American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Raymond DeMallie has challenged American Indian Studies (AIS) scholars to develop creative ways to incorporate kinship analysis into AIS research. This paper asserts contemporary kinship practices of Cowessess First Nation members continues to be guided by principles embedded in the Law of the People as expressed through stories of Elder Brother. Historically, on the northern Plains, individuals or groups of people could become members of a band in a variety of ways, but importantly these new members assumed kinship roles and responsibilities based on traditional customary kinship laws as conveyed in the Elder Brother stories. Responses of contemporary members to Bill C-31 amendment to the membership codes of the Canadian Indian Act and people who gained their federal Indian status reflects traditional kinship patterns as outline in the Elder Brother stories.

This paper discusses the use of Anishinaabe pedagogical techniques for teaching American Indian Studies at the college level. Nineteen elements of Anishinaabe pedagogy are first outlined and then explained. The explanation includes examples from Anishinaabe culture and how each particular element is applied in teaching American Indian Studies. The nineteen elements include: 1. Maintaining a sense of family; 2. Maintaining a sense of community; 3. Maintaining a sense of place, especially in seeing the land as a teacher; 4. Oral tradition; 5. Storytelling; 6. Relationships; 7. Balance; 8. Uniting past, present, and future, that is, acknowledging the past to imagine a better future to work toward in the present; 9. Remaining open to mystery; 10. Observation; 11. Visioning/creativity/imagination; 12. Preserving a positive self-identity; 13. Developing forgiveness; 14. Pragmatism; 15. Training to task mastery as opposed to grading level of task achievement; 16. Accretive thinking; 17. Recognition of the complex nature of truth; 18. Respect for people outside one’s culture; and 19. Humor. The piece ends with some general observations about the nature of American Indian pedagogy. It is argued the purpose of American Indian pedagogy is to enable individuals to best fulfill one’s mission in life. However, it is also important for individuals to direct their talents toward benefiting one’s family, community, and place. By the same token, communities need to encourage the development of individuals who know their mission in life so that the community as a whole can become strong. In this way, both healthy individuals and communities can be maintained.

Raymond DeMallie has challenged American Indian Studies (AIS) scholars to develop creative ways to incorporate kinship analysis into AIS research. This paper asserts contemporary kinship practices of Cowessess First Nation members continues to be guided by principles embedded in the Law of the People as expressed through stories of Elder Brother. Historically, on the northern Plains, individuals or groups of people could become members of a band in a variety of ways, but importantly these new members assumed kinship roles and responsibilities based on traditional customary kinship laws as conveyed in the Elder Brother stories. Responses of contemporary members to Bill C-31 amendment to the membership codes of the Canadian Indian Act and people who gained their federal Indian status reflects traditional kinship patterns as outline in the Elder Brother stories.

Cultural survival continues to be a critical concern for Indigenous peoples. An examination of the work by Cree Hip Hop artist Eekwol supports optimism that, not only does the struggle remain strong in youth’s consciousness, but also that youth are actively engaged in the effort by performing their cultural role and responsibility in their stage of life. The rhetorical analysis of the tracks “Too Sick” and “Apprentro” interprets the poet’s critical social commentary to be grounded in Cree values and experience. Contemporary innovation and adaptation, when they operate from an Indigenous cultural foundation as Eekwol’s example illustrates, can be seen to invigorate cultural vitality.

In 1977, Inuit representatives from Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Greenland gathered in Barrow, Alaska, for the inaugural meeting of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). In order to create a unified position from which to deal with southern administrations, they drafted a resolution that declared the “oneness of [their] culture, environment and land, and the wholeness of the homeland.” This assertion echoes earlier ethnographic accounts of Inuit intellectual culture, which likewise celebrate consistencies in storytelling traditions across the vastness of the Inuit homeland. Drawing on the recent theoretical work of the Indigenous literary nationalists, I argue that articulations of peoplehood are a central feature of classic and contemporary Inuit literature. Although nationalist literary history projects risk downplaying the diversity internal to the group and its literature, they also function strategically to draw attention to the presence, significance, and rhetorical sovereignty of under-recognized literary traditions. Specifically, this article considers stories of the now-extinct Tuniit, or Sivullirmiut (‘First People’)—a prominent feature of the Inuit oral tradition of the Central and Eastern Arctic. It places Rachel Qitsualik’s contemporary fictional account in dialogue with a sampling of classic stories in order to reveal the way in which such texts delineate a sense of Inuit nationhood—and open the door for an Inuit literary history.

