First Nations People

"I don’t believe that we could exist with one foot in two worlds. We have to be able to synthesize and be part of whatever that world is, from within our identity."

"As human beings, we have to learn; we have to become knowledgeable enough to be able to accomplish that continuum of life, and also to make life natural. When we can’t do that, we are not learning; we are not knowledgeable; we are parasites on the earth and we destroy life rather than create life, work with life, embrace life, and uphold life."

"one of the questions that I had in my writing was not so much about how to reorganize the material, but also how to write the material in a written form and retain the integrity of how we perceive oral literatures and how they work."

"This love that had come to her was a kind of madness. It owned her. It created a wreckage of her body. The way, after a long climb, there is no longer searing pain and the muscles give up and all that is left is a deep and silent quivering. All else is blurred and each breath is a sacrifice. The way when the body finally finds itself. This madness moved inside, not the heart, but a place more hidden, yet more omnipresent. A place where one should never find it. It had found her; claimed her in the way it did to make her become what she must. This love. This is a map."

"The idea of indigeneity is to create that kind of process, and to mimic, this is where the idea of eco-mimicry comes in, and to be able to mimic what nature does in those interactions in order to stabilize how we have to participate in that interaction of what constitutes the place we live. So, we become a healthy part of that interaction rather than isolated from it, or aggressive toward it."

"if we were to look at how the cells in the body operate, they are interdependent. If you look at how an ecosystem operates, any ecosystem, there is this mechanism of interdependency, which means one part could not exist without the cooperation and the help of the other parts that surround it. So, if we look at communities in that way, as an interdependency, and we look at what, therefore, it might mean in terms of governance, or a social structure, then it becomes really exciting research. Because, in a lot of ways, the opposite ideas are in place in regards to governance and government. Where governance and government is largely exclusionary, and largely protectionist, in terms of trying to isolate and protect"

"Globalization is foundational to destruction because of the competitive nature of corporations, extraction of resources, mobilization of peoples as a labor force,, and countries segmenting the world to own and commoditize. In contrast, indigenous peoples, valuing long term residency and knowledge, work within the conditions appropriate to whichever place they are located. They develop social structures to live sustainably, not only for the environment but for the community itself. To be indigenous to a place is to have adapted to the conditions present over a long period of time, to have learned not only how to thrive, but how to survive the catastrophic interventions and changes that threaten lifeforms on the land."

"the idea of complete regeneration has to be underpinned by an idea that every life form has as much right to exist as the human lifeform. That idea of the human being having dominion, or the human being having more right or more privilege, in terms of the field of ethics, is no different than saying one race having more right and more privilege. So, that is a profound principle to think about. How do you enforce that? How do you create that? How do you act responsibly,if that were the bottom line? How would you create a government? How would you create an economic system? How would you create an education system around that?"

"Indigeneity describes principles of how to be in a specific place, and the kinds of laws or rules or protocols that human beings could practice within those principles. Indigeneity can still apply in a contemporary context, without humans having to go back to the woods of a thousand years ago. (Mind you, that would be nice too.)"

"Knowledge should be mobilized for all people. It’s not something that is held only by one group"

"It is an artist’s dream/goal to share their work with the world, and I have been blessed in that regard. I have enjoyed creating and sharing it all."

"(You have said that your work is “a celebration of life”...) DO: Having lived 95 years, I see and feel all aspects of life, and believe that it is all to be shared and recounted. It may not sound “right” to “celebrate” a death, but it was just as important to me to recognize loss and turmoil just as I chose to share joy."

"I believe it is just as important to highlight and memorialize all aspects of our world and cultures. To me, it is important not to bury the shame and trauma caused by the issues you ask about."

"Art was in my blood and my soul, and my grandfather and whole family were encouraging influences. The more I learned, the more I wanted to study and produce art. Picasso was one of my favorite studies."

"(What advice do you have for young artists?) DO: Without hesitation, I would say just be yourself and let your imagination, thoughts, beliefs, views, visions — or whatever inspires you — be seen. Be vulnerable, and share what is inside you. Regardless of what medium you chose to create, open up and share your gift."

"Englishman, although you have conquered the French you have not yet conquered us! We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods and mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance; and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, and pork and beef! But, you ought to know, that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us, in these spacious lakes, and on these woody mountains."

"I wanted to be at the apex of my story…For a long time, it felt as though things were happening to me. I felt as though I had no agency."

"I think people have to hit rock bottom to really know their faculties because they have to use those faculties to get out of that rock bottom. I really had to feel profoundly lonely to get myself out of the feeling of being profoundly lonely. But it was always there, that feeling of loneliness and existing with the absence of something that had been stripped from me."

"Women, not all, but many, like seeing they aren’t alone. My story is very common. I was abused. Mistreated. Hurt by men. I came up. Women resonate with that story because it’s theirs sometimes."

"Turning those revelations into art was a whole other thing…I did it, though — and that helped me realize my power, beyond the pain. Being able to illustrate those experiences for readers was a triumph, because it took everything to resist all the urges I have as a human being to present myself as good, or healed, or undamaged. I had to work against myself to make the memoir, and I ended up more empowered than I ever thought I could be."

"When I looked at the conduct of the whites who were called Christians, and saw them drunk, quarreling, and fighting, cheating the poor Indians, and acting as if there was no God, I was led to think there could be no truth in the white man's religion, and felt inclined to fall back again to my old superstitions."

"I first said "No; that is the white man's God, and the white man's religion; and that God would not have anything to do with the Indians." …I thought that God could only understand English... I then met with Peter Jones, who was converted a few months before me, and, to my surprise, I hear him return thanks, at meal, in Ojibway. This was quite enough for me. I now saw that God could understand me in my Ojibway, and therefor went far into the woods and prayed, in the Ojibway tongue."

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."