Understanding Indigenous Studies: Importance and Core Concepts

JOY IJEMBA 7944461 INDG 1220 D01 UNIT ACTIVITIES Unit 1 activity 1 You are here, so you have decided learning more about Indigenous studies is essential to you or it is required due to the institution thinking it is necessary for your field, but why is it essential generally? Why has Canada seen a curriculum revision in public schools and universities to include courses in Indigenous Studies? In your own words, write what is Indigenous studies (150 -300 words) Ensure to cite your sources. Answer. Kulchyski (2000) defines Indigenous Studies as a practice of storytelling, buoyed by Eigenbrod’s (2010) view that story is the very basis of the discipline (Laura Forsythe, Winter 2024, Unit 1; The place of Indigenous studies in the curriculum). I decided to study about Indigenous studies mainly because it was a requirement for my course and it is necessary as someone who is in Canada, knowing more about the history, the cultures, and traditions of the land. It is included in the public school and universities curriculum because it focuses on millennia of Indigenous experiences in ancestral territories, while also critically examining the societal processes that have had, and continue to have, an effect on the Indigenous peoples of Canada (First Nations,

Metis, and Inuit) since the time of European colonization. (Department of Indigenous studies). It provides students with the broad knowledge, it increases one’s awareness and understanding about Indigenous Peoples’ history, cultures, traditions, the contributions in Canada and develop the skills necessary to discuss these issues (Laura Forsythe, Winter 2024, Unit 1; The place of Indigenous studies in the curriculum). Reference . Forsythe, L. (2020) Indigenous Studies Methodological, Theoretical, and Canonical Foundations. UM Learn. University of Manitoba Laura Forsythe, Winter 2024, Unit 1; The place of Indigenous studies in the curriculum. Department of Indigenous Studies. https://umanitoba.ca/arts/indigenous-studies

Unit 2 activity 1 Where did Canada's original inhabitants come from? Discuss the weaknesses of the Bering Strait Theory. Describe the Coastal Migration Theory. Answer . Canada’s original inhabitants originally came from northeast Asia across Beringia near the end of the Pleistocene, passing through the fabled "ice-free corridor" and into the heartland of North America. (Jon M. Erlandson, Michael H. Graham, Bruce J. Bourque, Debra Corbett, James A. Estes & Robert S. Steneck (2007) p. 162). The coastal migration theory has emerged as an increasingly viable alternative for the peopling of the Americas despite the effects of rising seas and marine erosion on the archaeological record. The transformation of the coastal migration theory from marginal to mainstream is the result of the gradual accumulation of geological and archaeological evidence from both coastal and interior regions around the Pacific Rim. (Jon M. Erlandson, Michael H. Graham, Bruce J. Bourque, Debra Corbett, James A. Estes & Robert S. Steneck (2007) p. 163). Reference . Jon M. Erlandson, Michael H. Graham, Bruce J. Bourque, Debra Corbett, James A. Estes & Robert S. Steneck (2007) The Kelp Highway Hypothesis: Marine Ecology, the Acatal Migy, 2:2, 161-174.

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Unit 3 activity 2 Explore Three Peoples listed below (completing this section will help prepare for the exam) Answer , Pacific Northwest Coast . Name the distinct language families found in the northwest coast region. (RCAP volume 1, pg. 73) Answer , There are seven major groups that are evident in the distinct language families in the northwest coast region which are Tlingit, Tsimshian (including Nisg_a'a and Gitksan), Haida, Nuxalk (Bella Coola), Kwakwa ka'wakw (formerly known as Kwakiutl), Nootka and Salish. (RCAP Volume 1, pg., 73) Kwakwa ka'wakw ; What did/do the Kwakwa ka'wakw use cedar bark for in their culture? Describe a potlatch, including why they were convened, what happened at these events, and who was present. Why is oolichan oil significant? Answer . Sheets of barks were stripped from fallen trees or trees left standing. The Kwakwa ka'wakw used cedar bark for various purposes other than housing. The smooth inner bark was beaten to make the fibres flexible for loom weaving of material for capes, skirts, and blankets. It was also used to

make mats for serving food or lining sleeping quarters, for house insulation and partitions and protect canoes from the hot summer. (RCAP Volume 1, pg., 74) A potlatch was a ceremony used to acknowledge and confirm this social order ceremonially. They were convened to mourn deaths, bestow names, erase the shame of accidents or ceremonial errors. Lots of things happens at this event such as a new chief being assumed his name and rights over his territories and guests from neighbouring territories, chiefs’ family members and other clans would be present (RCAP Volume 1, pg. 75 Ooilchan oil is so significant because it serves as a preservative for foods and as a condiment. Inuit . What do the Inuit call the people before them, and when did they arrive? List the animals the People of the Thule period harvested from the Tundra. Name the elements of technology used by the Inuit at the time of contact What are the nine distinct culture groups regions of the Inuit? Who had the earlier point of contact? Answer . The Inuit do call the people before them the Thule and they arrived in Canada approximately 1000AD (RCAP Volume 1, pg., 77) People of the Thule period harvested several animals from the Tundra such as whale, seal and walnurs from the sea and the caribou and musk-ox from the land and was supplemented with waterfowl and fish. (RCAP Volume 1, pg., 78)

