Article Abstracts (since 2005)

2008 (volume XXXVIII) nos. 2-3 – Traditions et transformations rituelles

Semantics of Survival as Seen in Relationships to Territory: An Interpretive Outline, the Case from an Algonquian Perspective

Charlotte Bréda, Mélanie Chaplier and Olivier Servais

Today, the concept of “survival” seems capital to understanding aboriginal peoples. In this paper, we will try to understand the complex meaning and use of that concept, analyzing three contemporary Algonquian case studies. The first example, following young Innu as they learn traditional activities related to portaging, shows how survival is connected to life on the reserve and the world of the bush way of life. The second case takes place in a particular situation, in which a traditional Cree territory is about to disappear, flooded by a dam. The third case will bring us into town where, despite the distance from the traditional way of life, the idioms of hunting and survival are still a way of interpreting events. From that perspective, how can survival be interpreted? In the end, these examples perfectly illustrate the great diversity of that concept and the richness of the link between survival and territory.

Youri, Keeper of the Wisdom and Traditions of the People of the Wind: The Last Aleut Shaman?

Annik Chiron de La Casinière

During fieldwork in Alaska, the author met an Aleut spiritual leader, a surprising man who led her to think he is possibly concealing his shamanism. After an overview of traditional shamanism in the Aleutian Island, and of the very particular establishment of the Russian Orthodox faith in Alaska, especially by the Monk Veniaminov, later Saint Innocent II, the author deciphers and analyzes the discourse of the Aleut spiritual leader according to the revised and transformed notions of contemporary shamanism. Is Youri a survivor of shamanism or only a messenger of the wisdom of his people who reigned for several thousand years over the Bering Sea? The answer to that question is not in this article but will be given two years hence in a book that the author published in collaboration with Youri. As a result of that providential meeting she is producing a long and thorough written work.

Contemporary Reappropriations of a Mythological Character: The Multiple Faces of the Double Woman

Marie Goyon

Taking as the starting point the video film Lakota Quillwork, Art and Legend (Jane Nauman, 1990), this article proposes an analysis on the making of the sacred and more precisely, on the reappropriations of the figure of Double Woman in the Lakota culture. This character appears central historically and ethnographically, and always present in the visionary and artistic practices, as well as in the aboriginal quillworkers’ speeches. The analysis follows the character of the Double Woman, as a focal point revealing the successive definitions and values granted to femininity within the Plains and Prairie cultures. Incarnating the ambiguity of the feminine roles, this figure has evolved in different historical and social contexts, as for example associated with Mary during the evangelization period of the Native communities. In view of the remaking of the social and family space, the author questions the contemporary meaning this liberating figure could hold for Native women.

« To Raise the Indian in the Child’s Heart » : First Time Rituals Among the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok

Laurent Jérôme

On the basis of his fieldwork experiences in aboriginal communities of Québec, especially in the Atikamekw community of Wemotaci (Haute-Mauricie), the author considers the methodological, theoretical and ethnographical dimensions of the rituals of the first time that marks different transitions in the life of a young Atikamekw. In particular, the paper reflects on a ritual little tackled in the literature on the Algonquian Peoples of Canada, the Walking Out Ceremony. More than a rite of passage, the ceremony enhances and reinforces a cluster of relations: with the people, the territory and the non-human world.

Healing Circles, Inuit Shamanism and Neo-shamanism in Nunavik and Nunavut

Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten

This paper examines the revival of Inuit traditions in the Canadian Eastern Arctic in various ethnographic sources. It presents a comparison of various ritual practices that flourished in Nunavik and Nunavut in the last decade, and more particularly healing circles and practices inspired by shamanism and neo-shamanism. The paper explains how their foreign origin does not constitute a problem for the practices of the healing circles, whereas neo-shamanic ones are not yet accepted or used by the Inuit. The authors raise the question to what extent healing circles illustrate the revival of Inuit spiritual traditions in the new socio-political context of the North marked by the transition to a more urbanized way of life in the so called permanent communities as well as by the recent emergence of political autonomy. The model of the individual and voluntary shamanic quest that characterizes neo-shamanism appears not to be very attractive to Inuit. The tradition of shamanism is still too much alive to be revitalized and too controversial to be considered as folklore.

Pentecostalism in the Inuit Community of Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut: Discourses on Change and Healing

A. Nicole Stuckenberger

In the contemporary Inuit community of Qikiqtarjuaq, religious transformation and social restoration are interconnected. The new social, political, and religious developments, namely of the concentration of Inuit camps in modern communities initiated by the Canadian Government in the 1960s; of the establishment of the new Canadian Inuit territory of Nunavut in 1999; and of the now highly successful Pentecostal movement provide perspective to this study on the continuation of and changes in the Inuit nomadic model of community constitution that combines the social with the cosmological relationships within drastically changed social conditions.

The Religious Dimension to Aboriginal Claims in Canada

Jean-Guy A. Goulet

The author identifies and analyzes the religious dimension of statements of identity and of land claims in Canada, on the part of the government of Canada acting in the name of the Crown and on the part of First Nations who for centuries have resisted the colonial ambitions of British and Canadian governments. The paper focuses on the numerous déclarations of First Nations that emphasize their relationship to the Creator as the foundation of their ancestral rights. Unless the collective religious imagination of both parties, Christian and Aboriginal, are examined they will continue to inspire conflicts that oppose not only Aboriginal Peoples and governments in Canada and Québec but also drive Christian and Traditionalists against each other within Aboriginal Communities.

Rock Paintings and Offerings: Recent Research in Ontario’s Rock Art

Serge Lemaitre and Valérie Decart

Following the authors’ participation in several archaeological field surveys conducted by Daniel Arsenault, grants allowed the authors to develop their own project on the rock paintings of Eastern Ontario. This project provided the opportunity to record and study seventy-five rock art sites during four expeditions, for a total of twenty-five weeks. In this paper, the authors present the findings of this research. Besides several panels which have escaped previous notice, three rock art sites were discovered. The authors then look at two untypical sites given their location and conclude with the finding of a type of offering hitherto unrecorded and of which is given a brief synthesis of its importance in the Algonquian context.

Other articles

The Kaapehpeshapischinikanuuch (EiGf-2) Site: Results of a Multidisciplinary Analysis of a Unique Rock-Art Site in the Nemiscau Lake Region

Pascale Vaillancourt

In 1997, the authentication by a PETRARQ field party of the EiGf-2 pictograph site, called Kaapehpeshapischinikanuuch by the Cree people, has led to the formulation of a fullscale study project of this major site located in the northwestern section of Nemiscau Lake, in the Eastern James Bay area. This unique rock art site with its red ochre lines is the only one of its kind known to the scientific community in Québec Cree territory north of the 45^o parallel. Because of its extent and pictorial content it constitutes the second most important pictograph site in Québec.

Based upon the author’s M.A. thesis, this paper provides a general survey and a comparative interpretation of the site’s pictorial content as well as a discussion of its environmental setting and cultural context. Such an approach may lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon of rock art in Algonquian culture, and specifically Cree culture, during prehistoric and historic times, and thus contribute to the scientific development of rock art archaeology within the Canadian Shield.

