcupine quills and the hair of the moose, coloured red, black, yellow, and white" (p. 46).

Much of the moose hair work in museums is attributed to be of Huron origin. Turner relies on the work of Marius Barbeau whose work traces the arrival of five Ursaline nuns, all skilled embroiderers, to Quebec in 1639, and the opening of the first seminary where Indigenous girls began to receive training in the art of embroidery, often using moose hair as thread.

It is generally accepted that the general establishment of French culture on the St. Lawrence led to a radical transformation of Indian concepts of design over an ever-widening area, but a knowledge of the mechanics and extent of this acculturative process is of particular importance to the understanding of hair embroidery in its most familiar form (Barbeau, 1944, as cited in Turner, 1955, p. 47).

At that time, there was increasing demand for Native souvenirs in Europe whereby, "Trinkets of birchbark ornamented with moose hair and quills became, from about 1714 onwards, an importance source of income to the convents... Not until the early nineteenth century did the Ursalines, under the influence of changing tastes and new methods of education, relinquish their lead in 'native' crafts to the Huron Indians of Lorette" (p. 48). Due to displacement in association with the in-migration of Iroquois and settlers, building of railways and commerce in the region, a report to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, reported in Lorette, a village outside of Quebec city, states "the dressing of hides (mainly imported) and making of hair-embroidered moccasins, snowshoes, canoes, and fancy goods, in that order, were the principle sources of revenue. The output of moccasins in 1898 was 140,000 pairs. These were sold both locally and through wholesale dealers in Canadian and American cities" (p. 48). Both Huron and French-Canadian women were employed in the work.

Early in the nineteenth century the decorative field was closely packed with highly conventionalized solid floral figures, scrolls, and loops... By the end of the nineteenth century all traces of the early massive figures had disappeared. The decoration of moccasins was standardized to simple representations of flowers and buds on branching stems, contained within a serrated border... This economy of design was no doubt dictated by mass-production methods... [yet] there is no loss of aesthetic validity, (p.)

Turner (1955) credits Sister Beatrice Leduc, of Aklavik, Northwest Territories, with the teaching of moose and caribou work in the North. Sister Leduc, in turn, credits Mrs. Boniface Lafferty of Fort Providence with teaching her moose hair embroidery.xlvm However, Turner disputes this suggesting, "... examination of modern work from the district leaves no doubt that it is derived from eastern Canadian sources" as evidenced by

...a moccasin decorated by Mrs. Bert Edge at Fort Smith, N.W.T. Mrs. Edge, of Scottish and Kutchin blood, was taught by her mother, who at one time lived at Fort Providence. It will be seen that her arrangement of the design and borders, as well as the over-sewn and bristle techniques, show clear affinity with the late Huron style.xllx (p. 52) Turner goes on to say the modern hair embroidery of the twentieth century quite likely represents a reintroduction of the art form, rather than an independent invention, as the knowledge of moose hair work mid-nineteenth may have faded in peoples' memories.

Huron and Iroquois collection items from 1700s, decorated using the technique of false embroidery,1 are noted to have been exclusively abstract or geometrical, with the exception of rectangular human figures, thus "...false embroidery in moose hair seems to represent a purely aboriginal trait devoid of intrusive European elements" (p. 62).

Split bird quill piping, described as characteristic of Northern Athapaskans, is used as piping on earlier moccasins collected during the 1800s. The replacement of bird quill piping with horsehair is determined to have occurred by the 1850s as horses became more prevalent on the Prairies. The use of horse hair is not to be confused with the use moose hair as the two materials are very different whereby horse hair lacks the plasticity of moose hair and is used most often in simple linear forms, as coiled piping around the edges of moccasin vamps. A contemporary publication by the Dene Nation (1984) offers the following description:

The moose hair is most suitable for tufting is the winter fur, obtained between December and March. It is usually six to eight inches in length and comes from the centre back of the animal. Caribou hair is softer and does not shed as easily. The hair is picked from the hide by hand, sorted by length, washed in soap and water, and dyed. Natural dyes such as berries, bark and leaves are still used but commercial powder dyes and crepe paper are popular as well. (p. 106) Contemporary Beadwork Style, Image and Symbol: Shared Meaning and Practice

In our family we do beadwork to pay tribute to relatives that have passed on. Often I feel their presence when I sit down to bead. I can sense my mother, and sometimes I can hear her voice. She would hum or sing to give her inspiration and go back into time; my grandmother was the very same way. So when I sit down for beadwork, I do the same. I can hear them, and that gives me inspiration to do what I have to do (Gould, 1994, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 311).

Today, on the North American continent, beadwork styles and images are affiliated with specific regions with specific tribes known for their unique beadwork aesthetic, techniques, use of motifs, imagery and conceptual works, similar to that of other types of art forms that are recognizable in regards to provenance, i.e. origin, region, artist and/or style. Contemporary resources about beads and beadwork include how-to-books depicting various regional styles, symbolic imagery and techniques, with contemporary interpretations of traditional motifs focused on traditional symbols or artistic themes that remain popular today (Geary, 2005).

Older styles and types of beadwork are described as labour-intensive and highly valued. Choice of bead colour and standardized sizes, manufacture and bead finish, needle type and size, beading thread and threading of the needle, bead supplies, knots and different techniques and basic stitches are described in detail to encourage novice headers to engage in this creative activity. A multitude of patterns and beading techniques of varying complexity, specific to geographical regions or Indigenous tribal groups, are meticulously described.

Examples include or Comanche weave, also known as the brick or stacking stitch, the South American chile stitch, circular Comanche weave, circular netting, couching, drop down or step up stitch, edging stitch, flat netting off-loom technique, flat, flat round or free-form , fretting, horizontal netting, Huichol lace netting stitch, ladder stitch, loom stitch, circular, horizontal, round and vertical netting, odd-count flat or sculpted flat peyote stitch, right-angle weave, round, stacking or step up stitch, Sonora weave, whip and zipper stitch. Each term describes a beading technique based upon a sequence of steps with needle, thread and bead through which a breadth of art forms emerge.

Beadwork styles, commonly affiliated with tribes, are influenced by tradition, availability of materials and physical surroundings. In the United States, specific forms of art production have become notable items in the tourist trade such as the Zuni triple-strand bracelet of the Pueblo tribe of the Southwest, traditional sacred art of gourd beadwork as practiced by Huichol headers and, perhaps most common, the dream catcher as adopted throughout North America. The hummingbird and eagle, buffalo and coyote, indigenous flowers such as the blue violet, mythical beings such as the thunderbird and waterbird, are each interpreted as symbols in relation to the natural world and in association with spiritual practices.

Geary (2005) notes both Native and non-Native headers to describe how beadwork is invested with meaning through prayers and good thoughts, intended for the recipient of the beaded item. The activity of beading is described as both creative and spiritual, ".. .to hold significance because of the power inherent in the symbolism" (p. 76). Sharing stories about the meaning of these symbols invites opportunities for the knowledge holder to interpret shared meanings and shared practice. For example a discussion about the making of medicine bags, their adornment and use, allows for the sharing of knowledge about the types, qualities, and uses of sacred medicines, such as tobacco and sage.

Beadwork in the American Southwest often depicts rock art images or petroglyphs as interpreted from ethnographic knowledge or Native informants. Geary (2005) suggests meanings of the images are attributed to shamanistic visual images, sacred geography, animal transformation, spiritual journeys, dreams, visions or memories, or natural and spiritual phenomena. For example, the Aztec hummingbird is described as a symbol of rejuvenation or resurrection. Specific colours or combinations are associated with specific tribes as are specific geometric symbols. The Yaqui tribe associates the colour white with purity of spirit, blue with the sky and red with the as symbolic of the blood shed by the Yaqui to protect their land, customs and religion. Some symbols, such as the buffalo are associated with stories of significant mythological or historical events, such as that of the buffalo and the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman as recounted by Black Elk.

Sioux mythology ascribes a prophecy significant to a cycle of spirituality and renewal to the buffalo in North America. Images of the sun, a symbol of life and regeneration, are associated with the Sun Dance, a spiritual ceremony associated with the , whereby participants engage in sacrifice towards renewal, regeneration and spiritual transcendence. To the south, Kikopelli is recognized as a fertility symbol. While the meaning of the symbols used in beadwork styles and images may become irrelevant when produced as trinkets or art forms for the tourist retail market today, Geary (2005) notes the symbols to remain relevant from a cultural perspective even if the items themselves have no real function in Native culture.

151 PART SEVEN - A Special Gift: "something sacred wears me""

Figure 5. Quillwork weaving with sinew warp-strands (Orchard, 1984, p. 38)

Indigenous Aesthetics: Sacred Threads and Ancient Constructs

Sacred ceremonial regalia is the thread that keeps the ancient religious practices alive and serves as a constant reminder that these ceremonies have been given to the Indian people by the Creator. Legend teaches the people that when the Creator formed the world and placed all life forms on earth, he put live Spirits on the earth to help establish an orderly system of natural existence. Before the Spirits were called back to the heavens, they set up the religious ceremonies that would be beneficial in worshipping the Creator and 'keeping the world in balance.' The regalia was carefully selected by the 'immortals' and instructions were given to the People for its use. Thus, the regalia became a tool and a reminder for worship and prayer to the Creator. (Dubin, 1999, p. 425)

Noting, "In the absence of written languages, adornment became an important element of Indian communication, conveying many levels of information. During the late nineteenth century, wearing Native clothing signaled resistance to assimilation. It remains a major statement of tribal and individual identity" (p. 17). Lois Sherr Dubin (1999) writes: quality of creativity activity. American Indian aesthetics cannot be understood apart from the sacred... Today's Native Americans remain deeply spiritual, and artistic expression continues to be woven into the fabric of daily life. The pragmatic connects to the sacred, the artifact to the belief system, and individuals understand their place within the universe (p. 17).

Dubin (1999) visited dozens of museums and institutions, galleries and private collections, reservations and urban communities, documenting eight years of research in the United States and Canada. When transcribing more than two hundred hours of interview tapes, she found herself "...stunned by numerous similarities in thinking, values, and even phrases" (p. 20). Chang (1993) determined "the essence of these intertribal connections—the Native American's ability to function within several worlds while maintaining a spiritual core— appears to rest on the ancient construct of shamanism" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 20). This finding determines formal and stylistic similarities to reveal a cross- cultural connectedness between North America and Northeast Asia.

A circle of reciprocity connects nature, Native Americans, and adornment. Central to the visual language of Indian people is the belief that all creation... is imbued with spiritual energy and shares the world equally. Artifacts link humans and animals, the physical and the spiritual... all reflecting humankind's oneness with nature: everything is interdependent and must exist in harmony, (p. 20).

"The concept of reciprocity informs Indian thought and art...," that of birth and rebirth, solar and lunar cycles, menses and pregnancy cycles, agricultural cycles, tides of the seas, seasons and patterns of movement, the moon, sun and four cardinal directions, are all recurring themes in Native iconography, as sets of symbols or images recognized and interpreted as having particular meaning (p. 20). The individual is encircled by the family and one's tribe is, in turn, linked to other tribes, "through circular trade routes and reciprocal gift-giving practices... ritual, in tandem with seasonal cycles, helped to order life around a ceremonial centre for the individual and group... Duality (paired opposites) is implicit to the fundamental Native belief in harmony... The humans in This World must maintain equilibrium" (p. 20-21). The shaman is integral as one journeys through the Sky World, the Under World and This world. Lee (1993) considers "many tribes believe that creativity "is a personal gift from the spirits... and a form of divine inspiration" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 21).

Inherent within Native ornaments and clothing is movement. A sense of movement might be incorporated into the imagery itself to reflect the life force as represented by the image. ... an overriding concern for quality is intrinsic to Native adornment, which is marked by skill and craftsmanship, signifying a unity of beauty and function... To live and work properly, according to tribal ideals and rituals, was an affirmation of one's spiritual worldview. (p. 24)

The timeless concept of simultaneity (multiple layers of reality) gives form to artifacts... More than beautiful ornamentation, adornment is a visual language expressing the joy of creativity, pride in attention to craftsmanship, and the desire to share with others. Above all, it honors oneself as well as one's people by doing things well. (p. 25)

Merging of Floral Motif and Design, Symbol and Belief

In beading, colors represent different meanings. Green refers to plants; blue, to sky and water; and purple, the mountains. These colors, along with stitchwork and symbols, identify an individual, a family, and tribal background. Individuals must find a favorite color and use it in all their work, but also maintain a connection to where they came from so that people will identify the maker and where he came from. (Naranjo, 1996, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 320)

... When a girl becomes a woman, for example, we make moccasins for her. Moccasins have a vital role. The first thing you do when you get up is put on your moccasins, so you're ready to go. And when you put on the moccasins you put on the right foot first and then the left in a clockwise fashion that shows respect for Mother Nature—that's Apache tradition. (Perry, 1994, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 524)

Dubin (1999) views the introduction of floral motifs to the east in Quebec, their subsequent convergence with floral motifs of other eastern tribal groups and transmission west and northward, to have led to the replacement of traditional geometric forms, the symbolic power of which was obscured or lost.

Prior to the introduction of European motifs, Native floral forms were bilaterally symmetrical, nonrealistic and on one axis... The European floral style was asymmetrical and realistic and used shading for three- dimensional effects... Though much work combined indigenous bilateral symmetry with European realistic floral elements, designs from the Cree and Great -Mackenzie River were frequently asymmetrical, with complex floral images, (p. 136)

A decrease in the use of traditional geometric patterns and an increase in the use of floral motifs is noted by Dubin (1999) to be interpreted by early observers to reflect "increasing impoverishment" in association with the adoption of European-influenced forms. Brasser (1976) notes this trend as "...symptomatic of the cultural trauma experienced by Subarctic and other Indian groups" in that traditional forms were thought to mirror spiritual values, although this notion is challenged by contemporary scholars that include Native Americans (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 24).

Floral and plant designs and imagery are observed by Dubin (1999) to have been abstracted as geometric motifs and symbols from earliest times. Floral images are thought of as derived from dream images and personal visions, from direct observation of the environment and, as noted by Fitzhugh (No Date) given "... a traditional belief in the inherent spirituality of all things in nature" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 122). Although archaeological findings are limited in the Subarctic North, it is suggested "... greater contextual evidence might reveal that a system of engraved geometric designs was an ancient and important means for communicating spiritual beliefs within the Northeast or possibly the entire Subarctic" (p. 122).

In her extensive survey of Native American Indian jewelry and adornment, Dubin (1999) shares various interpretations about beadwork. Amongst the Eastern Cherokee, an Elder describes beadwork as enabling cultural survival; "it was a visual language that kept beliefs alive" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 196). After the colonists destroyed the Cherokee wampum belts, "repositories of their sacred and historical knowledge," the Cherokee continued to keep their beliefs alive, "...hidden in the flowers, as well as other images, the beliefs were kept alive. In the flowers were messages and telegrams... One bead color touching another meant something... The spiritual teachings still circulated" (p. 196).

The suppression of Indian culture by American government policies is suggested by Dubin (1999) to have in turn prompted the acceptance of European-style floral beadwork and signaled the conversion and acceptance of a "civilized" and "Christian way of life" by those who learned the beadwork at mission schools.

Noteworthy, are several of the photographic images of unique and distinctive art works from various regions and peoples as held in collections at various museums. One is a photograph of an Ojibwa bag from mid to late nineteenth century, bearing both floral designs and geometric patterns, interpreted to represent "...a compromise with assimilation rather than a concession," the combined design and patterns, "acknowledge and honour the past" (p. 50).

Now residing at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and described as a "beaded map," is Powhatan's as presented to Virginian colonists in 1608 and later taken to England by Captain John Smith. The robe depicts 24 solidly beaded circles, each signifying chiefdoms made up of social groups ranging from villages to entire tribes under Powhatan's control, with a central figure, presumed to be that of the great Chief. The item is identified as "the earliest documented example of postcontact Native American art" (p. 199).

A description of designs, from amongst the Nlaka'pamux of the Plateau peoples who live in the Fraser, Thompson and Columbia Rivers watershed, between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Mountains, suggests

...simple geometric forms—straight lines, circles, squares, and triangles— were the main design units. The circle was used as a half-circle, arc, or a U shape. A square became a diamond; half a diamond, a triangle. Each form represented many different objects. A single dot or circle was a star, moon, cloud, or raindrops. A cross represented simultaneously a star, crossed trails, fallen timber, a log over a stream, or the four points of a compass, (p. 354)

Following are descriptions of several unique items originating from the western coast of the Unites States in the territory known today as California. Each of the descriptions offers new meaning in the interpretation of Indigenous art forms.

A contemporary necklace, worn by a contemporary spiritual Indian doctor at ceremonies, is made of dentalium shells and juniper berries. McLellan (No Date), the creator of the necklace, explains, "These necklaces—the knowledge and the messages within the shell's carvings—are worn around the heart. And spirituality rests upon your heart. But more important, it's worn around the self, it's worn around who you really are" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 354). Crafted over a nineteen-year period, the necklace has more than two hundred etched patterns of old Hupa, Karuk and Yurok designs, similar to those on baskets, etched on a necklace of literally hundreds of strands of thousands of two-inch shell beads. The necklace is worn as heirloom dance regalia by a contemporary Hupa-Karuk woman (California) following puberty rites.

The basket that is worn in prayer makes a statement to the women of their obligation to teach their children all the spiritual lessons and teachings the dances hold for them. The basket is worn upon the mind as a constant reminder of the significance of this obligation for survival of the individual, the people, and the religion.

Our young women purity dancers wear a dress which contains many prayers and which includes other family members of creation, such as abalone, pine nuts, juniper, deer, bear grass, etc. Knowing the meanings and teachings that these items have to offer us, one can understand the prayer and teachings of each dress. The fringe represents the participation of the deer, and the movement of the fringe in prayer, the swaying, provides for the cleansing and healing of the injury and harm that have been done to the People. The dancer adjusts her walk to the movement of the dress, which allows the dress to speak in prayer. Within the religion no one can see or hear the dress's movement and sounds being lifted in prayer without remembering it and the lessons it gives, (p. 448)

Matthiessen (No Date) says, "...to weave a [Porno gift] basket is to reenact the process of creation, and the finished basket is the image of the universe" (as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 441). From this same region, a basket made of feathers, abalone pendants and clamshell beads, is presented to women during rite-of- passage ceremonies such as at birth, puberty and marriage. "Abolone disks signify the sun and moon; arrow shapes represent stars. Encircling the basket, they indicate the stars' respective day and evening positions. The red feathers are associated with bravery and pride, white with riches. Generosity is represented by the clamshell" (p. 441).

A Tolowa , made of pine nuts, dewclaws, juniper berries, bear grass and cloth, was worn by a woman to attract a bride price. "Juniper berries were placed by anthills. Ants devoured the centers and the berries became stringable beads" (p. 446).

Aesthetics, Metaphysics and the Sacred: Stories Told By Dresses

"Following traditional aesthetics means you have to strive. You have to strive, not for perfection, but you have to strive for quality. You have to strive in a sense not for personal worthiness, but for an honoring statement to the Creator for what He has given you—to give respect to everything he has provided" (Big Crane, 1992, Ackerman, 1996, as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 98).

Emil Her Many Horses (2007) shares stories of the enduring traditions of dresses and their designs, as "complex expressions of culture and identity... infused with the spirit of its maker, a dress can seem to take on a life of its own..." (p. 11). Six Native women artists from the Plains, Plateau and Great Basin regions share their knowledge upon viewing a selection of Native women's clothing in the National Museum of the American Indian collections spanning over a two-hundred year period.

The earliest dresses are side-fold dresses popular in the early 1800s in the Upper Missouri region, northeastern Plains and western Great Lakes regions. Rows of porcupine quills "indicate that the person who made the dress was member of a quillwork society—a group that monitored the production of quillwork—and that the dressmaker had obtained the knowledge to do quillwork from another member of the quillwork society or from a dream" (p. 22). Two-Hide dresses became popular by the early 1830s, some decorated with earth paints, often made from the skins of female animals, were decorated with pony beads, seed beads and cut glass beads. By the 1870s, fully beaded yokes became popular. A contemporary dressmaker, Growing Thunder Fogarty (No Date) notes it took her five years to make her first dress, "Its kind of a womanhood rite...When a Sioux girl finishes her first fully beaded top, she becomes a woman" (cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 22). A classic three-hide dress, ca. 1930, is made with three hides, one for the front of the skirt, the other for the back, and one hide forming a ­ like .

Earlier dresses are commonly decorated with elk's eyeteeth, a natural ivory, representing longevity, the number of teeth a sign of wealth or prosperity of a girl's family, or of a woman's husband as a successful hunter. Earlier dresses are also decorated with dew claws from deer hooves and, in more recent time, tin cones, the noise of which signaled one's approach and allowing for others to react properly based upon male-female family relationships and protocols. As hides became scarce, woolen fabric, also known as stroud, produced in the Gloucestershire region of England, came into popular use, followed by cotton broadcloth.

Her Many Horses (2007) describes her experience of growing up watching her mother, a Lakota fashion designer, sew and create garments. She examines, "... the ongoing spiritual and symbolic roles of women during the significant stages of life and how clothing helps to form and express their identities and worldviews" towards the continuation of tradition and reinforcement of tribal identity for future generations (p. 66). Commonly women and children were "...to be exposed to tribal values and aesthetics through participation in public display and performance arts focused on dance and ritual" (p. 67). Ceremonies such as a child's naming ceremony, when their umbilical cord is wrapped and prayers made, face painting of young girls on ceremonial occasions, learning to bead and make items and clothing, when a girl reaches adolescence and is initiated into womanhood, and at marriage, all marked a passage to when one could ".. .identify more fully with their new responsibilities and gain confidence in their skills and artistry" (p. 69).

Her Many Horses (2007) shares a number of examples of that impart deeper level meaning to clothing in relation to the roles and experiences of women during ceremony, both historically and contemporarily.

Changing Woman, the spirit being also called White Shell Woman because she came ashore in a shell, brought the arts of basketry, sewing, and sewing to the Apache, (p. 70)

Through ceremony, a young woman can become a representative of revered beings such as Changing Woman of the Apache and White Buffalo Calf Woman of the Lakota who were known to have brought the arts, sacred corn, beauty, compassion, healing, truth, and ethics to the people through teachings and rituals, (p. 70)

White Buffalo Calf Woman brought the pipe to the Lakota, "Daughter of the great sky spirit, she carries all prayers between humans and the spirit being that is called upon. In the ancient creation, she mediated between other great beings and helped bring order in the cosmos" (p. 73).

With visible breath I am walking. As voice I am sending as I walk. In a sacred manner I am walking. With visible tracks I am walking. In a sacred manner I am walking. (Neihardt and Black Elk, 2000, p. 220)

Ridington (1987) describes young Omaha women, known as a "woman chiefs," as receiving a Mark of Honor, a ceremonial tattoo of a cosmic symbol on forehead and throat. "...The young woman received the sun's power when she was at a point on the earth's surface directly between the earth's center and the highest point in the suns heavenly arc... She found herself centered between earth and sky" (as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 69).

The four virgins wore scarlet dresses, and each had a single eagle feather in her braided hair; for out of the woman the people grows, and the eagle feather again was for the people... The faces of the virgins were painted yellow, the colour of the south, the source of life. One had a daybreak star in red on her forehead. One had a crescent moon in blue, for the power of woman grows with the moon and comes and goes with it. One had the sun upon her forehead; and around the mouth and eyebrows of the fourth a big blue circle was painted to mean the nation's hoop... The woman is the life of the flowering tree, but the man must feed and care for it. One of the virgins also carried the flowering stick, another carried the pipe which gives peace, a third bore the herb of healing and the fourth held the sacred hoop; for all these power together are women's power. (Neihardt and Black Elk, 2000, p. 161)

Clothing for high ceremony lacks ornamentation and is characterized by plainness, "The woman stands alone, unadorned before her Creator" (p. 73)' On the Plains, Plateau and Great Basin, "Lakota women traditionally began their formal training as artists and designers with the commencement of their menses. This training was intrinsically tied to a girl's biological, emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth into womanhood" (p. 74). Secluded from her community, a girl "... was expected to complete a pair of quilled or beaded moccasins during her solitude" (p. 74).

Her Many Horses (2007) mentions negative attitudes and the misinterpretation of women's menstruation as undermining the dignity of women and promoting misunderstanding "...of cultural rules pertaining to women in relation to ceremonies and the handling of sacred objects" (p. 77). Described by Her Many Horses, a woman's body simultaneously dispels an unappropriated life, "...while simultaneously purifying the body and preparing to receive a new life" (p. 77). At this time, the "...woman is in a highly potent spiritual state that is considered dangerous... Women are seen as being in opposition to spiritually renewing energies at a time when they themselves were physically going through a miniaturized death (p. 77).

The ability to provide clothing, sew, quill and bead, was a highly valued aesthetic skill. Women played active roles in preserving culture, leading or initiating ceremonies and acting in participants in societies that sometimes arose in response to a societal need during times of political and ceremonial upheaval and constraint, as illustrated in the emergence of the Ghost Dance in the late 1880s, that ended with the 1890 massacre of Lakota men, women and children by U.S. soldiers at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.

Ghost Dance dresses, "...painted with highly charged symbols of nature and the elements and emblems of feminine identity..." (p. 89), "...are seldom presented because of the tragic circumstances in which they were created and worn" (p. 86). "The fashion silence accorded Ghost Dance Dresses has been said... to be "out of respect to those dressmakers who were lost" and the families who endured the end of the Plains wars. The hush acknowledges a culturally tragic moment of historical transition" (p. 89). Dresses and accessories have been and remain more than mere articles of clothing for Native women—they are canvases for the expression of tribal culture and personal identity. At each stage of life, exquisitely crafted clothing enriched the lives of its makers and those for whom they cared. Upon becoming an elder, a woman was recognized as a keeper of artistic, spiritual, historical, and everyday knowledge, which she passed on to younger generations, (p. 90)

For Her Many Horses (2007), "a dress is not simply a utilitarian garment. Its functionality extends into metaphysics; its artistry links human and spiritual realms. In the Lakota language, saiciye is the term for adorning oneself in traditional fashion, in a way that is pleasing to denizens of both the spirit and human world" (Amiotte, No Date, as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 97).

...In fact, the making and wearing of aesthetically pleasing garments has for centuries held a deeply spiritual place in Native women's lives. In Lakota ritual, one might sing "Something sacred wears me"—the exact reversal of the expected. The individual wears sacred garments and thus the sacred forces "wear" or animate the individual. (Densmore, 1992, as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 102)

In asking, "so what constitutes an aesthetics of sacred or ?" Her Many Horses (2007) concludes no substantial inquiry to have explored Indigenous aesthetics in the Plateau, Plains, or Great Basin regions with the exception of Barbara Tedlock's work with Zuni aesthetics where there is the suggestion that symmetry is valued over balance, mixtures preferred to those of similar composition, and multiple textures and colors preferred amongst multiple domains. Dresses in these regions are said by Her Many Horses (2007) to demonstrate and represent a diverse and multidimensional aesthetic system of dress, based upon a preference for ensembles that were both characteristic of local tribes and regions, and exotic, as evidenced by an extensive history of intertribal trade and intertribal celebratory gatherings.

A series of photographs identify a chronology of materials used in making dresses: Hide, pony beads, porcupine quills, tin cones, cloth, sinew (1830); bighorn sheep hide, paint, sinew (1840); deerhide, 150 elk teeth, pony beads, red wool, sinew (1850); deerhide, pony beads, "hawk" brass bells, sinew (1855); hide, elk teeth, faceted "Russian" glass beads, seed beads, pony beads, red wool, sinew (1860); hide, pony beads, trade beads, seed beads, paint, coins, shells, tin cones, fringes, sinew (1860); hide, seed beads, sinew (1890); tanned hide, sprigged calico; rows of dark and light beads, thread, dentalium shells, and Chinese coins (1900); red wool, ribbon, calico, fire-polished glass beads, pony beads, basket beads, metal thimbles, thread (1900); hide, paint, tin cones, German silver spots, sinew (1905); red cloth, basket beads, brass thimbles and bells, muslin, thread (1910); all attest to the existence of well-established long-distance trade routes and economic inter-connections linking permanent, seasonal and tertiary trade centres and networks that moved goods across long distances "...long before the coming of Europeans to western North America; in many instances, European trade routes were simply superimposed on top of ancient indigenous ones" (Handbook of North American Indians, 1988, as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 110).

Native women played a key economic role in the fur trade. The sheer number of hides shipped to just one city can only suggest the magnitude of their industry: "By the 1840s, over 90,000 buffalo robes poured into St. Louis annually, and this increased to an average of 100,000 robes per year for the 1850s" (Swagerty, No Date, as cited in Her Many Horses, 2007, p. 120).

Her Many Horses (2007) honors women who create beautiful dresses, in honour of their ancestors, families and loved ones through the creative work of their clothing, investment of their time, energy and efforts and in their creative expression, through prayer. Her work makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the deep cultural importance of women's artistic work and their connectivity to traditional stories, sharing of knowledge(s) and transmission of important teachings to future generations. PART EIGHT - Athapaskan Women's Work

Figure 6. Quillwork on rawhide strips for broad surface (Orchard, 1984, p. 45)

Old Style Athapaskan Beadwork: A Special Gift

To the earlier amateur and museum collectors, only a woman's handiwork, not the woman, was of consequence. Those past artisans are nameless and unknown to us... From afar in space and time, we admire the skill and artistry of the anonymous women whose accomplishments are revealed in museum collections to be found throughout North America and Europe. (Helm 2000, p. 336)

Helm (2000) describes the clothing of Dene living a small community to the south along the Mackenzie River in the early 1950s:

Mitts, moccasins, and parkas are commonly decorated. Silk embroidery in flower motifs adorn the parka yokes and the mitts. Moccasins tongues... may be decorated with silk embroidery on stroud or may be beaded or covered with an overall geometric design of dyed porcupine quills. Less commonly, the quill work may be executed in a floral motif. Parkas are also trimmed with fur (usually fox or wolverine) around the face and cuffs, with a double fringe of blue and red stroud around the embroidered yokes and with rickrack edging along the hems. Gloves and mitts always have fur edgings and, if a gauntlet style, a fringe of moose hide along the outer seam of the cuff. (p. 31-32) Early ethnographic studies of Athapaskan beadwork (Duncan, 1988, 1989), Dene clothing (Thompson, 1994) and Gwich'in1" clothing (Thompson and Kritsch, 2005) are reviewed to share knowledge about Athapaskan beadwork and clothing items to strengthen awareness of Athapaskan art forms and clothing as ancestral knowledge(s), as social text and as representative of the voices of Athapaskan women.