Among the Haudenosaunee, the clan system is an ancient tradition of matrilineal descent that has maintained the social, political, economic, and spiritual cohesion of the people for centuries. Following the American Revolution and the relocation of large numbers of Haudenosaunee people from America's traditional homelands in what is now New York State, this system became disrupted. Much of the damage was enacted through nineteenth-century federal policies supporting the dispossession of territories, which imposed definitions of citizenship and leadership on the nations or tribes. As a result, many Haudenosaunee gradually lost a sense of who they are as a distinct people with relationships and responsibilities to each other that transcend the Canadian/American border, as well as their currently bounded reserve/reservation communities. Although it is important to enumerate these consequences, it is also critical to recognize that disruptive colonial frameworks continue to reside in a context in which the Haudenosaunee paradigms that anchor cultural, political, and land-based relationships have never been successfully effaced. Illuminating this continuity through the lens of a community-based clan research and education initiative at Six Nations of Grand River in Ontario, this article presents a fuller expression of the meaning of clans evidenced by attention to Haudenosaunee languages and translation and the cultural narratives comprising historic Haudenosaunee traditionalism. The following examination of grassroots and scholarly interventions, alongside contexts of displacement and relevance, corresponds with the concomitant pedagogical processes of reflection, action, and transformation encouraged by the clan research educational initiative. Emphasizing the viability of clan-based knowledge in transforming and transcending conceptual boundaries and more tangible borders that continue to affect the Haudenosaunee today, this article explores the ongoing practical relevance of this ancient system to current challenges involving assertions of citizenship, leadership, territorial mobility, and land rights.

Sacred lands are essential to the nationhoods of Native peoples and their survival. In the US, a complex environmental and cultural legislative and regulatory framework governs the indigenous sacred places that are in federal stewardship. Unfortunately, this legal architecture, intended to protect sacred lands, ultimately conflicts with traditional indigenous values relative to land and religious practice, privileges the values of the dominant society, erodes tribal identity and sovereignty, and leaves sacred lands vulnerable to desecration or destruction. I identified specific examples of incompatible concepts and languages in US federal environmental and cultural laws affecting the management of indigenous sacred lands, and explained these examples by describing the management of a selection of Navajo (Diné) sacred places and elsewhere. This critical approach revealed that sacred lands management is another arena of tribal rights and environmental justice in which the postcolonial theory and critical race theory concepts of incommensurability and interest convergence are operative. Effective strategies for sacred lands protection and access are those that scrutinize existing law and management practice for incompatible and hegemonic ideologies and languages. Resolving the problem of incompatible ideologies and languages in sacred lands protection law and practice may include integrating traditional indigenous worldviews directly into federal and tribal law. For the Navajo Nation, a uniform sacred lands management policy could be based on a combination of the Navajo philosophy of hozho, natural law, tribal law, and federal environmental and cultural resources protection law. More importantly, resolution depends on cultivating a willingness among legislators, public land managers, project proponents, and stakeholders to commit to the practice of fulfilling sacred lands’ protection need according to traditional indigenous philosophies prior to drafting new legislation or implementing negotiations or environmental evaluations mandated in existing US law.

Nettle and Romaine (2000) describe the disappearance of the world’s languages as a “trickle of extinction . . . now turning into a flood” (p. 2). Present day U.S. statistics confirm the rapid loss of most of the aboriginal languages spoken at the time of Columbus’ 1492 arrival—only about 175 of an estimated 300 continue to be spoken (Nettle and Romaine, 2000). Against this backdrop, this paper presents the resiliency of the Hopi language and culture. A historically oral communal people numbering close to 13,000, the Hopi continue to reside on their aboriginal homeland in the southwestern U.S. They have not evaded the impact of modernity alarmingly evident in the declining use and functions of the Hopi language in contemporary Hopi life, in the unabating shift toward English monolingualism among younger Hopi, and a perceived connection between Hopi linguistic proficiency and displays of behaviors that violate Hopi principles. Nonetheless, the Hopi case reveals the persistence of a distinct Hopi identity maintained through unwavering adherence to cultural traditions cultivated through active participation in the Hopi way of life, and language as cultural practice. The collective life histories of three generations of Hopi—the three youth at the heart of the study, their parents, and members of the grandparent generation—bring to light the process of disruption in the Hopi cultural plan and the mechanisms: (1) Hopi oral tradition, and (2) the Hopi identity formation process expressed in the Hopi words, “Hopiqatsit ang nùutum hintsakme, Hopisinoniwtingwu,” “Participating along with others in the Hopi way of life, one becomes a Hopi,” as enduring and salient aspects of Hopi culture and language which foster a resilient Hopi identity, fervent allegiance to the Hopi way of life, and offers the means for “recouping or reinvigorating the use of the native tongue” (King, 2001, p. 12).

The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) engaged in treaty-making long before the arrival of Europeans. These diplomatic forums established lasting political, social, and economic relationships with other nations. Treaty principles were embedded within Anishinaabe stories and further articulated throughout the negotiation process. This article opens with an analysis of The Woman Who Married a Beaver, a story told by Kagige pines, a Fort Williams Anishinaabe, to Mesquaki anthropologist William Jones in 1904. This story illustrates that Anishinaabe treaty relationships were dependent on the principles of respect, responsibility, and renewal. This article further demonstrates that the Anishinaabe utilized these principles in their treaty practices with the United States and Canada as a means to establish just and mutually beneficial relationships. The examination of these principles sheds light on the original relationships established between Anishinaabe and colonial nations- relationships grounded in trust. The canons of treaty construction have created a path for a reorientation of federal Indian law by providing an interpretive framework for the courts to expand their interpretations of First Nations’ treaty rights. The treaty record demonstrates that Anishinaabe understandings of the trust relationship were built upon the foundational treaty principles of respect, responsibility, and renewal. A return to the values described above can provide new directions for the United States and Canada in their relations with First Nations.