The Reduction of Sillery, 1638 to 1660: A Model for the Indian Reserves

Rémi Savard

Almost thirty years after the founding of Québec City, the Jesuits turned their attention to the sedentarization of Indian families living in the immediate vicinity of the colonial settlement. A reading of the Jesuit Relations from 1635 to 1640 suggests that the priests’ objectives, as well as the methods used to achieve those objectives, were not at all different from those that inspired, two centuries later, the Canadian policy of corralling these families into ‘reserves’ not meant to last more than ten to fifteen years.

Transcategorial Adoption of Native American Children in the United States and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978

Olivier Richomme

In the U.S., the emphasis is put on the “ethno-racial” identity of adoptive parents and adopted children. In 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act aimed at restricting the adoption of “Native American” children by the “white” population. This debate about the Indian Child Welfare Act and “transcategory” adoption contributes discretely, but actively, to the legal and political construction of minority identity and highlights the complexity and paradoxes of the American antiracist discourse.

2008 (volume XXXVIII) n°1 – Relations durables : autochtones, territoires et developpement

Garden at the End of the World: Land, Litterature and Landscape in James Bay
Caroline Desbiens

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Bill 101 in 1997, the Québec Commission de toponymie proposed to mark the event with a « geographical poem. » In an effort to bring together the real and imagined territory of the province, the project endeavoured to name 101 scattered islands in the Caniapiscau reservoir after literary works by French-speaking Québécois authors. The Crees strongly opposed this project, reminding the Commission of two important facts : first, that these islands had been mountains before water filled the reservoirs created by Hydro-Québec; second, that this same territory had previously been named by the different hunting groups that had exploited the area. The conflict surrounding the geographical poems provides us with an important lens for studying the cultural stakes of resource exploitation and economic development by offering a glimpse of the symbolic anchors of the Cree and Québécois cultures in Northern Quebec. Indeed, the recent signing of a « nation-to-Nation » agreement forces us to define the content of the national identities that come into contact in this space which some refer to as Eeyou Istchee and other as James Bay. Against this background, this article explores how cultures symbolically appropriate their territory and insists on the importance of this cultural geography for the equitable exploitation of resources.

Roads as Development? Indigenous peoples, Transport Infrastructures and Government Decisions in the Montaña Region of Guerrero (Mexico)
Martin Hébert and Manon Ruel

The building of a road, by the Mexican government, in one of the poorest indigenous regions of the country has raised important debates in the mountain region of Guerrero. Despite obvious economic necessities, a number of indigenous communities touched by the new construction express doubts about the real impacts that the new road will have on the region. This article argues that these doubts, as well as important limits to potential advantages coming from the new infrastructure, are intimately tied to the fact that a number of decisions relative to the objectives and evaluation criteria for the Tlapa-Marquelia road have been disconnected from the field of the political, and especially from local political aspirations, and inscribed in the field of the technical. By that process, the complex history that underlies the elaboration of a transport grid in the region has been evacuated from debates and replaced by a number of simple, standardized indicators purporting to “measure” marginality and to offer a framework to understand and correct it. After a review of the objectives that have driven the project to build such a road during different period, the authors will address, in context, the criticisms that indigenous people have toward the new construction. Finally, the tension between the technical and the political, as they relate to infrastructure planning and sustainable development in an indigenous region, will be addressed.

Native Peoples and Economic Partnership in Québec, 1867-1960
Claude Gélinas

This paper intends to demonstrate that the current joint projects in economic development between Native peoples and the Québec society are not as original as they are often presented. In a historical perspective, they are only the last manifestation of a pattern of collaboration which goes back to the early days of the contact and was only interrupted for a short period following the Great Depression. First, the form of Native participation in the Québec economy until the 1920’s will be presented, followed by a discussion about the impact of the Great Depression on the different Native economies in the province and about the factors responsible for the subsequent economic marginalization of the province’s Native peoples.

From Tangible to the Intangible: Canadian Shield Rock-Art and Land Reappropriation among the Algonquian Communities
Daniel Arsenault

The studying of the aboriginal rock-art sites in the Canadian Shield is multi-faceted , including not only how, when and by whom they have been produced but also what meaning they could have had in the past. Various types of data are used, the ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources, the oral traditions and personal accounts from eye-witnesses as well as approaches, pertaining to archaeology, archaeometry and visual semiotics. All together, these sources help researchers derive better insights into the meaning of a rock-art site.The author intends to explore some new ideas about how to reveal the intangible dimensions of rock-art, an endeavour which in many cases has also been useful for First Nations representatives in their quest to increase their sense of ancestral belonging to the land.

The Incorporation of the Huron Reserve in the Urban Space of Quebec City: Influences Due to Wendake’s proximity
Katia Iankova

This article analyzes certain aspects of the urban situation of Wendake as it relates to the socio-economic development of this Huron community, located in the periphery of Quebec City. The proximity of the provincial capital plays a positive role in the economic development of Wendake and ensures it a central political position vis-à-vis the Indigenous Nations of Quebec. The urbanization of the area surrounding Quebec City gradually enveloped Wendake in this process of mixing cultures. The character of the Reserve’s development also reflects a particular evolution and an amalgam of the Amerindian and European cultures. As a reserve at the cross-roads of cultures and of modernity and tradition, Wendake today is a young and dynamic community.

2007 (volume XXXVII) n°2-3 - Métissitude

Names and Metaphors in Métis Historiography: Old Categories and nouvelles eclaircies
Jennifer S. H. Brown

This paper looks at some issues surrounding names applied to people of mixed descent, and at the history of these terms as employed by different groups, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, over time. The words in themselves are revealing of varied and changing perceptions of metis peoples and their situations and characteristics. The vocabularies of metissage will continue to evolve and to be subjects of discussion, as new historical dimensions of the subject come to light.

Responses to Cross-Cultural Influences Among Natives of Southern Québec, 1867-1960
Claude Gélinas

It is well known that due to nationalistic and identity concerns, Quebec’s intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century largely neglected the cultural exchanges between the province’s Native peoples and the Europeans since contact. Less known is the fact that some Natives did the same. Reacting to the assimilation policy of the federal government which threatened their political autonomy and their identity, the latter opted for a policy of cultural protection and affirmation which included a downplaying of the European cultural influences. We will illustrate this reality through an analysis of the efforts made by some communities to counteract the federal government’s interference in their local affairs as well as the loss of protected land.

Métis Ethnogenesis in the James Bay Region of Ontario and Québec
Gwen Reimer et Jean-Philippe Chartrand

This article presents preliminary findings of a comparative analysis of Métis ethnogenesis and historical Métis community development in the southern and eastern James Bay regions of Ontario and Québec. The authors present a synthesis of criteria for Métis ethnogenesis as originally defined by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Powley (2003) and as interpreted in more recent legal judgements. Fur trade records document patterns of Aboriginal-European marriage and mixed-ancestry beginning in the mid-late 18thcentury, at three interconnected posts: Moose Factory (Moosonee), Rupert House (Waskaganish) and Eastmain House. Historical evidence of ‘self-ascribed’ and ‘other-ascribed’ mixed-ancestry identity, mixed-ancestry endogamy and residential proximity by several generations of mixed-ancestry families, suggests that the smaller populations at posts in Québec may represent regional extensions of the Métis core community at Moose Factory.