Among the Kutchin, a gift of ornamented clothing is a special gift. Making beautiful clothing of one's loved ones by adding fantasies of flowers and color has been important to Kutchin women for over a century. A beaded jacket or pair of moccasins is more than simply a garment—it is a visible symbol of generosity of spirit, of one's joy in creating, of one's time and fond attention, (p. 15)

In the late eighties, Kate Duncan (1988) traveled north to Alaska, the Yukon and the and Mackenzie River regions in the Northwest Territories. This early study documents the significance and uniqueness of Kutchin beadwork and clothing as reflective of both continuity and change. Duncan (1988) brought large colour photographs of early Kutchin museum items to prompt discussions about early methods of Athapaskan beadwork design and construction, floral design, regional patterns, design differences and cultural relationships. The study gathered information "on current day aesthetics, standards of quality, teaching- learning relationships, and transfer of ideas and designs" (p. 15).

Based upon the many observations of early European travelers to the far North beginning late in the sixteenth century, Kutchin commonly wore items made with dentalium shells that originate from along the Pacific Northwest Coast. An important unit of exchange amongst northern California tribes, dentalium shells were valued as adornment, as trade items and attributed with wealth in several regions across North America. A shell's length and quality determined its' value. In the early nineteenth century, successful Kutchin men were observed to wear broad of beads and dentalia shells called naki elk or "bead clothing" (p. 21).

The earliest beads, large blue and green beads, were introduced in the region via the Russian fur trade to the west. Subsequent to the arrival of trading posts in the North around mid-nineteenth century, beads became a unit of exchange. Both early expeditions and the Hudson's Bay Company collected old style Kutchin clothing including tunics adorned with quill work, pony sized or larger beads, and, later, by the 1860s, the smaller seed beads. In the early 1980s, several older Gwich'in women knew how to make and quill-wrap the thin fringes often used in older Kutchin styles. The quills were dyed using different lichen that produced different colours: "... rotten or "petrified" woods produce black or blue dye and crow berries can be used both for dye and as beads themselves" (p. 25).

The emergence of floral beadwork in the far North is suggested to coincide with the marriage of Hudson's Bay Company employees to Gwich'in women with Simon (No Date) observing "...bead sewing began at McPherson in the early 1860s" (as cited in Duncan, 1988, p. 26). As considered by various other sources elsewhere, the origin of floral embroidery is initially attributed to eastern Canada, to the Ursaline Nuns in Montreal in the late 1600s and, later, to the Grey Nuns trained in Montreal who taught to girls at mission schools in the Lake Winnipeg area as early as the 1840s. The first Roman Catholic Indian Residential Schools opened to the south along the Mackenzie at Fort Providence and on Great Slave Lake at Fort Resolution, both in 1867 (Aboriginal Healing Foundation, No Date).

While both the Hudson's Bay Company and Roman Catholic missions schools are identified as facilitators of the art of in the North, it is thought the wives of Hudson's Bay Company employees shared ideas and sewed together with other women at the various posts throughout the Mackenzie-Athabasca District. Bead and silk embroidery were important skills taught to girls in the schools... at the school the girls were taught sewing, including "fancy work" (embroidery), but only those that were well behaved were allowed to embroider. Also, at Fort Providence at that time the nuns drew the designs for the girls. All the girls at a given school would learn to embroider and draw the same types of designs, and by the time they left school their embroidery style was well established... (p. 26-27)

Contact and travel in the North may have resulted in the sharing of ideas and unity of style in the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River area as well as east-west stylistic differences amongst Gwich'in in Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. At the turn of the century, beadwork design in the northeast is described as complex, with many motifs in each work, usually with eleven or more colours, asymmetrically organized and densely packed, with little fabric showing. Designs to the northwest and into the Yukon are slightly less complex, more stylized, using fewer motifs, more sparsely distributed with fewer colours and nearly always symmetrical.m

Specific motifs are common in older Kutchin beadwork, some with names such as: a multi-petalled rosette (dog paw), a three petalled centerless rosette (ptarmigan foot), a bud-like motif with one circle showing part of a circle (muskrat gland or beaver castor), tiny extensions along either side of a stem (mice running or mice tracks) and to a motif resembling a spider (spider bump).

While the naming of motifs is not a common practice by beadworkers in the North, the absence of naming is considered by Duncan (1988) to.be significant in part due to the absence of a "teacher-dictated vocabulary," the geographical distance from direct teaching by nuns, and in reflecting "...the conceptual distance between the Kutchin beadworker and the European based embroidery patterns that were the source of the designs taught by nuns" (p. 32). Notably, the naming of motifs is most common in earlier beadwork designs with the names most often referring to animals.

Most of the women who participated in this study were taught the skill of beading by their mother, by friends and relatives, by watching women from other communities or by taking classes at school taught by established beadworkers. In earlier times, the teaching and learning of beadwork was commonly practiced during puberty seclusion when a young woman would be instructed in sewing and garment ornamentation. In the early eighties, Duncan (1988) determined the art of beadwork to have changed little for Kutchin women.

Most Kutchin women who can still see do beadwork. Some clearly get tremendous pleasure from the creativity; others bead more for something to do, especially when money is needed. Many women simply love to bead. Some are conservative in their range of production; others continually experiment and challenge themselves with new designs, colors, and forms. Some are more skilled than others. Some expressed frustration at what they considered their slowness, others at the impossibility of living long enough to do everything they wanted to try. (p. 33)

Earlier beadwork, identifiable by tiny beads and use of multiple colours, is highly valued due to the amount of work that went into its' construction. Based upon Hudson's Bay Company account books, Duncan (1988) notes bead supplies to have been unpredictable in that it may have taken several years for a bead order to be filled from England. The use of silver and gold metal beads, for example, used as points on leaves, petals and tendrils, remains rare. Early embroidery silk and wool is noted to be far superior to present day cotton and synthetic fibres.

Materials most commonly used by Kutchin women were moose or caribou hide, black velvet, and wool or stroud. The use of materials is based upon their availability and other factors, for example the tanning of hides and imposition of game laws, stylistic trends such as filling in moccasins with solid white beads and the use of white stroud or black velvet as a background.

Beadwork designs may be drawn freehand, using a pattern or from published embroidery patterns. The freehand drawing of designs on velvet or other material is accomplished using a toothpick and flour and water blend. Designs are transferred from one side of an item to the other side by the laying the two pieces together and applying pressure, as in the use of hide, or use of a warm iron, with fabric. Designs can also be based upon 'old style,' such as a turn-of the-century curved leaf design, fantasy flowers, or, less common at the time, patterned upon actual flowers in the environment.

The sewing of beads by Kutchin women is accomplished by applying a couching technique where beads are strung with one strand and tiny stitches sewn between every second bead using a second strand. A thin bead needle or two needles are used. On older pieces, sinew is used for stringing. When using velvet as a background, fabric such as canvas is used as a backing to provide firmness. The finishing of a piece is important as in the use of lining to cover the stitches in the back of a piece or in the finishing or decoration of edgings.

"Today as in the past, very few women sign their work" (p. 41).

Women are very aware of each others work, and of who they consider to be the best beadworkers in the community, today and in the past. They are very astute in recognizing work from other communities and areas although they may have difficulty in articulating exactly what the differences are. Other individuals and communities have design and colour preferences for which they are known. Women particularly appreciate fine quality work and designs that appeal to them personally, and are quick to comment on both. They refrain from criticizing indifferent work. (p. 42) At the time of this study, old-style items such as ornamented dog blankets, beaded round made of black velvet laid over birch bark, women's beaded tobacco pouches and beaded wall pockets were no longer being made. The pointed toe moccasin became replaced by a rounded toe moccasin and low cut women's replaced the elaborately decorated higher boots, described as dance boots, some with up the front. Mittens, mukluks and parkas remain popular items still today as are Gwich'in baby belts, about 3-5 feet in length and 4-5 inches wide solidly beaded onto velvet backed with hide or canvas, used to hold a child close to its' caregiver. Apparently, there are many old style baby belts of quillwork with geometric designs in museum collections. In the late eighties, a well-known and respected Gwich'in beadworker from Old Crow, Yukon, observed "The old style beadwork that was once done at the turn of the century is seen only in museums now..." (p. 82-83).

One of her favorite things, she says, was to see a dog team come running with the dogs wearing dog blankets. You could hear the bells before you saw them so you knew they were coming. Six dogs running in front of the sled with dog blankets, bells jingling, black velvet against the snow on the river, bright coloured beads, pompoms and fringes flying, metal shining in the sun—such a sight!

All the Vogue: Athapaskan Beadwork Done Right

A companion work by Kate Duncan (1989) features an in-depth examination of nineteenth century northern Athapaskan beadwork and embroidery with a focus on items collected from 1890 to 1920 in northern Canada. It was during this time that beadwork, and some embroidery, became prevalent in the early contact materials of museum collections in Europe, the United States and Canada. Duncan's (1989) study of Northern Athapaskan art forms suggests the sophistication of quill embroidery at the time of European contact to evidence a long history through time. The earliest pre-contact Athapaskan artifacts and garments are decorated with quillwork designs, the sophistication of which is said to have surprised early European observers.1™ Quill techniques, fashioned into multiple intricate designs, include the use of split bird quills (goose) and porcupine quills, coloured using natural dyes, are woven, plaited, embroidered, folded, flattened, twined and/or twisted using animal hair, sinew or thread, or woven together using a loom. Plant seeds, mid-sized pony beads and smaller seed beads are also used.

Highly sought after by the Hudson's Bay posts during the mid-1800s, beads were used as currency in northern Athapaskan regions. Kutchin are described as displaying Russian beads and dentalium as a sign of wealth in 1866. Larger quarter-inch necklace beads and smaller one-eighth to one-tenth inch pony beads, "white, black, blue, and red were the most common colours," (p. 41) were used. Seed beads were sold in hanks of strands about six inches long in a variety in colours; fifteen to twenty shades of beads were considered optimum. Smaller two- millimeter seed beads begin to appear in Athapaskan work collected in the late 1850's. "Cut" beads with one or more flat surfaces were rare and preferred, as they sparkled. Metal beads were also popular and began appearing in the 1890's. Silver beads were made of polished iron and gold beads, made from brass or copper. "In 1940 the Hudson's Bay Company carried twelve colours" (p. 66).

Duncan (1989) reiterates earlier mention of the significance of puberty rite of passage as an important time when women sewed clothing and engaged in embroidery:

The long-established Athapaskan custom of seclusion of females during puberty and thereafter during the menses, along with the expectation that sewing and garment ornamentation should occupy the woman at this time, encouraged embroidery production. In early days, at the onset of her first menstrual period a girl was removed to a hut outside the camp and precautions were taken to protect against the detrimental effect that her unclean state could have on hunting. The period in the hut varied number of months, and in more recent times, of days. After the initial puberty seclusion, she spent time each month in the hut, or, as custom changed, behind a curtain in the house.

During her initial seclusion a girl was required to sew, quill, make baskets and fishnets, and later to bead. Her competency at handiwork and other domestic duties was important to her marriageability. The short monthly seclusions thereafter relieved here momentarily of many of her usual responsibilities and allowed her time to pursue her needlework while "in the corner". Helm's Dogrib information in the 1940s told her that they looked forward to this time. Instead of resenting the limitation so often thought by outsiders as cruel and unjust, they welcomed the rest that it allowed them and enjoyed the opportunity to embroider without interruption, (p. 70)

Floral embroidery media techniques said to have been introduced in the East moved westward along established fur trade routes with supply dependent upon availability of trade items. Floss embroidery, using silk threads in a large variety of intermediate shades of colour, is described as uncommon and appearing in the southern Northwest Territories at mid-twentieth century. Derived from the work of Barbeau (1928) who attributed North American flora design to the work of French Ursaline nuns during the mid-seventeeth century, it is commonly thought that "floral design was introduced to the Natives of northern North America via the European embroidery tradition" (as cited in Duncan, 1989, p. 56). Challenging this position, Duncan (1989) asserts "ornamented clothing and finely developed handwork skills had been important across northern North America long before European contact" noting new embroidery designs to have "...evolved into local variations over a period of time... [and relating] to a variety of sociological and aesthetic factors" (p. 56). Historical accounts describe the Grey Nuns as teaching embroidery, along with the domestic arts, following establishment of the first hospital and school at Red River in 1844. To the northwest at Fort Chipewyan, the first mission, established by the Oblate Fathers and Grey Nuns in 1849, would remain an "important location for the early production of floral embroidery" by Athapaskan and Cree women (p. 59). Schooling was considered important in the development of women's embroidery styles. "Both mixed-blood and full-blood girls were trained, often raised, together at mission schools, and it was there that their needlework styles were established... (p. 61). More missions would later be established at trading locations on Great Slave Lake and along the Mackenzie River northward to the Beaufort Delta region.

Duncan's (1989) study identifies five northern regional styles with specific motifs and designs, each characterized by its own aesthetic. She notes, the styles of the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River region to most closely resemble European embroidery pattern prototypes, "...one is struck by both differences and interrelationships, and by the complexity of factors influencing the evolution of the styles" (p. 16). At the time of study, contemporary beadworkers were known to "...keep a box of patterns of simple motifs and motif elements which they combine to form designs; others prefer to work entirely freehand. Both the presence of precision of repeated forms on many old specimens indicate that patterns have long been common" (p. 68).

The precision of congruent elements and variety of motifs suggests patterns may have been used for separate parts, rather than the entire motif. An Athapaskan beadworker works from the outside of a form inward, outlining motif elements and then filling in the form working outer contour inwards to the inner contour. Exact symmetry of design is important. "The care with which this is achieved in older specimens indicates precision in symmetry to be basic to the embroiderer's aesthetic" (p. 69). Floral embroidery designs are attributed to specific regions based upon their stylistic similarity and design whether intended or produced for Native or non-Native use.

When floral embroidery first began to be produced by the easternmost Northern Athapaskans, a matrix of general principles were carefully followed by women affiliated with the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River posts... But these new ideas were usually incorporated into the established range of expectations in a given region about "how a design should be." The header delighted in new ideas, but applied them with in established expectations, (p. 73)

The nature of style as described by Duncan (1989) includes the components of form (motif), relationship within and between forms (form relationships), and expression (qualities). A motif may be composed of one or more elements that join together to form a motif. The internal relationships within motifs and relationships between motifs are considered "...critical in differentiating between styles" (p. 75) and "...basic to the characterization of a style. Scale, placement and density of motifs, proportions and handling of negative space, means of connection of parts, are all significant" (p. 76).

"The most important characteristics in defining distinct styles, and distinguishing between similar designs, are the internal relationships—within individual elements and motifs and those within the design as a whole" (p. 76). Motif construction is either single element or multi-element with a wide variety of combinations. Motifs are either symmetrical or asymmetrical. Colour relationships within motifs reflect regional or individual styles and follows rules that are regionally significant. Colour variation, contouring and segmenting within elements and motifs is important as is transversal and longitudinal splitting, and placement of metal beads. Just as the construction of individual motifs is important, so is the construction of the entire design. The activity level or density of a design is regionally significant in Athapaskan work, reflecting availability of materials, distance from European-based designs, and individual preference. Eastern designs are typically dense, with many motifs, little open ground space, and many color and contour changes. Farther west, designs have fewer and less motifs and more ground space showing within and between them. (p. 77)

The number and construction of motifs is also important as in the attaching of elements to a central core, use of a large number of motifs, use of repeated motifs or different motifs. The connection of motifs is also an important style component. Motifs may be joined by elements functioning as connectors: tangent, disconnected or floating. Design and colour symmetry and asymmetry are considered regionally important, as are colour preferences for dark, light, bright or shades of contrasting colours.

Expressive qualities "...often tell how one approaches the act of creation itself (p. 78). Some regional designs are "...precise and ornate: colours, proportions, and internal relationships are carefully controlled" (p. 78). There is also experimentation where the "...artist plays with colour and form: her design develops as she goes along, and each completed design is quite different. Exuberance, playfulness, and excitement characterize [this work]" (p. 78).

Working within established expectations is a trait common to all the Athapaskan regions. It reflects a conservationism that is basic to the aesthetic of Athapaskan art. Respect for established ways is more highly valued than change and imagination for its own sake... Today's beadwork continues traditions because "that is how it was done" and one admires the artisan who "does it right." The consistency in design characteristics within regional work from the turn of the century shows that expectations had already by then become established. This reflected the use of established design elements... and established principles for forming motifs, such that regional preferences are by then identifiable. The earlier quill designs show a similar conservatism.

Everywhere standards of craftsmanship revere close, evenly spaced stitches and careful bead matching for color and size. Because the Athapaskan region is so large and contact was with those trading at the same post or posts, regional aesthetics reflecting expressive qualities developed. As noted, control, balance, and prescribed colour relationships are aesthetic preferences in the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River Region, (p. 78)

Duncan's (1989) style profile is based upon 296 examples in museums. At the turn of the century, beadwork specific to the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River region is:

...ornate and elegantly precise. Tendrils and wisps curl about elaborate flower-leaf combinations. Bouquets of rich shaded colors and bright metal accents sparkle against rich black fabric. The style is characterized by both complexity and unity. Designs are seldom precisely alike, yet because most abide rather strictly prescribed rules, they are strikingly homogenous, (p. 89)

Motif design is "complex floral" with many parts, colours and changes in the application of colour. A large number of different motifs are used yet there are only a few ways that motifs are constructed. The number of basic core and elaborating motifs are small but there are "innumerable possible combinations" (p. 90). Different sizes within a combination of motifs are common to this region. A large number of colours are used and metal beads appear often. Designs as a whole are complex and densely packed so very little background is visible. The number of motifs and possible permutations is high and there many different motifs are used.

"Nine to ten different motifs per specimen is the most common; about a third of floral examples have eleven or more. Because Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River floral motifs are so detailed, possible relationships with natural forms in the environment must be considered (p. 91)." A variety of wildflowers are depicted including four and five-petal blossoms, wild roses, bell-shaped flowers, high bush cranberries, and rosettes. However, embroidery patterns are viewed as too closely resembling eighteenth and nineteenth century "...embroidery and textiles to suggest independent invention' (p. 92).

The Athapaskan embroiderer in the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River Region first drew and embroidered floral motifs in ways that originated in the teaching of European-trained women. She learned to use the introduced media, techniques and designs together. She had no cultural precedent for floral work, and the introduced ways of drawing floral motifs became her own. After the tradition was firmly established, it is likely that the embroiderer saw similarities between flowers in the natural world and those she embroidered, as do contemporary beadworkers... these designs were created individually, each unique, but within a set of accepted conventions, many of which originated in European embroidery, (p. 92-93)

Amongst the colour photographs of Athapaskan items are women's dresses and , moss bags and baby belts, dog blankets, mukluks and moccasins, women's hoods and belts. Athapaskan Beadwork and Dene Clothing as Cultural Documents

My grandmother sewed. She made mukluks, moccasins, parkas and mittens. She did beadwork, caribou hair tufting, silk and wool embroidery, and crafted delta braid. She made patterns using brown paper, measuring shoulders, arms, neck, hip, foot, heel and toes. She cut wool stroud, duffle, cotton, velvet and canvas purchased from the Hudson's Bay store. She used wolf, coyote, beaver and fox furs. She worked with smoked moose hide bought from people in town.

Anthropologist, Judy Thompson (1994) shares the findings of an ethnohistorical study of museum collections of Dene clothing at the National Museums of Scotland, Glasgow City Museum, British Museum, National Museum of Denmark, National Museum of the American Indian, McCord Museum of Canadian History, and the Royal Ontario Museum. There are more than five hundred Dene clothing artifacts in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, many from the Great Slave Lake-Mackenzie River area, collected from the mid-1800s to the late 1900's. Notably, fewer items were collected after 1930, due to a waning of scientific interest in material culture studies that coincided with a cessation of the collection of such items by anthropologists and collectors. As part of the study, Thompson (1994) made several trips to the Northwest Territories over a two-year period to collect and document the work of contemporary Dene and Metis seamstresses.

To be well dressed and well groomed was a Dene ideal. Attention to dress and adornment expressed a man's ability to provide well for himself and his family, and a women's expertise in highly esteemed skills such as tanning, sewing, and decorative work. The best seamstresses were artists as well as artisans, combining highly developed technical skills and creativity. For both maker and wearer, then, clothing and adornment were aesthetic expressions. People derived considerable pride and satisfaction from owning and wearing fine clothing. Dressing well revealed good physical and emotional health, self-confidence, and success in economic endeavors... In addition, clothing revealed relationships on a very personal level. Clothing was exchanged or given as a sign of esteem and friendship. The care and attention a woman gave to making garments for her husband and children expressed her love, her concern for their well-being, and her pride in their achievements. (Thompson, 1994, p. 39)

/ attend the grand opening of the Dene Cultural Institute on the in 1993. They host a gathering of Elders who lead a fire ceremony, the first in many years. I share a room with Rosie Stewart.

I offer Rosie and another Elder, Paul Wright, a ride to Fort Smith. On the way, he says, Look! Look! See that? The Creator put that there, for you! The sun. The sky. The trees. This beautiful day!

We visit another relative, Barbara Lepine Villebrun, who gives Rosie a tanned moose hide, a quarter of hide.

When I go to work in Inuvik in the late nineties, I visit with Rosie. I meet her boys. I purchase a small beadwork bag from her.

In the spring of 2009, I am saddened to hear the news that Rosie has passed away. At the beginning of this study, it is my intention to visit with Rosie in Fort McPherson to interview her about her experiences with beadwork. Rosie gifted many with her exquisite beadwork, sharing her knowledge, experience and skill set with those interested in the art, craft, and activity of beadwork. v

Dene clothing is considered to be a distinctive aspect of Dene culture, given the "elegance and sophisticated design" of many of the oldest garments which testify to an ancient and highly developed tradition of clothing that was highly functional, creative and beautiful, serving "... as an outlet for artistic expression, and as a vehicle for communicating information about individual physical, social, and spiritual well-being" (p. 1). As items of material culture, Dene clothing is viewed to reflect cultural and historical change, "yet, beneath the outward changes in materials, forms, and design lie continuities in function, technology, and aesthetics" (p. xiv) whereby modern sewing "is a reflection of the persistence of ancient traditions and a determination to preserve cultural values" (p. xiv).

Thomson (1994) views Dene clothing artifacts as "important cultural "documents" for they come to us virtually unchanged from the hands of their makers and owners. Testimonials to the skill and artistry of generations of Native women, they have the potential to enrich our knowledge of Dene individuals and Dene culture" (p. xiv).

Thompson (1994) acknowledges we can learn a great deal "... from written accounts, sketches and paintings done by the first European observers of the Dene, from Dene oral history, and from a careful study of those few remaining garments..." (p. 25). The study of materials, cut and construction technique yields information on very old approaches to clothing design and manufacture. Old-style Dene clothing is more commonly decorated with linear patterns and geometric motifs in quillwork.

Father Petitot of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate shared his observations of clothing worn by women from in the summer of 1862 camped near Fort Providence, "They wore knee-length dresses tightly belted around the waist and "coquettement" decorated with black and red cloth borders, white, blue, and red glass beads, fringes, pendants, copper buttons, swan's leg bones, deer hoofs and porcupine quills" (p. 61). Of items from that period, "all have in common the use of smoked hide, very fine quill-wrapped fringes, the use of floral-print cotton for binding and lining, small, usually white glass "seed" beads attached in distinctive outline patterns, and the juxtaposition of red and dark blue or black stroud" (p. 61).

The use of porcupine quills required specialized expertise. Techniques included wrapping individual fringe strands with individual porcupine quills, applying a sinew loop to secure each quill; use of a wooden bow holding a warp of threads into which quills are inserted and woven; a folded quillwork technique where "...moistened porcupine quills are flattened and folded over two parallel lines of running stitches," that allows for the quillwork to provide varied and complex patterns; and, a line technique using bird and porcupine quills (p. 17).

The subtle artistry and mastery of technique seen here are typical of traditional Dene decorative work. The fringe is composed of sixty-five fine , each skillfully wrapped with yellow, orange (now faded), and natural white porcupine quills. The quills have been carefully sorted for thickness and length, so that the tiny intervals between where one quill finishes and another begins line up with those on the other strands, creating a regular pattern. The precise function of this artifact is unknown... (p. 34)

...wrapped with moose-hair or porcupine quills, threaded with beads fashioned from seeds, shells, or hollow bird bones, and knotted around small, brightly coloured feathers. Moose hair and porcupine quills were dyed a range of colours: "Black dye was... made from charcoal; yellow was extracted from alder bark; red was derived from currants or red ochre; and blue from blueberries."Red paint made from mixing ochre with animal grease - or in some regions, "red willow juice, which was boiled to use as an ink" - was used for drawing lines over seams and around opening edges." (p. 15) // is the summer of 1978. I visit with my grandmother at her high-rise appointment off Jasper Avenue next to the old Canadian Native Friendship Centre where she goes sometimes to have tea. Earlier that day, she made a trip downtown to the Hudson's Bay Company. She went to show them some of her beadwork, hoping they might purchase one of the items. She is pleased they have bought something as this means she has some extra money to buy small gifts for the birthdays of each her thirteen grandchildren. She gives me a purse, made from factory tan hide, saying she has used up all of her "extra" beads making it. It has a long strap with thick fringes and a button closure. My children are ages 5 and 2 years. They have a great time, locating and picking up loose beads they find on the carpet and floor, bringing each to her, one by one...

The education of young Dene girls is said to have begun early, "... girls learned the basics of skin tanning and sewing from watching and helping adult women... Instruction and practice at these tasks intensified as a girl reached puberty" p. (7). At this time in her life, a young women might live away, near her community, for several days, weeks or months, instructed by older women, "... in proper social and ritual behaviour and in the practical skills necessary for adult life" (p. 8). It was during this time on her own, that a young woman is said to have learned "...independence, patience, obedience, and humility" (p. 8).

Based upon her interviews with Dene women, Thompson (1994) concludes that sewing was a chief occupation during puberty seclusion when she learned to sew clothing, along with the "decorative art techniques," as taught by skilled women of the community, emerging from puberty and seclusion "...socially as well as physically mature, ready to take on the duties and responsibilities of caring for a family, paramount among them the preparation of animal hides and the sewing of clothing" (p. 8). During this time, young women wore a puberty hood and necklace, for example, made from bird and animal bone, decorated with yellow, blue, red and black glass beads, and using a drinking tube, bone comb and scratcher. An Elder describes her first menstruation as stepping "into womanhood," in changing from a child into a woman, when a young girl is formally introduced to sewing, learning embroidery, quillwork and beading, usually instructed by another woman who starts the first stitching. Wilson (No Date) says, "it seems like how you did during that time was the formation of your life as an adult... Nothing was written or read, everything was oral, but even today I still remember all that was told to me when I, had to go through that phase of life, when I stepped into womanhood" (as cited in Thompson, 1994, p. 7).

Summer solstice nears. There are red and green ribbons on the tree by the roadway leading into our camp. A tiny stream passes nearby.

I awaken, unseen, amongst the spruce, fir, birch, poplar, jackpine and willow, dawn's light, mercurial, slips along the shadows of the forest floor.

We walk in bright sunlight in our moccasins along a pathway into the forest. We are instructed to offer tobacco to Mother Earth to give thanks. We take willows, gently slip them into earth, bend to shape, a small lodge emerges. We will stay for three days and nights, giving thanks, nurtured, by earth.

My "time" comes. I am to sleep away from camp. I cannot cook. I cannot work. I am to sit, alone, off to the side, away—to be. I am instructed by Kisisokwew to reflect—to respect myself—as a woman. Grandmother moon is full. Awakened by moonbeam, a passing and new beginning, as one—whole.

With the fur trade came trade goods, such as needles and awls, "...beads, silk ribbons, brightly coloured cloth, and metal buttons" that were incorporated into clothing that blended European materials such as stroud, velvet and tartan cloth. Thompson (1994) notes old techniques and garment styles to have persevered as Dene and Metis seamstresses worked to provide fur trade personnel with clothing items such as moccasins, mittens and winter wear. "Foreigners in the North also meant a demand for souvenirs representative of Native technology and lifestyle. Relatively portable, and embodying indigenous artistic traditions as well as technologies central to the Native economy, Dene clothing was sought by serious collectors as well as by early tourists" (p. 55-56).

Glued to the inside of each item, the labels carry the handwritten inscriptions "Loucheux" and "H.B.Co." Loucheux was a common 19th century term for easternmost groups of Gwich'in. After 1840 the Hudson's Bay Company post at Fort McPherson was the principal trading establishment for these Dene... A Fort McPherson elder, Sarah Simon, recalls her grandmother Catherine Stewart's description of making quillwork decorated of old-style clothing in the 1880s for trade to visitors coming into Fort McPherson with the annual summer visit of supply boat. (p. 20)

The arrival of silk thread and introduction of chain-stitch embroidery are represented as "departures from ancient Dene tradition," when, "...steel needles and silk leant themselves to the working of curvilinear patterns difficult to execute in relatively stiff porcupine quills," with the new motifs executed to "reflect the influence of other important agents of change, principally, mission schools and the Metis of the Red River region" (p. 68).

Roman Catholic or Anglican mission schools were established at Fort Providence in 1867, at Hay River in 1894 and at Fort Resolution in 1903. Thompson (1994) describes the mission schools as operating with very limited resources so that the girls sewed much of their own and other student's clothing including moccasins as footwear. "Not only were these skills part of a well-educated girl's up-bringing, but they were also activities to which Native girls applied themselves with enthusiasm and aptitude because of the importance attributed to such accomplishments in their own culture, and because of the early influence of female relatives" (p. 68).

In 1993,1 traveled to Fort McPherson to attend the biannual Gwich 'in Gathering and Annual General Assembly of the Gwich'in Nation of the Northwest Territories. I am introduced as the granddaughter of Joanne McLeod of Fort Smith. A relative. Rachael Robert, age 92 at the time, said to me, "I knew Joanne. She was such a beautiful girl. Everybody loved her! I went to school with her from 1917 to 1921 at Fort Providence. I remember it just as though it was yesterday. One day, her brother Angus, walked up to Joanne, and he just hugged her! In front of everybody!" When I visited with Rachael, she gave me ajar of preserved cloudberries and a canvas bag for packing a coffee pot, coffee and other items for a day trip.

The Red River Metis are described as agents of change in the decorative arts of Dene clothing fashions, notably following the rebellions to the southeast in 1870 and 1885 after which many Metis families migrated to the northwest, the women bringing with them embroidery techniques and motifs of European design learned from the nuns. Through their decorative art in quillwork, silk embroidery and glass beads, the Red River Metis came to be known as the "flower beadwork" people. Both French-speaking Metis and those who were the offspring of Scottish traders and Dene women are said to have belonged to "...a growing Indigenous Metis population;" the men most often employed on the rivers during summer, or as trappers, hunters, guides and interpreters. "The impact of Red River Metis fashion on Dene clothing was considerable (p. 74)."

