Narratives from different genres of Rock Cree oral literature in northwestern Manitoba, together with interpretive and comparative commentary are presented.

Presents narratives from different genres of Rock Cree oral literature in northwestern Manitoba accompanied by interpretive and comparative commentary. Collection contains stories of the trickster-transformer Wisahkicahk, animal-human characters, early encounters with Catholicism, etc.

The era the elders describe, from the end of World War I to the closing of York Factory in 1957, saw dramatic changes - both positive and negative - to aboriginal life in the North. The extension of Treaty 5 in 1910 to include members of the York Factory band, the arrival of police and government agents, and the shifting economy of the fur trade are all discussed. Despite these upheavals, however, the elders' accounts demonstrate the continuity of northern life in the twentieth century, from the persistence of traditional ways to the ongoing role of community and kinship ties. Perceptions of aboriginal life have been shaped largely by non-Native accounts that offer limited views of Swampy Cree history and record little beyond the social and economic interaction that was part of life in the fur trade. The stories in this collection provide Cree perspectives on northern life and history, and represent the legacy of a younger generation of aboriginal people.

Wícihitowin is the first Canadian social work book written by First Nations, Inuit and Métis authors who are educators at schools of social work across Canada. The book begins by presenting foundational theoretical perspectives that develop an understanding of the history of colonization and theories of decolonization and Indigenist social work. It goes on to explore issues and aspects of social work practice with Indigenous people to assist educators, researchers, students and practitioners to create effective and respectful approaches to social work with diverse populations. Traditional Indigenous knowledge that challenges and transforms the basis of social work with Indigenous and other peoples comprises a third section of the book. Wícihitowin concludes with an eye to the future, which the authors hope will continue to promote the innovations and creativity presented in this groundbreaking work.

Gifts from the Thunder Beings examines North American Aboriginal peoples’ use of Indigenous and European distance weapons in big-game hunting and combat. Beyond the capabilities of European weapons, Aboriginal peoples’ ways of adapting and using this technology in combination with Indigenous weaponry contributed greatly to the impact these weapons had on Aboriginal cultures. This gradual transition took place from the beginning of the fur trade in the Hudson’s Bay Company trading territory to the treaty and reserve period that began in Canada in the 1870s. Technological change and the effects of European contact were not uniform throughout North America, as Roland Bohr illustrates by comparing the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic—two adjacent but environmentally different regions of North America—and their respective Indigenous cultures. Beginning with a brief survey of the subarctic and Northern Plains environments and the most common subsistence strategies in these regions around the time of contact, Bohr provides the context for a detailed examination of social, spiritual, and cultural aspects of bows, arrows, quivers, and firearms. His detailed analysis of the shifting usage of bows and arrows and firearms in the northern Great Plains and the Central Subarctic makes Gifts from the Thunder Beings an important addition to the canon of North American ethnology.

Honouring anthropologist Richard J. Preston and his outstanding career with the Crees in northern Quebec, Together We Survive presents new research by Preston's colleagues, former students, and family members who - like him - have established long-term, respectful research partnerships and friendships with Aboriginal communities. Demonstrating the influential nature of Preston's collaborative approach on anthropologists in Canada and beyond, the essays in Together We Survive explore development and urbanization, material culture, and conflict. Scholars who conducted research in the 1960s with Crees farther to the south broaden the scope of Preston's Cree Narrative (2002). A Cree colleague and friend expands on his study of traditional Cree songs. Other essays widen the geographical, historical, and cultural foci of the book beyond the Quebec Crees, examining the significance of a beaded hood at Red River in 1844, scrutinizing symbols of Anishinaabe identity, and describing the struggle for indigenous human rights at the United Nations. Building on Preston's pioneering work in cultural anthropology, Together We Survive recounts the ways in which the eastern James Bay Cree and other aboriginal peoples, faced with massive incursions on their lands and lives, have collaborated and formed respectful partnerships as they seek to survive and thrive in peace. Contributors include Regna Darnell (Western), Harvey A. Feit (McMaster), John S. Long (Nipissing), Stan L. Louttit, Richard T. McCutcheon (Algoma), the late Cath Oberholtzer (Trent), Laura Peers (Oxford), Jennifer Preston, Susan Preston, Adrian Tanner (Memorial) and Cory Willmott (Southern Illinois).

The word "elegy" comes from the Ancient Greek elogos, meaning a mournful poem or song, in particular, a song of grief in response to loss. Because mourning and memorialization are so deeply embedded in the human condition, all human societies have developed means for lamenting the dead, and, in "That the People Might Live" Arnold Krupat surveys the traditions of Native American elegiac expression over several centuries. Krupat covers a variety of oral performances of loss and renewal, including the Condolence Rites of the Iroquois and the memorial ceremony of the Tlingit people known as koo'eex, examining as well a number of Ghost Dance songs, which have been reinterpreted in culturally specific ways by many different tribal nations. Krupat treats elegiac "farewell" speeches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in considerable detail, and comments on retrospective autobiographies by Black Hawk and Black Elk. Among contemporary Native writers, he looks at elegiac work by Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Sherman Alexie, Maurice Kenny, and Ralph Salisbury, among others. Despite differences of language and culture, he finds that death and loss are consistently felt by Native peoples both personally and socially: someone who had contributed to the People's well-being was now gone. Native American elegiac expression offered mourners consolation so that they might overcome their grief and renew their will to sustain communal life.