Métis Cultural Heritage in Central Labrador
Yves Labrèche et John C. Kennedy

Published sources, unpublished reports, excerpts from the oral tradition as well as archival documents are used to depict selected aspects of interethnic relations and the history of Labrador Métis communities. Composed of individuals having both European and Aboriginal ancestors, these Métis communities developed on the coast as well as in the hinterland. Following a brief historical overview of land use and occupancy as well as population figures by ethnic groups, terms and labels used in historical documents to identify Labrador groups of mixed ancestry will be explained. The following sections will deal more specifically with the central Labrador region including the Melville Lake area and the Churchill River watershed where the continuity in land use and occupancy is demonstrated through an examination of family names present in inventories from different historical periods and based on independent data sources. Finally, material, linguistic as well as symbolic traits are used to define a Métis society and/or culture distinct from its European and Aboriginal predecessors but from which it originated.

Euro-Inuit Intermarriage in the South Labrador Sub-cultural Area
Paul Charest

The cultural sub-area of South Labrador includes the two sub-regions of Southern Labrador and the Straits of Belle Isle in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and that of the Lower North Shore in the Province of Québec. The three of them share in common a large number of cultural characteristics, among others : the origin of the population; a bilocal residence pattern and the practice of transhumance; an annual cycle of many economic activities such as fishing, hunting, trapping, wood cutting, etc; and a technology with many elements borrowed from Native people like the dogsled and the snowshoe. But the most important is their biological and cultural Euro-Inuit heritage that has been hidden in the past for fear of racist stigmatisation. In the last two decades, however, there has been an appreciation of the aboriginal heritage due to the publication of the review ‘Them Days’ and by the political activities of the Labrador Metis Association (now Labrador Metis Nation) and of the Alliance autochtone du Québec which are promoting the rights of the Euro-Inuit Métis of Labrador and Québec.

The Study of Métis Languages and the Programs of Michif Revitalization: An Update
Denis Gagnon et Suzanne Gagné

In June of 1998, Canadian Heritage initiated the Aboriginal Languages Initiative program with a 20 million dollar budget over a period of four years. In 2002, this project was renewed through the management of the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, with an increased budget of 160 million dollars over five years and Aboriginal organizations accepted that 10 % of these two budgets be used for the revitalization of the michif language. As language plays an important role in Métis identity, this article presents an update on Métis languages as well as the results of michif language revitalization programs established by the federal government and Métis organizations.

Métis Aboriginal Rights and Effective European Control Over Québec's Territory
Geneviève Motard

In R. v. Powley, for the first time in legal history, the Supreme Court of Canada recognizes the aboriginal right of a Métis community to exercise their traditional practices. In this case, the legal conditions of the Métis’ constitutional rights are set forth. The claimant must demonstrate 1) being a member of a Métis community that existed prior to the effective control of Europeans and 2) prove that, at that time, the Métis community was engaged in traditional practices and continues to exercise them as an integral part of its culture. This article proposes a general portrait of the criteria of European effective control over Métis communities and lands and, a review of the Canadian case law in this matter.

Beyond Powley: The Territorial and Identity Horizons of the Métis
Étienne Rivard

The Supreme Court of Canada’s Powley decision is often depicted exclusively as a legal finality. Although this decision offers a long expected precision as to the Constitution’s intentions in Section 35 and legal definition of the Métis, it can also be conceived of as simply a socio-legal chapter of a book on the Canadian Métis identity and territory. As I shall argue here, the Powley decision provides a historical and contemporary definition of “Métis communities” that is both specific and broad. On the one hand, the decision establishes criteria which are somewhat specific but may compromise, if narrowly interpreted, the legal recognition of many Métis communities across the country. On the other hand, there are many “grey areas” in the decision, that is elements that remain vaguely defined and leave room to interpretation. Relying on the Métis experience of their history, identity and territory, I discuss what is at stake with regards to the specific criteria, and I propose a generous interpretation of the “grey areas.” The notions of “margin”, “limit” and “borders” as well as the different dimensions of the Métis identity and territorial “horizons” compose this paper’s theoretical and conceptual framework.

A few Thoughts on the Aftermaths of 1492 and 1982
Denis Vaugeois

The microbial shock of the Indians in the face of their great vulnerability to diseases, of which smallpox was the most dreadful, is well known but usually underestimated and here reflected upon by the author. Nations disappeared; many groups were reconstituted while, at the same time, interracial groups appeared and developed rapidly. This factor was also largely underestimated. Finally, the author underlines the options that have been made available to Metis for ages: become White, assert themselves as Metis or assimilate into an Indian community. He begins his observations with the 1492 encounter and ends his analysis with the 1982 Constitutional Act.

Native American Higher Education in The United States and Canada: The Long Path Towards Self-Determination
Guy Clermont

After several failed attempts to educate an indigenous elite in the first decades of the European colonisation of North America, Indian higher education was totally neglected by the respective government authorities of the United States and Canada. The policy of assimilation from the bottom end of the society which was then adopted did not make it possible for an educated class to emerge in spite of the efforts and expectations of several tribes and missionaries. The doors of the universities finally opened to the growing numbers of Indian youth in the 1970s with the creation of several tribally controlled colleges and the offering of Native Studies programs in the mainstream universities. Today, among pressing calls for effective Indian self-determination, there are debates about the place and content that these programs should have in North American institutions of higher learning. The objective of this article is to set this debate in the context of the development of Native American higher education in North America from the colonial period until today.

Composer avec un système imposé : la tradition et le conseil de bande à Manawan
Anny Morissette

Cet article s’intéresse à la politique locale autochtone et il vise à établir l’implication sociale à long terme de l’imposition du conseil de bande sur la bande traditionnelle. À l’aide de l’exemple de la communauté atikamekw de Manawan (Québec), l’auteure propose qu’il existe un « art de faire politique » permettant ainsi une réappropriation autochtone de la politique officielle au niveau local. Malgré la nouvelle façon de faire la politique atikamekw et l’appareil politique formel, existe-t-il une continuité de la bande traditionnelle et du rôle de chef ? Nul doute que la bureaucratisation de chaque aspect de la vie autochtone (politique, santé, éducation, etc.) fait désormais appel à de nouvelles compétences dans des nouveaux champs d’action. Mais des figures d’autorité issues de l’organisation sociopolitique subsistent toujours à Manawan. Elles tentent, par la tradition, de guider les Atikamekw dans le contexte institutionnalisé des réserves et des revendications territoriales avec les instances gouvernementales.

