One woman's personal journey of moving deeper into Indigenous knowledge and working to resist the racist and sexist legacy of the Indian Act.

How the Gehl decision advanced indigenous rights in Canada A follow-up to her successful Claiming Anishinaabe, Lynn Gehl's latest book, Gehl v Canada, is the documentation of the Indigenous woman's 34-year fight to change Canada's Indian Act regarding unknown and unstated paternity, a harmful, colonial policy that has adversely affected generations of Indigenous women. It is also the celebration of Gehl's tenacious, brave advocacy for Indigenous women and children in the face of colonial oppression. The paternity policy of the Indian Act required individuals claiming Status to demonstrate the lineage of both parents. Harmful to Indigenous mothers and children, and imposing a high evidentiary burden on Indigenous people claiming Status, it was overturned on April 20, 2017, in what is now known as the Gehl decision. Using Indigenous methods of first-person experience, embodied knowledge, emotional knowledge, observation, reading, writing, role-modelling, learning by doing, repetition, introspection, and storytelling, Gehl shares the journey to her court victory.

“Through the voices of ordinary Native Americans . . . LaDuke is able to transform highly complex issues into stories that touch the heart.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States The indigenous imperative to honor nature is undermined by federal laws approving resource extraction through mining and drilling. Formal protections exist for Native American religious expression—but not for the places and natural resources integral to ceremonies. Under what conditions can traditional beliefs be best practiced? From the author of All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, Recovering the Sacred features a wealth of native research and hundreds of interviews with indigenous scholars and activists. “Documents the remarkable stories of indigenous communities whose tenacity and resilience has enabled them to reclaim the lands, resources, and life ways after enduring centuries of incalculable loss.” —Wilma Mankiller, author of Every Day is a Good Day

Combining socio-legal and ethnohistorical studies, this book presents the history of doodem, or clan identification markings, left by Anishinaabe on treaties and other legal documents from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. These doodems reflected fundamental principles behind Anishinaabe governance that were often ignored by Europeans, who referred to Indigenous polities in terms of tribe, nation, band, or village – classifications that failed to fully encompass longstanding cultural traditions of political authority within Anishinaabe society. Making creative use of natural history, treaty pictographs, and the Ojibwe language as an analytical tool, Doodem and Council Fire delivers groundbreaking insights into Anishinaabe law. The author asks not only what these doodem markings indicate, but what they may also reveal through their exclusions. The book also ooutlines the continuities, changes, and innovations in Anishinaabe governance through the concept of council fires and the alliances between them. Original and path-breaking, Doodem and Council Fire offers a fresh approach to Indigenous history, presenting a new interpretation grounded in a deep understanding of the nuances and distinctiveness of Anishinaabe culture and Indigenous traditions.

Our Bearings is a collection of narrative poetry that examines and celebrates Anishinaabe life in modern Minneapolis. Crafted around the four elements—earth, air, water, and fire— the poems are a beautifully layered discourse between landscapes, stories, and the people who inhabit them. Throughout the collection, McGlennen weaves the natural elements of Minnesota with rich historical commentary and current images of urban Native life. Reverence for wildlife and foliage is pierced by the sharp man-made skylines of Minneapolis while McGlennen reckons with the heavy impact of industrial progress on the souls and everyday lives of individuals. While working with both traditional and contemporary form, McGlennen’s unique use of space and rhythm creates poetry that is both captivating and accessible. Our Bearings does not attempt to speak for a population; rather it offers vibrant stories and moments that give voice to pieces of a large and complex tapestry of experiences. Through keen observation and a deep understanding of Native life in Minneapolis, McGlennen has created a timely collection that contributes beautifully to the important conversation about contemporary urban Native life in North America and globally.

"From the Foreword, by Heather Majaury:I am prone to think that when Creator lowered Lynn to Mother Earth it was for herto complete this difficult task of bravery. Indeed we can all learn from her, as she hasfulfilled her responsibility.In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Treaty at Niagara, The Truththat Wampum Tells offers readers a first-ever insider analysis of the contemporaryland claims and self-government process in Canada. Incorporating an analysis oftraditional symbolic literacy known as wampum diplomacy, Lynn Gehl arguesthat despite Canada's constitutional beginnings first codified in the 1763 RoyalProclamation and ratified during the 1764 Treaty at Niagara, Canada continues todeny the Algonquin Anishinaabeg their right to land and resources, their right tolive as a sovereign nation, and consequently their ability to live mino-pimadiziwin(the good life).Gehl moves beyond Western scholarly approaches rooted in the historicalarchives, academic literature and the interview method. She also moves beyonddiscussions of Indigenous methodologies, offering an analysis through herdebwewin journey: a wholistic Anishinaabeg way of knowing that incorporatesboth mind knowledge"

Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature combines literary criticism, sociolinguistics, native studies, and poetics to introduce an Anishinaabe way of reading. The four Anishinaabe authors discussed in the book, Louise Erdrich, Jim Northrup, Basil Johnston, and Gerald Vizenor, share an ethnic heritage but are connected more clearly by a culture of tales, songs, and beliefs.