Oka Crisis Research Articles

The Oka crisis

The Oka crisis

A Brief History of Reconciliation in Canada

This article provides a roadmap of the process of reconciliation in Canada, beginning with the first articulation of the word in Canadian law, and carrying on through to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the Oka Crisis, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and finally, Prime Minister’s promise to fulfill the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 “Calls to Action”. The author argues that in order for reconciliation to be realized, the governments of Canada will need to recognize and affirm local Indigenous education laws, as it pertains to their right to govern themselves in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Teaching Indigenous Graphic Novels: English / Indigenous Studies 360

Teaching Indigenous Graphic NovelsEnglish / Indigenous Studies 360 Sophie McCall (bio) My name is Sophie McCall. I am a Scottish-descended settler scholar teaching Indigenous and contemporary Canadian literatures at Simon Fraser University, forever learning and unlearning how to read, listen to, and engage with Indigenous stories. The focus of my teaching is how writers challenge the violent histories of settler colonialism and use forms of literary expression to imagine and bring into reality narratives of cultural and artistic reclamation. It is an honor to think through how to do the work I do at the University with a sense of accountability and responsibility to unceded, ancestral, and traditional xʷməθkʷəy ̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl ̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) lands and knowledges in Vancouver, British Columbia. This territorial acknowledgment asks me to think about what it means to be a part of the ongoing occupation of Indigenous lands, and how to become an ally in Indigenous-led initiatives of decolonizing and indigenizing the university. I am indebted to my Indigenous colleagues and students, who have helped me in my own process of learning and unlearning the histories I have been brought up with. I grew up on unceded Kanien'kehá:ka and Algonquin territories in Montréal, Québec, in the 1970s and 1980s during a heated moment in Québec politics. My father was very involved in advocating for a bilingual, multicultural Québec and against the separation of Québec from Canada. Every morning and evening, with the radio and TV blasting, he would be on the telephone, coordinating with community organizations and diasporic communities such as the Chinese Canadian community concerning minority rights in education and language. However, especially during the Oka crisis of 1990, it became clear that the liberal, multicultural politics of recognition that I grew up [End Page 92] with in my white, Anglophone family do not acknowledge or engage with Indigenous conceptions of self-determination. I became aware of the high cost of what Dene scholar Glen Coulthard later would call the "colonial politics of recognition in Canada," in which a liberal-multicultural political framework harmonizes Indigenous rights within the state's assertion of sovereignty. In all of my work, I ask whether a(n other) politics of recognition, or perhaps the language of recognition, as a shared sense of responsibility and accountability across Indigenous, settler, and racialized communities is possible, in the ongoing project of working towards social justice on unceded and Treaty lands in Canada. Introducing myself and acknowledging the territories where I grew up, as well as where I now live and work as an uninvited guest, offers an opportunity for me to reflect on my own social location and how my experiences on a daily basis shape my research questions. In Cree scholar and filmmaker Tasha Hubbard's words, "I have students who have expectations when they take my class that they're going to learn all about Indigenous people. [Instead], at the beginning of the class, I will [say] that they are in this space to basically turn their gaze towards themselves. Because so much of the time Indigenous people are the object of the gaze" (CBC Arts 01:25:05). This work of self-reflection is an important part of Indigenous studies—to articulate to whom one is accountable, to engage in a process of un-learning one's history and its relationship to other histories, and to suggest how to remain relevant in ongoing struggles of decolonization, reconciliation, or other social justice projects. What first inspired me in developing this course were the brilliant Indigenous graphic novels, comic books, and illustrated stories that have appeared over the past ten to fifteen years. To name a selection: Kwak'waka'wakw writer Gord Hill's history of Indigenous Nations' resistance in the making of the Americas in 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010); Anishinaabe writer and scholar Elizabeth LaPensée's retelling of a Deer Woman story in graphic form in Deer Woman: A Vignette (2017); Cree writer David Alexander Robertson's cycle of intergenerational stories in 7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga (2013); Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas's dynamic...