2007 (volume XXXVII) no. 1 – La commission royale sur les peuples autochtones

Policy to go : The effects of Commissions of Inquiry on Public Philosophy and Indian Policy in Canada, 1828-1996

Michel Lavoie

This article shows, over time, the reach of Canadian commissions of inquiry on the definition of the Indian question, the construction of public philosophy, and on the elaboration of Indian policy. The first part of the article shows how, under the British colonial regime, from 1828 to 1858, six commissions of inquiry contributed to: standardizing the policies of civilizing the Indians in both Upper and Lower Canada; organizing the emancipation process and, justifying the assimilation project by showing the greatness of the British civilization. With the help of six commissions of inquiry, from 1946 to 1996, the second part shows how the assimilation project was transformed into a citizenship project. From wards the Indians became historical victims, the distinction justified by multiculturalism, and British intransigence was replaced by a greater Canadian tolerance. In summary, the article shows that it is a fallacy to believe that commission of inquiry reports only accumulate dust in somewhat obscure library shelves. To the contrary, commissions have far reaching vision and help to debunk and replace paradigms. In short, commissions construct the institutional and collective memories.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (1991-1996), or The Long Journey of Aboriginal Peoples Towards the Recognition of Their Rights

Richard Boivin and René Morin

This article considers the impact of the work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples on the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, in particular with respect to the framing and definition of Aboriginal rights, the issue of self-government, and the reconciliation of Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. Even if its impact thus far has been fairly limited, the Royal Commission has been responsible for a large number of legal, political, economic and social reports or studies that will no doubt endure as important sources of information, reference and judicial inspiration. Adopting a historical perspective, the authors argue that the Royal Commission can be considered an important step in a long journey undertaken by Aboriginal peoples towards the recognition of their rights, dating back to the work of the Bagot Commission of the 1840’s and the landmark decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada beginning in the early 1970’s.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and Justice

Renée Dupuis

This article will show how much the complexity of the Canadian justice domain, both from the point of view of constitutional competency and the substantial evolution of aboriginal peoples rights within the twentieth century Canadian justice system, has drawn its inspiration from the diversity of measures recommended by the Commission in this particular realm. The author also examines how the Royal Commission recommendations are aimed firstly at political actors and, in fact, at a multitude of actors from every level of government, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, while remaining not too distant from the judiciary forum. Finally, the author analyses a justice question on which the Commission was particularly interested: the treaties, not only with respect to the historical treaties but as a central element of the necessary redefinition in the relationship with the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.

Gathering Strength or Just More Welfare? The Socio-Economic Situation of First Nations Before and Since the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

Hugh Shewell

This paper examines various economic policies, programs and strategies implemented by the federal government both before and after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The paper also explores the relationship of on-reserve social assistance policy to economic development. The author argues that federal economic development and self-government policies operate in conflict so that neither is especially successful. While there are examples of successful First Nations communities overwhelmingly the majority continue to exist at the extreme margins of Canada’s prosperity. Ten years following the report, the recommendations of the Royal Commission – while having spurred greater dialogue among First Nations, the federal and provincial governments – have not yet had a significant impact on the economic and social outcomes on hundreds of the reserves.

Integration of the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples’ Recommendations in Canada’s Federal Aboriginal Policies

Jean-François Savard

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples’ final report mainly recommended to the federal government to implement a vast renewal project of Aboriginals and Canadian relations. Two reasons explain why the federal government has never been able to implement such a project. First, RCAP recommendations were in discordance with the economic and political contexts of 1996, which prevented them from gaining the support of the decision-makers. Secondly, Aboriginal critiques towards RCAP’s final report convinced the federal government that a renewal project was not politically clever. The federal government developed instead, between 1996 and 2005, an alternative approach to implementing the RCAP recommendations, designated in this article as a strategy of parallels.

Measuring In-Betweenness: the Royal Commission’s Perspectives on the Métis

Étienne Rivard

On September 19, 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) unanimously put an end to a ten-year legal battle by ruling in favour of the Sault Ste Marie Métis’ harvesting rights (R. c. Powley, 2003). This legal decision constitutes the first concrete recognition of the Métis rights since their official entrenchment in the 1982 Constitution. It also profoundly challenges the image Canadians have of the Métis reality. The SCC decision suggests that the Euro-Indian métissage and Métis ethnogenesis were much more than “socio-cultural anomalies” that emerged from a very specific historical and spatial context – the 19th century Nord-Ouest for instance – but were rather recurrent facts of Canadian history and geography. It appears that the decision’s argument and perspectives largely derive from the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996). It is then this paper’s objective to measure the impact of the report of the Commission by confronting its major conclusions with the contemporary (identity, territorial, political or legal) discourses about Métis realities as produced by both Métis and Canadian societies. Overall, it is argued, the report considerably broadens the identity and geographical spheres upon which relies our traditional image of the Métis, and, as revealed by the “approche commune”, it opens new perspectives as to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relationships.

2006 (volume XXXVI) n° 2-3 – Les premières nations et la forêt

"If They Can Do It, Why Not Us?": The Quest of the Atikamekw of Wemotaci to Establish Their Role in Forestry in Nitaskinan
Stephen Wyatt

Recent years have seen First Nations taking an ever greater role in Canadian forestry, but options for participation do not always respond to aboriginal demands. The dilemmas faced by many Nations are illustrated in Wemotaci, an Atikamekw community which has established four different organisations over the last twenty years in order to define their place in forestry. Successes and progress are balanced with failures and obstacles. These experiences suggest six clues that that may help to define an "Atikamekw forestry": recognising Atikamekw occupation and use of the land, sharing economic and employment benefits of forestry, increasing Atikamekw control over management, reviving traditional management systems, accepting different visions of the forest, and encouraging the evolution of Atikamekw and industrial positions. Decisions concerning aboriginal participation in forestry are not just technical or economic questions about forestry practices; they reflect the political issue of who manages forests.

Taking into Consideration Waswanipi Cree Knowledge about Moose to Improve Forest Management on their Hunting Grounds
Hugo Jacqmain, Solange Nadeau, Louis Bélanger, Réhaume Courtois, Luc Bouthillier et Christian Dussault

With the aim of harmonizing forestry practices with the Cree way of life, this article proposes an integration of Cree and scientific knowledge to reach a convergence point between the two perspectives and propose better socio-ecologically adapted management strategies. In this first part of the study, interviews were conducted with Cree hunters regarding moose habitat and the impacts of forestry practices. Their needs and their knowledge about this particular species were analysed according to scientific criteria. Overall, the information provided by Cree hunters agrees with scientific knowledge on moose. However, there are also discrepancies with regards to some fundamental elements. The second part of the integrative study will therefore focus on these discrepancies in order to improve the scientific knowledge of moose for this northern habitat. Subsequently, we will integrate the two knowledge systems based on a common ecosystem approach and propose a more acceptable forestry for the territory of the Cree, Eeyou Astchee.

From Consultation to Social Justice: Communicating Native Forest Ethics at the xii th World Forestry Congress
Martin Hébert

Combining ethnography and discourse analysis, the present article analyses the production process of supposedly « consensual » statements at the 2003 World Forestry Congress. More specifically, it outlines the modalities by which aboriginal positions were, or were not, taken into account in the formulation of normative statements such as those made concerning the global management of forest resources. Using the concept of forest ethics, the author concentrates on evaluating the level of diffusion of aboriginal ethics in this context. Secondly, we look at the evaluation of this diffusion as it is formulated by the aboriginal actors themselves. It appears, in the wake of this study, that even if significant and fundamental differences exist between the aboriginal forest ethics voiced at this event and the "consensual" positions that have emerged from the congress as a whole, the very experience of formulating such a normative discourse in a formalised setting has had some positive impact on the aboriginal participants, even if they have had the feeling of being more or less heard by the non-aboriginal actors.

