Culture and Law

First published in 1980 by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, this study presents narratives from different genres of Rock Cree oral literature in northwestern Manitoba together with interpretive and comparative commentary. The collection comprises narratives of the trickster-transformer Wisahkicahk, animal-human characters, spirit guardians, the wihtikow or cannibal monster, humorous experiences, sorcery, and early encounters with Catholicism.

"Indigenous researchers are knowledge seekers who work to progress Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing in a modern and constantly evolving context. This book describes a research paradigm shared by Indigenous scholars in Canada and Australia, and demonstrates how this paradigm can be put into practice. Relationships don’t just shape Indigenous reality, they are our reality. Indigenous researchers develop relationships with ideas in order to achieve enlightenment in the ceremony that is Indigenous research.

"Indigenous peoples around the world are seeking greater control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In Canada, issues concerning repatriation and trade of material culture, heritage site protection, treatment of ancestral remains, and control over intangible heritage are governed by a complex legal and policy environment. First Nations Cultural Heritage and Law is the first of two interdisciplinary volumes exploring First Nations perspectives on cultural heritage and issues of reform within and beyond Western law.

"Oral traditions are a distinct way of knowing and the means by which knowledge is reproduced, preserved and transferred from generation to generation. The conference from which these essays were selected created an opportunity for people to come together and exchange information and experiences over three days.

"Aboriginal Canada Revisited examines the current political and cultural position of Canada's Aboriginal peoples in a series of interdisciplinary essays. The contributors to this volume explore Aboriginal politics and representation, health, education and other social issues, and look at how contemporary Aboriginals find voice in literature, art, print media, and film.

"Indigenous peoples around the world are seeking greater control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In Canada, issues concerning repatriation and trade of material culture, heritage site protection, treatment of ancestral remains, and control over intangible heritage are governed by a complex legal and policy environment.

"First Stories: Volume III features the films Walking Alone, Two Spirited, His Guidance and Hooked Up: NDNs Online by emerging filmmakers Gerald Auger, Sharon A. Desjarlais, Duane Linklater and Jennifer Dysart. The First Stories program invited Aboriginal filmmakers to tell the stories that are important to them and their communities." -- From container

"Fifteen-year-old Buckley (Buckley Petawabano) attends residential school, where he longs for his home and dreams of fishing and hunting. Yet when he returns to the reserve for the summer he feels like a stranger, unable to speak his Cree language or live off the land like his father and brothers. Johnny (Johnny Yesno), an Indigenous caretaker at the school, takes Buckley under his wing, introducing him to Indigenous history, culture, and knowledge.

“The birth of Canadian identity and nationalism is often associated with political and military events in the twentieth century. This incisive, richly illustrated book contends that in Montreal at least a new Canadian identity emerged much earlier, between 1840 and 1885, and in the cultural rather than the political realm. How did British colonists in Victorian Montreal come to think of themselves as “native Canadians”?

"Beating the Streets traces six years in the lives of Marilyn Brighteyes and Lance Marty, two inner-city Aboriginal teenagers struggling to turn their lives around. And it is the story of Joe Cloutier, the teacher -- and former dropout -- determined to help them. In Beating the Streets, Marilyn and Lance candidly discuss the abuse and violence that drove them into prostitution and drug dealing. The video also introduces Joe's innovative approach, combining alternative education and popular theatre as a way to get young people off the streets.