Intensifying the Assimilation of Indians in the Сontext of Implementing the Indian Act

The article examines the policy of Canadian authorities toward the indigenous population (Indian policy) within the framework of implementing the Indian Act. The analysis concerns the policies from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century and the long-lasting effects of those, which remained existential in the second half of the 20th century, the Oka crisis in particular. The literature shows it is necessary to identify the whole range of the factors that determined the implementation of assimilationist policies and to trace the influence they had on subsequent events in the historical perspective. To provide a comprehensive outlook, taking into account such processes as territorial consolidation, colonization and demographic tendencies, the research is based on inductive assumptions. The central assumption why such policies arose is the demographic factor, being the key cause of the inter-racial and inter-ethnic imbalance. This, in turn, provoked the assertive stance taken by the political elites toward the indigenous. It is due to the Anglo-Saxon chauvinism that shaped the attitudes of the Canadian elites and thus became the ideological trend of the late 19th ‒ early 20th century Canada. The Anglo-Canadian nationalists’ intention to ensure the predominance of the Britishness element in the emerging Canadian society is demonstrated to have stemmed from the transatlantic ties with the former metropole. The discriminatory measures taken under the Indian Act that were explored in the text demonstrate that the processes of the Canadian state’s evolution and the ideological tendencies were marred by innate discrimination. The connection between the political measures implemented in the past and the current situation is considered. The Indian policy laid down the foundation for the inter-ethnic tensions that can manifest themselves in modern Canada. The Oka crisis of 1990 serves as the example. The scientific discussion of the effects of the Indian policy and of that particular case that involved the indigenous population and the military was analyzed, and alternative perspectives perceiving the Canadian soldiers as peacekeepers were scrutinized. The dominant scientific position based on criticizing the assimilationist Indian policy, discriminatory measures against the First Nations and ethnic intolerance is concluded to be justified. And therefore the study is politically and historically relevant: it is important to understand that the discriminatory ethnic policy is often integral to the development of seemingly respectable political regimes, which maintains the effects, sometimes hidden, of such discrimination on modern social (dis)integration.

From Aggression to Acceptance: The Shifting of Quebecois Nationalist Attitudes in Relation to Indigenous Nationalism in Canada

This essay examines the shifting relationship between Quebecois and Indigenous nationalism, tracing a historical path from post-Quiet Revolution Quebec to the signing of the “La Paix des Braves” document in 2002. Nationalist attitudes in Quebec were initially hostile towards their Indigenous counterparts, due to the Indigenous push of a three-nation conception of Canada which undermined the Quebecois dualist English-French founding narrative upon which Quebecois nationalist claims rested. This essay argues that Quebecois nationalist attitudes have grown more accepting over time in response to popularization of the three-nation conception of Canada, and that Quebec’s unique hybrid position as a decolonizing nation and a settler-colonial nation has allowed it to do so through recognition of Indigenous peoples as co-colonized by the Canadian state. This shift from aggression to tolerance is shown through examinations of historical moments such as the James Bay Agreement, the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, and the Oka Crisis.

10. A Discursive Monopoly: The Role of the Canadian Mainstream Media in the Social Dislocation of Aboriginal Peoples

This poster investigates the Canadian mainstream media’s power and participation in discourses of subjugation surrounding contemporary Aboriginal issues in a manner that discriminates against the realities of Aboriginal cultures and peoples and the historical context of the inequitable Aboriginal social location in Canada. I examine the ways in which the Canadian media has engaged in “reality construction” whereby a particular ideological perspective is imposed on the public that constructs Aboriginal peoples through stereotypes, omission of historical fact, and appropriation of identity. This is demonstrated by an analysis of the portrayal of Aboriginal peoples as a monolithic “problem people” for the Canadian nation in four prevalent categories: 1) as a threat to Canada’s national interests; 2) as a risk to Canada’s social order; 3) as an economic liability; and, 4) as a problem for the criminal justice system (Fleras and Elliot 2003:327). This was evident in reporting on the Kaschewan Reserve water contamination in 2000, the Marshall Decision court ruling in 1999, and the Oka Crisis protests in 1990. The discourses analyzed here are derived from particular power relations that produce stereotypical reporting in support of the dominant interests, thus manufacturing public opinion that divides Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens by reducing the complexities of Aboriginal concerns. This reporting serves to justify the biased prescriptions of the Canadian federal government that discriminate against the values and realities of Aboriginal peoples. Finally, I identify the potential for resistance to these discourses through evidence of expanding Aboriginal media control and expression.