Bridging Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Science in Sustainable Forest Management : The Case of the Clayoquot Scientific Panel
David Lertzman

First Nations Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western science represent potentially complementary traditions informing ecosystem-based forest management. While overlap exists, these traditions comprise distinct knowledge systems incorporating different ways of knowing. One challenge for bridging TEK and Western science is that most scientific practitioners are unfamiliar with the philosophy on which TEK is based and are not trained in their methods. I propose that TEK-Systems refers to social relations and institutions (social capital), founded upon philosophical beliefs and cultural teachings (cultural capital), mediated by practices and protocols (methods) of oral tradition. An epistemological analysis of the divergence and convergence between TEKS and Western science is then presented. These ideas are applied to a case study in Canada's coastal temperate rainforest: the Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound. Comprised of Nuu-Chah-Nulth elders and forest scientists, the Panel achieved a full consensus on sustainable forest practices drawing equally on TEK and Western science in one of Canada's most intense environmental conflicts. Analysis indicates that ecosystems provide shared conceptual terrain for bridging TEKS and Western science. Bridging TEKS and Western science enhances ecosystem-based models of forest management. Special skills of cross-cultural communication along with bi-cultural standards are required for such work

Aboriginal Involvement in Ontario Sustainable Forest Management: Moving Towards Collaboration
Deborah McGregor

Aboriginal participation in environmental decision-making is increasingly recognized as vital to greater sustainability, both globally and locally. This is true in many areas of resource management, including Canada's forest industry. In Ontario, increased consideration of Aboriginal issues in forest and resource management is long overdue, given the province's history of excluding Native people from forestry. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), along with various industry and First Nations representatives from around the province, is taking a lead role in improving Aboriginal involvement in forest management. Such involvement now constitutes a significant component of Ontario's forest management planning system. The potential benefits of the new system are great, and include increased cooperation among government, industry and First Nations in moving towards the common goal of sustainable forest management. This paper highlights ways in which gains are being achieved in this area. Examples discussed include the influence of Canada's National Forest Strategy, particularly its 'Theme Three: Rights and Participation of Aboriginal People', on forest management planning in Ontario. Also presented is a summary of OMNR's evolving Aboriginal involvement component of its Forest Management Planning Manual. Finally, the Anishinabek/Ontario Resource Management Council is highlighted as a case example of collaboration between OMNR and First Nations in Ontario and a potential model for achieving cooperation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples around resource management.

The Forest Economy of the Little Red River Cree Nation: Prioritizing Formal and Informal Modes of Forest Production
David Natcher

With over 600 Aboriginal communities located in Canada's boreal and temperate forest regions, participation in the forest sector is seen by some as being the single greatest opportunity for Aboriginal communities to become economically self-reliant. Despite this opportunity, Aboriginal peoples continue to suffer disproportionately in their access to forest industry jobs and training. Based on research involving the Little Red River Cree First Nation (LRRCN) of Alberta, this paper identifies some of the causal factors that are keeping LRRCN members from participating more fully in the forest industry. By way of conclusion it is argued that despite the efforts made by government and the forest industry, the involvement of LRRCN members in conventional commercial forestry will continue to be limited due to the marginal social value that LRRCN members apply to forest sector employment and their continued prioritization of informal modes of forest production.

Between the Sea and the Forest: The Management of Plant Resources by the Garifunas of Northeastern Honduras in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Pierre Beaucage

This paper tries to demonstrate the interest of adopting a political ecology approach in order to understand the dynamic relationships between a given group and its forest environment. From a synchronic study carried out by the author in the sixties, one could draw an impression of equilibrium : female and male labour seemed to complement each other in remarkable fashion producing a balanced, sustainable exploitation of the resources of the sea, as well as those of the forest, where swidden agriculture, hunting and gathering took place. However, a closer examination reveals that the way that   Garifuna society articulated with the extractive capitalism which prevailed on the coast made it especially vulnerable to the ups and downs of the latter. Today, it is the tropical forest itself which is disappearing, as the Garifuna swiddens yield to the Ladinos' extensive pastures.

The Politics of Sustainable Natural Resource Management in the Maya Zone of Quintana Roo, Mexico
Joëlle Gauvin-Racine

Borrowing insights from the anthropology of development, political ecology, and the studies of governance as developed by Michel Foucault, this paper analyzes the ways in which power relations are being changed by the implementation of community-based natural resource management programs in the Maya Zone of Quintana Roo, Mexico. By examining projects of "sustainable use of natural resources" implemented by NGO's in Mayan communities, we highlight the limits of this approach as a means to increase rural communities' control over their resources and as a way to reduce inequalities. This analysis also shows how the norms related to sustainability contribute to the intensification of governmental control over the communities' resources and activities.

Coveted Land, Land of Conflict: Conservation and Development in the Lacandón Forest of Chiapas
Manon Lévesque

From the 1970s to the 1990s, various measures were put into place to protect the Lacandón forest, one of the richest areas in terms of biodiversity in Mexico. The examination of the processes that led to the creation of protected areas in this region reveals that, on the whole, the government's politics and programs never ceased to give priority to economic development at the expense of conservation. In those cases where local populations were taken into consideration in the conservation initiatives, they could only occupy roles at the margins of decision-making organisations. The creation of protected areas appears to be a way in which the State has secured its control over the Lacandón forest's abundant natural resources.

2006 (volume XXXVI) n° 1 – Lieux coutumiers, identité et tourisme

Aboriginal Occupation in Témiscamingue: The example of Fort-Témiscamingue-Obadjiwan National Historic Site of Canada, a Multi-millenium Presence
Marc Côté

Fort-Témiscamingue-Obadjiwan National Historic Site of Canada (FTONHSC) was the scene of trade exchanges between Algonquins occupying the shores of Lake Témiscamingue and French, English and Scottish merchants operating trading posts in that area. On the first days of the excavations evidence of occupations prior to the Historic period began to appear, thus supplementing what had already been documented. This article presents the study of 5,600 ceramic, lithic and ecofactual items dating before to the settlement of the first French merchants at the site. Those objects were abandoned by the Algonquian populations who have occupied Obadjiwan iteratively but episodically for 6,000 years.

Daily Practice and Ritual at the CjEd-5 Site, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Québec
Adrian L. Burke

The CjEd-5 site is located on the Madawaska River, in the region of Témiscouata, Bas-Saint-Laurent, close to the New Brunswick border. This small site was reoccupied several times by hunter-fisher-gatherers during the Middle and Late Woodland periods and up to the Contact period. During one of these occupations, the group found it necessary or appropriate to renew their ancestral traditions by practicing a ritual. The ritual in question was found during the 2004 excavations of the site and includes a feast of beaver along with an offering of sacrificed Ramah quartzite bifaces. These bifaces were intentionally broken and burned in a hearth along with the remains of the feast. The feature and the ritual associated with it are compared to similar ritual features in the Northeast.