Grey Nun Sister Beatrice Leduc is distinguished by Thompson, (1994) as playing an important role in the reintroduction of the art of moose hair "tufting" to girls at the convent school at Fort Providence in the 1920s. "This kind of work disappeared in the fur-trade period with the introduction of new styles of clothing, particularly with the increasing availability of imported decorative materials such as silk embroidery thread, glass beads, horsehair, and wool " (p. 72).

A Metis woman, Mrs. Laferte, is credited with developing "...a kind of work known as moose hair "tufting," in which flowers and leaves are created by inserting a small bundle of moose hairs under a loop stitch, then pulling the stitch tight and fastening it off. The hairs are fanned out on either side of the stitch and trimmed with scissors to create a smooth, rounded effect." Thompson (1994) suggests a number of Dene girls to have learned "the more difficult art of moose hair tufting" to decorate mittens, gloves and footwear (p. 72).

In the early 1920s, a passenger on the boat taking children from Fort McPherson to the school in Fort Providence described how the little girls of six and seven years of age amused themselves. "From their trunks no bigger than those of dolls they produced shears almost as long as their arms, thread, needles, and snippets of blue and red cloth and went to work on silk uppers for moccasins and dolls' dresses with all the industry of a sewing circle." (Waldo, 1923, as cited in Thompson 1994, p. 70)

Thompson (1994) foregrounds her research on Dene clothing with a running chronology of historical events that occurred along the river systems in the North, bringing about "a new way of life" as well as an increased dependence on trade goods, even though "...most Dene continued to live in a manner not greatly different than that of the old" (p. 49).

... women's work continued to reflect the same love of beauty, delight in colour, texture, symmetry, and the striving for technical excellence that is so striking in earlier work. As in the present, the garments women made not only protected the body, but expressed kinship and affection and added beauty and colour to everyday life. In a rapidly changing world, clothing was a precious link with the past and a symbol of enduring cultural values that would extend into the future, (p. 87).

Despite the increasing popularity and availability of imported garments and clothing materials, Native women's skills in skin tanning and in sewing, mending, and decorative clothing continued to be needed, and to be valued and respected within the community. Indeed, ability and industry in these areas were viewed as critical to the well-being of a family... One result of a growing non-Native population in the North was an expanded market for tanned hides and for specific items best made by Native seamstresses... There was as well an interest in fine decorative work such as silk embroidery, at which many Native women were highly accomplished. The income women earned through their handiwork could be an important contribution to the family resources, (p. 97)

In the early nineties, Thompson (1994) observed techniques and designs in the making of clothing to be "... remarkably unchanged from those of ancient times" (p. 106). Woven quillwork and tufting with moose or caribou hair, although less common, continues to be practiced. Beadwork, in particular, along with embroidery in yarn or embroidery thread, remained a popular medium. Symmetry is identified to be important to Dene beadwork where designs are normally mirror images to one another.

"...Decorative motifs are overwhelmingly floral. Women find inspiration for these designs in the world around them, from the shapes and colours of plants and flowers, from books, pictures and fabrics, and from the work of other women" (p. 108). As one informant stated, "I got my decoration from the bush, just by looking at all the wild flowers, on my walks in the summer, just going berry picking and walking with my parents on our summer travels. If one really looks, there are a lot of pretty flowers" (p. 108). For a seamstress, a women's most treasured possession is her sewing machine. Most women engaged in sewing on a daily basis, or on evenings and weekends. Sewing is usually done in the living/eating area of a home. Women enjoy getting together with friends while sewing, sharing tasks and contributing their special expertise in the areas of pattern making, designs, embroidery, "fancy work," loom-woven beadwork, floral yarn embroidery, and making of Delta braid. As interpreted by Thompson (1994), items of Dene clothing "...reflect continuity with the past as well as innovation and change" (p. 109).

Thompson notes the continuation of some unique regional variation in the decorative arts, such as in quillwork, moose hair tufting, beadwork, embroidery and Delta-braid, to have continued even though fashion trends have become diffused throughout the Northwest Territories with clothing items becoming similar to that of other Subarctic peoples. Nonetheless, seamstresses remain "...very much aware of styling and decoration associated with certain localities, and even with certain individuals. While such distinction may be subtle and difficult for an outsider to recognize, they can be identified by other seamstresses and are often well known in the broader community" (p. 117-118).

Modern Dene sewing is seen to signify bonds of kinship and friendship and to continue to be worn at social, cultural and public events. "For those who wear Native-style garments on such occasions, clothing is a kind of non-verbal communication, expressing... pride in Native ancestry. It is a statement of determination to maintain a separate identity and to preserve traditional cultural values..." (p. 120).

Heritage, Identity and Community

It is unfortunate, but not unusual, that the seamstresses who produced the beautiful nineteenth-century Gwich'in summer clothing outfits found today in museum collections remain anonymous to us. Their names were not recorded at the time of collection, and, as far as is known, no contemporary observer left a description of their individual lives and works... production of these outfits was localized geographically, and... a small number of women may have been responsible for their production. (Thompson and Kritsch, 2005, p. 22)

In 2000, the Canadian Museum of Civilization entered into a partnership with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute to "repatriate" the knowledge and skills required to re-make traditional summer clothing outfits. The Gwich'in Traditional Clothing project, to replicate a distinctive style of Gwich'in traditional summer clothing, was intended to revive older cultural traditions to "...inspire new generations of Gwich'in with pride in their unique heritage, and a renewed sense of identity and community" (p. 1).

The oldest known specimens of Gwich'in clothing in museum collections, dated to the mid-nineteenth century, is a garment at the British Museum thought to have been collected by Sir John Franklin during an expedition between 1847 and 1849. The garment is decorated with silverberry seeds on numerous narrowly cut fringes front and back, with red ochre applied along the breast band, sleeves and bottom edge.

Other older Kutchin garments have distinctive pointed hemlines and are elaborately decorated with quillwork. They are sewn with sinew thread made from the back tendon of a moose or caribou that is scraped clean, dried and split into fine strands and sewn using small awls, made from bird or animal bone or antler, to pierce a hole through hide, and pushing the sinew thread through, to form a seam. The garments were made from caribou hide harvested during late summer or early autumn. The flesh and hair were removed from the hide and left to dry and soften until the spring. Hides left to hang outside during the winter months bleached white. In spring the hide is repeatedly washed, scraped and soaked in a solution of caribou brains and dried over a slow burning smoky fire. Once the hide is thin and soft, it is ready for sewing.

She said my grandfather made her sewing awl by reinforcing the length with pennies so it wouldn 't break.

Porcupine quills, best taken during the coldest winter months, are washed several times, dried and sorted according to size, then dyed, using berries, lichens, roots, bark and flowers. The flattened quills were either woven or sewn into various geometric design patterns made up of rectangles, triangles or crosses. The quills are flattened and folded into parallel lines. Patterns are created using alternating colours. A weaving technique is used in older garments with sinew warp and weft elements anchoring interwoven quills. Individual fringes are each wrapped with several single quills in different colours, each secured with sinew loop. A single outfit can host several hundred individual quill wrappings on several hundred fringes.

By the late nineteenth century, clothing styles had changed and the practice of making traditionally styled caribou hide garments, no longer practiced. Murray (1910) suggested that the use of the traditional materials, such as porcupine quills and silverberries, to have become associated with poverty and everyday use (as cited in Thompson and Kritsch, 2005). Clothing items in museum collections as of the 1860s evidence the use of glass beads to have become popular.

Knowledge of traditional Gwich'in traditional culture was derived from the more than twenty-five samples of Gwich'in summer clothing held in North American and European museum collections. The loss of this knowledge is attributed to a loss of knowledge that coincided with changes in clothing styles, materials, cut and decoration, from earlier times and in consideration that "...women no longer taught their daughters the particular skills required to make old-style summer outfit" (p. 3). During the two-and-a-half year project, more than forty seamstresses worked on recreating five multi-piece traditional summer outfits. Notably, there was not enough time to fully recreate all of the outfits. As there was not enough time to fully recreate all of the outfits, coloured embroidery thread was used in place of intricately woven quillwork. Completion of the project was celebrated with a public exhibition at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. PART NINE - The Inheritance: Fur Trade Families and Beadwork

Figure 7. Two quills contrasting colours on deerskin lace (Orchard, 1984, p. 59)

Athapaskan Peoples of Denendeh

The history of Canada is a history of the colonization of Aboriginal peoples. Colonization is a pervasive structural and psychological relationship between the colonizer and the colonized... it has taken its greatest toll on women... leaving us vulnerable both within and outside of our communities... we have also been subjected to partriarchal policies that have dispossessed us of our inherited rights, lands, identities and families...(Larocque, 2006, p. 395)

As an Indigenous researcher, aware of these dispossessions, I claim my inheritance. My Indigenous ancestors are Dene peoples, Chipewyan and Gwich'in, of Denendeh, and from the east, Algonkian peoples, the Cree. My non- Indigenous ancestors are from across the Atlantic, the French, Scottish and English; many born in the North. Of the women, little is known, outside the realm of Indigenous art forms of beadwork, hair embroidery and tufting and quillwork.

My Indigenous ancestors are northern Athapaskan speaking peoples of the sub­ arctic known as the Dene of Denendeh. Athapaskan is the most widespread linguistic family on the continent of North America. Dene is an ethnological classification used to describe First Peoples of the North known as Denesoline (Chipewyan), Tlicho (Dogrib) Deh Gah Got'ine (Slavey) K'ashot'ine (Hareskin), and Dinjii Zhuh (known historically as Loucheaux or Kutchin or, contemporarily, as Gwich'in) (Dene Nation, 1984, p. 7). The term Dene is translated into English to mean "any human being, male or female, an individual or group," hence the term refers to both an individual and to Dene as a collective, as a group of peoples (p. 7).

Denendeh refers to the "land of the people" (p. 7). The homeland of Athapaskan speaking peoples includes parts of Alaska, the Yukon, Northwest Territories and the northern parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Navajo and Apache in the southwestern United States are Athapaskan speaking peoples also known as Dene. Today, the official languages of the Northwest Territories include Chipewyan, Tli cho (Dogrib), Gwich'in, North Slavey and South Slavey, all Athapaskan languages, Cree, an Algonquian language, and (Northwest Territories Education, Culture and Employment, No Date).

I am mixed blood—Dene Metis—Scottish, Gwich'in and English, on my father's side, French, Cree and Chipewyan, on my mother's side. I am from the North. I was raised in the communities of Tthebachaghe (Fort Smith) and Katlo Dehe on Vale Island at Hay River in the Northwest Territories. I have lived and worked in Inuvik and continue to work in Sombak'e (Yellowknife) and northern Alberta, as opportunity allows.

Emergence of the Fur Trade

Translated by British ambitions of colonization, subjugation and dominance, the Dene homeland of Denendeh would be claimed by the British as Rupert's Land in 1670. Rupert's Land describes a geographical area of 3.9 million square kilometers of grassland, forest and tundra and all of the watersheds draining into and out of Hudson's Bay, encompassing the western subarctic east of Hudson's Bay, west to the Rocky Mountains, and northward to the Arctic Ocean. Part of British North America, the territory was granted by charter to the corporation of the Hudson's Bay Company by Charter by King Charles II of the British Crown. The charter made the Hudson's Bay Company "true and absolute Lordes and Proprietors" of Rupert's Land.

By the late 1700's, the Northwest Company, formed in 1779 by merchants in Montreal, established trading posts on Hudson's Bay, Lake Athabasca, Great Slave Lake and . It was on behalf of the North West Company that Alexander Mackenzie would travel down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean in 1793 and, later, overland to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Peace River. In 1821, following a period of fierce rivalry and competition, and the passage of new regulations by the British government governing the fur trade in British North America, the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company. The merger resulted in the establishment of a trade monopoly and expansion of trading posts throughout the Athapaskan region. The region west and north of Rupert's Land became the Northwest Territory as of 1825. In 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company transferred Rupert's Land and the North West Territories to the Government of Canada, following Confederation in 1867. The Hudson's Bay Company held a monopoly in the fur trade for two hundred years.

Sylvia Van Kirk (1980) examines the complexity of the essential social, cultural and economic roles of Indian, mixed-blood and white women in the development of fur trade society in western Canada. The widespread practice of intermarriage amongst Indian women and fur traders saw the role of Indian women shift from one of equality within Indigenous life ways, as "lovely tender exotics" to that of "cultural liaison," "active agent," and "women in between". In reconstructing the lives of First Nation and Metis women during the fur trade, Van Kirk (1980) notes, "One is forced to piece together snippets of information..." from surviving collections of fur trade documents authored from a male perspective, resting upon standards of British patriarchy, and as perceived by fur traders making a living through the fur trade (pg). Northern Metis Heritage

In 1975, anthropologist June Helm (2000) considered there to be two kinds of Metis people in the North, derived from a dual cultural heritage "of mixed Indian and European bloodlines." Those who were descendants of the Red River Metis "—identified by such names as Beaulieu, Bouvier, Mercredi, and Lafferty—" who had moved west and northward with the fur trade, and the more recently emerged northern Metis of Athapaskan Scotts/English backgrounds, many of whom had intermarried with Dene people in the North (Helm, 2000, p. 126). In the late eighties, anthropologist Kate Duncan (1988) noted, "There has been much intermarriage between Natives and non-Natives across the north so that by now many people are to some degree of mixed blood. Only around Great Slave Lake did some of those we talked with think of themselves as Metis... In Kutchin communities people think of themselves as Indian and call themselves either Kutchin or Loucheux..." (p. 16).

In the spring of 1990, while scanning books on the library shelf, I came across a collection of black and white photographs of Metis families, life ways and communities in the Northwest Territories (Overvold, 1976). Some of the photographs are aged and worn. Metis are described as "...interpreters, managers, traders, guides and hunters... [who] have never been rightfully credited for their very important part in developing the North" (p. 17). The photographs depict life ways and daily lives of people and the text describes the social, cultural, economic and political events that shaped the North early in the twentieth century. Through the photographs, I was introduced to previous generations, some of these relatives for the first time.

... it would appear that the woman passed on to her children all that she knew of her own culture, which was the Indian culture, and the man's influence though significant, played a secondary role in the emergent Metis way of life. This may account in part for the fact that the Metis lifestyle was very closely patterned after the Indian, (p. 95)

The Metis were equipped with survival mechanisms to operate in both worlds; they could hunt, trap and live off the land like their Indian ancestors, or they could take advantage of their white ancestors' technology through education.

Although the N.W.T. Metis seems to have chosen to maintain the traditional relationship with Indian, they have creatively succeeded in building and sustaining a unique of life. (p. 95)

As with any family with mixed bloods, there is a struggle to maintain identity... The women have provided not only the symbol but also the substance of strength within the Metis extended family, which has been the significant institution in sustaining the Metis culture, (p. 103)

/ recognize family names. Faces. Places.

They make a striking couple. Unsmiling. She, diminutive, with her hair pulled back from her face, and he, a thick white beard, wearing an official-looking cap.

I am excited about the book. I call and ask if can come by for tea. I bring the book. I sit beside her on the couch, the book on the coffee table. Turn the pages, one by one. She says, "That is your mother's family." Turn the pages. "Grandfather," she says. "He had such a scratchy beard." She laughs. More pages turn. "Father. He used to look just like that. Always stiff. Like his ." Turn more pages. "Mother. "

I recall her mentioning her mother, once. She was using a pattern made from newspaper to cut a rifle case from a moose hide. She said they used to sit in the kitchen when she was a child. There was a curtain across the door from the room where people would come and bring their furs to exchange for things like flour, sugar and tea. She said her mother understood the Slavey language. Her mother used to leave them to go check nets across the lake in winter.

I leave the book for her. When I return, she says, I remember some of the people in the book. I really enjoyed looking at all the pictures, she said.

As a younger woman, I was unaware, or not conscious of the significance and importance of Indigenous ways of knowing and being to my identity and well- being as an Indigenous woman. At the time when I grew up, it was not commonplace to share stories about family members, rather there was more of a silence surround the topic, an attitude that the past was the past and not really relevant to life today. If I asked, the response would often be in the form of a question as to why did I want to dig up the past? In the absence of this awareness, I sought to learn more about my family ancestry and my Indigenous heritage.

Families of the Fur Trade

My female ancestors are described as Indian or mixed blood women of Chipewyan and Cree ancestry who became the wives of French voyageurs who worked in the fur trade with the Company of the Sioux and North West Company in the late eighteenth century and with the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company throughout the nineteenth century. They are also women of Gwich'in ancestry who married men from Scotland employed with the Hudson's Bay Company. They were also women descendent of United Empire Loyalists who fled the Thirteen Colonies to British North America following the American Revolutionary War. Both my paternal and maternal ancestors remained affiliated with the Hudson's Bay Company into mid- to late-twentieth century. Of my male ancestors, it appears that all were of the fur trade, some described as feared or inspired leaders, all of whom played integral roles to the history of the fur trade and the North. Some saw the arrival of the first white men in the North. Others journeyed with the expeditions of well-known explorers, one an early guide north to the Arctic Ocean and west to the Pacific Ocean.

They served as middleman, fisherman, steersman, guide, labourer, bowsman, blacksmith, trapper, farmer, apprentice, interpreter, postmaster, school master, clerk, post manager, trader, general servant and Freeman.

They were posted in the Athabasca and Mackenzie River districts, prior to and following confederation in 1867, at posts that include Fort Chipewyan, Fort Resolution, Fort Providence, , Fort Rae, Fort Liard, Fort Nelson, Great Bear Lake, Fort Norman, Peel River, LaPierre's House, Rampart House, Fort McPherson, Athabasca, Fond du Lac, Grand Riviere and the Forks.

Many resided at the Red River Settlement. One, recognized as a riverlot occupant by the Government of Canada. Most settled in the North. They traveled north and south along the river systems, at times prior to, in keeping with or following the influx of deadly disease that decimated Indigenous populations.

Some are described as of great help to the Oblate missions, one as a major source of Dene legends as recounted and published by Emile Petitot, the French Oblate missionary, and another as recounting oral tradition to the French Bishop, Emile Grouard. Many attended or were raised at residential schools and some were known to have helped the children at residential schools.

One was a translator during the signing of at Fort Chipewyan. Another is the second oldest pensioner of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), the first Justice of the Peace in the North and recognized for fifty years of service with the HBC, and another recognized for thirty years of service. Two are infamous as headless skeletons found at McLeod Creek in the Nahanni Valley during the gold rush years.

Some were early arrivals coming from France as early as the late eighteenth century, others came from as far away as the Orkney Islands and Isle of Lewis in the western Hebridese of Scotland during the nineteenth century, with the most recent arriving from England early in the twentieth century. The Scottish ancestors are reputed to have Norwegian and Icelandic ancestry.

Of my female ancestors, there was little information to be found. Sometimes their names or reference to their ancestry is mentioned, with dates of birth, marriage, birth of children or death. Available historical information remains embedded within historical social, economic and political event narratives and chronologies as experienced and interpreted from non-Indigenous perspectives. I remain curious as to who these women were, and what were their lives, thoughts, dreams and aspirations.

Russell (1989) attributes Fort Chipewyan Metis women described as "French half-breeds" to be "...largely responsible for flower pattern beadwork embroidery, which is the vogue all over the northern part of this country" (as cited in Duncan, 1989, p. 59). It was observed in the 1850's that the "wives of voyageurs and half-breeds" frequently purchased beads at the posts (p. 59). Duncan (1989) notes Mixed-bloods to have played "a significant role in the production and spread of bead and silk embroidery in the Subarctic" (p. 28). Metis are described as, "...cultural brokers, both the products and agents of cultural contact and change..." (p. 28).

The French Metis are a happy group, singing through the day, careless and free, feasting and fasting, very religious and devout. The English Metis are progressive, providing well for the family, giving the children a good education, sending to college if possible, some of whom return as graduates of Oxford or Cambridge university. The Scots Metis are serious, sturdy and good workers; the father is master in his own house and the children not only learn the , but must be of the father's religion, (p. 28)

The wives of Hudson's Bay Company employees were considered as "purveyors of style" in their regions, having easier access to materials and opportunity to observe the work of other women. Duncan (1989) notes it is not possible to determine whether an item was made by either full- or mixed-blood women, as the work "...shows no differences."lvi

There has been considerable production of art work by the Metis population of the Mackenzie. It takes the form of silkwork on moccasins, gloves, mittens, and other articles of dress, of painted and tasseled snowshoes, of elaborately decorated carioles, of carved wooden whip handles with whorles and varied designs, of carved drawknife handles of animals heads at the ends, of tup-irons on dog collars, decorated with tails of fur-bearing animals or with woollen tassels, and of ingeniously designed hat bands.

More important, it is lifestyle, rather than genealogy or registration, that unites those who produced floral embroidery, (p. 61)

There are clues to be found about these Indigenous women in available information, photographs and stories, often written about their husbands who were men of the fur trade. Of Indigenous knowledge, ways of teaching, learning and doing, there is little to ascertain. Yet, there remains evidence of their presence in the material culture of traditional art forms such as quill and hair work, beadwork and embroidery, and in items of traditional clothing most often located in museum collections. Each time I sat to write this study, I began by thinking about who I was, where I came from and who my family is. In this way, it became foundational as a part of this study, to search and locate, to identify and give voice to the names the women as sewn through history. Each name is stitched, one to another, each footnote a double knot, into the creative space and place of a beadwork pattern as sewn by my Athapaskan grandmothers:

Maternal Ethiba, a woman of Chipewyan and Cree descent, married the French Voyageur Francois Beaulieu. Their son, Francois, known as "Old Man Beaulieu," was born in 1771 (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date, McCarthy, 1995, p. 110-12).

Catherine St. Germain, of Chipewyan and French Canadian descent, born 1793, daughter of Thakavilther and Pierre St. Germain, married Francois Beaulieu, son of Ethiba and Francois (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date).

An Indian woman, Marian, born in the North West Territory in 1785, married Louis Villebrun (Sprague and Frye, 1983).

Francoise Daoust married Francois Mercredi Sr., born 1798 in Quebec (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date).

Marie Vadenet, born 1798, daughter of Marie Vadenet, married Jean Baptiste Tourangeau in 1830 (Mousseau, 1978, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date).

Marguerite Daunais, born 1800 at Red River Settlement, married Louis Lamirande (Sprague and Frye, 1983). Louise Collin, born 1815, North West Territory, Metis, married Louis Villebrun in 1835 (Sprague and Frye, 1983, McCarthy, 1995, p. 116-117).

Julie Mercredi (McArthy) married Jean Baptiste St. Cyr (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date, McCarthy, 1995, p. 116-117).

Genevieve Lamirande, born 1836 at Red River Settlement, married Francois Mercredi in 1851 (Sprague and Frye, 1983).

Madeleine Laroque, born 1830 at Red River Settlement, married Antoine Tourangeau in 1860 (Hudsons' Bay Company Archives, No Date, Sprague and Frye, 1983, McCarthy, 1995, p. 116-117).

Marguerite Tourangeau, born 1837, married Joseph Mercredi in 1855 (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date, Morin, 2001).

Marie St. Cyr married Louis Villebrun, born 1835 (Hudsons' Bay Company Archives, No Date, Morin, 2001).

Marie Laferte, married Alexis Beaulieu, born 1842 (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Morin, 2001).

Marie Beaulieu, born 1867 at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, married Pierre Mercredi (Overvold, 1976, McCarthy, 1995, p. 116, Menez, No Date, Mousseau, 1978, McCormack, 1989, p. 42, Winnipeg Tribune, 1939, as cited in Fumoleau, 1973, p. 79).

Rose Tourangeau, baptized 1876, married Maxime Villebrun in 1904 (Menez, No Date). Marie Colombe Mercredi, born 1905, married Armand Villebrun (Sutherland, 1991, p. 95).

Rita Marie Villebrun, born 1935 at Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, married Arthur Edge, born 1935, at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories.

Paternal Catherine Stewart, or Shodee, a Loucheaux woman, born about 1850, married fur trader, Alexander Stewart (Thompson and Kritsch, 2005, Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board, 2001, p. 14-15).

Marguerite Anne Stewart, born 1863 at For McPherson, married John Firth (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date, The Beaver, 1939, The Beaver, 1948).

Laura Collins, born 1847 at Albany New York, daughter of Laura Collins Sr., married Murdock McLeod in 1864 (Weeks, 2007, p. 55).

Marguerite Firth, born 1885, married Frederick R. McLeod in 1902 at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories (Hudson's Bay Company Archives, No Date, Moccasin Telegraph, 1952, p. 27, Overvold, 1976).lvii

Joanne Alice McLeod, born 1907 at Fort Nelson, British Columbia, married Arthur Edge, born 1899 to Mary Emma Hudson and Arthur Tabbenor Edge of Stoke-on Trent, England.

My grandmother passed away in 1991, on Valentine's Day. That summer, we bring her home. Wild roses are in full bloom. A hot blue sky day, as earth is scattered, several large pelicans, black wingtips extended, fly overhead, on their way to the Rapids of the Drowned on the Slave River. This awareness of my ancestors, my relations, came during and after my visit that day in spring with my grandmother, in bits and pieces of fragmented knowledge(s), whispers and echoes that resonate and reverberate in ways I don't consciously, or fully comprehend, as integral to the telling of this story. My identity as an Indigenous women that nourishes, grounds and sustains me in my wellness. As it is for all Indigenous people, self-determination and the freedom to pursue Indigenous ways of knowing are essential and critical to my survival.

Old-Style Gwich'in Floral Beadwork and the Red River Jig

In a museum-led project dedicated to the remaking of traditional Gwich'in clothing items, Thompson and Kritsch (2005) discuss the making of old style clothing by Catherine Stewart, born about 1850, the Gwich'in wife of Hudson's Bay Company employee Sandy Stewart.

Mrs. Stewart made garments for her family that were typical of those worn by fur trade personnel and many Gwich'in of the time: moccasins, mittens, and jackets of tanned and smoked caribou and moose hide, decorated with beads and porcupine quill work... One winter, as a special New Year's gift to her husband and sons, Catherine Stewart made of woven quillwork to hold up their cloth . As she recounted to her granddaughter, in spring they would assemble everything she required to make old-style clothing: tanned white caribou hide, dyed porcupine quills and sinew thread. She got some of these materials from people leading more traditional lives on the land. As the time for the arrival of the boat drew near, she would get someone to care for her children, and work day and night in order to have outfits ready for trade.

Catherine Stewart was probably representative of women who were engaged in sewing old-style clothing for a non-Aboriginal market towards the end of the nineteenth century. She would have had the necessary skills: a woman of her generation would have had a traditional Gwich'in upbringing on the land, and an education that emphasized training in sewing and decorating hide clothing. A concern for quality would have been ingrained. In the traditional culture, a woman's skill at making and decorating clothing was highly valued, and a girls training was rigorous: "In those days, the girls were taught to sew and, if it was not done properly, then it was the mother's duty to take the sewing apart and get the girl to redo it again until she thought it was acceptable." (Vitrekwa, No Date, Thompson, 1994, as cited in Thompson and Kritsch, 2005, p. 27)

...Trade in clothing materials, quillwork and finished garments was an ancient and well-established feature of the Aboriginal economy long before Europeans arrived on the scene. As an adult married to a Scottish employee of the Hudson's Bay Company and living a more sedentary life at a trading post, Mrs. Stewart would have been in contact with visiting foreigners, aware of the demand for traditional clothing, and in a position to respond.

... such women were few by the end of the nineteenth century. Hide tanning, sewing and the decorative arts continued to be vital and highly respected activities in Gwich'in communities, but younger seamstresses were combining traditional skills and materials with those imported via the fur trade, to make clothing very different in design and decoration. (Thompson and Kritsch, 2005, p. 26-27)

Mishler (1999) examines the "upriver" style and "downriver" styles of Athapaskan fiddlers, the older upriver style found in Gwich'in communities in the northern Yukon and Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories in Canada and the more recent downriver style to the west in Alaska. "Playing strictly by ear and within a strong conservative tradition that is over 140 years old, Athapaskan men have developed a powerful, beautiful sound and a repertoire that is different from any other style of fiddle music" (p. 5) Mishler (1999) stresses,

It is important to recognize Athapaskan fiddling as a vigorous and manly art, just as Athapaskan beadwork embroidery is essentially a woman's art... Gwich'in fiddling, like Gwich'in beadwork, can be viewed as an art form that developed and flourished during the early years of direct contact with whites during the mid-nineteenth century. These two traditional art forms still come together at community dances, where men and women wear their beaded moosehide moccasins and vests, and where fiddlers often hang decorative feathers and trade beads from the necks of their fiddles to make them more beautiful and more Indian, (p. 5)

Old-time fiddle music first introduced by servants of the Hudson's Bay Company is identified as one of four types of traditional Gwich'in music. In studying how fiddlers learned to play the fiddle, Mishler (1999) offers a detailed explanation of the movement and figures as performed by dancers during the Red River Jig, noting the symbolism within the jig whereby the movement of the woman dancer,

...makes imaginary flower petals... As the dance progresses, she continues tracing out her flower on the dance floor, until she is spelled. Her partner in turn suggests the flower's central pistil. The power of this semiotic display is that it resonates from a popular Gwich'in beadwork design, the rosette, a kind of mandala or medallion with multi-petalled flowers. That is, these very flowers appear on the tops of Gwich'in moosehide dance slippers, and both the woman's and man's downcast eyes focus on the designs... The subtext is that dancing becomes sewing; every step is a newly stitched bead. (p. 67-68)

209 QuickTime™ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture

Figure 8. Gwich'in Jig Flower Pattern Diagram (Mishler, 1993, p. 66)

/ can hear the sound of my grandmother's footsteps walking purposefully across the linoleum floor in the kitchen in the mornings, the first to rise. She favoured one leg. Into the porch to gather split wood and logs from the wood box, crumpling of newspaper, striking of a wooden match against matchbox, flames catching, woodstove warming kitchen day into evening, cup of tea on china saucer, in hand.

During fall season, row upon row of glass jars, carrots, beans, beets, and raspberries, row upon row for use during the coming months.

People came to the house asking if she could make a parka, mittens, mukluks, moccasins, sometimes duffle liners, for them, often members ofRCMP or teachers stationed in the community for a year or two.

My grandmother would bring out brown paper, scissors, a pen and measuring tape for various measurements - across shoulders, length of arm, around neck, shoulder to thigh, around hip. A foot would be placed on brown paper, traced heel to toe, followed by a discussion about material, colour and fur, design, use of silk or wool embroidery, beadwork, braid, or, on rare occasions, hair tufting. A variety of woolen duffle, red, white or navy wool stroud, black velvet and canvas, multi-coloured embroidery threads, beads and wools were purchased at the Hudson's Bay store. There was much excitement following the arrival of hand-tanned hides, an examination of thickness and consistency, and lengths of fur, to ensure quality, most often brought to the house in the early morning hours; wolf, coyote, beaver, and fox were most common. Careful inspection determined hide to be sufficient for footwear, consideration give if the smoked hide would prove to be acceptable to the wearer.

