Returning home: heritage work among the Stl'atl'imx of the Lower Lillooet River Valley

This article focusses on heritage practices in the tensioned landscape of the Stl’atl’imx (pronounced Stat-lee-um) people of the Lower Lillooet River Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Displaced from their traditional territories and cultural traditions through the colonial encounter, they are enacting, challenging and remaking their heritage as part of their long term goal to reclaim their land and return ‘home’. I draw on three examples of their heritage work: graveyard cleaning, the shifting ‘official’/‘unofficial’ heritage of a wagon road, and marshalling of the mountain named Nsvq’ts (pronounced In-SHUCK-ch) in order to illustrate how the past is strategically mobilised in order to substantiate positions in the present. While this paper focusses on heritage in an Indigenous and postcolonial context, I contend that the dynamics of heritage practices outlined here are applicable to all heritage practices

SPECIAL SECTION ON TWENTY YEARS AFTER KANEHSATÀ:KE: Then and Now, For the Land

Taiaiake Alfred is from Kahnawá:ke in the Mohawk Nation. He lived in Kahnawá:ke in 1990 and worked in the intergovernmental relations office of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake during the crisis. In this piece, he reflects on the aftermath of the events at Kahnawá:ke and Kahnesatà:ke, reflecting on why this was the moment that the Mohawk people decided to make a stand. Taiaiake Alfred vient de Kahnawá:ke dans la Nation Mohawk. Il vivait à Kahnawá:ke en 1990 et il a travaillé dans le bureau des relations intergouvernementales du Conseil Mohawk de Kahnawake pendant la crise. Dans cette contribution, il réfléchit à la suite des évènements à Kahnawá:ke et Kahnesatà:ke, analysant pourquoi ce fut le moment que le peuple Mohawk a décidé de saisir pour se revendiquer

The Akwesasne cultural restoration program: A Mohawk approach to land-based education

This article tracks the creation of a cultural apprenticeship program in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. The program aims to give youth in the community the necessary skills, knowledge and experiences in land, language and culture to help the Mohawks of Akwesasne retain and regenerate land based practices in the community. The program arose from Akwesasne’s participation in the Natural Resources Damages Assessment (NRDA) process. This is the legal process that resulted from the 1981 “Superfund” legislation in which corporations must provide redress to communities that have suffered from the egregious pollution of their local environments. Although constrained by the legal requirements of the process, the Mohawks of Akwesasne re-envisioned the process within a context of their own nationhood by focusing on these two questions: How has industrial pollution affected the Akwesasne Mohawks’ people’s way of life? And, what can be done to restore that way of life? This article explains how the research was carried out of the NRDA process and used to negotiate for the funds necessary to establish the cultural apprenticeship program

Colonialism and State Dependency

This paper conceptualizes colonialism from an indigenous perspective and analyses the effects of colonization on First Nations, with particular focus on explaining the fundamental roots of the psychophysical crises and dependency of First Nations upon the state. Central to its analysis is the effect of colonially-generated cultural disruptions that compound the effects of dispossession to create near total psychological, physical and financial dependency on the state. The paper argues that it is the cumulative and ongoing effects of this crisis of dependency that form the context of First Nations existences today. Social suffering, unresolved psychophysical harms of historical trauma and cultural dislocation are identified as the main sources of a crisis in which First Nations’ opportunities for self-sufficient, healthy and autonomous lives on individual and collective levels are extremely limited because Indigenous people have developed complexes of behaviour and mental attitudes that reflect their colonial situation. Through a review and consideration of the scholarly literature, it identifies a direct relationship between government laws and policies applied to Indigenous peoples and the myriad mental and physical health problems and economic deprivations. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for developing policy responses to the situation which are oriented towards supporting and facilitating Indigenous people’s reconnection to their homelands, restoration of land-based cultural practices and the rebuilding of indigenous communities