The Logic of Connection in the Art of Quillwork of the Amerindians of the Prairies
Marie Goyon

From a reflection on the art of porcupine quillwork in the Canadian Plains, the author proposes to highlight a logic of the bond at work in this art. She looks at the symbolic system and the practice of the embroidery through the role of the quillworkers, as producers and links between the generations tying together, the categories of living and the train of thought. The purpose is to highlight a dynamic prospect for the tradition as well as for the roles of the artists as creators and negotiators of the social and cosmogonal representations within a given culture.

Ethnogenesis Studies in Canada: Issues and Research Horizons for Québec
Louis-Pascal Rousseau

The history of the North American continent is characterized, genealogically and culturally by the intermixture of its colonial, Amerindian and Inuit populations. This intermixture led to great transformations of all of these populations, and also, in some cases, to the emergence of new communities (that is to say, communities of mixed European and Aboriginal ancestry that considered themselves to be distinct from their European and Indian or Inuit forebears). Studies on ethnogenesis that took root in Canada about 25 years ago seek to understand the processes by which these communities came into being. They try to explain how there arose specific groups of individuals of mixed ancestries with a culture and identity that set them apart from their parents. This article explains how the theoretical and methodological fundamentals of these studies have evolved, from their very beginnings until the present time, particularly with regard s to the challenges they face in Québec in their implementation and development.

Ideology, symbolism and gender relations in the construction of the person among the Chacobo
Lorena Córdoba

Among the Chacobo (Panoans of the Bolivian Amazon), being female is not a purely "natural" or "physiological" state which is defined once and for all. A human being becomes a woman only through progressive stages of social modelling and construction of the Self. This article analyzes the general representations and practices which constitute "humanity" and the "person" among the Chacobo. In the particular case of women, it examines the ideas and values associated with the female gender in the conceptualization of gestation and procreation, as well as in mythical representations of sexuality, ritual restrictions during pregnancy and couvade, female initiation, the sexual division of labour, the ideology of gender relations, and some of the fundamental principles of social organisation.

Tourism and the Economic Development of Québec Aboriginal Communities
Katia Iankova

This article presents an overview of tourism development in Québec aboriginal communities. Our analysis shows the specific characteristics of tourism as an industry along with the opportunities, the advantages and the restrictions that is offers for economic development. While tourism cannot resolve all economic problems, it is an attractive option for the diversification of aboriginal economies and for the promotion of aboriginal culture.

2005 (volume XXXV) n°3 – Jeunes autochtones (incluant DVD)

Are Young Algonkins Bicultural? Models of Transmission and Innovation in some Algonkin Reserves
Marie-Pierre Bousquet

Young people from First Nations are often portrayed as caught "between two worlds", justifying the image projected upon them as "problem" individuals. But can they really be considered bi-cultural ? In this article, the importance of spatial, legal and generational representations in defining the cultural identity of Algonkins born after 1970 is explored. A transitional generation, that of their parents - who lived through the changes brought about by residential schools, sedentarisation and the creation of new models - mediates between young Algonkins and the elders, who lived a semi-nomadic life. The universe of the reserve, their source of reference , is invested with meaning by young people as they innovate to "make the culture evolve". In their own way they are striving to create a modern Algonkin culture but the Indian Act creates tensions that reinforce the illusion of a bipartite division of their world.

Music, tradition and the identity route of young Atikamekw - The evoking of cultural processes through the Tewehikan
Laurent Jérôme

Through the experience of a drumming group of the Atikamekw community of Wemotaci, I show in this article how young aboriginal people are negotiating social and cultural transformation in a changing context. The contemporary drum practice reveals these cultural transformations carried by and for the youth ; the drum, as a cultural element valued in numerous communities, is part of a larger process of eliciting cultural forms that emerged in Wemotaci during the 1980's. Today, drumming reflects not only a cultural responsibility, but also a professional responsibility intervening in the drummer 's experience and interpretation of what it means to be young and Atikamekw today. Musical arrangements, market laws, necessity to fulfill contracts, negotiations and conciliations bound to the professionalization of the drumming practice are now part of the drumming experience, together with local knowledge.

Popular Innu Songs and Music: Context, Meaning and Power in Young Innu Social Experiences
Véronique Audet

This article presents popular Innu musical expressions as voices that serve to reaffirm Innu identity and revitalize Innu society and culture. These songs in the Innu language are inspired by various musical trends such as country, rock, folk and pop, as well as Innu, Pan-Indian, Christian and Quebecois traditions. They have been created, practiced and renewed since the second half of the twentieth century, accompanying the often radical events, movements and transformations that have marked Innu social and cultural life. Contemporary Innu youth, like their predecessors, are the primary conveyers of this expressive movement which they use to participate in the daily life of their communities, and reaffirm their identity, their experiences and their preoccupations, thus contributing to the revitalization of their world and the Innu "way of being". We present some of the singers, groups and songs that are representative of contemporary Innu musical expression and who have had a significant impact within their society. This provides a sensitive understanding of the context, the significance and the power of these expressions.

Political and Economic Hope Among Young Tzeltals and Tlapanecs of Mexico.
Martin Hébert

Using ethnographic data collected in Chiapas and Guerrero, this article aims to lay down some reference points for what could be termed an anthropology of wish-images among the indigenous peoples of Mexico. In a context of marked rural crisis and political mobilisations, it was observed that political and economic discourses of young adults living in indigenous communities were strongly influenced by the idea of a better "elsewhere" or a better "future". What is the shape of this complex social and political hope? How can economic and political aspirations that are sometimes both coherent and contradictory   work   in the process of mobilisation for collective action?

How to flirt with modernity to secure one's identity in a Manitoba Metis school
Thibault Martin et Brieg Capitaine

In 1994, a francophone school was established in the heart of the Métis community of St Laurent, Manitoba. The creation of the school institutionalized a pre-existing divide between the Francophone and Anglophone Métis populations. This article provides an analysis of the educational project developed by the Francophone Métis community. We will see that the project is a cultural and political enterprise, which aims both to preserve the traditional vernacular of the Métis, the Michif language, as well as to reclaim the community's capacity for self-determination. The pedagogical model of the project integrates elements of modern knowledge and traditional Aboriginal knowledge, and aims to strengthen social ties both between elders and youth and between the school and the larger community. The theoretical foundations of this model are part of a trend observable in a number of Aboriginal communities. However, the specific feature of the project is in the strategic alliance forged between the Métis and Franco-Manitoban communities and, beyond this alliance, in attempts at connecting the Métis with global francophone networks.

Being Young and Maori Today: University as a Site of (Re-)Affirmation and Coexistence
Natacha Gagné

The university constitutes an important site of (re-)affirmation for diverse Maori identities, where relationships among Maori and between Maori and non-Maori are negotiated and shaped. Higher education entails a direct confrontation between "two worlds", one Western and the other Maori. Many students experience the university as an alien location, as it is a place deemed non-Maori. However, this site can also be an opportunity for Maori students to meet other young Maori from all over New Zealand. Such encounters are exciting, but they can also be stressful or disappointing due to the prominent and highly politicised rhetoric about "real" in contrast to "false" Maori identities. In such a context, many are soon asked to justify their Maori-ness. The transition is thus not always easy. For those who decide to pursue their studies, however, their university years are considered determining ones, shaping their engagements as much in the Maori worlds as in society in general. Attending university is experienced by many as a turning point ;   it is a time of "discovery" and/or (re-)affirmation of their Maori identities. This is made possible through a variety of means including a particular attachment to distinctly Maori sites at the university.