Political Conflict Photographs and Their Keyword Texts

This paper considers how changes in the keywords used in the headlines and captions change the implied meaning of political conflict imagery. Drawing on the media and social movement framing literature, I argue that changes in the text could prompt a visually crystallized and uniform reading of imagery or a visually pluralist and diverse reading of imagery. I consider these alternatives by analyzing the headlines and captions that accompanied an iconic Canadian news photograph showing a Mohawk warrior and Canadian soldier staring at each other during the height of the 1990 “Oka Crisis”. I find that the keywords generally favored the non-Indigenous side of the conflict and that over time there was a visual crystallization of the image's implied meaning.

Powerful and Resonant: Native and First Nations Women's Filmic Presence

WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 7 WE ARE ALL painfully aware of the dominant cinematic representations of Native women—the princess, the sexualized maiden, the work drudge (sq**w). Following a hundred years of cinematic tropes, films like Avatar (2009) utilize the Native woman as an exotic accoutrement to the white male hero, an access point into another culture, a way of claiming “Nativeness.” In others—The Searchers (1956), Little Big Man (1970), and Deer Woman (2005), for example—the woman’s symbolic death reinforces and validates America’s ongoing violent and colonial action against Native peoples. It’s a legacy that continues to haunt us all—but one that Native American and First Nations women have taken on full force for over one hundred years as actors, independent filmmakers, and producers. The vibrancy of their work resonates with the power and tenacity of Indigenous communities and Native women’s voices. In front of the camera, Native and First Nations women work within the Hollywood system and outside it, countering these age-old tropes with realistic portrayals of Native women and cultures. Lillian St. Cyr (Winnebago) stands in the heraldic position as the first Native American woman to star in a major film (Cecil B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man, 1914) and to work within the industry against these tropes. Her performance as Nat-U-ritch, the young mother who commits suicide when her son is taken from her, so powerfully portrayed the grief Native peoples suffered under the boarding school and adoption programs that it forced her co-stars to rethink their assumptions about Native people. Such ability to effect change in how we depict and perceive Native women is manifested throughout the industry and characterizes the more contemporary work of other actors whose work deconstructs Hollywood’s Indian woman and represents Native women as contemporary, resilient, powerful, and nuanced or complex mothers , sisters, aunties, lovers, and friends. Some of my current favorites across a variety of approaches highlight strong female subjects, a process of bearing witness through film, and the power of Indigenous storytelling in media. They include My Name Is Kahentiiosta (dir. Alanis Obomsawin , 1995), the sensitive documentary about a resilient Kahnawake woman’s participation in the Oka Crisis of 1990; Honey Moccasin (dir. Shelley Niro, 1998), the first Native American detective story that includes original artwork, performance art, and suspense; Older Than America (dir. Georgina Lightning, 2008), a powerful contemporary drama about the historical trauma of boarding schools; Fry Bread Babes (dir. Steffany Suttle, 2008), a documentary about Native women’s responses to dominant media representations of them; and Magic Wands (dir. Elizabeth Day, 2009), a bilingual (Ojibwe and English) and intergenerational short story about the “magic” of sticks used to harvest wild rice. M. Elise Marubbio is an associate professor at Augsburg College (Minneapolis). Her first book, Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film, won the Peter C. Rollins Book Award. world film Powerful and Resonant Native and First Nations Women’s Filmic Presence by M. Elise Marubbio above A still from Shelley Niro’s Honey Moccasin. Visit the WLT website to view trailers for the films listed here. Marubbio will give a keynote talk at the 2015 Native Crossroads film festival at the University of Oklahoma (March 5–7). Notebook ...

“What We’ve Said Can be Proven in the Ground”: Stó:lō Sovereignty and Historical Narratives at Xá:ytem, 1990–2006

Less than a month after the conclusion of the Oka crisis in Québec in the fall of 1990, development threatened another Indigenous heritage site, this one on the outskirts of Mission, British Columbia. Workers were preparing to blast apart a large stone and clear land for a 14-house subdivision on a sloping hill near the Fraser River. Indigenous elders, along with archaeologists and activists, responded rapidly by stepping forward to challenge the destruction of the site. Xá:ytem, the stone, is a sacred site for Stó:lō peoples, who have been living in the area for millennia. This paper examines the struggle to save Xá:ytem to reveal the tactical hybridity that can emerge when conceptions of heritage are entangled with expressions of sovereignty. When situated in the context of other Indigenous protests, analysis of the historical narratives deployed at Xá:ytem reveals much about the surprising and tenacious nature of heritage activism in late twentieth-century Canada.

