Tag Archives: myths

Module 3: Post 5 – Chelsea Vowel

Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Rights discusses five different interrelated themes:

  1. The terminology of relationships
  2. Culture and identity
  3. Myth-busting
  4. State violence
  5. Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties

This book is an excellent guide for addressing pre-conceived notions about Indigenous People. The book is primarily about the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Throughout my studies of Indigenous education, I have realized that it is essential to reflect on what it means to be a settler and my role within my relationship with Indigenous people.

One of my favourite sections of Vowel’s book is “Myth-busting.” As I live in rural Saskatchewan, I have heard all the myths Vowel discusses in her book. Vowel provides factual information on how and why these myths are false and equips the reader with the knowledge to confront those myths. I found an online keynote that Chelsea Vowel gave titled Stories that Reveal, Stories that Conceal: Pushing back against Settler Myth-Making. In her keynote, Chelsea talks about the work that needs to be done with recognizing truth before we move forward with reconciliation.

Chelsea Vowel’s book and speech are relevant to my research topic because she discusses the inaccessibility of language. She discusses how many Indigenous languages are within Universities and how it is essential to return the languages to their home communities. Chelsea Vowel also shares how through social media and blogging was able to make her message more accessible to more people. Chelsea shares the myth in her keynote that many believe that the kinship that Indigenous people have that is beyond just with humans, that extends to animals, non-living, and spiritual beings is something that is based in the past. She discusses how that idea is false; it is current and relevant and that Indigenous people can carry this idea far into the future in a sustainable way.

The following link provides online access to part 1 of Chelsea Vowel’s book: https://www.portageandmainpress.com/content/download/17819/220849/version/1/file/9781553796800_IndigenousWrites_excerpt.pdf

Module 2: Post 1 – Myths

Dispelling Common Myths About Indigenous Peoples: 9 Myths & Realities (ebook)

I find the Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. (www.ictinc.ca) website is a good website for broad, brief knowledge on a lot of topics. This ebook is free and it caught my attention since we are discussing stereotypes in Week 4.

The first myth is “Indigenous peoples are all the same”.

I think this is worthy of being #1. I remember reading the popular non-fiction author Michael Pollan’s book This Is Your Mind on Plants and he frequently referred to “Indigenous people” in a general way. I mentally bumped on it every time, and wanted to tell him and his editor that the “s” in “Indigenous peoples” is crucially important. But honestly it’s easy for those of us not familiar with one or more Indigenous nations or groups (such as myself) to fall into thinking that there is an Indigenous way of thinking/doing/being, rather than many, many ways. I know intellectually that there are many First Nations, and other groups like the Inuit and the Metis, but that knowledge isn’t very salient to me because I don’t know any Indigenous people or peoples. I certainly have found myself falling into this trap when thinking about my final research project for this course. I want to look at ‘collectivist’ cultures, but which Indigenous cultures would make the most sense to research and how much information will I be able to find? I’m not yet sure.

However, I am sure that I want to decolonize my thinking and not group all Indigenous peoples together! There are times when I think it’s okay to generalize and talk about, for example, a Western worldview, but we need to be very careful.

The ninth myth in this ebook is “Missing and murdered Indigenous women brought it upon themselves”.

This one makes me sad, and furious, and triggered (for lack of a better term). I want to think that no one could believe this, but I know from experience that people do blame victims of sexual violence.

The other 7 myths are, sadly, the ones you would probably guess. Overall this ebook is a good quick primer about all the negative stereotypes that Indigenous people in Canada face on a regular basis. The content is straightforward and a bit more practical than the Prins piece, which is more about how somewhat positive stereotypes (like the romantic exoticism of the vanishing Indian) can still be harmful.