The creation of an item of clothing began with the careful cutting of cloth or hide. An infinite number of floral patterns emerging in the careful stitching of my grandmother's needle and thread, the deft and adroit application of this or that stitch, using a multitude of smooth silk or soft woolen threads, shiny glittering beads, a gathering of caribou or moose hairs, curious tufting with manicure scissors.

Each pattern similar yet unique pattern in shapes and colours reminiscent of summer's brief explosion of flowers and fauna found throughput the boreal forest of the far north. No two designs alike, each resplendent in its celebration, perfect in craftsmanship, and breathtaking in its beauty. Then, the item would disappear, never to be seen again, usually when I was away.

Both my maternal and paternal ancestors share a legacy of Athpaskan peoples in our homeland of Denendeh and a chronology of historical events that encompass early exploration, the fur trade, arrival of Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries, modes of transportation, arrival and aftermath of imported diseases, an intergenerational legacy of attendance at residential schools, and arrival of goods, government, technologies and migrant settlement in the North. This is who I am. This is where I come from. These are my ancestors. I learn about them through books and in beadwork.

211 PART TEN - Land, Knowledge(s) and Peoples

Figure 9. Quillwork of a raised line with additional string (Orchard, 1984, p. 65)

Dene Knowledge Transmission and Self-Determination

Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox (2009), an anthropologist, has shared her experience in learning to tan moosehide, described as a cultural analogy in an analysis of self- government, towards gaining a deeper level understanding of Dene culture, values and worldviews. Amongst the Dene, "moosehide clothing is a signifier of Dene cultural knowledge, artistic ability, and artisanal skill. Tanning, sewing, or beading moosehide items requires intense skill and attention that few people possess" (Irlbacher-Fox, 2009, p. 37).

At land claim and self-government signing ceremonies, moosehide vests, jackets, and slippers adorned with colourful beaded flowers or geometric designs are worn proudly. The clothing and beadwork are produced predominantly by women and are sold for a fraction of their true value. Moosehide is not easy to obtain, since hand-tanning hide is not widely practiced. It requires the co-ordinated efforts of many people, and the tanning process itself is physically and mentally demanding. Skills and knowledge are passed down from grandmothers and mothers and shared among friends.

Tanning is about collective co-operation, responsibility, tenacity, self- reliance, commitment, and accomplishment requiring multiple and personal strength and individual initiative to the benefit of the collective... it functions as a community-centred cultural practice, developing and transmitting cultural knowledge and values.... an example of an enterprise predicated on and suffused with Dene values and worldview... In that sense it functions as both analogy and example of self-determination, (p. 38-39)

What is striking about moosehide tanning is its embodiment of values and dynamics that provide a glimpse into what self-determination might be about culturally, psychologically, spiritually... The success of moosehide tanning is rooted in the commitment of a community to support individuals to engage in a material production process that embodies what it is to live according to Dene values and worldview... (p. 172-173)

After a lengthy and complex process, the moosehide "...is hung over a smoldering fire of a specific type of dried rotted spruce wood, which is called dahshaa in the Gwich'in language. The dahshaa smokes up into the hide, imparting the distinctive rich bronze colour of the hand-tanned hide" (p. 36). Irlbacher-Fox (2009) concludes, "... the most elusive aspect of this body of knowledge is that required to be able to find dahshaa... The process of finding dahshaa is time consuming and demands patience, vigilance, and an absolute focus on the task at hand. It is dahshaa that imparts the distinctive, rich orange- brown colour to the moosehide, that makes it water resistant, that sets apart the finished hide as uniquely Dene" (p. 174). "Tanning... represents a profound connection between Dene lands, people, and knowledge" (p. 173).

Ancient Connections: A Network of Motion, Transformation and Relationships

Leslie Main Johnson (2010), an anthropologist, examines land, ethnoecology and Indigenous knowledge of land as held by Indigenous peoples in northwestern Canada where the ancient connection of people and land are viewed to create a social identity in connecting phenomena and domains of knowledge and practice thus creating an alternative pathway for sustainable life ways. This study of space and place views "land" as place and homeland, as "a society, a network of relationships" (Johnson, 2010, p. 3) in considering "what it means to "know" in different contexts, to understand how one knows" (p. 4). Nadasdy (2003) describes the immense challenge in understanding alternative worldviews to be similar to that of "trying to communicate across epistemologies, in shifting contexts, and in fields of power relationships" (as cited in Johnson, 2010, p. 202).

The term ethnoecology refers to an extensive knowledge of stories and personal experiences tied to an inventory of specific places. It is encoded in language, implicit in behaviour and practice, linked with all other aspects of culture and encompassing history and the sacred, "...for Dene speaking peoples... the stories people do tell about the land are multilayered, and do not lay out explicit ecological knowledge isolated from other aspects of life. As is common storytelling traditions, the information—the meaning—in a narrative is up to the listener to decipher" (p. 6).

An ethnoecological approach, in the sense of a landscape, highlights "perception and understanding of the landscape, biota, and landforms" rather than the broader range of relationships between land and social and cultural institutions. Landscape ethnoecology focuses on a cultural understanding of landscape, the network of relationships to the land and encompassing a "...broad aesthetic or cosmological sense of the local environment" (p. 17).

"For northern Dene peoples, as for many Native North Americans, the land is still seen as the root of identity, culture, and health..." (p. 109). A Dene concept of the land is described to

...encompass the relationship that originated in the distant past, of a people, those who dwell there, with a regional homeland... the entire range of geographic, physiographic, and ecological features of the homeland, and all of the living beings, including the human population whose identity and way of life is strongly tied to the land. Sacred and spiritual components, which may include loci of power, are part of the concept of "the Land." (p. 17)

Notably, Johnson (2010) links "motion, transformation, and relationship" (p. Ill) as encoded in Athapaskan languages, where "in the northern Athapaskan world, places are loci of the potential intersection in time, space and probability, and of potential encounter," making land "...a rich and evocative concept with many layers of meaning. The land is fundamental to northern Athapaskan culture and life" (p. 118). In connecting space and place, with motion, Johnson (2010) writes,

...many local people experience the Land as a series of trails, which can be extended metaphorically to the trail through life, or to walking the trail as the proper way of living and relating to the Earth. The metaphor of walking as a skilled way of being in the world, of moving through the world, encapsulates the embodied, experiential way of knowing and doing... Landscape is a medium, imbued with meaning, a partner in the business of living, and skilled walking is a way of competently moving through it. Living on the land implies, identity, and wellness... Dene Elders also often see the Land, being on the land in appropriate relationship and with skill, as the path to health and well-being. (Ingold, 2000, Tilley, 1994, Adelson, 2000, as cited in Johnson, 2010, p. 203)

Relationships to the land remain foundational to Athapaskan life, health and identity. Thus knowledge "...may be embodied and demonstrated as needed, in context" (Ellen, 2009, Ingold, 1996b, as cited in Johnson, 2010, p. 206) where "...landscape ethnoecology deals with dynamic landscapes, fluxes and connections, as well as more static patterning of categories in local classifications" (Johnson, 2010, p. 206). In this view, the term "culturescape" brings together people, social relations, cultural understandings and the landscape as inseparable (King, 2002, 2005, as cited in Johnson, 2010, p. 207).

Taskscape: Entry and Exit Points

Allice Legat (2007), an anthropologist, from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, explores what it means to be knowledgeable if you say you are from the land where becoming knowledgeable through experience is a priority and lifelong process. For the Tli'cho Dene,

... Stories are used to think with. The interplay between stories, knowledge and truth through experience is never ending... The past is intimately woven to occurrences in the present to be verified in the future. Stories from the past are continually pulled through to the present as they are experienced, and threaded to the future by sharing them with one's descendants. It is like crocheting: the points of entry and exit are the same. All happenings and events are always being connected and re-connected. (Legatt, 2007, p. 282)

This interplay between stories, knowledge and truth for Tli'Cho Dene is summarized as:

The past is continually pulled through to the present by experiencing occurrences that originated in the past and shared through stories with social descendants. All happenings and events are connected as the points of entry and exit are the same... Becoming knowledgeable is based on actions, relationships, interaction and happenings, creating and re-creating a taskscape. Humans and other beings experience taskscapes along intersecting trails through time and space, (p. ii) Northern Landscapes: Relationships of Time and Place

Thompson (1994) asserts Dene clothing to "...reflect their intimate and enduring relationship with the land," "more than any other aspect of their material culture...," representational of the land's resources and connections to the land, "...a deep understanding of climate and terrain, and of the needs of people who live on and from the land," and evoking northern landscapes (Thompson, 1994, p. xv).

Dene clothing is "from the land" in more subtle ways as well. The sewing of clothing embodies cultural values which were once critical to survival, and which continue to have importance and meaning for the Dene. Implicit in the way seamstresses learn, teach, and share their skills, in their choice of materials and styles, in the very act of providing clothing for themselves and their families, is an enduring belief in the importance of industriousness, self-reliance, cooperation and sharing, and respect for the teaching of elders, (p. xv)

Perhaps more than any other aspect of their material culture, clothing made by the Dene reflects their intimate and enduring relationship with the land... The sewing of clothing embodies cultural values which once were critical to survival, and which continue to have importance and meaning for the Dene... Implicit in the way seamstresses learn, teach, and share their skills, in their choice of materials and styles, in the very act of providing clothing for themselves and their families, is an enduring belief in the importance of industriousness, self-reliance, cooperation and sharing, and respect for the teaching of elders, (p. xv)

The making of clothing is but one step relating to one's lived environment that begins with the hunting or trapping of an animal, preparation of raw hides involving a sophisticated process of fleshing, scraping, drying, de-hairing, treating, processing, drying and smoking, requiring a specialized skill set and many hours of physical labour.vm Stone scrapers or caribou or moose leg bone scrapers are used in hide tanning. A sewing kit might include caribou or moose hide sinew for use as thread, a sewing awl made from wood, bone and sinew, and more recently, a steel needle and metal thimble.

Dene clothing is made from the skins of land mammals, with moose and caribou as the most important sources, as well as that of other smaller animals such as beaver, wolf, muskrat, marten, otter and Arctic hare depending the region, season and availability. Animal parts such as bone, brains, spinal fluid, sinew and grease were used to process and soften the hides. "The imaginative and ingenious of animal hair, feathers, and bird and porcupine quills added their colour and beauty to clothing. Leaves, bark, flowers, berries, charcoal, and ochre were used as natural dyes" (p. 5).

These talents are said to have consumed time and energy, as activities in which women took pride and pleasure, the skills of which were highly valued and which enhanced a women's social standing. "The competent, resourceful women, adept at hide tanning and garment sewing, and her consequent desirability as a marriage partner is a recurring theme in Dene mythology and oral history, as well as in the accounts of European explorers" (p. 5-6). PART ELEVEN - Indigenous Cultural Knowledge, Politics and Representation

Figure 10. Quillwork on a coil of hair (Orchard, 1984, p. 48)

Indigenous Material Culture and Representation

Following is a summary overview on material culture and museum anthropology as presented by Pitt Rivers Museum curator for the Americas, Laura Peers (2007) that identifies key issues concerning museums, museum collections of Indigenous material culture, cultural knowledge, politics and representation and museum relations with Indigenous peoples both historically and contemporarily.

The fifty-year period between 1870 and 1920 is described as the golden age of museum collecting. Today, the goals of museums are viewed as a historical expression of dominant society at the time that valued the collection, preservation, exhibition, study and interpretation of items collected from around the gold. This golden age occurred at a time when theories of social evolution served as foundational to the goals of colonialism to educate, assimilate and civilize Indigenous populations in support of settlement, agricultural and development expansion (Peers, 2007).

As the British were traversing the globe, many of these travelers returned to Britain with huge collections of objects randomly collected from numerous locales and from Indigenous peoples. The collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, oftentimes described as a "museum of museums" and reminiscent of Victorian times, are organized by object type reflecting a cultural evolutionary perspective whereby items are organized on an evolutionary scale from the primitive to the sophisticated. Museum founder, General Pitt Rivers, saw the Pitt Rivers Museum collection as evidence of these historical theoretical developments (Peers, 2007).

The relationship of social Darwinism and white superiority are embedded and embodied in museum collections as reflective of the voice of the white, educated middle class at that time: in what was displayed, how things were displayed, what was said about the item and who wrote what was said about the item. Items were described by curators as in the past tense and at a considerable distance from their source of origin. Many items were kept in storage rooms and not displayed (Peers, 2007).

The role of material culture is considered as a project of colonization whereby the representation of material culture is reflective of the thinking of early theorists and eminent philosophers who were, during the mid- to latter part of the nineteenth century, formulating foundational theories of the sciences and social sciences (Peers, 2007).

Contemporarily, museum exhibitions can be interpreted as political arenas where identity and culture continue to be contested as curators work collaboratively with Indigenous peoples to engage in processes of decolonization. Museums are described as contact zones, as spaces where divergent groups come together, giving rise to challenges of voice and relationships, prompting changes to the voice and of museum texts of cultural representation and a renegotiation of cultural representation by museum curators with diverse source communities (Peers, 2007).

The repatriation of museum items to Indigenous tribal groups and source communities allows for Indigenous peoples to regain control of personal and intimate items with spiritual meaning, such as those of human remains and ceremonial items, not only to repatriate Indigenous knowledge and culture through the physical repatriation of items but to regain knowledge, once thought to be lost, through projects of knowledge repatriation. These are the building blocks of cultural identity and social stability (Peers, 2007).

Today, the study of material culture can be interpreted to contribute to the retrieval of knowledge, cultural and historical information whereby cultural information retrieved from the past can be evocative and emotional as objects of memory held in museum collections contribute to identity construction of the "other." Peers (2007) shared an example of beaded hoodsllx as worn by Indigenous women in the sub arctic prior to and during colonial times as a demonstration that the things of material culture matter as objects of knowledge to enhance our understanding of social organization, of material culture itself, and in our interpretation of meaning implicit to objects.

Repatriation of items in museum collections is not just about the physical, rather it is about capacity, power and agency towards healing, social change and revitalization, relationships that together function to breathe life back into individuals, communities and peoples. The study of museum anthropology is a site where relationships of identity, culture and power are contested across time and where museums themselves function as a form of discourse (Peers, 2007).

Colonial Present: Cultural Translation, Tension and Rupture

Peers (2003) recounts her experience in working with a source community to ascertain social meaning as embedded within a series of items in the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. This encounter yielded a range of responses from community members that necessitated Peers as curator to assume the role of a cultural translator whereby cultural meaning associated with the artifacts served to function as a barrier in efforts to establish a collaborative relationship. In this article, the Pit Rivers Museum at Oxford is described as thus, ... famed for its evocative Victorian-style displays, its crowded black- framed wooden cases and handwritten artefact tags. The historical depth and geographical breadth of its well-documented collections make them the focus of much lively research. The museum can, however, be seen as problematic by members of source communities... its dark and old- fashioned atmosphere evokes the colonial past... (p. 84)

Contemporary material culture theory views "... artifacts as points of contact between peoples... tracing the movements and shifting meanings of artefacts as a way of understanding the relations between the people involved" (p. 78). Museum artifacts also reflect a tension between the physical, as passive objects, and the social, "...as embodying the ruptures between histories, between peoples, between generations" (p. 77). Of artifacts, Peers (2007) notes:

Their active lives are those we cannot see: their ability to link makers and collectors, researchers, curators, visitors and descendants of those who made the artifacts, and thus to function as bridges across time and across cultures. Museum collections embody the intersecting histories and agendas of collector, institution and source community members: they are rich sources for understanding the nature of relations between peoples at the moment of collecting as well as afterwards, with new meanings assigned to them as museum artefacts and as objects of material heritage, (p. 77)

In a specific study, Peers (2003) determined to consult with Ojibwe community members concerning the historical context and meaning surrounding a series of hair samples held in the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. These hair samples were collected by anthropologist, Beatrice Blackwood, from Ojibwe children attending boarding or day schools, at Cross Lake, Minnesota in 1925. Visits by Ojibwe community members to view artifacts originating from their home communities at the Pitt Rivers Museum yielded a range of responses expressed by the visitors as sorrow, assertiveness, condemnation and distress. As curator, Peers (2003) acted as translator "...between institutions, between eras, and between cultures" (p. 85).

Not surprising, for these community members, the hair samples at the museum served to prompt memories of trauma, forced assimilation and humiliation as forcible interventions by "White outsiders," bringing into play Ojibwe beliefs concerning the taking of hair, an intimate bodily part, without permission. The hair samples also brought forward to present day the central role of physical anthropology as a contributor to the enforcement of United States federal policy in the historical practice to determine "race" through physical measurements and blood quantum and, further, in direct relationship to political acts seen as "a series of interventions by the dominant society" concerning the fraudulent dispossession of lands and alienation of traditional lands and resources from Ojibwe people (p. 89).

For Peers (2003), key to understanding the meaning of the artifacts within Ojibwe history and to Ojibwe people today, was the expression of thoughts, feelings and experiences of those Ojibwe in attendance at the Cross Lake Indian Boarding School at the time the hair samples were collected by Blackwood. For Ojibwe, Ojibwe histories remained embedded within the artifacts, as "embodied cultural knowledge," "...despite their transformation into museum artifacts (p. 83)." In this study, Peers (2003) concludes the hair samples served to function as a barrier in efforts to establish a collaborative exhibition with the Ojibwe source community.

Peers (2003) indicates the need to perceive of museum artifacts within the total spectrum of materials as collected within the broader context of an intellectual project and in consideration of historical anthropological discourse. "The experience made clear, however, that museum research involving source community members involves contested understandings between cultural perspectives and systems of power at every step of the way, and that it does not necessarily lead to any reconciliation between these" (p. 85). "Museum artifacts do not shed these tensions once they enter the museum, no matter how long they sit in quiet corners" (p. 89).

Museums, Artifacts and Relations

Historically, ethnographic collections in museums were commonly gathered with the intent that items were to be preserved for future generations as it was assumed that Indigenous cultures would die out (Peers and Brown, 2003). Gaining access to museum collections to engage with artifacts is considered by museums to enable communities to deal with the "legacy of colonization."

Today, curators at museums strive to develop relationships with Indigenous peoples towards shifting the museum context from that of "colonial upholders" to one characterized by Tapsell as "...tolerance of different viewpoints, understanding one another's expectations and beliefs, and learning to recognize and negotiate boundaries, are critical factors for both parties" (as cited in Peers and Brown, 2003, p. 250). Gaining access to artifacts prompts the re-learning of knowledge and skills, allowing opportunity to reconstruct historical narratives towards an affirmation of "...cultural identity and historical struggles" (Peers and Brown, 2003, p. 6).

Contemporarily, efforts continue to adopt new approaches to research where relationships between museums and Indigenous peoples are built upon trust, "...involving the sharing of knowledge and power to meet the needs of both parties" (p. 1).

Peers and Brown (2003) note that today there can be a two-way exchange where community members work together with museums concerning the meanings of artifacts and where museums exchange information about historic artifacts that are sometimes returned to originating or source communities. Peers and Brown (2003) suggest bringing "source community members" into museums can lead to exchanges of knowledge, cross-cultural learning and greater understanding of other's cultural views. These types of relationships, in turn, may lead to the development of curriculum resources for children to "...learn about their culture and history from the perspectives of their own people" (p. 9). "In some indigenous communities, working with historic artifacts and photographs becomes part of a strategy to preserve the emotional, psychological, cultural, and physical health of members through the dissemination of knowledge about identity and history" (p. 6).

Photographs are viewed as "...an evidential source within the communities they depict, inscribing complex layers of cultural information and knowledge" (p. 83). Such photographs "...evoke knowledge, spark lively debates on the identity and stories of the people or makers involved, and the cultural knowledge and intention encoded in them, and function as links between past and present" (p. 6). Sharing photographs within communities can evoke discussions concerning the meaning of artifacts, use of historic knowledge in the present and cultural identity. Sometimes the sharing of images "...can trigger the telling of counter-narratives, often for the first time in generations, and are used as visual proof of a community's account of past events" (p. 6).

Indigenous Material Culture and Social Relations of Visual Imagery

Edwards (1999) describes photographs as a conduit of memory constituting "a meta-value of memory construction," as a presentation form of material culture. As material objects, photographs are objects of exchange where images construed with social meaning are exchanged in a manner where "...the tension between knowledge (memory) and ignorance (forgetting) becomes a critical determinant in the flow of 'memory texts'" (p. 232-233). "The exchange of the photograph as an image itself expresses the social value of the relationship that is maintained and sustained between groups and individuals, which demands reciprocity to consolidate the socially desired memory of images" (p. 233). These social articulations (Appudarai, 1986, as cited in Edwards, 1999, pg) are said to,

... reinforce networks and identity built on the memory to which they relate, positioning individuals vis a vis the group, linking past, present and perhaps implying a future... Such exchanges have been found to be deeply implicated in the negotiation of social identities within diaspora communities... Materiality and physical form again set the affective tone, the emotional relationship and the consequence of things dialogically associated with those photo-objects through the associations of personal and collective memory (Edwards, 1999, p. 232).

Edwards (1999) discussion of photographs as objects of memory is intended to "shift thinking beyond content towards the cultural object existing in social relations within an experienced world" (p. 235) where "artifacts are often at their most powerful and effective as social forces when they appear to be most trivial" (p. 234).

A reader is encouraged to associate visual images of photographs with visual images as embedded within items of Indigenous material culture.

The contribution of visual images to memory construction and as objects of exchange in the context of memory and forgetting, given memory flow is critically dependent upon this reciprocal relationship which in turn implies visual images to be critical not only to the survival of memory but to the formation of socially constructed memory.

In a contemporary context of the fragmentation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous social relations, and given access to Indigenous knowledge(s) remains tenuous

226 and fragmented, there is suggestion that dominant norms function to repress that deemed socially marginalized.

For the most part, public access to items of Indigenous material culture in museum collections is through available photographs or visual images. The availability of Indigenous knowledge(s) as located in Indigenous material culture of museum collections is highly regulated by government legislation and policy.

Visual images of Indigenous material are dependent upon the efforts of individual curators, their areas of interest and in keeping with museum priorities. Thus, social articulations or 'memory texts' of Indigenous material culture flows to Indigenous peoples via sources external to Indigenous peoples. In this manner, access to Indigenous knowledge(s) and Indigenous collective identity and memory in Indigenous material culture in museum collections remains highly regulated and externally sourced.

Indigenous Social Biography and Repatriation of Indigenous Knowledge(s)

In an overview of complex issues relating to photographs as museum objects in association with relations between museum and Indigenous source communities, Edwards (2003) describes photographs as cross-cultural evidential sources "...inscribing complex layers of cultural information and knowledge" (p. 83) with the ability to create stories and tell histories, constituting a social biography, "through which 'a culturally constructed entity [is] endowed with culturally specific meanings and classified and reclassified into culturally constituted categories'" (Kopytoff, 1986, as cited in Edwards, 2003, p. 84). Visual repatriation helps us to understand the potential of historical photographs to understand the past and fulfill the needs of the present.

Relations between Indigenous communities and museums are acknowledged as embedded in unequal power relations, as "...spaces of contested histories and contesting practices, negotiation, restatement and repossession" (Ames, 1992, Clifford, 1997, Simpson, 1996, as cited in Edwards, 2003, p. 86) within the "...wider issues of cultural politics of representation, identity and sovereignty" (Edwards, 2003, p. 86) as opening spaces for "Indigenous counter-narratives" (Douglas, 1999, as cited in Edwards, 2003, p. 87).

Historically, the use of photographs in the methodology of photo-elicitation ".. .was developed as a methodological tool to trigger memories and glean cultural information" however relations between ethnographers and communities have shifted to that of shared approaches where photographs become "...interlocutors in the process of telling histories" (Edwards, 2003, p. 87) as "social actors, impressing, articulation and constructing fields of social actions and relations" (p. 88).

Photographs express historical events, transmit historical knowledge and help us to visualize history and assert identity in linking us to a larger political narrative. Photographs as historical narrative carry historical meanings, which "...emerge as important in contrasting and overlapping historical configurations in the multiple articulations of cultural identity, as well as formal histories, of emergent nation-states in a global forum" (p. 89).

"Speaking with photographs... must be seen as a regulated response embedded within social structures... the materiality of photographs... is linked to the social biography of photographs..." (p. 90). Photographs as material objects are active social objects that can function to "express traditional social relations of history telling" in the telling of histories "...not just with images but with objects that are images" (p. 90).

Further, photographs can establish ways "of inscribing the past, initiating a local, historical refiguration of the images which emphasizes social relations, networks and social expectations..." (p. 91). Identities are re-asserted when "layered inscriptions" emerge to link "individual and social identity, and photograph" establishing an "intersection of different ways of telling history... setting up a network of interlocking memories and narratives which increase the potential for interactive engagement" (p. 91). Photographs may be thought of as "living entities" (p. 93).

Museums and curators can facilitate re-engagement and repatriation by providing access to photographs of museum objects as educational materials for use in schools and in public exhibitions. This practice serves to aid museums and creators "...to understand the significance of their collections in broader theoretical, historical and cross-cultural perspectives." Increased access to museum objects for educational purposes opens "up unimagined ways of thinking with photographic collections," in prompting their re-interpretation as "historically saturated images" towards articulation of a "social biography of the museum object" (p. 94).

Consultation by museums with source communities concerning access and use of artifacts considers issues of authority, consent and protocol, as well as legislative or policy guidelines, to ensure sensitivity in the access and use of photographs and photographs of museum objects by museums and source communities. Edwards (2003) notes this dynamic to place museums curators in the position of "...brokers in a global image market...[where] if it is part of the duties of a curator in an anthropology museum to 'educate' on cultural diversity and different world-views and to facilitate and mediate access to collections in this context... [there is] enormous potential of photographs for opening alternative histories, giving different forms of expression to telling histories" (p. 96-97).

The use of photographs, and photographs of objects in museum collections, is particularly relevant in relation to North American collections in museums, where '"Indian people can help transform artifacts into meaningful cultural materials, alive, full of context and style, and interesting to scholars and non-scholars, Indian and non-Indian alike'" (Bernstein, 1992, as cited in Edwards, 2003, p. 97).

Photographs as visual images tell history. Current understanding of Indigenous history, described as contested, is fragmented as a consequence to dominant power relations in a context of colonial relations. Thus, Indigenous history as we know it is partially dependent upon a social biography of photographic memory as flowed through early travelers to North America.

Indigenous knowledge repatriation assumes the form of the visual repatriation of images of Indigenous material culture and life ways. A repatriation of the Indigenous material culture visual images could significantly contribute to the development of an Indigenous social biography that will strengthen understanding of Indigenous knowledge(s) and their application in Indigenous education.

The term photograph is translated as a visual image which in turn is translated as representative of Indigenous art forms and given consideration that our knowledge(s) of Indigenous material culture, for most people is founded upon visual images as made available to the public at large by museums.

Indigenous art forms are inscribed with meaning and cultural knowledge as such Indigenous art forms constitute an Indigenous social biography. What do we know and where can I learn through, from and about Indigenous social biography as located in Indigenous art forms in museum collections?

The marginalization of Indigenous peoples is reflected in a marginalization of Indigenous social biographies in a manner reflective of the larger political narrative and non-Indigenous and Indigenous social relations on a global scale. In the spirit of maintaining positive reciprocal relationships with Indigenous peoples, the modern practice of the banishment of Indigenous material culture and Indigenous art forms into a seclusion of solitary confinement and isolation in a museum collection seems somewhat harsh.

There is need to reflect upon the dislocation of Indigenous material culture and art forms and their potential contribution to Indigenous knowledge(s) and Indigenous peoples histories, identity and wellness contemporarily.

Thus, the repatriation of Indigenous visual images as Indigenous social biography holds potential to re-inscribe, re-figure, re-connect, re-engage, re-tell and re-assert Indigenous histories, cultures and knowledge(s). Key to such an undertaking is the integral role of the museum curator as translator and interpreter of Indigenous knowledge(s), worldviews and histories as Indigenous social biography

The study of ethnographic collections is often focused on the study of material culture in the form of traditional clothing towards a recounting of the history of a specific region and cultural group. There have been several studies of Northern Athapaskan garments and artifacts at various museums in the United Kingdom at the British Museum in London, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum and other places (Burnham, 2001).

A study usually involves a visit to a museum, study of clothing artifacts in various collections, and work with photographs, sketches, drawings and diagrams, written descriptions, measurements and analysis (Hail and Duncan, 1989). At the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, some of these studies have led to the reconstruction of traditional garments by Indigenous crafts people and/or assembly of museum exhibitions specific to regional and or tribal or cultural groups (Burnham, 2001, Thompson and Krtisch, 2005). PART TWELVE - Analytic Autoethnography, Ironic Validity and Indigenous Media

Figure 11. Quillwork woven technique without sewing (Orchard, 1984, p. 56)

Lens of Analytic Autoethnography

Leon Anderson (2006) proposes the term analytic autoethnography to refer to a specialized subgenre of analytic ethnography in which "...the researcher is (1) a full member in the research group or setting, (2) visible as such a member in published texts, and (3) committed to developing theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena" (p. 373). As a theoretical paradigm, analytical autoethnography offers the opportunity to analyze and explore:

...personal experiences and perceptions to inform our broader social understandings and upon our broader social understandings to enrich our self-understandings... at the intersection of biography and society: self- knowledge that comes from understanding our personal lives, identities, and feelings as deeply connected to and in large part constituted by—and in turn helping to constitute—the sociocultural contexts in which we live, (p. 390)

In the promotion of an analytic autoethnographic research that addresses broader theoretical issues, Anderson (2006) identifies five key features of analytic autoethnography: "(1) complete member researcher (CMR) status, (2) analytic reflexivity, (3) narrative visibility of the researcher's self, (4) dialogue with informants beyond the self, and (5) commitment to theoretical analysis" (p. 378). An autoethnographer engages in the study of constructs as an "...analytic and self-conscious participant" where understanding emerges from engaged dialogue (p. 382). In autoethnography, a researcher is "visible, active, and reflexively engaged in the text" (p. 383). The incorporation of subjective experience in autoethnography has the potential to contribute to understandings of social processes. In an effort to avoid the challenge of self-absorbed digression, Behar (1996) considers an autoethnographic researcher need "...be essential to the argument" (as cited in Anderson, 2006, p. 385). Analytic autoethnography, while grounded in self-experience, is a relational activity best understood by Davis (1999) in terms of "...interrelationships between researcher and other to inform and change social knowledge" (as cited in Anderson, 2006, p. 386). Finally, analytic autoethnography is best understood as a "...broad set of data- transcending practices" that contributes to generalized theoretical understanding (p. 387-388).

