First nations autobiography

Here are 5 must-read Indigenous autobiographies

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A longtime academic, Deanna Reder wanted to cast a wider readership when she set out to write her book: Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina.

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Through the autobiographies/âcimisowina of Cree and Métis writers James Settee, Maria Campbell, Edward Ahenakew, James Brady and Harold Cardinal, and even her own family stories, Reder, who is Cree/Métis, draws attention to a rich history of “Indigenous practice of life-writing.”

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“When you write in Indigenous Studies, you don’t want to just be writing for other professors,” said Reder, who is a Simon Fraser University professor of Ind

Indigenous Learning - Indigenous Authors; Biographies; Languages; & Legends

The following titles are additional biographies and autobiographies of Indigenous Peoples of North America:

1. Agger, Helen                                    Following Nimishoomis: the Trout Lake history of Dedibaayaanimanook
2. Barker, George                                Forty years a chief
3. Bartleman, James                            Raisin wine: a boyhood in a different Muskoka
4. Belcourt, Herb                       &nb

Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition

Cree and Métis âcimisowina

Table of Contents
Glossary: Cree terms
Introduction: She Told Us Stories Constantly: Autobiography as Theoretical Practice
1. âcimisowina: Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition
2. kiskêyihtamowin: Seekers of Knowledge, Cree Intergenerational Inquiry
3. Interrelatedness and Obligation: wâhkowtowin in Maria Campbell’s âcimisowin
4. Edward Ahenakew’s Intertwined Unpublished Life-Inspired Stories: aniskwâcimopicikêwin in Black Hawk and Old Keyam
5. Contradiction and kisteanemétowin in Edward Ahenakew’s “Old Keyam”
6. Traces of âcimisowina left behind: James Brady and Absolom Halkett
Epilogue
Bibliography

Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition critiques ways of approaching Indigenous texts that are informed by the Western academic tradition and offers instead a new way of theorizing Indigenous literature based on the Indigenous practice of life writing.

Since the 1970s non-Indigenous scholars have perpetrated the notion that Indigenous people were disinclined

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