The snow house or igloo, clothing made of caribou, seal, and other animal skins, and the kayak were the elements of technology widely used by the Inuit in the early years of the European contacts. There are nine group regions of the Inuit which are Labrador, Arctic Quebec, Southern Baffin Island, Northern Baffin Island and Foxe Basin, Southampton Island, Western Hudson Bay and the Barren Grounds, Central Arctic Coast, Mackenzie Delta, and the High Arctic. (RCAP Volume 1, pg., 80) And the Labrador Inuit have had the longest sustained contact with European whalers and traders and, from the 1770s, Moravian missionaries. (RCAP Volume 1, pg. 80) Reference . The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Volume 1- Looking Forward Looking Back PART ONE The Relationship in Historical Perspective Stage one (pp.47-87)

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Unit 4 activity 1 Discuss the theories surrounding the disappearance of the Stadeconans and the Mackenzie Inuit. Besides the theories provided, are there other reasons that can be identified to explain their disappearance? Answer . The Mackenzie Inuit were the most numerous of the Aboriginal peoples in Canadian Arctic at the beginning of the historical era. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s there was a massive reduction in population due to an introduced disease. In 1865 there was a scarlet fever outbreak, followed by epidemics of influenza, smallpox, and measles (McGhee, 1974:5). The Mackenzie Inuit were hit so hard that by the early years of the 20th century their numbers had been reduced to fewer than 10% of the pre-contact levels (Jenness,1964:14). The period following 1890 a demographic restructuring throughout the Mackenzie delta as large numbers of Alaskan Inupiat moved to the east, some came in richer lands following the exploitation of games in their own home. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who undertook the first anthropological investigations in the delta beginning in 1906, found even then that local narrative histories and memories of traditional ways were attenuated; in effect, Mackenzie Inuit culture no longer existed. (Arnold. C. D., 1986 p. 13). It is also said that they were driven out by the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi) and Algonquin, that they suffered poor harvests brought on by climatic changes; that they succumbed to European diseases; and that they were dispersed by the southern Haudenosaunee, e.g., the Mohawk ( James H. Marsh 2012). Reference .

Arnold. C. D., (1986). A Nineteenth-Century Mackenzie Inuit Site near Inuvik, Northwest Territories Arctic, 39(1), 8–14. James H. Marsh, 2012, What happened to the Stadeconans https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/stadacona

Unit 5 activity 1 Discuss: History has long privileged the written word over oral history. According to Stevens (2013), what impact has this had on our collective understanding of the Haudenosaunee? Identify the three movements associated with the Franco Iroquoin historiographic tradition. Document the issues with Du Creux's text History of Canada or New France. Answer , According to Stevens the impact written word had was a good one. Those histories portrayed the Haudenosaunee as an expansive military and political power whose influence ranged from Maine to the western Great Lakes and south into Kentucky. An anonymous author wrote 'we cannot go very far back in our research in their history, as they have no Libraries other than the memory of their old men; and perhaps we should find nothing worthy of publication'. The above statement revealed the persistent and enduring authority of the written word over oral traditions and cultures. The historians relied heavily on written word, and it had a significant impact on how the Haudenosaunee was seen. (Stevens 2013, p.148-149) The movements associated with the Franco Iroquoin historiographic tradition is seen as a generic evolution from the first written reports of the French explorers and Récollet missionaries in the unfamiliar wilds of Canada, to the self-conscious compositions by Jesuit missionaries in the Jesuit Relations, to the later Jesuit scholars who set out to write the history of New France. (Stevens 2013, p.152)

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Father François Du Cruex's was a Jesuit historiography to articulate a notion of specifically Haudenosaunee culture, but he lacked firsthand knowledge of his subject. His source materials were gotten from not only the vast amount of information contained in the Relations themselves but also the rich holdings of travel and commerce materials available to him in Bordeaux. The Haudenosaunee were portrayed as occupying a position of an inevitable clash with European civilization. (Stevens 2013, P. 154) Reference . Stevens, S. M. (2013). The Historiography of New France and the Legacy of Iroquois Internationalism Comparative American Studies, 11(2), 148–165.

JOY IJEMBA'S UNIT ACTIVITY 1-5

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