Frame of Simulacra/Ironic Validity: Rendering the Invisible Visible

Patti Lather (1993) applies a feminist poststructural frame to mark a possible "provisional space" in the legitimation of knowledge and research in rethinking the coding and historical inscription of validity as a "regime of truth" to articulate a reconceptualized validity in the "fragmenting and colliding of both hegemonic and oppositional codes" (p. 675). Concerning representation of "...the web of "structure, sign and play" of social relations" (Derrida, 1978, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 675), Lather (1993) asserts "...seeing what frames our seeing—spaces of constructed visibility and incitements to see which constitute power/knowledge...[is to] reframe validity as multiple, partial, [and] endlessly deferred" (p. 675).

"...To not revert to the dominant foundational, formulaic and readily available codes of validity require the invention of counter discourse/practices of legitimation" (p. 676). Such an approach requires an interrogation of practices of reflexivity, representation, methodology and inquiry in "...taking a position regarding the contested bodies of thought and practice which shape inquiry in the human sciences, negotiating the complex heterogeneity of discourses and practices... [to free] up the present for new forms of thought and practices" (676). Lather (1994) positions "validity as a space of constructed visibility" by proposing alternative framings of validity towards a self-reflexive methodology that extends the limits of the "already said" (Derrida, 1978, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 676) to that of the unseen and unthought (Rajchman, 1985, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 676).

As a counter-practice that moves beyond disciplinary maintenance to a critical social science (Faye, 1987, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 677), Lather (1994) proposes a frame of simulacra/ironic validity, a disruptive and deconstructive move that displaces the visible and renders the invisible intelligible. A copy without an original, "simulacra function to mask the absence of referential finalities" (p. 677) in a proliferation of rhetorical forms where the text is resituated as "...an ironic representation of neither the thing itself nor a representation of the thing, but a simulacrum... an operation of displacement rather than representation where the distinction between the copy and the real ceases to have meaning... It is a deconstructive move which avoids simple reversal and simple replacement" (p. 677).

For example, James Agee and Walker Evan's (1988) documentation of rural America in the 1930s, originally published in 1941, in the form of visual images and text is viewed by Lather (1993) to portray ironic validity. An American classic, the book prefaces a series of uncaptioned black and white photographs of white tenant farm families by the photographer (Evans), in relationship to the text of the writer (Agee). Together, the works unfold in a "politics of knowing and being known" (Agee and Evans, 1988, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 678). As presented, this early work by Agee and Evans (1988) resists objective representation and human commodification by way of a documentary and autobiography style in a manner that resists, " inscribes and interrupts normalizing power/knowledge" (Quinby, 1991, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 678). "Dense with the absence of referential finalities" (p. 678) the text both seeks and refuses a centre, concluding with multiple endings, an "excursion into the radical unreliability of meaning," a "rupture between language and the world," (p. 678) "the unrepresentable.... Enacting a double movement... outside the conventions of social science discourse" (p. 678). The creative and novel approach is considered by Lather (1993) to move from representation to disclosure in manner that "both inscribes and interrupts normalizing power/knowledge" (Quinby, 1991, as cited in Lather, 1993, p. 678).

Visual Ethnography, Digital Technologies and Representation

The incorporation of the visual into social science as a meaningful element of ethnographic research is considered by Pink (2001) to be complimentary to conventional academic epistemologies and modes of representation. Sarah Pink (2001) describes visual images and metaphors, as intertwined in ethnographic research, to be ". ..inextricably interwoven with our personal identities, narratives, lifestyles, cultures and societies, as well as with definitions of history, space and truth" (p. 17). In this way, the visual "...may be experienced and represented in a range of different textual, visual and other sensory ways" (p. 5).

The use of visual images and technology draws our attention to the "... interwovenness of objects, texts, images and technologies in people's everyday lives and identities," thereby making meaningful, "... social relationships, practices and individual experiences" (p. 6). Photography, video and hypermedia in research and representation function as a medium that stresses collaboration ".. .between the visual and textual and the producers of images and words" so that new knowledge and critiques may be created (p. 11). The use of images in ethnographic research and representation makes possible for "new ways of understanding individuals, cultures and research materials" (p. 13). In this sense, visual knowledge may have different interpretations and meanings in different contexts. Through the use of visual images, an ethnographer may express different aspects of their identity or personal experience. A visual image can have different meanings at different stages of ethnographic research and representation, in time and space, and in diverse cultural and historical contexts.

For example, in the critical deconstruction and resituating of archival images, new historical meanings emerge, as situated within "...the intellectual and 'scientific' environment and framework of beliefs" (Edwards, 2001, as cited in Pink, 2002, p. 52) and "theories, philosophies and political agendas that informed the intentions of those who produced and used the images" (Pink 2001, p. 52). When archival images are critically deconstructed to reveal historical meanings, they are given "new meanings by embedding them in new discourses" (p. 55). In doing visual research, researchers need adopt approaches that are reflexive, ethical and critical.

Indigenous Media: Visual Imagery Of and About Culture

Steve Leuthold (2001) further examines the rhetorical dimensions of an Indigenous media that urges the viewer to empathize with the point of view of the Indigenous speaker. Indigenous media is viewed as a communication tool that expresses Indigenous perspectives and encourages viewer interaction and reflexivity. The term "media" is understood to relate to social processes that mediate identities whereby Indigenous self-representation "...implies the authority to represent one's self thereby shifting authority and advancing a "concept of self based in agency" where Indigenous peoples are active political agents in the field of identity formation and expression (p. 2). Cultural values as portrayed in Indigenous media can "...create a strong sense of collective identity...[that] incorporates a sense of historical continuity" where "tradition" "consists of those central values and practices, arising from many possible sources, that members of a culture nurture and pass on to subsequent generations" (p. 5). Leuthold (2001) contends an emphasis on tradition as a source of group identity to be based upon the assumption "that groups cannot have multiple paths... rather than being capable of incorporating aspects of many cultures and expressing multiple identities" (p. 6). Indigenous media may function as "a part of "becoming": a dynamic understanding of the past and its influence on the present that allows for the expression of future possibilities" (p. 8).

The adoption of visual technologies in Indigenous media is attributed to "...an awareness of the power of visual imagery that lies deep in the past" (p. 6-7) evidenced by a "...deep belief in the power, even sacredness, of visual imagery" (p. 7), for example, as seen in the visual images of ancient petroglyphs and contemporary use of photographs that "...evoke memories and narratives of the past" (Silko, 1990, as cited in Leuthold, 2001, p. 7). Further, the adoption of technical and cultural innovation is seen to have "deep historical roots in Native American cultural life.. .[where] inclusion rather than exclusion of innovation is a matter of survival in harsh natural environments" (p. 7).

What is important about Indigenous media ".. .is not who is behind the camera but how that person visually structures his or her perceptions of the world... as an expression of a culture as well as a record about a culture" (p. 8). The question then becomes "...whether Indigenous media emerge from social processes and worldviews that point to alternative possibilities for structuring and knowing our world" (p. 8).

Indigenization of Visual Media and Cultural Expression The use of digital technologies opens up a creative space for Indigenous peoples to raise the profile of Indigenous histories, cultures and politics in international forums (Wilson and Stewart, 2008). In recent years, the Indigenization of visual media has become an important tool for bringing new forms of cultural expression and cultural histories, often addressing the politics of identity and representation while asserting cultural and political sovereignty to international forums. As Indigenous peoples continue to access new digital and media technologies, new venues for Indigenous expression are opening up a cultural space for dialogue, raising the profile of Indigenous aesthetic and narrative perspectives, cultural and political issues, preserving and maintaining cultural identity and building community, digitizing heritage and cultural knowledge, and preserving and disseminating Indigenous knowledge(s). In this way, "Indigenous media practices have helped to create and contest social, visual, narrative, and political spaces..." (p. 302).

Indigenous Media: Social Action and Cultural Intervention

Faye Ginsburg (1994) discusses the creation of a discursive space for Indigenous media in Australia in the development of visual media forms by Indigenous peoples. Here, Aboriginal media is viewed as situated within a 'mediascape' in the broader context of social relations (Appadurai, 1990, as cited in Ginsburg, 1994, p. 366) as inherently complex cultural objects crossing multiple cultural boundaries as a means of social action and cultural intervention. Within the colonial field of power relations and colonial categories of Aboriginal history in Australia, 'Aboriginality' is perceived in relation to non-Aboriginality in the context of the representation of identity, history, land and culture (Nicoll, 1993, as cited in Ginsburg, 1994, p. 366-267).

Embedded aesthetics is examined as an orientation where textual production is evaluated in terms of social action in that "...the quality of work is judged by its capacity to embody, sustain, and even revive or create certain social relations" (Ginsburg, 1994, p. 368). The framing of Indigenous media production is viewed as "...extratextual, created by the cultural and social processes they mediate, embody, create, and extend" (p. 370) and where cultural production "...is understood as part of a broader effort of collective self-production of... knowledge" (p. 372).

In Australia, Indigenous producers from urban areas are described as bicultural cultural activist, as 'border crossers' in asserting "...multiple realities of contemporary urban Aboriginal life" (p. 374). Ginsburg (1994) considers aesthetic considerations involve the negotiation of multiple cultural perspectives in an exploration of the repositioning of cultural authority that challenges existing representations of Aboriginal culture and history. For Indigenous producers, an embedded aesthetic is a strategic choice where social relationships are mediated as social action in the contemporary context of identity politics and cultural diversity.

In a discursive space of embedded aesthetics, Indigenous media as self- representation and social action serves to authorize cultural empowerment in reviving cultural practices and "...rendering visible Indigenous cultural and historical realities..." where self-determination in cultural production remains embedded within an aesthetic 'mediascape' of social relations (p. 378).

Indigenous Cultural Heritage of Difference

Patricia Search (2009) investigates intercultural communication theory in website and computer interface design in the use of digital storytelling as a technique with the potential to inform globally diverse audiences about cultural differences. User interface design research suggests cultural differences and underlying social structures to impact intercultural communication in a manner that extends beyond cultural meaning. Monochrome or linear and polychrome or simultaneous time, formal and informal designations of space (proxemics) and high-context or low- context societies are identified as three important cultural dimensions that impact interpersonal relationships and communication (Hall, 1959, 1973, 1976, as cited in Search, 2009, p. 1) as are "individualism and collectivism as cultural dimensions of intercultural communication" (Hofstede, 1980, Triandis, 1995, as cited in Search 2009, p. 1).

Indigenous societies are described as high-context societies where meaning is interpreted in current situations and personal relationships, from the context of a particular event or situation, in contrast to western cultures where meaning is derived from the fixed meanings of verbal communication and messages. Intercultural communication theory applied in the technique of digital storytelling as a design element prompts audience engagement and understanding of different cultures.

The telling of stories and use of visual images in digital storytelling serves as an effective platform for cross-cultural communication in merging "...the traditional art of storytelling with interactive technology and [creation of] cultural narratives that immerse the audience in a new cultural experience (Search, 2009, p. 2). An examination by Search (2009) of two contemporary Aboriginal and Canadian websites suggests innovative approaches in the incorporation of alternative forms of cultural narrative and reinforcement of cultural concepts to effectively communicate cultural differences and highlight cultural and social boundaries between cultures. The use of audiovisual narrative in the form of "a montage of images, text, sound, rhythm, action, light, and color can create a holistic, multi- sensory environment that suggests a particular cultural experience and leaves the viewer to interpret the relationships and cultural values" (Coover, 2001, as cited in Search, 2009, p. 4-5).

The viewer becomes an integral part of an interactive, intercultural experience that is created by a holistic, multi-sensory environment. The user must form the connections and experience the cultural narrative on an emotional and intuitive level. The intuitive nature of this narrative space leads the viewer to accept the audiovisual information without conscious, critical analysis. The viewer is quickly suspended in another cultural space. (Search, 2009, p. 4-5)

In the Canadian example, a first-person perspective is described as both flexible and fragmented in the communication of an integrated immersive experience of cultural narrative embedded in a high-context environment "...where messages are fluid, and connections are based on the current moment and context," in a space where the viewer must form connections in feeling and experiencing relationships (p. 205). The art of storytelling by Indigenous peoples "can teach us how to use storytelling to improve cross-cultural communication by engaging users in different cultural experiences" (p. 205).

This type of computer interface design is seen to have broad applications in a wide variety of applications that include information transfer and the teaching and learning of knowledge in education. "Because narratives enable users to relate ideas and events to personal experiences, stories create a sense of engagement, identity, and community that helps users understand cultural differences" thereby creating a sense of Indigenous identity and community and contributing to the transmission and preservation of cultural heritage (p. 205)'

Digital storytelling as a technique is considered as a community-based, learner- centered approach that provides alternatives views and perspectives in the sharing of Indigenous stories to create social change and justice in the areas of education, health, policy and cultural preservation. A Dine company in the United States, nDigiDreams, applies an Indigenous framework of the Four Directions based upon Dine philosophy in their approach to digital storytelling where Dine wisdom, history and culture as based upon oral tradition are integrated with digital technologies (nDigiDreams). Digital Media and Curriculum

Digital storytelling communicates individual and community stories using first- person narratives, images and, sometimes, music in areas that relate to community, education, youth, health, identity and place. lx Digital media is a form of knowledge production that has the potential to enhance understanding of Indigenous peoples in the areas of arts, culture and history, education, health and human services, institutional capacity building, place and environment and social justice. This form of representation in research poses considerable potential as a useful tool in the fields of curriculum development, distance learning, and development of educational technology programs.

Digital storytelling presentations may be applied in a number of diverse areas including needs analysis, planning and development, outreach and public relations, and project evaluation. As a visual art, digital story telling that can be used to facilitate teaching and learning, build community capacity, and contribute to community development in the fields of Indigenous peoples' education and health. PART THIRTEEN - An Embodiment of Intertextuality

Figure 12. Quillwork folding single quill on cord of sinew (Orchard, 1984, p, 61)

The Peoples' Aesthetics: Weaving as A Way of Life

The Dine (Navajo) migrated upward to This World through four underworlds supported by pillars of precious materials: white shell, turquoise, abalone, and red stone. Navajo ancestors arrived at the confluence of four sacred mountains—Blanca Peak, Mount Taylor, San Francisco Peak, and Hesperus Peak—each representing a cardinal direction. Light, which "misted up" from the four mountains, is said to have been the mountains' breath. Four winds join the phenomena of light and color associated with the cardinal directions. White Wind, Blue Wind, Yellow Wind, and Dark Wind are reflected in the white of dawn, the blue of sky, the yellow of twilight, and the dark of night, respectively. (Fowler and Dawson, 1986, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 461)

The Navajo, known as Deni (the People), and Apache are both Athapaskan peoples who migrated southward from the north almost three thousand years ago. Amongst the Navajo, "stories, rituals, songs, prayers, masks, concepts of space, time, color, and number—all are joined in Southwestern belief systems" (Dubin, p. 482). "Beauty and prayer were intertwined with every aspect of Navajo reality. Navajo culture is embodied in the word hozho. Loosely translated as "beauty, balance and harmony," the creation, maintenance and restoration of hozho is the chants, in the , you close with that. It's very powerful and it means everything to a Navajo person" (Zah and Baker, 1989, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 482). "What you strive for in this world is hozho. How you live, how you treat one another, the way you cook, how you arrange your home, how you live in your surroundings in the Dine way, this would be art and religion" (House, 1994, as cited in Dubin, 1999, p. 482).

According to the Navajo, the traditional story is of the mythical loom built by the Spider Man for Spider Woman with the cross poles made of sky and earth cords, warp sticks made of sun rays, a sun halo forming the batten and the comb made of white shell. There were four spindles representing the four directions: North-stick zigzag lightening with a whorl of jade; South—flash lightening with a whorl of turquoise; West— sheet lightening with a abalone whorl; and East—a rain streamer with a whorl of white shell. As legend goes it was in October, the month of black spiders that the spiders came out of their dens and covered the ground before going into the world below Therefore, weaving was taught during the month of October. Before the weaver touched her spindle she uttered a prayer and offered a sacrifice of precious stone, eagle feather and or corn pollen so she could have good luck with her weaving. Unmarried girls were not permitted to weave. Today very few, if any, weavers follow this traditional approach to weaving. (Pendleton, 1974, as cited in Itani, 2009)

Kathy M'Closkey (2007) argues Navajo weaving to be an example of a recursive- heirarchical system, "a system whose patterns of interconnection are recursive and in which weaving is a 'signifying event' that signals movement, mapping and transformation," a form of metacommunication that imparts information that cannot be transmitted discursively. As a recursive-heirarchical system, "weavers and their textiles cannot exist without Navajo society (MCloskey, p. 14)." Historically, the study of Navajo aesthetics is based upon a classical art history perspective focused upon Western concepts of individual taste and standards of beauty (p. 2). This approach is considered by M'Closkey (2007) to have "obscured the importance of weaving for Dine and has also diminished our understanding of Navajo aesthetics, including the process of weaving" in that western worldviews, "values and assumptions of the dominant society are reflected in the construction of Navajo history (p. 2)." As such, non-Navajo fail to see Navajo aesthetics as "a circuit of relationships in which Navajo are themselves embedded" where cultural aspects of traditional tribal lifestyles have been fully integrated into teach other (p. 4).

M'Kloskey (2007) argues perspectives as adopted by non-Indigenous anthropologists and museologists in the study of Navajo to provide an inappropriate context particularly given that museologists are not be concerned with Dine ontology. "As emiricists, museologists are caught in a proverbial bind: the manner in which they structure their research determines the way they perceive the results. Their methodology becomes their epistemology"(p. 3).

Rather, Navajo aesthetics is seen to place an emphasis on "patterns of relations" where "patterns of interconnections are recursive, and whose primary significance for Navajo emerges through weaving... weavers express, maintain and perpetuate hozho throughout their weaving...a form of metacommunication" (p. 3). Navajo textiles are viewed as a primary form of metacommunication serving to perpetuate Navajo relationships through repetition, redundancy and pattern to transmit information related to their cosmology that cannot be transmitted discursively.

Based upon comments from Dine weavers interviewed by M'Closkey (2004), weaving is about relationships, a very emotional skill that offers the opportunity for a weaver to experience hozho or beauty and harmony. "When you weave you don't go by the hour, by time...you weave your rug in your mind...even to feel the touch of the rug is sacred... the thoughts and ideas of the original weaver are in the rug...it must not be touched (i.e., repaired), nor should one copy another's pattern" (p. 9). Some weavers pray and ask for help when beginning a rug.

'"Any pattern in a Navajo rug is 'Navajo"(p. 9). A young weaver describes tradition as coming from within where "tradition is the process of weaving" (p. 10). "...it's all in the weaving...in your hands, tools, in your mind. Design and coloring, how you think of yourself is how you weave... good thoughts, prayers, songs. When you start to weave, design comes in your mind, in your hands..." (p. 10). '"it's like going home...weaving is beauty...I learned my way back to my culture...'" (p. 10)

A young male weaver describes weaving as metaphorical teaching tools where "through weaving [one] learns a form of Navajo spirituality... [Dine] experience beauty in creating and expressing... The construction of Navajo culture is learned through interaction..." (p. 11).

In mapping different contexts, M'Closkey (2004) notes "language bears a relationship to the objects it denotes comparable to that which a map bears to a territory" (p. 11).

Words simply cannot describe the entire pattern of relations... patterns are about relationships. There are gaps in our knowledge because the machinery of description (signification) is always digital and continuous. Because a word stands for a condensed version of a pattern, no word can ever describe the entire pattern. Thus it should become apparent that linguistic approaches to meaning miss the scale of the world in which meaning operations... In order to perceive the patterns, it is necessary to broaden our perception concerning different forms of communication and differences between forms of coding information, each of which plays a significant role in the creation of radically different contexts. Distinguishing between different forms of coding information provides in turn the basis for understanding how the emphasis on the written word is deficient for an appropriate understanding of Navajo weaving. (12)

M'Closkey (2004) concludes, "one can perceive that a Navajo rug is part of a much larger pattern," a pattern where "...weaving emerges as a 'signifying event' that signals movement, mapping and transformation" (p. 13).

Textual Translation: Mi'kmaq Double Curve-Motif Embroidery

Described as one of the earliest surviving works of Indigenous narrative in the British colonies on the northeast coast of North America, Elizabeth Paul, Peter Sanger and Alan Syliboy (2007) examine the documentation of Mi'kmaq stories in 1847 and their translation and interpretation after 1884. A textual analysis explores the challenges of documentation, translation and interpretation of Mi'kmaq stories from Mi'kmaq into the English language and from spoken speech into written form as experienced by Rand, a practicing Baptist described as a polymathic linguist, who ultimately compiled a manuscript collection of eighty-seven Mi'kmaq narratives preserved in English translation (Paul, Sanger and Syliboy, 2007).

Paul, Sanger and Syliboy (2007) note translation and interpretation of the narratives to be constrained by the translator-interpretor's failure to ".. .emulate or even imply, if only occasionally, the qualities and characteristics of the Mi'kmaq language," (p. 45) for example, that of the principles and complexities of word formation and syntactical order, expression and content, form and meaning, specific to that of Mi'kmaq language and culture. Further, the study of Mi'kmaq narratives is considered to be of great interest concerning the study of the nature of reality concerning dualities of existence as studied by early western philosophers. ... the nature and precedence of the one and the many, of being and becoming, of unity and duality or multiplicity. The double curve, possibly therefore, exists both to reveal and conceal that the Mi'kmaq had reached conclusions similar to those of [the first philosophers of the European tradition]: that the apparent dualities of existence are interdependencies and hence illusory... (p. 154)

The Mi'kmaq double-curve motif is believed by Paul, Sanger and Syliboy (2007) to be a core metaphor conveying Mi'kmaq understanding about the nature of reality the understanding of which allows for a deeper level understanding of Mi'kmaq narratives. Notably, the double-curve motif is viewed as "... a visual art motif, carved into wood or rock, applied as threadwork or beadwork on clothing, or quilled onto birchbark (p. 151) typically expressed by way of calligraphy. The motif is a geometric design with a basic form that is a mirror image to the other, that, when folded, becomes the other. Further, as a three dimensional figure, the double-curve motif can be transformed into its own opposite to become the mirror image of the other, via a bisection of a pedestal form, and lastly, when aligned on any axis, to become interchangeable concave and convex shapes (p. 152-153).

In the wearing of traditional clothing, "...clothing centres the individual and defines his or her significance beyond the physical limits of the body." The wearing of clothing is observed to represent

...symbolic meanings of power, vision, nobility and (like the sun) origination. When Mi'kmaq women wore the hood-shaped mi'kmaq cap embroidered with double-curve motifs (one of the last Mi'kmaq traditional garments to survive), or Mi'kmaq men wore a chiefs or captain's similarly embroidered, they became symbolically part of the running pattern of powers sustaining life. (p. 156) Paul, Sanger and Syliboy (2007) identify the double curve as most analogous to the patterns of Mi'kmaq narrative. As such, when ancient Mi'kmaq language was no longer recorded and protected in its original form, the translation and interpretation of the Mi'kmaq language by non-Mi'kmaq, served to mutilate the narrative records of Mi'kmaq language as in mutilating narrative art (p. 156).

Narrative art is not that stripping bare which is summary or paraphrase. Nor is the art of listening, or reading. Like the passed development of the individual's psyche, narrative is enactment in time. Both the narratives of 1847 and 1884 are structured in running patterns of enactment, (p. 157)

Within the enclosing pattern of the narrator's beginning and end, therefore, there are sub-patterns of similar and parallel incident which it would even be possible to map if each sub-pattern were assigned a symbol, or to hear if each sub-pattern were given an identifying sound. I have an intuition that Mi'kmaq storytellers composed, told and listened to narratives using a combination of both methods of thematic cognition and assembly. Acoustically, the narrators could have worked by associations of words, phrases, names. Symbolically, the narrators could have worked by calculating repetitions, concealing them by changing details, delaying them, timing their recurrence rhythmically, and returning to them at predictable or unexpected moments. The methods need not have been a process of deliberated application. They could have been instinctual as the way in which most people fluent in a language use its grammar, although I also think there were Mi'kmaq master storytellers, who did work with a high consciousness of technique, who constructed narratives which were committed to memory and told later by others who were variously faithful to the originals, dismantling, truncating, expanding, reassembling and paraphrasing as their memories, tastes, talents and interests led them. (p. 158-159) In the foregoing analysis, Paul, Sanger and Syliboy (2007) apply the patterning of the double-curve motif to the patterning of Mi'kmaq narratives, thus determining the integrity of the narrative's translation to be maintained when the integrity of pattern of the double-curve motif is maintained. The relationships in the patterning of the double-curve motif are sought and located in the patterning of the narratives, described as the joining of opposites, use of repetition and redundancy, variation of pattern, joining of convex and concave, finitudes and infinitudes, cooperation of opposites, version to inversion, and unity and duality present within both the double-curve motif pattern and within the pattern of the Mi'kmaq narratives.

Translation, Literary and Metaphorical Polyphony

The raven flies across the zenith, a steady beat of wings, then rolls and somersaults and calls, picking up his steady beat again, and rolls again and calls, then wads himself like a rag and falls three hundred metres, pulls out suddenly and flies up, laughing, toward a fir where his mate has been waiting. (Bringhurst, 2007, p. 127)

Poet and typographer, Robert Bringhurst (2007) describes the world to be a polyphonic place where humans make polyphonic music, poetry and fictions in answer to their world, singing, playing or telling more than one song, tune or story at once, mimicry of what-w and can be. Polyphony exists in many forms, in music, literature, poetry and art. In music, polyphony means multiple voices, the creation of an intellectual space of insistent and persistent multiplicities.

"The forms of literary polyphony... are metaphorical. They are instances of polyphonic thought confined within the bounds of monophonic speaking" (p. 49). "...Polyphonic literature and music acknowledge and celebrate plurality, simultaneity, the continuing coexistence of independent melodies and rhythms, points of view and trains of thought" (p. 38). "A polyphonic poem... enacts and embodies plurality and space as well as timelessness and unity" (p. 36). "In polyphonic art, two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time without ceasing to be two" (p. 38). Polyphony in literature includes two or more simultaneous voices where at least two could stand on their own and where no one voice steals the show. "A space is created by these voices, and the space is claimed by a dance or pattern or form. That form does not exist in any of the voices itself. It emerges from their conjunction" (p. 57). Metaphorical polyphony "involves using one voice skillfully enough to suggest the continuing presence of two or more [voices]" (p. 57).

Bringhurst (2007) considers it to be both a right and a duty to accord Native American languages and literature a prominent place in the literary world, attesting to haunting Native American archives for two decades in a search for works of Native American literature and "...finding works of literary art beyond my grandest dreams... I have to keep redrawing my mental map of the literary world... to map the world in which we live as best we can, and to share the maps we make. That is what it means to have a culture" (p. 76). The learning of a people's history, language and culture is conceived of as "an act of recognition and acknowledgement—like learning someone's name, ten-thousand fold" (p. 87).

An absence of language, culture and history may be found amongst the numerous blank spaces located on a map of Native American languages, wherein such blank spaces, two of which are calculated to occupy 800,000 square kilometers, are interpreted to occupy, "...areas where ethnic cleansing was so successful that no cultural trace of the Indigenous inhabitants remains" (p. 80). Of missionary activities in the Americas, Bringhurst (2007) observes there are lessons to be learned: "the best way to steal a people's history, culture and language is by not trying to learn it, replacing it blindly with a history, culture, language and romance of your own. Learning someone's language, someone's culture, someone's history, reinforces it..." (p. 87). Bringhurst (2007) describes mythology as an "ecosystem of myths," "a theorem about the nature of reality, expressed not in algebraic symbols or inanimate abstractions but in animate narrative form" (p. 63). Mythology must be studied within its own literature and culture as an alternative kind of investigation to understand and elucidate the nature of the world and enrich human experience "That is why they are incessantly retold" (p. 64). "The myths stand in relation to other stories as the elders to other human beings. They know more, because they have been learning things for longer" (p. 68). "Mythtellers often say they listen to the world and see the myth unfold. The patterns and connections that emerge in the telling of the myth are reflections of an order that is sensed, not an order that is built by humans" (p. 71). Oral narrative usually proceeds in patterned steps or clauses shaped by meaning and syntax, not by sound. "The patterns lie in the thought behind the words, not the sounds of the words themselves" (p. 70-70).

On the topic of translation, Bringhurst (2007) offers translation to have three social obligations: to maintain links with the past, to keep us informed of other's achievements and to explore (p. 75). "Some ethnographers have recognized the artistry inherent in both the material objects and texts they have collected. The objects nevertheless have gone, as a rule, into museums of natural history and ethnography, and the texts into ethnographic archives, where few apart from students of linguistics or anthropology ever tread" (p. 76).

Translation is just one means by which cultural biodiversity works... genuine translators and translations... open the door to a voice from somewhere else, and they create meaningful work for readers or listeners, by giving them a route that they can travel, a bridge that they can cross, part way into another linguistic experience. Good translations are never complete. You must meet them part way. You must translate yourself, (p. 89) Visual polyphony, for example, refers to the oldest known artworks located at caves in southern France dated to 30,000 years of age depicting several large murals of figures painted black, white and red; "patterns form where the outlines overlap" (p. 60). Here, visual polyphony is "a means of paying static, two- dimensional respect to shapes that move in three dimension" (p. 60).

The mind... consists of abstract patterns formed from multiple chains of concrete sensory perceptions... We learn to think—as individuals, as species, and as genera and families of species—by accumulating sensory experience in three-dimensional space... The mind, if this is right, consists of abstract patterns formed from multiple chains of concrete sensory perceptions. And works of polyphonic art... don't just express emotions or mental states; they are models and exemplars of the ground of mind itself, (p. 61)

Inhabitants and Occupation, Storytelling and Textuality: A Zone of Entanglement

Social anthropologist Tim Ingold (2006) focuses on the dynamics of movement and integration of knowledge in a study of ecology as "the life of lines" (p. 53). He distinguishes lines to embody a certain way of knowing in proposing and contrasting conceptualizations of lines in the environment. Modes of travel such as wayfaring and transport, early medieval mapping and modern route-plans, storytelling and contemporary writing are discussed.

For the wayfarer, a walk is that of a way of life hither and thither within a winding, irregular and entangled meshwork of trails along which life is lived. "The inhabitant is... one who participates from within in the very process of the worlds continual coming into being and who, in laying a trail of life, contributes to its weave and texture" (p. 53). Inhabitation is further distinguished from occupation in an illustration of early medieval maps described as "...stories telling journeys made and of memorable encounters along the way... [then] gradually supplanted during the early history of modernity by spatial representations of the earth's surface" (de Certeau, 1984, as cited in Ingold, 2006, p. 47). The spatial lines on maps today represent borders that separate space thus signifying occupation.

