3. TPatT - Indigenous Texts in French | The People and the Text

: L’enfant de 7000 ans : le long portage vers la délivrance; [Reprinted in 1997] Initially the author had sought to show how the people of the two nations were not how stereotypes depicted them; lazy, alcoholic and dispossessed. However he soon turns to a discussion of the history of territorial negotiations that were affecting the Innu and Atikamekw, which lead them to “take control” and make way for “their own societal project” through the creation of the Attikamekw-Montagnais Counsel (CAM). As negotiator for the latter, he presents elements of the disputes with the Quebec and Newfoundland provincial governements as well as with the federal government. The book also tells of his own off-reserve life and the many encounters he had with people who had lost their land and culture., Again we see classification issues arise. With this work classified as "History" we position an ongoing culture as historical rather than ongoing.

: L’étranger; A young man, an “immigrant,” is washed ashore and rescued by a young Innu woman.

: Ma race-mère; The author writes of her “mother race” as her pillar, her memory. Inserted into the reprint of her piece “Chiâlage de métisse” in the feminist journal La vie en rose.

: Makwa, le petit Algonquin; This story is about a family, including father, mother, little sister Ikwé and of course, Makwa. Assiniwi uses the family dynamic as a model to describe each individual’s role within the group: Makwa follows his father very closely to learn a number of tasks essential to the family’s survival. As such it serves as an introduction to Algonquin life before the arrival of Europeans. It also underlines the part played by Algonquins in contemporary society. The illustrations provide details about the Algonquin way of life for a very young audience.

: Moi, « Mestenapeu »; The Innu were healthy, active, and attuned to their environment before the advent of mining near what was to become Schefferville in the late 1930’s. The author describes in this text the drastic changes that his community saw during the 1940’s while he was band leader and came to distrust the government. Sedentary lifestyle, pollution, changes in metabolism, destruction of their ancestral territories, disrespect of the caribou’s life-cycle and of the Innu people’s traditional knowledge are dealt with poignantly in this account of settlement, industrial modernity and its consequences.

: Mon pays rêvé ou la PAX KANATA; The “dreamed country” is when autonomy is returned to Indigenous peoples and they have their own Parliament. Reserves have become holiday resorts and in Kanehsatake, the golf club is gone; Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has been translated into Mohawk, while Marguerite Duras’ The Lover is now available in Inuktitut and the plays of Marie Laberge are performed in Cree. Everyone is happy, “TREATED” so very well.

: Montagnaises de parole.; Three generations of Innu women talk about their perspective on life, family, men, work, politics, money and the future. The women’s voices are rooted in the present but oscillate between a nostalgia for the past and their hopes for the future. Comes with audio recordings.

: Ni le ciel ni la terre ne sont muets. Rencontre avec Yves Sioui Durand; In this piece, the author discusses Wendat dramaturge Yves Sioui Durand’s piece Le porteur des peines du monde and its live performance in downtown Montreal, a testimony of a wounded and assaulted life that refuses to die or to disappear, and reclaims the city’s waste land by calling forth “the intelligence of beasts and all things alive” and the “enduring message of the stars.” Followed by an interview with the playwright.

: Pinashuess; [Reprinted in Mille ans de contes : Québec (Cécile Gagnon, ed.) Éditions Milan, 1996, pp. 160-165] Inspired by the stories she grew up with, the author pens a story about how the Innu would celebrate Christmas in the forest. Pinashuess lives with his family in the forest. He has learned everything about hunting and the animals from his father. He encounters a hare who transforms him into one so that they can visit the animals’ kingdom, where they too are celebrating Christmas.

: Pour une autohistoire amérindienne: Essai sur les fondements d’une morale sociale.; [Reprinted as Pour une histoire amérindienne de l’Amérique, Presses de l’Université Laval, 1999] Inspired by the author’s Master’s thesis, this book provides guidelines and regulations for the proper study of the history of Indigenous peoples. The author explains that these need to reflect how Indigenous peoples see themselves as well as their own societal ethics. In this sense, this book is a metahistory; these norms should have precedence over the more recent, imported ones and be viewed as models for modern society.

: Qu'as-tu fait de mon pays?; An Antane-Kapesh’s second book is a cautionary tale of sorts for adult readers, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Through the eyes of a young boy (who was raised by his grandfather in the forest), she depicts a compelling tale of dispossession at the hands of the Whites whom she dubs the “Polichinelles” (from Punchinello, a buffoon character from the Commedia dell’arte). Upon the arrival of the colonizers, the young boy feels sorry for them, their clumsiness and lack of knowledge of the land, and offers to help them. Once they are settled, they return the favour by giving the boy what he is “lacking”: school, clothes, food and medication. The boy becomes lost in his ways and when he tries to return to the forest, he finds everything has been destroyed. By the end of the narrative however he berates the colonizers and lists how things will be from now on. This resonates with the author’s own realization that while the colonizers are here to stay, they will have to listen to what she and her people have to say. Resistance and independence are once again at the center of her narrative.

Indigenous Writing to 1992