Harriet's Legacies: Race, Historical Memory, and Futures in Canada

A Tribute to My Innu Friends (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, The Innu people inhabit the Quebec-Labrador peninsula, also known as the Ungava peninsula by geographers. They number about 18,000 Indigenous people living in eleven communities - nine in Quebec and two in Labrador. Their language, Innu-aimun, and culture, Innu-aitun, still thrive today, and now, like the Inuit people, they have a syllabic script developed by missionaries. This book recounts Serge Bouchard's lifetime knowledge, experiences and reminiscences, since his first encounters as a young anthropologist half a century ago; in particular he has spent much time living in the two The book starts by explaining who the Innu people are, and there is an excellent foreword by the chief of the Essipit Innu First Nation. Chapter 1 describes their language and culture, and chapter 2 emphasises their detailed knowledge of all the species of animals and plants within their homeland, and the mythologies attached to them. Chapter 3 contrasts their historic nomadic lifestyle as hunters, and a diet almost entirely meat-based, with their present confinement to reserves. Contacts with Europeans - Basque fishermen, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Jesuits, and later commercial interests - have been characterised by disease and mutual mistrust. Chapter 4 tells of the author's first period of residence at Mingan, and how he underestimated the role of women in Innu society, and found it difficult to appreciate their nomadic way of life. Chapter 5 pays tribute to the previous work in the 1920s of Frank Speck on Innu spirituality: a spirituality based on dreams and animism, which received little respect from the Jesuits and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The author reminds us that the Indian Act of 1880, outlawing the ceremonies attached to such beliefs, was not repealed until 1950. Chapter 6 deals with the impact of the commercial fur trade, and the desire of companies such as the King's Domain and the Hudson's Bay Company for the Innu to become full-time trappers rather than hunters. Chapter 7 deals with other cultural/economic clashes with logging and sport-fishing interests. The final schools, prejudice, discrimination and racism, and the attempts of the federal government