Ingold (2006) weaves a narrative thread in a story that wanders from topic to topic "...in a never-ending journey that is life itself where we grow into knowledge through the senses as a total system of bodily orientation thus experiencing "a 'progressional ordering of reality', or the integration of knowledge along a path of travel" (p. 49). This framework is not in keeping with modern thought where cognitive maps are viewed as assembled by obtaining data "from multiple points of observation that are then passed to the mind, and from which it assembles a comprehensive representation of the world" (p. 49). These ways of inhabiting the world are contrasted to that of "inhabitant knowledge" where the ways of knowing of the wayfarer go along and are "alongly integrated" in a manner where there is a "...categorical distinction the mechanics of movement and the formation of knowledge" (p. 50) to that of occupant knowledge where habitation is thus of occupation and locomotion in the sense of destination and pre­ determined stops along the way.

Further, in an analysis of storylines and plots, Ingold (2006) likens the telling of a story as performance whereby the things of stories occur as an activity and topic where relation is understood

as a path traced through the terrain of lived experience... one line in a meshwork of interwoven trails. To tell a story, then, is to relate, in narrative, the occurrences of the past, retracing a path through the world that others, recursively picking up the threads of past lives, can follow in the process of spinning out their own... the thread being spun now and the thread picked up from the past are both of the same yarn... And in storytelling as in wayfaring, it is in the movement from place to place—or from topic to topic—that knowledge is integrated, (p. 50)

In medieval times, reading was understood as speaking where the task of the reader was to listen. Storytelling of earlier times is conceptualized as "lines of movement" in the sense of "...the purpose of providing directions so that others can follow along the same paths" (p. 48). Through time, "original tales were broken into iconic fragments... reduced to mere decorative embellishments... [resulting in] fragmentation of the narrative and the compression of piece..."

... Reading was a practice of remembering, of bringing back the voices of the past... to tell a story... to retrace a trail through the text. One remembered the text in much the same way as one would remember a story or a journey. The reader, in short, would inhabit the world of the page, proceeding from word to word as the storyteller proceeds from topic to topic, or the traveler from place to place... for the inhabitant, the line of his walking is a way of knowing. Likewise the line of writing is, for him, a way of remembering. In both cases, knowledge is integrated along a path of movement, (p. 51)

Ingold (2006) identifies a fundamental difference in "...what happens to writing when the flowing letterline of the manuscript is replaced by the connecting lines of a pre-composed plot" (p. 51). Contemporarily, writing is not a practice of inscription rather "the modern writer... confronts the blank surface of the page much as a conquering, colonial power confronts the surface of the earth, as an empty space awaiting the imposition of a construction of his own making..." (de Certeau, 1984, as cited in Ingold, 2006, p. 51). "Upon this space he lays out linguistic fragments—letters, words, sentences—which, nesting hierarchically, can be integrated to form a complete composition... They are all that is left of the original lines..." (p. 51). For the modern reader the text appears ready-made and complete. "The lines of the plot are not traced by the reader as he moves from the text. They are rather supposed to be laid out already before the journey begins." The modern reader does not inhabit the page, rather he or she studies the lines of the plot from a great height as though to study a plan from point to point. In the use of a typewriter or keyboard the typed text is detached and "... remains confined to its point of origin" (p. 52).

[The modern writer's] ...cognitive task is to reassemble the fragments he finds there into larger wholes—letters into words, words into sentences, and sentences into complete composition... he joins up the components distributed on its surface through a hierarchy of levels of integration... integration proceeds not alongly but upwards... an immobile chain of connectors, (p. 52)

The foregoing is made further relevant by Ingold (2006) in the paradox of the flow of the drawing of lines in spoken narrative understood as 'graphism' (Leroi- Gourhan, 1993, as cited in Ingold, 2006, p. 52). In prehistoric graphism the basic geometry of lines is radial, "every graph spirals out from a centre, with its rhythmically repeated elements—or ideograms—... arranged in concentric rings" (p. 52). Much later in time,

... graphism became linear... to the extent that it was released from the contexts of oral narrative, only to be subordinated to the demands of representing the sounds of speech... It was with the establishment of alphabetic writing... that linearization was taken to its fullest extent. Thenceforth the rounded cosmos of human dwelling with the figure of man at the centre, and from which all lines radiate around and away, was replaced 'by an intellectual process which letters have strung out in a needle-sharp, needle-thin line'. (Leroi-Gourhan, 1993, as cited in Ingold, 2006, p. 52) In this tracing of the line, Ingold (2006) determines "it is in precisely this fragmentation and compression, in the reduction of a flowing movement to a succession of moments, that the process of linearisation consists" (p. 53). From a geometrical sense, the line of linearity is a "chain of point-to-point connections [where]... there is neither life or movement" (p. 53).

As such, Ingold (2006) concludes we have come to "...inhabit an environment that has been planned and built expressly for the purposes of occupation... [that] enclose and contain... a vast network of destination-to-destination links... one of enforced immobility and sensory deprivation... [and where] freedom of movement is circumscribed within the limits of the site." In this sense, environment becomes a concept that surrounds in contrast to that of the inhabitant residing in a 'zone of entanglement', a "meshwork of interwoven lines...," an "ecology of life" consisting of relations along "severally enmeshed ways of life" (p. 52).

Knowledge Making: Meaningful Relationships of Fixity and Flow

Lien and Melhuus (2007) make meaningful belonging in a fragmented world of globalization through the use of idioms such as roots, relatedness and place in an approach grounded in ethnography and diverse socio-cultural realities. Therein, the metaphor of a river is used to explain the interplay between fixity and flow and social and cultural processes (Tsing, 2002, as cited in Lien and Melhuus, 2007) Relations between flow and fixity are inherently dialectic, with that which has the appearance of fixity serving as anchoring points often embedded in relations. Lien and Mehluus (2007) seek to understand structures of immobility, such as in knowledge(s), how people make significant relations, the act of connecting and what these connections mean, whether social, moral or epistemological. As an analytical strategy, the anthropological study of the ethnographic present is described as a constructed field where there is an emphasis on socially embedded understandings of social life, which trace the "cultural production of belonging in very diverse ethnographic circumstances" (p. xiv). Ethnographic studies are seen to contribute to essentialising notions of belonging and identity, fixing relations between people and places, "creating seamless continuities across time and space, sometimes evoking a sense of timelessness" often with the aid of "essentialising metaphors... through which places are attributed singular and exceptional meanings for cultural identities and collective belonging" (p. xv).

The idioms of roots, relatedness and place set against a historical background of migration thus become "...essentialising processes that condense and express fundamental values of belonging" (p. xv). In this sense, there can be "...different ways of knowing or different kinds of knowledge and knowledge practices" that generate "knowledge-making processes" (p. xvii) where knowledge becomes a source of connectivity for its socially adhesive capacity. Ethnography, as representative of a specific knowledge and embedded in social relationships is both situated and contextual, a process of knowledge production that need be examined in critical ways.

This discussion on the identification and relationship between fixity and flow in a context of global discourse notes "...that in order for something to move, something else has to be kept still," thereby necessitating "...those forms, expressions and relationships that anchor people in their world and represent positions of stability and significant sociality," be examined as "structures of immobility" given their ascribed qualities as universal truths "...are simultaneously summoned in attempts to create stability, certainty and belonging" (p. xxi).

This examination seeks to "... create, reclaim or articulate such connections at a social, cultural and epistemological level," to create meaningful relationships beyond the specificity of time and place to better understand how ways of knowing, locality and identity may be transformed as a result by questioning different kinds of knowledge and processes by which knowledge(s) or concepts "...come to be seen as having universal validity" (p. xxii).

Embodied Realism: 'Why Things Matter'

Lakoff and Johnson (1999) suggest the mind to be embodied in such a way that "meaning is grounded in and through our bodies" (p. 6) that our conceptual systems are shaped by the human body in its' engagement with environment. In this approach, cognitive unconscious, embodiment of mind and metaphorical thought are key to understanding human beings. Thus, conceptual systems are said to reside in the cognitive unconscious shaping our comprehension of experience and where our understanding of reality is dependent upon existing metaphors. This means that perceptual and motor systems have a role in shaping particular concepts where the interaction of body, brain and environment together shape our unconscious sense of reality. These writers propose a 'philosophy of the flesh,' a theory of embodied cognition where "the embodiment of mind thus leads us to a philosophy of embodied realism" (p. 44).

Based upon three major findings of cognitive science, that a) "the mind is inherently embodied," b) "thought is mostly unconscious," and c) "abstract concepts are largely metaphorical," Lakoff and Johnson (1999) argue western philosophy need "...abandon some of its deepest philosophical assumptions" whereby reason has come to be the defining characteristic of human beings (p. 3). For Lakoff and Johnson (1999) reason is shaped by "...the neural structure of our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday functioning world," a capacity shared by all human beings, evolutionary, mostly unconscious, largely metaphorical, imaginative, and emotionally engaged (p. 4). The mind is not merely embodied, but embodied in such a way that our conceptual systems draw largely upon the commonalities of our bodies and the environments we live in. The result is that much of a person's conceptual system is either universal or widespread across languages and cultures... Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies... Real people have embodied minds whose conceptual systems arise from, are shaped by, and are given meaning through living human bodies, (p. 6)

These authors encourage understanding of the "importance of the cognitive unconscious, the embodiment of mind, and metaphorical thought" towards a new understanding of the mind and human being. "Metaphorical thought is the principal tool that makes philosophical insight possible and that constrains the forms that philosophy can take" (p. 7).

Cognitive science, founded in the 1970s, discovered that most thought is unconscious, operating beneath the level of cognitive awareness involving an "...immeasurably vaster constitutive framework provided by the cognitive unconscious" (p. 11). In cognitive science, the cognitive involves "any mental operations or structures that are involved in language, meaning, perception, conceptual systems, and reason" (p. 11). Cognitive unconscious describes "all unconscious mental operations concerned with conceptual systems, meaning, inference, and language" (p. 11).

The study of cognitive science is central to the practice of philosophy in that 95 percent of all thought is unconscious thought below the surface of conscious awareness of shapes and structures. "All of our knowledge and beliefs are framed in terms of a conceptual system that resides mostly in the cognitive unconscious... It thus shapes how we automatically and unconsciously comprehend what we experience. It constitutes our unreflective common sense" (p. 13). Lakoff and Johnson (1999) consider philosophical theories in metaphysics to be based upon "... a set of existing metaphors that have a consistent ontology" within the cognitive unconscious thereby "...a conception of the real depends upon conscious metaphors" (p. 14).

In posing the question "what does it mean to say that concepts and reason are embodied?" Lakoff and Johnson (1999) consider the "role that the perceptual and motor systems play in shaping particular kinds of concepts: color concepts, basic- level concepts, spatial-relations concepts, and aspectual (event-structuring) concepts" whereby "the architecture of your brain's neural networks determines what concepts you have and hence the kind of reasoning that you can do. Neural modeling... studies how such neural configurations are learned" (p. 16).

In cognitive science the detailed structures of our brains "...have been shaped by both evolution and experience" where human reason is ".. .inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains" and, that "...our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our... sense of what is real" (p. 17).

In proposing that humans are "neural beings," Lakoff and Johnson (1999) discuss the neural categorization associated with the human eye as an example where "...the peculiar nature of our bodies shapes our very possibilities for conceptualization and categorization" (pg). As such, "our categories are formed through our embodiment. What that means is that the categories we form are part of our experience! ... the formation and use of categories is the stuff of experience" (p. 19). "An embodied concept is a neural structure that is actually part of, or makes use of, the sensorimotor system of our brains. Much of conceptual inference is, therefore, sensorimotor inference " (p. 20).

These findings are considered significant to basic premises in the field of faculty psychology that separate the relationship of mind, body and thought. The authors dispute fundamental tenants of mainstream Western philosophy, "...that human reason and human concepts are mind-, brain-, and body-free and characterize objective, external reality" and urging a re-examination of this worldview" (p. 22).

From a philosophical perspective, "the embodiment of reason via the sensorimotor system is of great importance" (p. 43) however the area of study shifts to that of experimental neuroscience to support arguments for an embodied cognition theory where, "the embodiment of mind thus leads us to a philosophy of embodied realism" (p. 44). Primarily, the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1999) functions to encourage a dialogue between philosophy and cognitive science concerning the shift from that of the disembodied mind to that of the embodied mind and their relevance to philosophical worldviews that continue to influence aspects of human lives.

Significant to this work by Lakoff and Johnson (1999) is a discussion on the intimations of the spiritual in the cognitive where "a major function of the embodied mind is empathic. From birth we have the capacity to imitate others, to vividly imagine being another person, doing what that person does, experiencing what that person experiences. The capacity for imaginative projection is a vital cognitive faculty" (p. 565).

The relationship of spirituality to the embodied mind is further examined where "a mindful embodied spirituality is thus an ecological spirituality. An embodied spirituality requires an aesthetic attitude to the world that is central to self- nurturance, to the nurturance of others, and to the nurturance of the world itself (p. 566). "Embodied spirituality is more than spiritual experience. It is an ethical relationship to the physical world" (Abram, 1996, Spretnak, 1991, as cited in Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, p. 566). These authors identify metaphor as the basis of a passionate spirituality, the neural mechanism of which is bodily allowing for spiritual experience. Thus, "cognitive science, the science of the mind and the brain," in giving humans a way to better understand "...how our physical being—flesh, blood, and sinew, hormone, cell, and synapse—and all things we encounter daily in the world make us who we are. This is the philosophy of the flesh" (p. 568).

Culture and Symbolism: Interpretive Encounters

American anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, considers the concept of culture to be semiotic, relating to signs or symbols, "suspended in webs of significance" (Weber, as cited in Geertz, 1973, as cited in Bohannan and Glazer, 1988, p. 532) spun by humankind, the analysis of which is "... an interpretive one in search of meaning" that need be explained in a detailed and formal way, stating, "I take culture to be those webs" (Geertz, 1973, as cited in Bohannan and Glazer, 1988, p. 532).

A symbolic system describes a complex systems of symbols or system of interconnected symbolic meanings whereas symbolism refers to the symbolic meaning of a single cultural phenomenon. Symbolic behavior describes the human capacity to respond to or use a system of symbols, as in symbolic interactionism, where meaning is ascribed to things, arises from social interaction, and where meanings are modified through an interpretive process or encounter. This approach is premised upon the perspective that human interaction is mediated through symbols, by interpretation and in ascertaining meaning of one another's actions. PART FOURTEEN - Indigenous Education, Indigenous Art Forms and Indigenous Social Well-being

Figure 13. Quillwork Rosette (Orchard, 1984, p. 71)

Indigenous Education

The strength of ethnoscience as a methodology lies in its systematic attempt to understand a cultural system from within the system based on the perspective and criteria of that system... this allows for the gaining of perspectives of human learning behavior that are based on both conscious and unconscious cultural processes. The approach lends itself to the view that culture is communication and that education is essentially a system of communication. This allows for the development of a systematic exploration of worldview which underlies cultural science. (Cajete, 1999, p. 75)

Indigenous philosophy, education, pedagogy and wellness have emerged as fields of inquiry in North America in recent years following in the footsteps of develop Indigenous programs of study developed and instructed by Indigenous worldviews to encourage access to education and employment opportunities by an increasing and younger Aboriginal population in Canada.xl

Native people believe that unseen powers and creative forces formed the Earth, sun, stars, moon, mountains, oceans, rivers, lakes, valleys, plains, and other elements of the natural environment. The Creator made the Native universe in a variety of ways with forethought and knowledge, not in a hapzard manner. Emergence came with spirit, imagination, and design, and humans are only one small portion of the creation, a part of the universal whole that remains a great mystery. Creative forces set the world in motion, establishing natural laws by which the animate and inanimate live, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict. Creative forces exist today, often manifesting themselves in the work of Native peoples, particularly poets, artists, dancers, and singers. These spirits are alive in every cell, every atom of the Native universe. They are part of the whole, the agent that brought forth and keeps life in motion... (McMaster and Trafzer, 2008, p. 16)

The Medicine Wheel, a symbolic and interpretive conceptual framework, is an Indigenous philosophy applied as a teaching and learning tool by many Indigenous peoples throughout North America. Lane Jr. et al (1984) share the story of the Sacred Tree and the teachings of the Medicine Wheel to help us to better understand the many complexities of the various interrelationships we experience during our lifetimes.

The Medicine Wheel depicts the relationships of the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of life, that together with will, or volition, offer a vision to guide us in living life in a good way. This way intends that each individual may be nurtured to achieve their potential in living life as capable human beings where personal autonomy allows for each individual to contribute to the well-being oneself, one's community and the survival of one's people. Developed together with Indigenous peoples from across the North America, Lane Jr. et al (1984) share symbolic teachings, principles, interrelationships and meaning as inherent to the Sacred Tree. The Story of the Sacred Tree tells us the Creator planted a Sacred Tree where people may gather to find healing, power, wisdom and security. Wholeness, protection, nourishment and growth are described as the four great meanings of the Sacred Tree. Body awareness, self- concept, self-esteem and self-determination contribute to our identity as human, as Indigenous peoples.

Together, the Four Directions of the Medicine Wheel may be interpreted as representative of an Indigenous philosophy, pedagogy and way of life. This approach is premised on self-determination at the level of the individual in a relational sense whereby self-determination at the level of the individual leads to self-determination of one's people.

Indigenous scholar Leroy Little Bear describes the Blackfoot worldview as rooted in culture, in the shared philosophy, values and customs of our respective cultures and reflected in the interpretation of a culture's collective cultural code. In Aboriginal philosophy, existence consists of energy. "All things are animate, imbued with spirit, and in constant motion. In this realm of energy and spirit, interrelationships between all entities are of paramount importance, and space is amore important referent than time" (Little Bear, 2000, p. 77).

Aboriginal philosophies and values are taught through Aboriginal languages, storytelling, role modeling and learned through experience. A holistic perspective contributes to a state of wholeness, balance, harmony and beauty. Values such as love, sharing, honesty and kindness, use of humor, and application of the principle of non-interference strengthen and maintain community wellness. Socialization is achieved through praise, reward, recognition and renewal. Social organization is based upon kinship and relationships to extended family and band, tribe or nation. Relationships and space, energy and spirit, cycles and patterns, and the land are central to an Indigenous philosophy and understanding of the environment and universe where everything has spirit and knowledge, and life and the cosmos exist in relationship to one another (Ibid).

Betty Bastien (2004) describes Siksikaitsitapi, Blackfoot ways of knowing as beginning with family and extending out into the universe and into all forms of creation. 'Knowing' is relational and interdependent upon relationships in a manner where all experiences are sources of knowledge. A basic premise of ways of knowing is that all forms of creation possess consciousness. In the Blackfoot worldview, concepts are used to distinguish parts of the whole, where reality, truth and consciousness come together, and being and knowing are part of maintaining balance in the world.

For Siksikaitsitapi, the "universe is understood as consciousness that manifests itself in all life forms and is the basis of the principles that underlie conduct, thought, and knowledge" (p. 84). Participation in ceremony and prayer allow one to connect with a 'good heart,' a path of kindness and generosity, in maintaining one's integrity and being in balance with the universe. Knowing is experiential and knowledge is 'coming to know' in the sense that knowledge has and is spirit. Traditional learning is both a participatory and experiential process. Blackfoot ways of knowing, or epistemology, provide a framework for seeking knowledge about education processes and the nature of the universe, reality and truth.

Leslie Marmon Silko (1996) links human identity, imagination and storytelling, as inextricably linked to the land as the centre of a spider's web where representation and visualization of narrative is storytelling. To the Pueblo people, the earth is the Mother Creator of all things. Human beings are a part of the landscape. Pottery, pictographs and petroglyphs function to convey, in sophisticated abstract form, a complex system of relationships connecting land, sky, humans and spirit. Survival depended upon harmony and cooperation amongst all things. ... The ancient Pueblo people depended upon collective memory through successive generations to maintain and transmit an entire culture, a worldview complete with proven strategies for survival. The oral narrative, or story became the medium through which the complex of Pueblo knowledge and belief was maintained. Whatever the event or the subject, the ancient people perceived the world and themselves within that world as part of an ancient, continuous story composed of innumerable bundles of other stories... Everything became a story, (p. 30-30)

Everyone in the community was expected to listen to and be able to recall narrative accounts or stories. Remembering and retelling stories was a communal process. Together, the community was able to piece together Pueblo oral tradition into a communal truth. The stories contained information about the behaviours of all creatures and the landscape. Stories often refer to exact locations or specific geographical features, located in time as recently, not too long ago, a long time ago and long, long ago. Continuity and accuracy of oral narratives is reinforced by the landscape. For the Pueblo people, the continued use of routes traveled within their territories serves to "create a unique relationship between the ritual- mythic world and the actual, everyday world" (p. 36).

Silko's earliest memories as a child are of being outside under the sky. Her family members taught her that the living creatures of the land were related to human beings, that the earth loved all of her children. Their stories gave her a sense of having spent time with the people in the stories. She sensed the presence of spirits at locations where the stories had taken place. "The myth, the web of memories and ideas creates an identity, is part of oneself (p. 43). For the Pueblo, the landscape is at the centre of Pueblo belief and identity. This is why the Pueblo people have strong reactions to any changes to the landscape that involve resource development and result in destruction of the land. Storytelling for the Pueblo always includes the listeners. It is the stories that construct the identity of Pueblo people. Stories identify individuals within families, as members of extended families, as clan members and as a people. The telling of stories works on many different levels as an ongoing process. There is a story connected to every place in the landscape. "This perspective on narrative— of story within story, the idea that one story is only the beginning of many stories and the sense that stories never truly end—represents an important contribution of Native American cultures to the English language" (p. 50). The old people say, "If you can remember the stories, you will be all right. Just remember the stories" (p. 58).

Towards a contemporary philosophy of education, Cajete (2000b) shares an eco- philosophical perspective of Native science using the sacred tree of life as an analogy for the evolving process of science and quest for knowledge. For Cajete (2000b), the symbol of the tree of life is a cosmological and structural symbol representing Native science as "an expression of the evolutionary interrelationship of Native people with nature" (p. 58). Cosmology "gives rise to philosophy, values, and action, which in turn form the foundation of a society's guiding institutions" (p. 58). The sacred tree is a living philosophy, an analogy for life, learning and development; an ecological philosophy of Native cultures as expressed in language, song, dance, art and science, through myth and ceremony throughout North America.

Through Native science, Cajete (2000b) examines processes of perception, thought, action, and "coming to know" (p. 2-3) where community and its traditions are part of a framework of community-based, spiritual education, and where one is encouraged to "always think the highest thought... Thus, the community becomes a kind of center and context for learning how to live spiritually" (p. 273).

269 Described as a conceptual framework, Native science embodies both cooperation and creativity in process, reflection and practice, as expressed within tribal contexts. "Coming to know" occurs through listening and looking and through direct experience—by doing. High context models, described as cognitive or linguistic "maps," are representational and communicate information on many levels to elicit higher order thinking and understanding. "Consciousness is the highest attainment of the human being" (p. 67).

To Cajete (2000b), education is a mindset in 'coming to know,' to be whole as human in relationships with nature, to learn how to live spiritually, "...a kind of multi-sensory consciousness" (p. 279). It is about becoming complete as a human being in relation to the universe.

Renee Elizabeth Mzinegiizhigo-kwe Bedard (2008) examines the roles and responsibilities of Nishnaabeg women as keepers of the water on traditional lands where they have lived for thousands of years. The relationship to water is considered as critical to the health, politics, spirituality, culture and economy of Nishnaabeg people and communities. Bedard (2008) shares Indigenous knowledge and traditional teachings of the Midewiwin as shared by Nishnaabe- Kwewag Elders about water to advocate for the protection of the environment and Indigenous rights to water. In traditional stories of the Nishnaabeg, water is a birthright and source of sustenance, a sacred medicine, the blood of the Mother the Earth and a relative to the Nishnaabeg people with whom there is "...a relationship of trust, love, and faithfulness between human beings and the natural world" (p. 96).

Women have an intimate connection with water because of their ability to bring forth life... "And because we are women we are the life-givers and when we have children, when it is birthing time it is the water that comes out first." The birth of children marks a spiritual relationship from the time of pre-conception to birth where the waters of a women's womb burst forth to cleanse the way for that new life to come forth into the world. Women are therefore held in high regard for these life-giving responsibilities of that sacred water, (p. 99)

Women's cycles, or blood time, are considered very powerful medicine for women. It is during the moon-time when women release that blood from their bodies that is most sacred. Bringing back the ceremony of Berry Fasting and First Blood for the young girls involving their moon- time bleeding is critical to restoring the relationship and responsibilities of women to Mother the Earth as "Keepers of the Water." (p. 99-100)

Women, especially girls who are just starting their moon-time. That is the time when Mother the Earth needs that blood. She is the blood She gives us her blood in that water. And we as women have to give her our blood, which is our precious blood. And that first blood of our young children is what she needs. So we are teaching our young girls, young women that when they first give off their first blood, give to Mother the Earth... Put that water on the Earth, she needs that. Because she gives up her water, we as women have to give back the water. I remember when my grandmother used to say when somebody was on her moon-time. That very first time she would say... now she is medicine! A woman is carrying medicine in her body, that is that powerful medicine—is her blood, (p. 100)

"Moon-time represents not just a reminder of a women's responsibility to water, but of her water or blood as sacred medicine, and a time when she should think of others beside herself (p. 101).

Policy in Indigenous Education

A Papago story tells of the butterfly's origin, when the Creator gathered "a spot of sunlight, a handful of blue from the sky, the whiteness of cornmeal, the shadow of playing children, the blackness of a beautiful girl's hair, the yellow of the falling leaves, the green of the pine needles, the red, purple, and orange of the flowers around him. All these he put into a bag... At once hundreds and hundreds of colored butterflies flew out, dancing around the children's heads, settling on their hair, fluttering up again to sip from this or that flower. And the children, enchanted, said they had never seen anything so beautiful.lxn (Dubin, 1999, p. 507)

Released in the mid-nineties, the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) (1996) describes Aboriginal education as lifelong, holistic and foundational to one's capacity for mental, physical, spiritual and emotional growth and development (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1996). A Medicine Wheel framework, based upon Indigenous principles, or laws, of balance and harmony, is applied as an Indigenous construct for teaching and learning towards a holistic education.

Early childhood is viewed as foundational in the development of a child's identity, self-worth and intellectual strength. Trauma, dislocation and inconsistence, the stresses of poverty and disruptive interventions in a child's life impact the potential of the child. Stressors can interfere with a child's development and impact their health, self-esteem and intellectual growth and engagement within formal education systems.

A common concern of parents is when schooling becomes a threat to their developing child's identity, primarily when the values and world view that prevail at school contradict or ignore the existence of a different perspective the child lives with at home. In the case of students of Aboriginal ancestry, this situation is all too common. The result can be that the child experiences serious conflict and doubt about the validity of his or her own identity. When an Aboriginal child's identity has been threatened, they will withdraw into themselves; become silent and refuse to participate as a means of protecting themselves from criticism and rejection; attempt to abandon their previous identity and mould themselves to the culture which they perceive as more valid or acceptable; they may take on non-productive and rejecting attitudes which generally culminate in failure or dropping out (Wuttanee, No Date, as cited in Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1996).

In Aboriginal life, children are nurtured and protected by family and extended family, encouraged to develop as thinking and autonomous beings as they are integrated into the rhythms of daily life in family and community. Early childhood education, as viewed by Aboriginal people, is a means of instilling values, attitudes and behavior, and reinforcing Aboriginal identity in Aboriginal children. The mental, physical, spiritual and emotional dimensions of formal and informal learning all contribute to the learning process as applied to stages of the life cycle, that of child, youth, adult and Elder, during an individual's lifetime. The role of the elderly is important in the transmission of knowledge and wisdom as acquired through lifelong learning. Learning an Aboriginal language is recognized as essential for acquiring more complex learning.

One of many RCAP recommendations calls for an integrated early childhood education strategy that better responds to community needs and priorities in offering a high quality and culturally-specific holistic education, based upon Aboriginal standards, to Aboriginal children. Use of Elders in the classroom, curriculum with culture-based content, and innovative Aboriginal programming are recommended.

More recently, Little Bear (2009) notes that while there have been numerous studies over the past four decades examining evidence and factors that contribute to Aboriginal students not achieving their potential within education systems in Canada, it need be acknowledged, "the education systems in Canada have also consistently been reportedly unresponsive to the education needs, wants, strengths, and weaknesses of Aboriginal peoples. They have largely resisted making the infrastructure, curricular, and pedagogical changes required to effectively service Aboriginal students" (Little Bear, 2009, p. 6). Little Bear (2009) reiterates some of the many factors impacting Aboriginal peoples' experiences within systems of education in Canada to include:

Poverty, social problems such as family violence, alcoholism, drugs, unemployment, low self-esteem, racism, irrelevant curricula, pedagogical problems, lack of knowledge on the part of teachers regarding culture, history, language, and social conditions of Aboriginal people, the unresponsiveness of the education establishment to the needs of Aboriginal people, high suicide rates, disproportionate incarceration rates, and low graduation rates from high school. (Little Bear, p. 15)

Towards naturalizing Indigenous knowledge, Little Bear (2009) identifies factors as to "the way it should be" concerning education and learning processes of Aboriginal people. Some of these factors include the use of a multiplicity of learning processes in the teaching of Aboriginal students, the incorporation of Aboriginal learning styles and processes and inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and curriculum content into the education system.

The Canada Council for Learning offers a comprehensive overview of a framework and holistic lifelong learning model for use in Aboriginal communities and in systems of education serving Aboriginal learners. Noting that close to half the Aboriginal population was under the age of 24 years in 2006,xm and in consideration that these Aboriginal youth will be entering the labor force at a time when it is predicted to be a shortfall in workers in Canada, it is now considered even more critical for educators and policy makers to find effective ways to support development in Aboriginal learning and Indigenous education (Cappon, 2008). This report acknowledges contemporary systems of education and conventional measurement approaches to continue to fail to meet the needs of Aboriginal learners. Working together collaboratively with First Nations, Metis and Inuit scholars and leadership, the Canadian Council on Learning developed a new framework to measure Aboriginal learning.

...Aboriginal learning is a highly social process that serves to nurture relationships in the family and throughout the community. These social relationships are a cornerstone for learning about ancestral language, culture and history... Elders teach about the importance of responsibility and relationships within the family and the community; all of which reinforces inter-generational connections and identities. (Canada Council on Learning, 2009, p. 4)

A Holistic Lifelong Learning Models framework highlights "that learning from— and about—culture, language and tradition is critical to the well-being of Aboriginal people... that such activities play an important role in the daily lives of many Aboriginal learners and are commonplace in Aboriginal communities across Canada" (p. 4). The framework includes three main components: sources and domains of knowledge, the lifelong learning journey and community well- being. These indicators are based upon the premise that Aboriginal learning occurs across the life cycle in a variety of settings taking into account social and economic conditions in acknowledgement of the importance of the relationship between learning and well-being for Aboriginal people.