Hopefulness is carried from the bush to the classroom: continuity and discontinuity in values between generations of Dene Tha
Jean-Guy A. Goulet et Kim Harvey-Trigoso

What does it mean today to be a young Dene Tha in northwestern Alberta? The authors attempt to answer this question on the basis of data gathered between 1979 and 1999. The authors note an important difference between children at the level of social values and behaviour patterns. A careful analysis of drawings, stories and behavior of Dene Tha children leads to one conclusion: the more a child of school age has already participated in traditional subsistance activities, hunting, fishing and gathering, the more likely his or her orienttion in life is based on collective values and the more he or she has a positive attitude   to life. The authors discuss these results in light of the contrasting epistemological and ethical principles that underlie Dene traditional education and the school's educational practices.

Perspectives on environmental education in indigenous contexts
Lucie Sauvé, Hélène Godmaire, Marie Saint-Arnaud, Renée Brunelle et Françoise Lathoud

How can the process of appropriating one's own living place, in relation with identity strengthening and reconstruction of social relations, be supported among young aboriginal people? This important question is examined here by the authors in the context of environmental education projects collaboratively developed with Innu (Labrador) and Algonquin (Abitibi-Témiscamingue) communities. How can formal education, previously a somewhat alienating experience, evolve in such a way as to contribute to the construction and expression of young aboriginal's identity and world view? How can it be transformed to enable the clarification of their expectations, concerns, needs and hopes? How can it legitimate and value their voices and contribute to their expression and recognition? Based on such questions, the authors first focus on a literature review and a study of educational proposals (programs, projects) related to the "environment" in indigenous contexts. Theoretical bases and pedagogical strategies are examined. Furthermore, researchers also reflect on their own educational experiences in indigenous communities. Such critical analyses help to highlight and confirm issues and constraints, but also opportunities and promising educational paths.

The role of relationality in self-(re)presentation of Innu youth from Uashat mak Mani-Utenam community
Karoline Truchon

This article presents the underlying principles of what the author call " the relational of the technique " . More than 30 young Innus from Uashat mak Mani-Utenam who participated in this project,   photographed and discussed positive aspects of their lives rather than putting emphasis on the negative ones. This result constrasts with the majority of images circulated by native and non-native adults about them in the public sphere in which they are victimised and appear to live a miserable life. It is suggested that for these youth the purpose of photography is not to fabricate photographs per se but rather to present the links with who and what they photograph. This rationale brings us to reflect on what could be the impacts of a quasi-total representation of commodified suffering about First Nations' youth. Could this lack of balance in representation of their daily lives forecast the internalisation of these negative portrayals and then contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy?

2005 (volume XXXV) n°2 – La culture matérielle

The Scalp: An Intercultural Object in the Colonial Context (1701-1763
Stéphanie Chaffray

During the first half of the eighteenth century, Amerindians and Europeans alike appropriated the scalp in very different manners. In Amerindian cultures, for instance, the scalp itself reflects an appropriation; by the very act of scalping, the warrior takes a part of the enemy's body and makes it his own. At the same time, this act is a symbolic appropriation because it is part of a ritual, which affords the object a spiritual value. European authors, by contrast, depict the scalp as a barbaric object that proves the savagery of indigenous peoples, thereby appropriating the object by transforming its meaning in their discourse. In buying scalps from Native allies as material proof of the death of their enemies, Europeans appropriate the object by giving it a monetary value. Finally, the French and the British learned how to scalp their enemies, and in collecting these objects, achieved a type of cultural appropriation as well.

Interactions between French Soldiers and Native Americans: the trade issue (1683-1763)
Arnaud Balvay

In 18 th century French Louisiana and the Upper Country, there were numerous and varied interactions between Native Peoples and French soldiers. This article studies the nature, role and realities of their material exchanges, using the several sources available (archival documents, printed works or archaeological reports). After having enumerated the different items traded and determined their use, the author examines how the trade was organized. The pre-eminent role of the officers is pointed out as well as the soldiers' more modest one. It is argued that there were many real interdependencies which modified everyone's habits and contributed to the solidarity existing between French soldiers and their Native neighbours.

The Peace Pipe a Medium for Contacts: the study and analysis of an Amerindian pipe
Jean-François Dumouchel

This article is about the Peace pipe, a pipe mainly used in the Mississippi and Plains areas and is of the period between the 16th and 18th centuries. The peace pipe is presented in its relation with tobacco and the various actors using it. The author identifies the various parts constituting the object, the bowl and the pipe stem. The object is also defined by its various functions: ratification, safe passage, trade and chief's pipe. After having considered the studies on the smoking complex undertaken by Von Gernet and Springer, the author refers to the Jesuit Relations and the early explorers' journals, written at the time of the exploration of the West, as well as the works of archaeologists, anthropologists and historians.

The Stuff of Dreams: Materials, objects, arts, and techniques in the practices of Indianophiles
Olivier Maligne

Very often, material culture is the means by which the other's culture is understood and easily appropriated and reinvented. The Indianophile phenomenon provides a perfect illustration of the emblematic value of objects from an "exotic" culture, and offers at the same time a unique opportunity for the study of the complex processes involved in any attempt to define and recreate a material culture. Indianophiles, passionate about North American Indian cultures, use their vast knowledge and specialized skills to recreate an "Indian universe" that is not only a mere representation, but a lived experience. The "Indian objects" they make and use are not collections bound to stay on a shelf. They are integrated into complex networks (both commercial and non commercial), and provide the basis for actualization, practises by which Indianophiles personally experience an Indian universe. Far from a narrow dichotomy between "authentic" and "forgery", the study of "Indianophily" sheds light on the social uses of identity-bearing objects, and the context-shifting phenomena on which these uses rely.

The Modernity of Tradition : Readings in Cultural Geometry from "Nous, les Premières Nations" in Musée de la civilisation, Québec City
Dessislav Sabev

This paper focuses on the spatial organization in the museum design of the permanent exhibition, "We, The First Nations". It aims to understand how the formal structure of the exhibition space creates different cultural narratives and how the visitor's point of view redefines these narratives. Here the author proposes a structural analysis of the exhibition through its geometrical forms : lines, circles and triangles. The circular form of the narrative is crossed by the linear geometric perspective which highlights the dynamic relations in western concepts such as the state, market, globalization and cyber space. The material objects occupancy of the exhibition space creates a particular meaning in the same way that the people's occupancy of a territory produces the community's ethnohistorical narrative. The understanding of this cultural geometry brings to light the political stakes today between the indigenous communities of Québec and the place of "tradition" and "modernity" in their identity politics.

