Out of all the stories I most enjoyed Andrea Bear Nicholas's story. Her material can be summed up with: "The writing of history is a political act designed for the purpose of controlling the present and maintaining the social order."-Michael Parenti.
All these hundreds of years false truths have been written about us and forced on us through the public school system. Its up to us, as parents to see that these falsehoods are removed from the curriculm.
My youngest daughter is in Grade 6 now, but when she was in Grade 4 she came home with some false information and she wouldn't answer her questions based on the information she was given because she knew it wasn't true. We wrote a note to her teacher and we were told this is the information he was given as part of the Grade 4 curriculm. So she just never answered those questions and received a poor mark for that particular assignment.My older daughter was in Grade 6 at the time and told her sister that by Grade 6 the information will be corrected. She has always been vocal, and she challenges the Principal to change these inaccuracies.I am so proud that my two daughters will not accept the false information they are given at school and will fight for it to be removed from their school.
This is just one example of what Andrea Bear Nicholas is saying in her work. This misinformation really does an injustice to our people. Non native people that are not in close contact with us, grow up believing this information leading to hatred and misunderstandings.It really is up to us to change the history books.
Another piece of work I enjoyed was by SophieMcCall. I loved reading about Rebecca Belmore. Rebecca Belmore makes it clear through her work that written accounts and audio and video recordings are not always reliable sources of information.They can be taken out of context and used to tell a warped version of events. T.V. media is a great example of this.T.V. pretty much controls waht we see and newspapers can misinterpret facts to use for their own interpretation. Just as the history books tell only one side of a story, media is capable of doing the same today. Rebecca reminds us to pay more credence to the Oral history passed on directly to us. Iwas reminded of this while doing my oral history project. By writing the stories of my interviewees, it is possible that I may have misinterpreted the meanings of some stories.If inforamtion is taken out of its true form, it is possible that the true meaning may be lost. I struggled with the interpretation of knowlege, however I knew that if I presented the interviews in their entirety, my presentation may have went on for hours.My interview with Lillian Marshall lasted all afternoon.In it were bits and pieces of other stories of interest to me but not necessarily on the topic I was discussing. I choose the information that I thought reflected my topic.However by editing my information I in fact put my own spin on things.But I guess thats the whole point: to take the facts presented to you and present them in a way unique only to you. And thats what Rebecca Belmore has done through her art. Not everyone will get the same end message.
The last story I enjoyed, came at the beginning of the book. The Preface by Stephen Augustine. He reminds us of the importance of collective knowledge that we all possess. That we all play a part in our history through every story we've ever been told.I find his discussion on the word egsoen very interesting. He says the word means liar and that the first three letters sounds like the letter X. At a certain time in history Mikmaq people used the letter x to sign treaties. In Mikmaq culture people signing with the letter x were liars. Interestingly enough we're still fighting over these treaties.When I first say the word egsoen, I immediately thought of the word Ego.Ego is not a word I would relate to my Mikmaq Identity however it goes hand in hand with the word liar.It also is a good word to use to describe the Europeans that we signed treaties with.
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