1 “Okisikôwak”—the Cree word for “angels”—is the fifth track on Asani’s CD Listen (Outside Music, 2009). A micro-documentary about the making of Listen is available at http://youtu.be/MEz74GCV0pc.
2 Titley cites LAC, RG-10, vol. 6810, file 470-2-3, vol. 7, Evidence of D. C. Scott to the Special Committee of the House of Commons examining the Indian Act amendments of 1920, p. 63 [N-3]. Enfranchisement meant that a person lost his or her status as a registered Indian. Although policies varied somewhat over the years, enfranchisement could likewise be involuntary if a Status Indian moved off the reserve for an extended period of time, or acquired a post-secondary education, or served in the Canadian military. In addition, an Indian woman who married a non-Indian man lost her status.
3 Survivors of this system took the churches and government to court resulting in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, “the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history” (“Residential Schools,” Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, n.d., http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=4.
4 The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that “Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group” (United Nations General Assembly 2007, Article 7.2).
5 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada explains cultural genocide as “the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group” (TRC 2015, 1). They elaborate how for over a century “the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as ‘cultural genocide’ (TRC 2015, 1).” (TRC 2015).
6 My grandmother dictated these words, and all those that follow, to my mother, Loretta Jobin (née Wuttunee), on 27 February 1993, in Edmonton. My mother later transcribed them, and they are used here with her permission.
7 Alfred (2009, 16) writes: “I am advocating a self-conscious traditionalism, an intellectual, social, and political movement that will reinvigorate these values, principles, and other cultural elements that are best suited to the larger contemporary political and economic reality.”
8 According to tradition, these stories were to be told during the winter. Lillian wanted these stories shared. When thinking through the ethics of publishing her Wîsahkecâhk account (and after talking and receiving approval from advisors, including a Cree Elder), I felt reassured when I found that a version of this legend was already in print, one told by the Rock Cree of northwestern Manitoba (Brightman 1989, 31–32) and it reminded me of the reach of Wîsahkecâhk legends throughout the expanse of Cree territory.