Wampum Belts from Colonial Times to Today
Jonathan C. Lainey

By giving preference to French sources neglected in the historiography on wampums, the author presents various intercultural loans which emerged from the diplomatic procedures surrounding the exchange of wampums between French and Natives in the colonial period. Furthermore, he examines the state of knowledge on wampums in the current museum collections. Indeed, the wampums that one finds in Québec and other Canadian museums, generally, are not well documented. Several factors from the Victorian period would explain this silence. In particular, lack of documentation may be due to the retreat of the oral tradition which was connected to wampums, the loss of their political importance, as well as the interest of the numismatists for these objects in a particularly intense context of ethnological collection. In short, by raising two aspects about wampums previously overlooked in the literature, this article helps to clarify the various forms and new directions which wampums took according to those who acquired them with the passing of years.

Beads, Bodies, and Regimes of Value in France and North America (ca. 1500-1650)
Laurier Turgeon

This article focuses on the appropriation of French glass and shell beads by Amerindian groups in Northeastern North America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The aim of the study is to shed light on how regimes of value as "operators" of identity are constructed through intercultural exchange. The study emphasizes the use of the body as a site of exhibition and of cultural regeneration. The author's approach is to reconstruct the historical biographies of beads by documenting their uses in the culture of origin and by uncovering the new uses to which they were put by the receiving culture. He also compares the uses Amerindians made of beads in the late woodland (15th C.) and early historic contact periods (16th and 17th C.) to better evaluate the impact of contact on the receiving culture. It was during this period of first contact that the power relations were negotiated and the interaction was the most effectual. Two principal sources are used to illustrate the material aspects of this process: manuscript notarial records and printed travel accounts from France, and the archaeological collections derived from Amerindian contact sites.

Research Note
The Functions and Use of Wampum in Jesuit Chapels of New France 
Muriel Clair

A large body of literature exists on the wampum, a symbol of Northeastern Amerindian material culture. Anthropologists, ethnohistorians and traditional historians have demonstrated how these belts or necklaces characterized "interculturality" between Europeans and Native Peoples during the French colonial period. However, very few scholars have underlined the important role that wampums played in the embellishment of the mission chapels or within the villages of the Christian Native Peoples. Such documents reveal the existence of surprising heterogeneous chapel arrangements. These cultural and artistic placements combined liturgical furniture, paintings and engravings with Amerindian wampums. This paper analyzes the Amerindian contribution within Catholic shrines. In so doing, new dimensions of interaction between Native Peoples and Europeans are revealed, not only in terms of diplomatic or economic alliance but also in terms of cultural negotiation.

2005 (volume XXXV) n°1 – Cultures et réalités autochtones

A Critique of Liberal Democracy and Human Rights: The Indigenous Question
Dominique Legros

The essay indicates in which way Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer's democratic and open-minded liberalism 2 could partially accommodate the reproduction of Indigenous cultures within the Canadian federal nation-state. However, it also uses examples from a Canadian Indigenous tradition to illustrate how some key cultural traits which involve questions of divergent morality would not be readily accepted by liberalism 2. Thus, in this respect, even liberalism 2 constitutes a fetter for world cultural democracy. Finally, taking into account the culturally defined morality of liberal democracies, it indicates in which way human rights, which are presented as the bedrock of any democracy, are not culturally neutral and rest, in fact, on a univocal definition of the good life, which, in turn, leads to ethnocentrism.

Ten Years of Struggle for Indian Autonomy in Mexico, 1994-2004
Marie-José Nadal

This article presents the ideological trends in the Mexican Indian movement and more specifically, the contribution of the Zapatista movement to the question of autonomy and self determination of the indigenous peoples. The Zapatistas have introduced a new way to consider the Indian question: the joining of the indigenous peoples' struggle to the national one which results in the seeking of alliances with other groups in the society. In this way, the Zapatistas inscribe the indigenous question within the reform of the State and seek to play an active role in the construction of a radical plural citizenry. However, the exercising of autonomy at a time of low intensity warfare shows that a radical pluralism, though affirmed in the discourse, is difficult to achieve.

The Nahua Myth of Sentiopil, the Corn-God-Child
Alfonso Reynoso et Taller de Tradición Oral

Inspired selectively by some elements of the Levi-Straussian structural analysis of myth, the authors interpret, in this articlem the myth of Sentiopil, the Corn-God-Child, of the Maseuals (Nahua Indian peasants from Cuetzalan, Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico). In this interpretation, the authors found that the myth contains a set of clue elements of the Maseuals' world view. On the one hand, the authors compare this set of elements, with similar elements of the conceptions of the ancient Aztecs and the ideas from other Nahua peoples from central Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the classical epoch). And, on the other hand, they compare these elements of the Maseuals' world view with similar Judeo-Christian conceptions from western Catholicism. The interpretation of the authors seems to find a close relationship between some fundamental conceptions of the myth studied with both traditions. These findings may contribute to the comprehension of the specific nature of the contemporary Maseuals' religion. The Maseuals' specific religion seems to be nurtured at the same time by elements of the Middle-American and the Catholic religious traditions in making a creative and logically integrated construction

Boundaries and Territories: Eastern Cree land Tenure in the Quebec/Ontario Border Region - II - Reconstruction and recovery
Colin Scott and James Morrison

In this second part of their article, the authors examine the consequences for the indigenous tenure system of administrative measures to rebuild beaver populations and to align the administration of fur trapping and trading with the fiscal as well as jurisdictional interests of provincial and federal governments. Cree hunters of the Hannah Bay/Harricana River drainage endured particular hardships, not only because Cree tenure institutions and practices conformed poorly to the administrative rigidities of government-registered traplines, but also because administrators attempted forced compliance with the artificial division of their customary territories along the provincial boundary. Through a process of resistance and situational strategizing, Crees were able to reproduce indigenous tenure practices, though not without significant compromise.

Policy of Representations: Bureaucratic Social Representations and Canadian Indian Education Policy, 1828-1996 (II)
Michel Lavoie

This article shows how social representations, elaborated by the federal government's bureaucracy, modeled and legitimized at the same time the ideology of Indians integration into the Canadian society, the education policy that prolongs it, and the education system that acts as the agent of change. In this second part, the author explains how, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the federal government modified its approach to facilitate the integration of upcoming generations of Indians by promoting the coming together of White and Indian children, while integrating the provincial school systems with the federal system dedicated to Indian children. At the end of the 1960s, the Canadian policy of multiculturalism largely influenced the Indian education policy. It became a matter of bringing education closer to Indian's realities, in the same way as for other Canadian cultural communities, in order to strengthen the Canadian political community. This education remained, however, immutably "monocultural". Lastly, the article shows that if the relations between Canadian Indians and the federal government have evolved in the form; they have remained quite the same in the content.

Three aspects of the coexistence of the Native and Canadian populations in Mauricie 1870-1910
Sylvie LeBel

Contacts between Atikamekw and Canadian settlers in Mauricie from 1870 to 1910 have not been studied thoroughly until now. These contacts had three important social and cultural consequences. First of all, they caused the cohabitation of the two groups in villages of the maurician frontier, as some Atikamekw may sometimes have lived there. Secondly, Canadian settlers working as employees in the trading posts often united with native women, resulting in the existence of a "métis" phenomenon. Thirdly, contacts with native people contributed to the differentiation of the settlers from the people living in the Saint-Laurent Valley. This paper shows the necessity of studying these phenomena, despite the difficulties of often using too vague sources and despite the fluidity of the métis concept in Eastern Canada.

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