Contesting home and native land : Tessa McWatt’s Out of My Skin and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “A Blurry Image on the Six O’clock News”

The events of summer 1990 at Kanesatake and Kahnawake, known as the Oka Crisis, have proven incredible motors of representation, generating texts across genres, media and disciplines. In this essay, I address two literary texts that engage with the crisis : Tessa McWatt’s novel Out of My Skin and Drew Hayden Taylor’s short story “A Blurry Image on the Six O’clock News.” Both fictions integrate images from the mainstream news coverage as a way of drawing readers’ attention to the status of the events as “public,” as shared by and relevant to Canadian society at large. At the same time, these fictions show the news to be radically contingent. They present the crisis not as a stable object of knowledge but as a field of public discourse which speaks of violence but also of the potential for intervention and transformation.

Seeing red: a history of Natives in Canadian newspapers

The first book to examine the role of Canada’s newspapers in perpetuating the myth of Native inferiority. Seeing Red is a groundbreaking study of how Canadian English-language newspapers have portrayed Aboriginal peoples from 1869 to the present day. It assesses a wide range of publications on topics that include the sale of Rupert’s Land, the signing of Treaty 3, the North-West Rebellion and Louis Riel, the death of Pauline Johnson, the outing of Grey Owl, the discussions surrounding Bill C-31, the “Bended Elbow” standoff at Kenora, Ontario, and the Oka Crisis. The authors uncover overwhelming evidence that the colonial imaginary not only thrives, but dominates depictions of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream newspapers. The colonial constructs ingrained in the news media perpetuate an imagined Native inferiority that contributes significantly to the marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada. That such imagery persists to this day suggests strongly that our country lives in denial, failing to live up to its cultural mosaic boosterism.

Picturing Protest

Images of collective action shape public understanding of social movement campaigns and issues. Modern media includes more images than ever before, and these images are remembered longer and are more likely to elicit emotional responses than are textual accounts. Yet when it comes to media coverage of collective action, existing research considers only the written accounts. This means that little is known about the extent to which images of collective action events conform to or diverge from the “protest paradigm,” a pattern of reporting found in articles that tends to marginalize protesters and legitimizes authorities. The authors address this gap by analyzing newspaper photographs of one of the most significant recent cases of Indigenous-state conflict in North America—the 1990 “Oka Crisis.” This 78-day armed standoff between Indigenous peoples and Quebecois and Canadian authorities was sparked by the attempted expansion of a golf course onto Mohawk territory. The mass media produced thousands of articles and photographs in their coverage of the event. This article uses these photographs to assess the manner in which images frame collective action and collective actors. The authors find that images of collective action frame these events differently and in a more nuanced way than do textual accounts. For example, while challengers are just as likely to be shown in images of collective action, they are less likely to be specifically named. In addition, officials are more likely to be shown in dominant positions, but certain groups of officials (particularly government representatives) are also the most likely to be shown as emotional and angry. These findings illustrate the sometimes conflicting messages depicted in images of collective action.

Tutelo Heights Short-Term "Two Row" Lessons Central to Long-Term Mediation in the Grand River Valley