In order to build upon and celebrate strengths, a new vision of Aboriginal learning, intended to inform policy and program development, identifies the following elements as essential to an Aboriginal learning context and environment: holistic, lifelong, experiential, spiritually oriented, community based, rooted in Aboriginal languages and cultures, and, an integration of Aboriginal and Western knowledge (Cappon, 2008). The adoption of a holistic approach to lifelong learning to measure success offers "an exciting field of opportunity with multiple benefits—for the success of Aboriginal learners, for the regeneration and well-being of First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities, for regional and national economies and for the health and social cohesion of Aboriginal and Canadian society" (Cappon, 2008, p. 66).

At the post-secondary education level, the Association of Canadian Deans of Education (ACDE), issued an Accord on Indigenous Education in 2010: "that Indigenous identities, cultures, languages, values, ways of knowing, and knowledge systems will flourish in all Canadian learning settings" (p. 2). Developed to bring attention to Indigenous education in Canada, and to First Peoples epistemologies, ways of knowing, knowledge systems, and lived experience, in a global context, the Accord recognizes the role of Deans of Education and their "role and responsibility to expand educators knowledge about and understanding of Indigenous education" (p. 2).

In describing the context for Indigenous Education in Canada, The Accord indicates new ways of engagement are required to address trends in Indigenous education towards contributing to the well-being of Indigenous peoples and their communities. Noting increased involvement by Indigenous organizations and communities in decision-making and policy development processes and recommendations by academics, researchers and governments, the ACDE supports and encourages Indigenous knowledge systems as having a central position in educational policy, curricula, and pedagogy towards improvements in Indigenous Education (p. 2).

Indigenous Pedagogy

The stories were old and dear; they meant a great deal to my grandmother. It was not until she died that I knew how much they meant to her. I began to think about it, and then I knew. When she told me those old stories, something strange and good and powerful was going on. I was a child, and that old woman was asking me to come directly into her presence of her mind and spirit; she was taking hold of my imagination, giving me to share in the great fortune of her wonder and delight. She was asking me to go with her to the confrontation of something that was sacred and eternal. It was a timeless, timeless thing; nothing of her old age or of my childhood came between us. (Momaday, 1969, p. 23)

Cajete (1999) shares an education curriculum model intended for adaptation and use by Indigenous populations working to address the absence of Indigenous values, teaching principles and concepts of nature within educational systems. Indigenous science is an accumulated base of knowledge, requiring preparation of the mind and heart, "...a complementary way of teaching, knowing, explaining and exploring the natural world" (Cajete, 1999, p. 85). "Indigenous science is the collective inheritance of human experience with the natural world. It is a map of reality drawn from the experiences of thousands of human generations which gave rise to a diversity of technologies for hunting, fishing, gathering, making art, building, communicating, visioning, healing and being" (p. 81).

To Cajete (1999), traditional Native American storytellers are philosopher- teachers. They are 'masters of the art' where storytelling is a high-context form of communication and high-context mode of transmission with multi-dimensional meanings. In storytelling, "...the cultivation of hearing, understanding and insight were enhanced by the stimulation of the imagining capacity of the mind." Storytelling offers a holistic perspective in teaching responsibility to and interrelatedness of all things.

Stories are "rooted in experience and provide an intimate reflection of that experience" (p. 130). "All stories have multiple levels of meaning ranging from the very basic and straight forward to the complex and the metaphoric. Stories, especially those of the mythic variety, present philosophical, psychological and ecological truths simultaneously" (p. 132).

Myth and story are considered to be integral to the teaching and learning process. Described as "a holistic form of communication," myths appeal to the "entire human capacity for experience" (p. 129). Cajete (1999) determines it is through myth that cultural relationships to the natural word are "made to live in both mind and heart" (p. 129). The play of symbols, images and metaphor of myth on imagination "...are powerful tools in the development of creative cognitive abilities and in the development of a holistic perspective of science" (p. 130).

Working collaboratively with Coast Salish and Sto:lo Elders and storytellers, Indigenous scholar, Jo-ann Archibald (2008), crafts a "storybasket" to guide learners to educate the heart, mind, body and spirit. She says, "I have learned from First Nations Elders that beginning with a humble prayer creates a cultural learning process, which promotes the teachings of respect, reverence, responsibility, and reciprocity. I use the term "teachings" to mean cultural values, beliefs, lessons, and understandings that are passed from generation to generation" (Archibald, 2008, p. 1).

Archibald (2008) applies an Indigenous methodology to facilitate respectful research relationships that show respect for cultural protocol, honours teacher and learner responsibilities, appreciates spirituality and engages reciprocity in relationships. In the development of a culturally appropriate pedagogy, Archibald applies the seven principals of storywork: respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness and synergy that "work together to create powerful storywork understandings that have the power to heal with emotional healing and wellness" (p. x).

Sharing what one has learned is an important Indigenous tradition. This type of sharing can take the form of a story of personal life experience and

278 is done with a compassionate mind and love for others. Walter Lightning (1992), of the , learned that the compassionate mind combines physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual learning with humility, truth, and love. (p. 2)

There are different kinds of stories and each tribal group or nation has traditions, protocols and rules about how and when stories are told. There are sacred stories, historical stories, stories about culture and traditions, personal life experiences and testimonials. The listener must learn how to make meaning with stories. Stories are metaphoric, with many levels of meaning embedded within story, unfolding to the listener with each telling (Wapaskwan, as cited in Archibald, 2008). Archibald learned "the power of storywork to make meaning derives from a synergy between the story, the context in which the story is used, the way that the story is told, and how one listens to the story" (p. 84).

We come from a tradition of storytelling, and as storytellers we have a responsibility to be honest, to transmit our understanding of the world to other people... In this process, there is something more than information being transmitted: there's energy, there's strength being transmitted from the storyteller to the listener and that is what's important in teaching young people about their identity. (Cuthand, 1989, as cited in Archibald, 2008, p. 84-85)

Introducing the story as a part of the oral traditions of Indigenous people for thousands of years, encourages students to engage in learning in a humble manner, to go inside themselves—to allow the learner the space to think and feel—creates a healthy atmosphere for the sharing of ideas and thinking.

Indigenous peoples' history of colonization has left many of our peoples and our cultures weak and fragmented. Cultural knowledge, traditions, and healing have lessened the detrimental effects of colonization. Cultural knowledge and traditions have also helped us to resist assimilation. I believe that Indigenous stories are at the core of our cultures. They have the power to make us think, feel, and be good human beings. They have the power to bring storied life back to us. (Archibald, 2008, p. 139)

"... a good story can reach into your heart, mind and soul, and really make you think hard about yourself in relationship to the world (Mathias, 1992, as cited in Archibald, 2008, p. 140).

Neil McLeod (2007) seeks a deeper level understanding of the memories of his ancestors in learning through Cree narrative memory, described as "more than simple storytelling" (p. 7).

Described as a large intergenerational collective memory, Cree narrative memory is an ancient practice where one carries the memories of the Ancient Ones and where memory is the "place of storytelling wherein the old people rest" (p. 8). Cree narrative memory is "essential for the soul," "a gift and a responsibility," and an "intergenerational process" (p. 8-9).

Collective memory is the echo of old stories that links grandparents with their grandchildren. In the Cree tradition, collective narrative memory is what puts our singular lives into a larger context. Old voices echo; the ancient poetic memory of our ancestors finds home in our individual lives and allows us to reshape our experience so that we can interpret the world we find ourselves in. (p. 11)

The metaphor of a bundle is used to describe stories (Halfe and Stevenson, in McLeod, 2007), "nayahcikan, "something you put on your back, something you carry" (p. 9). McLeod (2007) encourages us to awaken collective narrative memory, to decolonize Cree consciousness, urging: "part of the process of recovering this ancient memory held in sound lies in recording the oral history of our elders while we still have them with us" (p. 9). "The process of engaging this collective memory involves sitting with elders and storytellers and listening" (p. 9).

Cree/Metis scholar Kim Anderson (2000) shares the stories of Native women across Canada to articulate ways for Aboriginal women to reclaim and strengthen identity. In the sharing of her recognize her "being," Anderson journeys through a physical and spiritual remembering through mental and emotional reconstruction to reclaim her Native heritage. Building upon the conceptual framework of the Medicine Wheel, Anderson asks, what am I not, where have I come from, where am I going, and what are my responsibilities? These questions lead her to propose that Native women engage in an identity formation process by in engaging in a process to "resist, reclaim, construct and act" (p. 15). The strengthening of identity involves resisting negative definitions of being, reclaiming Aboriginal traditions, the construction of a positive identity by translating tradition into a contemporary context and acting on that identity in a manner that nourishes the overall well-being of Aboriginal communities (p. 15).

Anderson's work is in part inspired by the experience of kitimakisowin as experienced by Aboriginal women in Canada, poverties of "...fundamental human needs that are not adequately met and which eventually lead to health and healing problems" whereby First Nations, Metis and Inuit face impahi kitimakisowin, "deadly or extreme poverties and are at very high risk of severe emotional, mental and spiritual problems, and premature death" (Canadian Women's Health Network, No Date).

Another work by Anderson (2000) explores puberty as a traditional rite of passage that serves to function as an educational model for learning and living for Aboriginal girls and youth. An Ojibwe ceremony passed from generation to generation by Original Woman recounts the traditions of berry fasting where young girls at the time of their first menstrual give up berries for thirteen moons in keeping with the passage from childhood to womanhood.

In this ceremony, otihmina, 'heart's berry' is a sacred space. The colour and texture of the strawberry is representative of the colour and blood of the people and of women's menstrual cycle and role as sacred givers of life. The tendrils of the strawberry grow down to hold the earth to connect to Original Woman who is of the earth. During the transition from girlhood to womanhood, a young woman refuses berries and there is no dancing, no dating and no sexual contact.

The relevance of this ceremony for contemporary Aboriginal youth is that it teaches a young person that they have the choice to say no. Young people learn that they have choices and that they can withdraw from unhealthy situations by exerting will power, self-denial and self-discipline. The traditional Ojibwe ceremony of berry fasting teaches women's role in creation to celebrate the sacred gift of creation.

Gregory Cajete (2000a) shares Pueblo metaphors and symbols to identify educational tools that may contribute to healing the effects of colonization, noting a pueblo community to be a "high context learning environment" where "every event and situation" is a learning experience (p. 181) In this learning environment, teaching is ".. .a way of healing and a way of life" (p. 187). We are encouraged to examine our ways of thinking and habitual thought process, to examine how we "...have been conditioned to think in a certain way about education, life, ourselves, the environment, and Indigenous cultures" (p. 188). Western education is described as an "...educational/political social contract" that requires Indigenous people to work with the colonizer's maps, with "...maps that are not of our own making" but rather are those of the colonizer (p. 188).

However, as tribal peoples, Indigenous peoples "...have maps in our heads. For some us, much of that map has been stepped on, and it seems that it has been erased or totally eradicated, but it is still there" (p. 189). Indigenous curricula are viewed as maps, "...the maps we have in our heads as Indigenous peoples are inherited and enfolded within our genes" (p. 190). "We do not lose that knowledge" (p. 190). Knowledge is viewed as a creative event, where "Indigenous ways of knowing are related, interconnected, dynamic, interactive and reciprocal," where "all events and energy unfold and enfold in themselves," into and out of being (p. 190).

Cajete (2000a) discusses the concept of pin geh heh, or "split mind" where one is not thinking with one's whole mind. He contends that Indigenous students experience this state in leading "..lives of paradoxical conflict and contrast" (p. 187). This state is manifested, through "...suicide; self-hate; the disintegration of our cultures; the lack of knowing where we are, where we are going, and where we are coming from" (p. 187). Pin geh heh is a reflection of living in two worlds and having to deal with two ways of knowing.

Each of us is thought to have a special gift that we bring with us on our life's journey. Amongst Indigenous peoples, there is a shared body of understanding that education is about helping an individual ".. .find his or her face, which means who you are, where you come from and your unique character," "to find your heart," ".. .that passionate sense of self that motivates you and moves you along in life," where ".. .education should help you to find a foundation on which you may most complete develop and express both your heart and your face" (p. 183). This is the intent of Indigenous education.

Indigenous people need to gain alternative perspectives from a higher place of understanding as in the concept ofpinpeye obe, "...to look to the mountain," and ".. .to understand where we have come from, where we are, and where we wish to go" (p. 181). Life and education are viewed as journeys that we need embark upon, within our heart and soul, and reflecting upon the places we have come from and the people who have taught us to better understand from an Indigenous perspective.

Relations are described by Cajete (2000a) as learned through various visual art forms and ceremonial rituals that renew our relationship to our ecology and where we are taught we are "part of a larger whole," that each has "...an important role to play within the context of that whole" (p. 184). Visual arts express the Pueblo worldview and function to assist in understanding interconnections and relationships among Indigenous peoples. Pottery is described as prayer in a physical form and as a reflection of the "foundations of Indigenous education" described above. The basic relationship of Pueblo life is described as "spiritual ecology" where metaphors are viewed as "...parallel images of Indigenous life and education" (p. 186).

For Native American people, "the creative act of making something with spiritual intent—what today is often called art—has its own quality and spiritual power that needs to be understood and respected... art traditionally was a result of a creative process that was an act and expression of the spirit and was therefore sacred" (p. 264).

The purpose and goal of Indigenous education is completeness. Education is viewed as a "...reflection of social ecology," of oral tradition, history and customs (p. 183). The five major foundations of Indigenous education are identified by Cajete (2000a) as: community, technical environmental knowledge, learning through dreams or visions, viewed through mythic traditions, and based upon a foundation of spiritual ecology. The goal and purpose of Indigenous education is to educate children about what is important and valued to society and to perpetuate a way of life. Value in Tradition: Enactment of Repetition and Theme

Tradition is the strong and resilient fiber of Native life that links objects to each other and ties their makers to their ancestors and descendants. It is the moving stream of values, forms, and cultural identities carried forth by individuals into the future; it is dynamic enactment—creative expression within a lifetime's cycle of growth, learning, production, sharing, and change. (Fair, 2006, p. 256)

Tradition is described by Fair (2006) as, "... tangible, precious, and fragile" (p. 1) serving to provide "... a cultural and aesthetic window through which to examine the foundation of a past that is always present" (p. 2). Art is described by anthropologist, Franz Boaz, as arising "from two sources, from technical pursuits and from the expression of emotions and thought.... Artistic enjoyment is, therefore, based essentially upon the reaction of our minds to form" (p. 3). Fair (2006) found tradition to be a process, rather than a product, describing tradition as "...the dynamic enactment of value and form by human beings" (p. 7) as "...only one component in [the] construction and transmission of culture" (p. 12).

Tradition is perpetuated by the repetition of certain design elements and cultural motifs, through expressive themes generated by memory, obligation or desires, and consisting of "...a complex of cultural rules and attitudes" (p. 15). Fair (2006) describes the process of tradition as "the careful (though often very personal) selection and revitalization of particular elements of culture, certain parts of a fluid whole... the revitalization and perpetuation of material culture... brought forth from the past while being simultaneously reinvented for the future" (p. 12) In this way, "...the continued presentation and interpretation of tradition is how one becomes and, to some degree, identifies oneself (p. 11).

"Traditional learning takes place both actively and passively. Its purpose is to ensure that aesthetic understanding, technical competence, and the traditional

285 point of view are learned properly and in a unified manner" (p. 229). In her work on tradition as a process, Fair (2006) describes methods of transmitting and acquiring knowledge to occur with a framework of traditional knowledge, learning or ways of knowing. A child may learn through "play-learning," then demonstrate a readiness to move on to more sophisticated stages of an art form. The making of items are learned first through watching, then by attempting small parts of project, usually with an older woman, or mentor, who encourages that the work be redone if necessary until the desired technique is achieved. If not done properly, the learner is instructed to re-do the work until the right way is achieved. A child is ready to learn when beginning to pay attention to activities around her. Girls are allowed to participate only when they demonstrate a willingness to complete a project. "When a child is ready, she "osmoses" the art production process to a certain degree" (p. 232).

The most important place where learning occurs is identified to be that of the extended family unit where even young children are taught technique, responsibility and patience in contributing to a part of a work. Fair notes the process of learning to be gender specific or different for men and women. Formal education and apprenticeship are also ways of learning traditional art forms contemporarily. "Traits of independence, self-reliance, and individuality are fostered...", and highly valued, as is a creative mind, ".. .as important components of the traditional learning process...." (p. 252).

"Native Americans teach through example and living: it is incumbent upon the young to observe keenly and deeply with respect and gratitude. One is never forced to learn. For this reason, tradition is only passed on by those who have perceived its value" (Dubin, 1999, p. 39). Traditional Craftsmanship: Skills and Knowledge

The United Nations (2003) considers traditional craftsmanship to perhaps be "the most tangible manifestation of intangible cultural heritage" where the main concern "is with the skills and knowledge involved in craftsmanship rather that the craft products themselves." Expressions of traditional craftsmanship include, amongst other expressions, clothing and jewelry, objects and the decorative arts. Skills involved in the creative of objects range from the delicate to the robust. Globalization in the form of mass production by large multinational corporations, cottage industries, competition, environmental and climatic pressures and availability of natural resources is seen to pose "significant challenges to the survival of traditional forms of craftsmanship" (United Nations, 2003).

Avenues to safeguard traditional craftsmanship include strengthening transmission of skills and knowledge, reinforcement of local traditional markets, development of new markets, legal measures, and the protection of the access of rights to needed natural resources while ensuring environmental protection.

Intellectual, Aesthetic and Spiritual Art Forms

The National Museum of the American Indian opened in 2004 on the National Mall across from the Capital building in Washington, D.C. Items in the museum's collections are "...intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual" (Gover, 2004, as cited in McMaster and Trafzer, 2008, p. 11). The museum holds one of the world's largest and most extensive collections of Native American Art and artifacts with "...approximately 800,000 objects representing over 10,000 years of history, form more than 1,000 indigenous cultures throughout the Western Hemisphere" (p. 13). Shared values, traditions and beliefs, as well as diversity, are represented within museum collections. Ancient belief systems and philosophies from the remembered past continue to be honored as fundamental to a way of life, as taught and shared by tribal Elders and heads of families who continue to "tell stories of survivance" (p. 15).

To Native people in North America, creative forces that formed the universe and set the world in motion continue to exist today, manifest in the creative expressions of Native peoples, "these spirits are alive in every cell, every atom of the Native universe. They are part if the whole, the agent that brought forth and keeps life in motion" (p. 16). The Native universe is described as a large and ever- expanding circle,

Yet numerous circles exist within the averarching circle: cultures tribes, clans, families and individuals. Our circles today are based on ancient teachings, values, and beliefs handed down through the oral tradition. Stories, songs, languages, medicines, music, paintings, pottery, basketry, beadwork, clothing, and a host of other arts and teachings convey these circles... Each is part of living Native cultures that continue to pass on their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings to subsequent generations, (p. 17)

The repatriation of human remains and cultural patrimony are identified by as ".. .two of the most important issues facing contemporary Indian people" today (p. 16). McMaster and Trafzer (2004) note Indigenous languages and cultures to be dynamic and adaptive both historically and contemporarily.

Museums and Repatriation In Canada

In Canada, the Museums Act (1990) allows for the repatriation of items in museum collections to First Nations and Aboriginal communities. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is guided by recommendations of the Task force on First Peoples and Museums, developed jointly by the Assembly of First Nations and Canadian Museums Association in 1992 and the Canadian Museum of Civilization Repatriation Policy (Canadian Museum of Civilization). Requests for repatriation are either initiated by First Nations, through the identification of objects and discussions concerning their special care upon review of collections held by the museum and/or through the treaty process. Items, including wampum, have been returned to several First Nations. The museum also enters into repatriation and custodial arrangement agreements with Aboriginal organizations.

Northern Arts Today

A contemporary series of brochures, published by the Government of the Northwest Territories, highlights Beadwork, Tanned Hides and Tufting as art forms maintained amongst First Nations and Metis in the North. "Caribou and moosehide jackets with brilliantly beaded floral designs are proudly worn by many people in the Northwest Territories... The expression of individual and family prestige is reflected in the skill and creativity of these Dene and Metis seamstresses" (Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment).

A brochure on Tanned Hides offers a detailed description of the process for the traditional tanning of hides. Traditionally tanned hides make a strong, durable, lightweight and warm material used for clothing such as moccasins, gloves and jackets. Traditional techniques for tanning hides are very time consuming and require physical strength. Fewer people tan hides today so they are highly valued and difficult to obtain. The best caribou hides are harvested in September and the best moose hides, in spring and summer.

Once harvested, the hide is soaked for three days to loosen the flesh and hair, which is scraped off. After cleaning, the hide is tied to a stretcher frame to dry. A fleshing tool is used to remove the flesh and a smooth flat board used to remove any remaining hair. The hide continues to be scraped and stretch until an even thickness of approximately two millimeters is achieved and the hid is soft. The hide is then removed from the frame, rinsed and wrung, then hung over a frame to dry. The hide is further softened by smoking it over a fire of rotten spruce wood inside a tipi. Rotten wood, mixed with dry cones, tans the hide a reddish colour. Rotten wood alone tans the hide yellow. A solution is then used to further soften the hide, which is again wrung out, stretched and dried. The process of smoking, soaking and stretching is repeated until the desired softness is achieved. Hides are either smoke-tanned or allowed to bleach in the sun. The process of traditional tanning of a hide may take up to two weeks.

The art of tufting moose and caribou hair is introduced as an old Athapaskan art, predating European contact. "No two tuftings are alike - each is designed to its maker's unique vision" (Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment). White caribou or moose hair are hand-picked from a harvested animal, sorted according to size, length and colour, washed and soaked. Traditionally, roots, lichen, flowers, bark and various berries were used as dyes. Contemporarily, the hair is dyed using commercial dyes or crepe paper. The hair is usually dyed into bright colours. Tufting is done onto velvet fabric, reinforced by canvas, or hide. Freehand designs are draw using a mixture of flour and water or drawn with a pencil. Bundles of 15-20 hairs are grouped into bundles, stitched tight, knotted, cut and trimmed into three-dimensional images until the desired shape is sculpted.

Indigenous Health and Wellness

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states "Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health" and affirming the "basic human right to life and health that is guaranteed under international human rights law" (United Nations, 2009). Dominant paradigms of health need be premised upon Indigenous individual and collective rights, cultures and worldviews.

From an Indigenous perspective, Indigenous health is inclusive of physical, mental spiritual and emotional elements involving political, economic, social and cultural aspects of individual and community wellness. Harmony, wholeness, tranquility and co-existence with the natural environment are understood to enhance health and well-being. Foundational to Indigenous health is the right to preserve, practice and transmit Indigenous knowledge and to maintain cultural, social and spiritual beliefs.

The health status of Indigenous peoples remains poor as Aboriginal people in Canada continue to experience higher incidences of physical illness and disease, changes to diet and lifestyle, environment stressors relating to climate change, and public health issues relating to substance use and abuse and mental health. Mental health issues as experienced by Indigenous peoples globally are linked to the psychological consequences of colonialism, to resource extraction and depletion, armed conflicts and/or dislocation, environmental contamination and climate change. High rates of Indigenous youth suicide are attributed to result from intergenerational stressors and the experience of social isolation experienced by youth within the "context of contemporary discrimination, marginalization and historical trauma related to colonization, assimilation and loss of traditional livelihoods" (United Nations, 2009).

Structural racism and discrimination contribute to the poor health status of Indigenous women and children in particular. Indigenous women continue to experience violence worldwide at rates much higher than non-Indigenous women. In Canada, Sisters in Spirit, an initiative led by the Native Women's Association of Canada, seek to raise awareness and draw attention to the more than five hundred First Nations, Metis or Inuit women who are missing or have been murdered across the country. Indigenous women are recognized to face multiple layers of discrimination given their economic status, that they are Indigenous, and women.

The adoption of generic blueprints, frameworks, strategies and priorities primarily driven by non-Aboriginal-specific data, information and knowledge in the context of biophysical health driven priorities and funding envelopes provide for an appearance of cohesive and fragmentation. Historically and persistently challenged by a lack of funding, infrastructure and resources, attempts to integrate Indigenous driven priorities inclusive of mental, physical, spiritual and emotional aspects of health and wellness that address fundamental core issues specific to Indigenous knowledge, language and culture, health and education remain sporadic and inconsistent in failing to provide for or adequately address challenges that continue to plague the health, well-being, wellness and survival of Indigenous peoples.

Aboriginal Health Research

In a doctoral study on the health of elder Aboriginal women, Indigenous scholar Charlotte Loppie (2007) incorporates qualitative m ethods with Indigenous principles to provide insight into the conduct of Western social science among Aboriginal peoples in the field of Aboriginal health research. Confronted with the challenge to present multiple constructions of reality, Loppie (2007) adopted a microethnographic approach, "focused on a particular and salient element in the lives of a distinctive group of women" (Berg. 1991, as cited in Loppie, 2007, p. 278). The study contextualizes and emphasizes distinct social and cultural perspectives, contexts and meanings of Aboriginal women's experiences based upon the women's sharing of stories about family, community, life experiences and history.

Lessons learned by Loppie (2007) include 'coming to know' the women's experiences in the application of holistic process that extends beyond the boundaries of cognition. The process of learning is described as both intellectual and intuitive, based upon the researcher's relationships with the women, her knowledge and understanding of Indigenous women's health, philosophies, histories and culture, and engagement of the researcher's emotional, psychological and spiritual consciousness in relation to the lives of Aboriginal women. Challenged throughout the study by "...paradigmatic, ontological, and epistemological differences" Loppie (2007) encourages "...researchers conducting inquiries that incorporate Indigenous and Western principles should also consider challenges related to method, skill, and creativity.... Incorporating [Western research methods] into the context of Indigenous principles requires humility, commitment, and connection" (p. 282). In particular, creativity is identified to be most "...often constrained by disciplinary boundaries and notions of acceptability within scientific literature."

Indigenous scholar, Dawn Marsden (2004) focuses on relational validity as a concept that emphasizes relationships in multiple domains of being where, if many people agree something is important, it is the agreement that need be emphasized. She was gifted with a dream that inspired her to develop a "Wampum Research Model," to both inspire and guide her thinking and perception of relationships, variables and processes concerning the research process as engaged in and influenced by the researcher, a community, and academia.

Three kinds of relational validity are identified—personal, internal and external— as important to the interpretation of experience as a relevant and valid knowledge domain. While participating in a community-based project, Marsden (2004) noted Indigenous peoples to be working to regenerate cultural practices such as "the decoration of clothing and other materials with beads to represent stories, events, relationships, visions, agreements, identities and/or treaties" (p. 58).

Wampum, as used historically and traditionally by the Haudenosaunee, is translated into a model to design, analyze and represent responsible research with Aboriginal communities in the field of Aboriginal health. The beads of the Wampum model are interpreted and translated into a series of process questions and decision points and knowledge domains to interconnect influences and relationships of three or more relevant groups and at least sixteen considerations. Important or prioritized symbols can be woven into patterns and positioned according to need and significance. The Wampum may be interpreted symbolically, accepted or rejected in its physical form.

Research project participants may work with knowledge intuitively, emotionally or spiritually. Noting human beings have been using beads, weavings and patterns for millennia, Marsden (2004) encourages us, "If we can re-integrate Wampum and other beading and weaving tools back into our institutions of knowledge, and into our psyches, we will be well on our way back to rebalancing who we are as human beings" (p. 68).

The Wampum Research Model provided a visual model and important communication tool to share her ideas and prompt in-depth discussions of ideas, relationships, theory and process, to regenerate the use of Wampum to represent and strengthen relationships amongst academia, individuals, communities and Indigenous peoples. In this work, the use of Wampum as an ancient tool representative of holistic processes, contributes to the application of Indigenous ways of knowing into the qualitative research knowledge domain in the fields of education and health.

Indigenous Peoples Health

The United Nations urges, "to improve the health situation of Indigenous peoples, there must be a fundamental shift in the concept of health so that it incorporates the cultures and world views of Indigenous peoples as central to the design and management of state health systems" recommending a multi-sectoral and multi- disciplinary approach inclusive of issues of education, political participation, environment and economic development towards improving the health of Indigenous peoples (United Nations, 2009). This approach encourages recognition, respect and understanding of social and cultural differences, knowledge(s) and resources.

The application of a legal framework that facilitates social participation, practices, protection and conservation of Indigenous knowledge and resources, the expansion of conceptual frameworks that facilitate an understanding of Indigenous knowledge(s) and exchange of knowledge, methodologies and practices to facilitate relations of respect and equality is recommended (United Nations, 2009). This includes the incorporation of self-determination, recognition of Indigenous peoples as Indigenous, recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems, and sharing of values and customs in a manner that is relevant to the social and cultural realities of Indigenous peoples contemporarily. PART FIFTEEN - Beadwork as Indigenous Knowledge and Ways of Knowing: Conclusions and Reflections

"Foundational to Indigenous health is the right to preserve, practice and transmit Indigenous knowledge and to maintain cultural, social and spiritual beliefs" (United Nations, 2009).

A fotonovella tells the story of my grandmother's moccasins that guide and inspire this work. This is a story about reclaiming Indigenous women's ancestral knowledge(s) by way of a study of Indigenous women's traditional cultural activities such as quillwork, hair tufting, embroidery and beadwork as practiced by Indigenous women in North America.

As an Indigenous woman, I claim my ancestry and heritage as a birthright. As an Indigenous researcher, my approach is that of critical inquiry positioned within creative space from wherein I apply a reflective social ethnographic approach. Towards alternative representation in research, I employ a frame of ironic validity and an autoethnographic lens in the textual and visual presentation of this work.

My experience visiting with my Grandmother's moccasins at Oxford heightened awareness of the reality of fragmented and restricted knowledge(s) in Indigenous My experience visiting with my Grandmother's moccasins at Oxford heightened awareness of the reality of fragmented and restricted knowledge(s) in Indigenous knowledge acquisition. There is a critical and urgent need for the study of Indigenous knowledge(s) by Indigenous.

This writing emerges as reflective of the experience of fragmented learning and fragmented knowledge(s). A reader seeking familiar plotlines may experience discomfort in disjuncture within a multiplicity of form.

Works that speak to representation, translation and textuality are noteworthy in establishing a complexity within which the translation and interpretation of knowledge(s) occurs. There is potential for further study concerning symbolic, semiotic and aesthetic meaning as embedded in Indigenous traditional cultural activities and art forms.