Tutelo Heights Short-Term "Two Row" Lessons Central to Long-Term Mediation in the Grand River Valley T'hohahoken Michael Doxtater (bio) Introduction In the long history of the Iroquois League of the Five Nations (Wisk Nihonohnwenstiake) extant Indigenous knowledge inheres in families like the Satekariwateron:non. This Turtle clan family is one of the founding families of the League and holds a place among the Rotinohsionni (People of the Long House) Council with a specific function relative to the word satekariwate. The word has been translated literally as "weighing in balance." However, the word conveys a richer meaning. In the Satekariwate family the name connotes more than simply balance. Implied by sateka- (from the root word for "eight"), there is a sense of balance—four fingers on each hand. In addition, the word orihwa has the sense of a "matter." The suffix -ate designates positioning as "on top," as in on-top-of-the-house or kanohnsate. Taken together the word would literally translate as "balanced-matter-on-top." The idiomatic use of Satekariwate takes on another form more closely associated with Indigenous governance. I am a member of the Satekariwateron:non and worked since 1988 on affairs related to the League. I worked with elder rotiianisonha such as Jacob Thomas and Murray Henhawk, and elders Reg Henry and Sylvannus General. As a sakotiienewas (one who helps them) I aided the elders with written work and translating Indigenous words into idiomatic English. One key elder was Chief Richard Maracle, from the Mohawk family named Rastewenserontha. We [End Page 43] often talked about words. In the case of his family name, the word suggested rattles such as those on the snake's tail. He also said because the word was old it seemed to have something to do with pine pitch. As such, he said his role among the Mohawk chiefs was to raise a warning (shake the rattle) or point out a "sticky issue" (like placing one's hand on pine pitch). These notions provided the basis for advancing the idiomatic expression of Satekariwate. In many instances elders placed me in the middle of numerous confl icts at the Six Nations Indian Reserve, sixty miles south of Toronto, Canada. I worked closely with Chief Maracle during the so-called Oka Crisis of 1990. I also worked with Chief Thomas in the performance of the recital of the "Great Laws of Peace," our master narrative. With Elder Henry, we discussed how our ceremonies were performances of our Indigenous cultural practices like harvesting fish, growing our crops, and using the maple sap. However, for this paper I focus on the work with Chief Maracle. Work with Chief Maracle included several major events in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This work included delivering the "Shawanaga Fire" from the hunger strikers north of Toronto who were protesting cutbacks to postsecondary funding that was lit for a week at Six Nations. In addition, Chief Maracle and my clanmother Wilma Hill talked to me frequently during the school lockout of 1989, when a thousand elementary students were pulled from Six Nations' schools because of environmental and health conditions. I arranged meetings between Brantford's mayor, Brantford's Member of Parliament, and Chief Maracle concerning Mohawk claims in the Grand River Valley near Brantford, Ontario. This work associates more closely with the family name Satekariwate than the simple affectation "weighing in balance." I contend with some confidence based on my discussions with these elders that one who weighs things in balance engages in the act of mediation. That family tradition was invoked on many occasions in work conducted with extant clanship families of the League. In the case of the Turtle clan, Satekariwate sits with Aiionwatha and Tekarihoken, families whose names idiomatically express the humanity of problem solving and seeking solutions to disputes. Aiionwatha (combs the hair) keeps matters straight and untangled. Tekarihoken (uses two minds) seeks to understand disputants' fears, worries, and threats. With Satekariwate's mediation practices added to this governing triumvirate, the Mohawk Turtle clan families possess certain diplomatic authority in navigating conflicts and disputes. One key sign and symbol of League culture depicts mediated processes between entities imbued with the practices...

Post-Colonialism, Post Socialism, and Multiple Remembrances

On the morning of 12 July 1990, I flipped on my TV to CNN’s Headline News. I received about two hours of English-language television each morning, and had grown dependent on CNN to let me know in the vaguest sense what was going on in the world. I was living in Prague, in what would remain Czechoslovakia for another couple of years, part of the swarm of do-gooders, curiosity-seekers, and carpetbaggers descending on the entire former East Bloc at the end of 1989. By the time I left Prague, it was clear to anyone who looked carefully that the new regime’s willingness to suspend visa and currency regulations made ‘English teacher’ a surprisingly lucrative moniker for anyone looking to cash in quickly before the heavyweights took over, and in the process thoroughly elided any boundary between do-gooders and carpetbaggers1). Given the time difference between Prague and eastern Canada, that morning’s top story on Headline News was the first I heard of events at Kanehsata:ke, or as it was soon referred to, the ‘Oka Crisis’. The previous

Uprising at Oka: A Place of Non-identification

Grounded in rhetorical theory, this paper examines the “Oka crisis” and suggests that the conflict created a place of non-identification where assumptions about the superiority of Canadian (or Québecois) values and norms became unsettled. It argues that by embodying a Mohawk political style embedded in an indigenous rhetorical culture, the protestors at Oka paved the way for the emergence of a rhetoric of listening in which partialities became visible and the conditions for new forms of judgment arose.