This study is premised upon a conceptual metaphor of beadwork and writing wherein each is mutually dependent and reciprocal of the other. I could not write this work without beadwork and without beadwork this work would not be written. In completing a work, both a beadwork and a writer aspire to quality craftsmanship, the completion of a task well done to the best of one's ability. Just as a reader experiences meaning in narrative, so too do Indigenous women experience meaning in the enactment of traditional cultural activities and expression of Indigenous art forms.

Inclusion of the visual arts is intended to elicit active engagement by the reader to elicit meaning making as an expression of Indigenous women' ways of knowing and Indigenous aesthetic of beadwork as located in the study of my Grandmother's moccasins. QuickTime™ and a None decompressor are needed to see this picture

Figure 15. Quillwork method of ornamenting fringe (Orchard, 1984, p. 74)

ENDNOTES

I In the domain of Indigenous knowledge(s), post-colonialism remains a discourse resolving an ideal in the context of the contemporary realities of Indigenous social, cultural and political issues, in the face of the dominance of the western intellectual tradition, aspirations of post-modernity and forces of neoliberal globalization. II In cognitive linguistics, metaphors serve to facilitate understanding of an abstract conceptual domain through expressions that relate to another more familiar concrete domain. A root metaphor is the underlying worldview that shapes an individual's understanding of a situation. A visual metaphor provides a frame or window on experience. A conceptual metaphor is an underlying association systematic in both language and thought. To apply a conceptual metaphor consists of two conceptual domains where one conceptual domain is understand in terms of another conceptual domain as a coherent organization of experience. The mappings of a conceptual metaphor are themselves motivated by image schemas concerning core elements of embodied human experience. An image schema is a recurring basic conceptual structure. Selection of metaphors tends to be directed by a subconscious or implicit habit in the mind of the person employing them. See A) Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. B) Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books. III Further study, beyond the scope of this study, is required to determine an underlying association that is systematic in both language and thought in the conceptual metaphor of writing and beadwork. IV An irregular image schema in beadwork would be an exception given exceptionally high standards of quality in Indigenous women's art forms. Irregular beadwork would be taken apart and redone until an acceptable quality of work is achieved by the header. v Elder. Source Unnamed. Personal Communication. November 2010. v Mary Pruden (nee Gairdner). (2008/9) Personal Communication. Edmonton, Alberta. v" The use of an irregular bead in beading necessitates an undoing, or 'breaking of a bead' to be replaced by a good bead to in order to meet the high quality standards of an expert and knowledgeable header. vm A) The term "episteme" refers to dominant beliefs, assumptions and ways of relating to the world that influence predominant discourses and function as "invisible principles" to regulate society. Episteme encompasses aspects and practices of epistemology, philosophy, cosmology, ontology and religion and is viewed as broader than the term epistemology. See Kuokkanen, Rauna. (2007). p. 59-62 for discussion on Indigenous episteme. B) The term is used as a 'state of knowing' rather than a process of knowing. The term episteme used by Michael Foucault to mean the history that grounds knowledge and its discourses. Epistemes may co-exist and interact at the same time, being parts of various power-knowledge systems. For Foucault, the configuration of knowledge in a particular episteme is based on a set of fundamental assumptions that are so basic to that episteme so as to be invisible to people operating within it. See Foucault, Michel (1969) The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith (2002) Routledge. New York. IX bell hooks is named in honour of her Native American maternal great- grandmother. See Davidson, Maria del Guadalupe and George Yancy. Editors. (2009) Critical Perspectives on bell hooks. Routledge. New York. X Even though there has been an infusion of government research funding to Indigenous research in recent years, many of the individuals actively involved in the field of Indigenous research are non-Indigenous scholars. Alternatively, further opportunities need be made available to interested Indigenous scholars. XI The term "negotiation" is not used as the term implies an agreement is reached whereas in the reality of Indigenous/non-indigenous power relations, it is usually the norms of the dominant episteme that prevail. xu Travel to the United Kingdom was made possible by a Travel Grant Award from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alberta. xiii In 2009, 378 students from Canada studied at Oxford. There were over 20,000 students from 139 different countries and territories studying at Oxford. XIV The Museum of Natural History, known for its' neo-Gothic architecture, holds 4.5 million zoological, entomological, palaeontological and mineral specimens in its' collections. XV Dr. Heather Devine is Assistant Professor in the Museum and Heritage Studies Program with the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of . xvl My grandmother's name was Joanne Edge (nee McLeod). My grandfather was Albert Edge. xvu Dr. Laura Peers is University Lecturer in Ethnology at the University of Oxford and Curator, Pitt Rivers Museum. Dr. Peer's teaching and research interests specific to Indigenous peoples include: First Nations/Native American cultural history and material culture; representations of Native American/First Nations cultures; historic artifacts of social memory and identity construction for contemporary Indigenous peoples; and relationships between museums and Indigenous peoples. She has worked collaboratively on project with Haida, Kainai and Ojibwe First Nations in Canada. xvm Travel as a Visiting Researcher to the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford in the United Kingdom was partially funded by a travel award grant from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. X1X A) Erin is the daughter of a former childhood friend and classmate. Her mother, Penny, and I attended school together in the mid- to late sixties at Fort Smith, NWT. B) Erin Freeland-Ballantyne applies a participatory video research methodology in her work "to support Arctic and Northern human capacity to develop Canadian policy and practices reflective of the natural Canadian traditions of balance rooted in First Nations governance, politics and resource management." See Rhodes Scholarship in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.canadianrhodes.org/canadian-scholar-profile?id=53 C) Today, Erin is the founder of Dechinta, the first land-based centre in the NWT to offer university credited educational experiences co-taught by Elders, professors and community leaders. See Dechinta. http://dechinta.ca/people/advisory-circle/ ^ First built in 1280 AD, St. Mary's is well known as the site where three Anglican bishops were burnt at the stake during the reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary in the mid-1500s. See The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. http://www.university-church.ox.ac.uk/history.html XX1 See St. Mary's Church, Iffley, built in 1170 is an Anglican Church famous for its Romanesque architecture. See Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxford. xx" See Christ Church Meadow, http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/visiting/meadow xxm See Christ Church. University of Oxford, http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/ XX1V See History of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/docs/historybodleian.pdf xxv There are approximately 20,000 books on the topics of archaeology and anthropology at the Balfour Library at Oxford. xxvl First Nations and Inuit peoples have access to post-secondary education funding, based upon treaty and Aboriginal rights, however access is limited and based upon available funding. Metis students access student loans and/or are self- funded. In recent years, there are criteria-specific scholarships, awards and bursaries available to Aboriginal students. Many are specific to Aboriginal youth and fields of study. XXV11 See Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Lomond XXVU1 I had entertained thoughts of a career as an anthropologist following completion of a Master of Arts degree in social and cultural anthropology however such aspirations seemed far beyond the realm of possibility given limited opportunity. My journal at Oxford notes my presence to waver at times from that of an "Indian in the cupboard" to that of an "Indian anthropologist in the cupboard."

300 XXIX In late 2007 the Pitt Rivers Museum was in the process of converting original records into a new format. The current Item Details were changed by Dr. Laura Peers, as indicated in the record, during my visits to the Pitt Rivers during October and November of 2007. XXX See Peers, Laura and Carolyn Podruchny. (2010) Gathering Places: Essays in Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. XXXI See Peers, Laura and Allison Brown (2003) Museums and Source Communities. New York: Routledge. xxxn See Dr. Laura Peers illuminates the potential of material/visual representation. Arthur: The Peterborough & Trent University Independent Press. Retrieved from http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1200& Itemid=33 xxxm Verbatim transcript proceedings by the writer appear on the left margin. Verbatim transcript proceedings of beading circle participant contributions are indented five spaces from the left margin. Beading circle participant contributions are identified as Personal Communication. Each passage is referenced at conclusion by date and year. Transcript proceedings appear as verbatim with minor editorial changes for flow, grammar and punctuation. The reader is strongly encouraged to read this section in its entirety during one sitting. xxxlv Poetry by Marilyn Dumont. xxxv Poetry by Marilyn Dumont. xxxvl Poetry by Marilyn Dumont. xxxvl1 term for grandmother. xxxviii Poetry by Marilyn Dumont. xxxlx Plains Cree, Y dialect, term for white person. xl See Devine, Heather. (2004) The People Who Own Themselves: Aboriginal Ethnogenesis in a Canadian Family 1660-1900. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. xh Autoethnography includes researchers who "...write, interpret, and/or perform their own narratives about culturally significant experiences."xl1 The work of autoethnographers is often presented in "...alternative textual forms such as layered accounts... Sometimes autoethnographers resist analysis altogether, leaving interpretation up to the audiences of their performances. The goal of autoethnography, and of many performance narratives, is to show rather than to tell and, thus, to disrupt the politics of traditional research relationships, traditional forms of representation, and traditional social science orientations to audiences." Chase, Susan E. (2005) Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln, (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research Third Edition, p. 651-679. London: Sage Publications. London. xlu For many years, one of the best places to purchase beading supplies, sewing material and furs in the city of Edmonton was Ken Belcourt Furs. The company closed, and building demolished, about a year after the passing of long-time proprietor, Ken Belcourt, in the spring of 2008. Ken Belcourt, a well-respected

301 member of a prominent Alberta Metis family, was a long-time fur buyer, with other family members, in northern Alberta for several decades. The Belcourt family was also associated with another former fur trade business in Alberta, known as Slutker Furs and Hide Company. See Belcourt, Herb. (2006) Walking in the Woods: A Metis Journey. Brindle & Glass Publishing. Toronto. xlm I recall my grandmother, Joanne Edge, talking about purchasing supplies and materials from both Slutker and Ken Belcourt fur companies. I accompanied her on a couple of occasions in the eighties to purchase supplies at one of their former locations. xllv Beading Circle Participant. December 2010. Name Withheld. Edmonton, Alberta. xlv The acidic soil composition of the northern Boreal forest does not yield ancient organic remains. xlvl See Prayer Bead. Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_beads xlvii Non-Indigenous scholars argue the origin to be about 1450 AD. x vm Mrs. Lafferty is credited contemporarily with having originated moose hair embroidery in the North. xllx Notably, it is highly doubtful that my grandmother would have been influenced by Huron styles in the north. Turner, Geoffrey. (1955) Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Occasional Paper on Technology 7. p. 52. 1 False embroidery is "the wrapping of a separate decorative material round the exposed part of a weft element during the process of weaving, is a device for the ornamentation of twined textiles." Turner,1955, 57) h See Densmore, Frances. (1992). Her Many Horses, Emil. (2007) Identity by Design: tradition, change, and celebration in native women's dresses. Smithsonian Institution. New York: HarperCollins. New York. p. 102. lu Kutchin is a historical term, a suffix meaning "dwellers at". The French term, Loucheux also refers to Kutchin. Contemporary Kutchin are known as Gwich'in. 1111 Use of colour may have been dependent upon bead availability. llv Such as Sir Alexander Mackenzie during his travels through Fort Chipewyan northward along the Slave and Mackenzie River (known to the Dene as Dehcho) in 1789. McDonald. (1966). In Duncan, Kate C. (1989) Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition. Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre. v See photograph of Rosie Stewart in Thompson, Judy. (1994) From the Land: Two Hundred Years of Dene Clothing, p. xii. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization. lvi Duncan cautions usage of the term "Metis," to be ascribed only as clearly documented, as the term is not used by all northern Athapaskan groups. Duncan, Kate C. (1989) Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition. Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre. p. 61. lvn See Fred McLeod. Fort Liard, Northwest Territories. Glenbow Museum. Archives Photographs. Image No. NA-2563-9. Retrieved from http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosSearch.aspx. See also brothers Frank McLeod and Willie McLeod at A) Frank McLeod. Fort Liard, Northwest Territories. Glenbow Museum. Archives Photographs. File Number NA-1146-5. Retrieved from http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosSearch.aspx. B) Willie McLeod. Fort Liard, Northwest Territories. Glenbow Museum. Archives Photographs. File Number NA-1146-4. Retrieved from http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosSearch.aspx lvm For a first-hand account of moose hide tanning, see Scollon, Ron. (2009) Francois Mandeville: This Is What They Say. Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre. p. 212-214. llx For example, hundreds of women's beaded hoods, worn by Indigenous women of the sub artic, can be found in museum collections. The hoods, dating back to the early 14 century, are described as representative of a sub arctic cosmology and of social relationships with spirits, or non-human beings, as expressed and interpreted in their beadwork designs. The hoods are thought to have be worn by mature married women. As early as the 1820s, European missionaries had begun to discourage the wearing of hoods by women. It is suggested the wearing of hoods was replaced by the wearing of by women in the sub arctic, a practice that continues today in Canada's north. x See Centre for Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from http://www.storycenter.org/casestudies.html xl In Canada, close to half the population of those who self-identified as Aboriginal (First Nations, Metis and/or Inuit) were under twenty-five years of age in the 2006 census. See Statistics Canada. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/080115/dq080115a-eng.htm xu To the Pueblo people, butterflies embody the concepts of centering and balance, the focus of Pueblo song, prayer and adornment. xm In comparison to the median age of 40 years for non-Aboriginal people in Canada.

303 REFERENCES

Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Directory of Residential Schools in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.ahf.ca/publications/residential-school- resources

Anderson, Kim. (2000). A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood. Toronto: Second Story Press.

Anderson, Kim. (2000). Honouring the blood of the people: Berry fasting in the twenty-tirst century. In Laliberte, Ron F. (Eds.), Expressions in Canadian Native Studies, pp. 374 - 394. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan Press. Anderson, Leon. (2006). Analytic Autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 35(4): p. 373-395.

Apple, Michael. (2009). Preface. In del Guadalupe Davidson, Maria and George Yancy. (Eds.), Critical Perspectives on bell hooks, p. ix-xii. Routledge. New York.

Archibald, Jo-ann (2008). Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Association of Canadian Deans of Education. (2010). Accord on Indigenous Education.

Atlas of Canada. Evolution of Canada. Retrieved from http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/archives/historical/mcr_2306/#do wnload Bastien, Betty. (2004). Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Battiste, Marie. (2000). Maintaining Aboriginal Identity, Language and Culture. In Battiste, Marie (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, pp. 192- 208. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Bedard, Renee Elizabeth Mzinegiizhigo-kwe. (2008). Keepers of the water, Nishnaabe-kwewag speaking for the water. In Simpson, Leanne (Ed.), Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations, pp. 89-110. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

Bennett, Martyn. (2002). Glen Lyon. Footstompin Records. Scotland. Retrieved from http://www.footstompin.com/artists/martyn_bennett

Bohannan, Paul and Mark Glazer. (1988). High Points in Anthropology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Bouzouggar, Abdeljalil et al. (2007). 82,000-year-old shell beads from North Africa and implications for the origins of modern human behaviour. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104(24). pp. 9964-9969. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0703877104

Brant, Beth. (1999). The good red road: Journeys of homecoming in Native women's writing. In Champagne, Duane, (Ed.), Contemporary Native American Cultural Issues, pp. 91-101. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

Bringhurst, Robert. (2007). Everywhere Being is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking. Nova Scotia: Gaspereau Press.

British Museum. (2007). England: London. Burnham, Dorothy (2001). Fascinating Challenges: Studying Material Culture with Dorothy Burnham. Mercury Series: Canadian Ethnology Service Paper 136. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Cajete, Gregory A. (1999). Igniting the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Model. Skyand, NC: Kivaki Press.

Cajete, Gregory. (2000a). Indigenous knowledge: The Pueblo metaphor of Indigenous education. In Battiste, Marie, (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, pp. 181-191. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Cajete, Gregory. (2000b). Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.

Canadian Council On Learning. (2009). The State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada: A Holistic Approach to Measuring Success. Executive Summary. Ottawa.

Canadian Museum of Civilization. Retrieved September 15, 2010, http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/home

Canadian Women's Health Network. Retrieved September 15, 2010, http://www.cwhn.ca/en/frontpage_en

Cappon, Paul (2008). Measuring Success in First Nations, Inuit and Metis Learning. Policy Options. June 15, 2009. p. 60-66. Retrieved from http://www.irpp.org/po/

Centre for Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from http://www. storycenter.org/ casestudies.html Centre for Rupert's Land Studies at the University of Winnipeg. Retrieved from http://uwwebpro.uwinnipeg.ca/academic/ic/rupert/index.html

Clark, Ella Elizabeth. (1960). Indian Legends of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited.

Daes, Erica-Irene. (2000). Prologue: The Experience of Colonization Around the World. In Battiste, Marie, (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision. pp. 3-10. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Davis, Wade. (2009). The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc.

Dene Nation. (1984). Denendeh: A Dene Celebration. Yellowknife, NT: The Dene Nation.

Dechinta. Retrieved from http://dechinta.ca/people/advisory-circle/

Denzin, Norman K. & Yvonna S. Lincoln. (2005). The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln, (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Third Edition, pp. 1-32. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Dubin, Lois Sherr. (1999). North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Duncan, Kate C. (1989). Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition. Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre. Duncan, Kate C. with Eunice Carney (1988). A Special Gift: The Kutchin Beadwork Tradition. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Edwards, Elizabeth (1999). Photographs as objects of memory. In Kwint, Marius, Breward, Christopher and Jeremy Aynsley, (Eds.), Material Memories: Design and Evocation, pp. 221-236. Oxford: Berg.

Edwards, Elizabeth (2003). Introduction: Locked in 'The Archive.' In Peers, Laura and Alison K. Brown, (Eds.), Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, pp. 83-99. London: Routledge.

Emme, Michael J. (2005). Lecture Notes. Alternative Representation in Research. Edmontomta. University of Alberta.

Fair, Susan W. (2006). Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.

Fumoleau, Rene. (1973). As Long As this Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 1870-1939. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.

Geary, Theresa Flores. (2005). Creative Native American Beading: Contemporary Interpretations of Traditional Motifs. New York: Lark Books.

Ginsburg, Faye. (1994). Embedded aesthetics: Creating a discursive space for Indigenous media. Cultural Anthropology. 9 (3): pp. 365-382. American Anthropological Association.

Government of Northwest Territories. Education, Culture and Employment. Retrieved from http://www.ece.gov.nt.ca/ Green, Joyce, Editor. (2007). Making Space for Indigenous Feminism. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board. (2001). Gwindoo Nahn'Kak Geenjit Gwich 'in Ginjik: More Gwich 'in Words About the Land. Inuvik.

Hail, Barbara A. & Kate C. Duncan (1989). Out of the North: The Subarctic Collection of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. Rhode Island: Brown University.

Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools. Retrieved from http://www. wherearethechildren.ca/en/exhibit/impacts.html

Helm, June (2000). The People of Denendeh: Ethnohistory of the Indians of Canada's Northwest Territories. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Henderson, James (2000). Postcolonial Ghost Dancing: Diagnosing European Colonialism. In Battiste, Marie (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, pp. 57-76. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Her Many Horses, Emil. (2007) Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses. Smithsonian Institution. New York: HarperCollins. hooks, bell. (1993). Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. Boston: South End Press. hooks, bell. (1994). Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge. hooks, bell. (1998). Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life. London: Women's Press.

hooks, bell (2004). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. In Harding, Sandra, (Ed.), The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, pp. 153-159. New York: Routledge.

hooks, bell. (2009). An Aesthetic of Blackness: Strange and Oppositional. In Belonging: A Culture of Place, pp. 122-134. New York: Routledge.

Hudson's Bay Company Archives. Winnipeg. Retrieved from http://www. gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/

Hudson's Bay Company Archives. Biographical Sheets. Retrieved from http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical/

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. (1996) Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. A Thanksgiving Address. Volume 1. p. 10-16. Retrieved from http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071124125216/http:// www. ainc-inac. gc. ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg 1 _e .html

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The Framework: Lifelong, Holistic Education. Volume 3, • Chapter 5. Retrieved from http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ webarchives/20071211053020/http://www.aincinac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/si43_ e.html

Ingold, Tim. (2006). Up, across and along. Explorations in Comparative Anthropology of the Line. United Kingdom; Economic and Social Research Council: Shaping Society, p. 45-53. Retrieved from http://www.spacesyntax.tudelft.nl/media/Long%20papers%20I/tim%20ing old.pdf

Irlbacher-Fox, Stephanie. (2009). Finding Dahshaa: Self-Government, Social Suffering and Aboriginal Policy in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Jacobs, Beverly. (2000). International Law/The Great Law of Peace. (Unpublished Master's thesis.) University of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon.

Johnson, Leslie Main. (2010). Trail of Story, Traveller's Path: Reflections on Ethnoecology and Landscape. Edmonton: AU Press.

Kuokkanen, Rauna (2007). Reshaping the University: Responsibility, Indigenous Epistemes, and the Logic of the Gift. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Laronde, Sandra. (2005). Sky Woman: Indigenous Women Who Have Shaped, Moved or Inspired Us. (Ed.). Penticton, BC: Theytus Books.

Lane Jr., Phil, Judie Bopp, Michael Bopp, Lee Brown and Elders (1984). The Sacred Tree. Twin Lakes, WI USA: Lotus Press.

Larocque, Emma. (2006). The colonization of a Native woman scholar. In Kelm, Mary-Ellen and Lorna Townsend, (Eds.), In the Days of Our Grandmothers: A Reader In Aboriginal Women's History in Canada, pp. 397-406. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

311 Lather, Patti. (1993). Fertile obsession: Validity after poststructuralism. The Sociological Quarterly. 34(4): p. 673-693.

Legat, Allice. (2007). Walking the Land, Feeding the Fire: Becoming and Being Knowledgeable Among the Tlicho Dene. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation.) University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Leuthold, Steve. (2001). Rhetorical dimensions of Native American documentary. Wicazo sa review: A Journal of Native American Studies. 16(2): p. 55-73. p. 8. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/wicazo_sa_ review/vO 16/16.21euthold.html

Lien, Marianne Elisabeth and Marit Melhuus. (2007). Holding Worlds Together: Ethnographies of Knowing and Belonging. New York: Berghahn Books.

Little Bear, Leroy. (2000). Jagged worldviews colliding. In Battiste, Marie, (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, pp. 77-85. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Little Bear, Leroy. (2009). Naturalizing Indigenous Knowledge, Synthesis Paper. University of Saskatchewan, Aboriginal Education Research Centre, Saskatoon, Sask. and First Nations and Adult Higher Education Consortium, Calgary, Alberta. Retrieved from www.ccl-cca.ca

Loppie, Charlotte. (2007). Learning from the grandmothers: Incorporating Indigenous principles into qualitative research. Qualitative Health Research. 17: pp. 276-284.

Manitopyes, Alvin. (2010). Manitopyes: Our survival depends on indigenous knowledge. IQra.ca. Retrieved from http://iqra.ca/?p=4120 Marsden, Dawn. (2004). Expanding knowledge through dreaming, wampum and visual arts. Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health. 2(2): pp. 53-73.

McCallum, Tom. (No Date). Traditional Elder's and Healer's Protocol. Red Willow Consulting. Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

McCarthy, Martha. (1995). From the Great River to the Ends of the Earth: Oblate Missions to the Dene, 1847-1921. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.

McCormack, Patricia. (1989). Northwind Dreaming Kiwetin Pawatamowin Tthisi Niltsi Nats'ete: Fort Chipewyan 1788-1988. Edmonton: Provincial Museum of Alberta.

McLeod, Neil. (2007). Cree Narrative Memory: From Treaties to Contemporary Times. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Limited.

McMaster, Gerald & Clifford E. Trafzer. (2008). Native Universe: Voices in Indian America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

Menez. Father Louis. O.M.I. The Beaulieu Genealogy.

Mishler, Craig. (1993). The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Momaday, N. Scott. (1968). House of Made Dawn. New York: HarperPerennial.

Monture, Patricia A. (2008). Women's words: Power, identity and Indigenous sovereignty. Canadian Woman's Studies. 26(3-4): pp. 154-159. Morin, Gail. (2001). Metis Families: A Genealogical Compendium. Quintin Publications.Com.

Mousseau, Father Gilles. O.M.I. (1978). Genealogy of Tourangeau Family. Fort Smith, N.W.T.

NativeTech: Native American Technology & Art. Woven Wampum Beadwork: Wampum History and Background. Retrieved from http://www.nativetech.org/wampum/wamphist.htm

Neihardt, John G. and Nicolas Black Elk. (2000). Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Natural History Museum. Beads confirm ancient jewellery making. 05 June 2007. Retrieved from http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2007/june/news _11808.html

nDigiDreams. Retrieved from http://ndigidreams.com/ds.html

News in Science. "Shell beads suggest new roots for culture." June 23, 2006. ABC Science. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles /2006/06/23/1670011 .htm?site=eyre&topic=latest

Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment (No Date). Tufting from Canada's Northwest Territories. Northwest Territories Arts.

Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment. (No Date). Beadwork from Canada's Northwest Territories. Northwest Territories Arts. Northwest Territories Industry, Tourism and Investment. (No Date). Tanned Hides from Canada's Northwest Territories. Northwest Territories Arts.

Orchard, William C. (1984). The Technique of Porcupine-Quill Decoration Among the North American Indians. Liberty, UT: Eagles View Publishing.

Overvold (Burger), Joanne. Editor. (1976). Our Metis heritage... a portrayal. Yellowknife, NT: The Metis Association of the Northwest Territories.

Paul, Elizabeth, Peter Sanger and Alan Syliboy. (2007). The Stone Canoe: Two Lost Mi'kmaq Texts. Nova Scotia: Gaspereau Press.

Peers, Laura. (2003). Strands which refuse to be braided: Hair samples from Beatrice Blackwood's Ojibwe collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Journal of Material Culture. (8)1: p. 75-96.

Peers, Laura and Allison Brown (2003). Museums and Source Communities. New York: Routledge.

Peers, Laura. (2007). Cultural Representations Lecture Notes. October. Pitt Rivers Museum. Oxford.

Pendleton, Mary. (1974). Navajo and Hopi Weaving Techniques. New York: CollierBooks. p. 13. In Itani, Reem. (2009) Navajo Weaving: Quotations for an Insight To the Beauty. Retrieved from http://college.usc.edu/ americanindian/documents/Research_Proj ectritan i_anth_316_quotations _project_000.pdf

Pitt Rivers Museum. (2007-8). Annual Report 2007-2008, p. 31. Retrieved from http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/pdf/PRMAR2007-08.pdf Pitt Rivers Museum. (No Date). "To Please the Spirits": Native American Clothing. Pitt Rivers Museum. Fact Sheet. Retrieved from http:// www.prm.ox.ac.uk/native.html.

Pitt Rivers Museum. (No Date). University of Oxford. Retrieved http://www.prm. ox.ac.uk/pittrivers.html

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Museum. Retrieved from http://pwnhc.learnnet.nt.ca/databases/archives/index.asp

Racette, Sherry Farrell. (1991). The Flower Beadwork People. Regina, SK: Gabriel Dumont Institute.

Racette, Sherry Farrell (2004). Sewing Ourselves Together: Clothing, Decorative Arts and the Expression of Metis and Half Breed Identity. (Unpublished dissertation.) University of Manitoba. Winnipeg.

Racette, Sherry Farrell (2005). Sewing for a Living: The commodification of Metis women's artistic production. In Pickles, Katie and Myra Rutherdale, (Eds.), Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women in Canada's Colonial Past. pp. 17-46. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Racette, Sherry Farrell. (2009-10). Material Culture as Encoded Objects and Memory. School for Advanced Research. Retrieved from http://sarweb.org/ index.php?2009_2010_ar_sherry_farrell_racette

Riche, Adrienne (2003). Notes towards a politics of location. In Lewis, Reina and Sara Mills, (Eds.), Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, pp. 29-42. New York: Routledge.

Search, Patricia. (2009). "Digital Storytelling for Cross-Cultural Communication in Global Networking." 41st Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) October 6, 2009, Chicago II, USA. Retrieved from http://cosmicserpent.org/uploads/downloadables/ DigitalStorytellingforCrossCulturalCommunication.pdf

Silko, Leslie Marmon. (1996). Interior and exterior landscapes: The Pueblo migration stories. Yellow woman and a beauty of the spirit: Essays on Native American life today, pp. 25-47. New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York: Zed Books.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2005). On tricky ground: Researching the Native in the age of uncertainty. In Denzin, N.K. and Y.S. Lincoln, (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 85-107. Third Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Sprague, D.N. and R.P. Frye. (1983). The Genealogy of the First Metis Nation: The Development and Dispersal of the Red River Settlement 1820-1900. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications.

Statistics Canada. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/start-debut-eng.html

Sutherland, Agnes. (1991). Living Kindness: The Dream of My Life. The Memoirs of Metis Elder, Madeline Bird. Yellowknife: Outcrop.

Suzack, Cheryl, Shari M. Huhndorf, Jeanne Perreault, and Jean Barman. (2010). Introduction. Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism and Culture, pp. 1-17. Vancouver: UBC Press. Vancouver. Thompson, Judy. (1994). From the Land: Two Hundred Years of Dene Clothing. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

The Atlas of Canada. Retrieved from http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index. html

The Beaver. (1939). John Firth of Fort McPherson. p. 48. Winnipeg: Hudson's Bay Company Archives.

The Beaver. (1948). Mackenzie Memories. September, p. 24. Winnipeg: Hudson's Bay Company Archives.

Thompson, Judy and Ingrid Kritsch (2005). Long Ago Sewing We Will Remember: Story of the Gwich'in Traditional Caribou Skin Clothing Project. Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Turner, Geoffrey. (1955). Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America. Occasional Paper on Technology 7. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

United Nations Environment Programme. What is Indigenous Knowledge? Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/IK/Pages.asp?id=About%20IK

University of Oxford. Retrieved from http://www.ox.ac.uk/

Up Here. (1988). John Firth. November/December.

Van Kirk, Sylvia. (1980). Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670- 1870. Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer Publishing. Weeks, Mary. (2007). Trader King: The Thrilling Story of Forty Years of Service in the North-West Territories. Calgary: Fifth House.

Wilson, Pamela and Michelle Stewart. (2008). Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics and Politics. Duke University. London.

Witherspoon, Gary. (No Date). Beautifying the World through Art. The South Corner of Time: hopi Navajo papago yaqui tribal literature. Retrieved from http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/southcorner/

World Archaeology. World's Oldest Beads Just Got Older. September 26, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.world-archaeology.com/news/worlds-oldest- beads-just-got-older/ APPENDIX

Preface References

Devine, Heather. (2004) The People Who Own Themselves: Aboriginal Ethnogenesis in a Canadian Family, 1660-1900. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Cover artwork by Christi Belcourt.

N.W.T. Archives Collection. Photograph. Dene Mapping Gwich'in Area. AccessionNumber N-1995-002: 6761. Rene Fumoleau Collection. Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Yellowknife.

N.W.T. Archive Collection. Photograph. Joseph Burr Tyrrell School, Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Accession Number G-1992-005: 0174. Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Yellowknife.