Beating the odds

Beyond the shadows of Montreal is a small, rural Mohawk community known as Kanesatake (Oka), which has a population of approximately 1500 Mohawks. Residents of Kanesatake have experienced a number of crises in recent years, with negative consequences for the entire community and especially children and youth. The present article provides an overview of the dynamics of two crises faced by the Kanesatake community, detailing the specific impacts on children and young people before moving on to describe health centre interventions that were designed to support community members in processing the trauma. In 1990, Kanesatake was at the heart of the ‘Oka Crisis’, in which Mohawk residents set up barriers to prevent the expansion of a golf course onto their sacred grounds – the cemetery. The Quebec Provincial Police (Surete du Quebec [SQ]) and the Canadian army were sent in to dismantle the Mohawk barricades. Unfortunately, violence broke out, resulting in the death of a police officer. Many people believe that the ensuing 78-day stand-off was the beginning of many difficulties for the community. These events have had a harmful impact on the community, its members and the surrounding communities. Although the Oka Crisis did protect and preserve our sacred lands, it had some unsettling effects on the community that continue to affect us to this day. On January 12, 2004, our most recent high-profile community crisis involved, yet again, damaging national publicity as a result of political warfare and an ‘invasion’ by over 100 policemen from other Native communities to assist our Native police force. At the time, the community was not told why these extra police were brought in. There were rumours that the police officers were there to raid contraband cigarette vendors. No one knew for sure what was happening and it was a very confusing and tense time. The situation escalated with the burning of the Grand Chief’s home and the takeover of the police station by some community members. After a 24 h stand-off between the Native police force and some community members, the police were escorted out of the community. The community was left without security, which created more instability and affected the community and the surrounding areas. These two crises compounded the historical trauma brought on by colonialism, residential schools and dislocation. This prolonged and extreme trauma, and the resilience of the people who survived it, is rarely acknowledged in Canadian society. Suffering is not unique to First Nations peoples, nor is resilience, but perhaps what sets First Nations apart is the fact that most Canadians do not even acknowledge the depth of the trauma or the strength that was needed to survive. Too often, their views of Native people are formed by flashes on the television screen instead of through respectful relationships – and so it was with our community. We entered into the national consciousness at a time of crisis, and for most Canadians, we became defined by that moment, but we were here before and our children will be here after. The present article is as much about calling attention to the need for community post-traumatic interventions as it is about affirming our entire humanity as a proud people working for a better future for our children – not just an event.

Many hands, one dream: Healthy Aboriginal children and young people

Many hands, one dream: Healthy Aboriginal children and young people

Re-ordering Iraq

Re-ordering Iraq

Why Native Literature?

If we consider the very title of Jeannette Armstrong's essay The Disempowerment of First North American Native Peoples and Empowerment Through Their Writing (Armstrong, 1992, p. 207), Emma LaRoche's Here Are Our Voices Who Will Hear? (LaRoche, 1993, p. xv), or even Jordan Wheeler's Voice, (Wheeler, 1992, p. 37), we come to some understanding of the position in which many Native writers see themselves in relation to their work, their people and Canadian society at large. Indeed, would not be hyperbole to say that the kind of writing to which these writers refer faces with an unblinking eye the realities of what means to be people under siege. For Native people, this is the history of the Americas and the legacy of colonialism. We only have to think back to the 1990 Oka Crisis or the confrontation at Ipperwash and the death of Dudley George (who was shot by an Ontario Provincial Police Officer) to consider the appalling social conditions in which most Native people are forced to live. Indeed, the situation at the end of the 20th century for Native people is critical. For many is matter of life and death. In 1994 interim report, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples documented that the suicide rate among young Native people is five to six times higher than is among their non-Native peers and rising. In country that boasts one of the highest standards of living, obviously something has gone terribly wrong. This intolerable situation, as Wheeler sees it, is only exacerbated by having the Native voice stymied by the dominent society, where a novel written by non-aboriginal writer [about Native people] sell[s] millions of copies when is riddled with stereotypes, racial attitudes, shallow, one diamensional characters and cultural inaccuracies. Tell people that they are poor and hopeless enough times and they will begin to believe it (Wheeler, 1992, p. 40). Clearly, the only alternative to this kind of colonizing imposition is for Native people to claim their own voice and thereby give insight into their own values, traditions, concerns and needs. It is reality that for the most part is still unheard and unheeded in country where its First inhabitants are but mere afterthought, an anachronism to be dealt with, at best material for constructing sense of Canadian national identity in multicultural state. Any wonder that Elleke Boehmer, in her recent text Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, observes that

“Echoes of a Proud Nation”: Reading Kahnawake’s Powwow as a Post-Oka Text

After presenting one history of North American powwows as sites where aesthetic forms are deployed to transform meanings about aboriginal peoples, an analysis is offered of the powwow produced by the Kahnawake Mohawk a year after their involvement in the Oka crisis.