and Elwood Jimmy - Speaking My Truth

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although generosity is the basis of many immigrant cultures as much as FirstNations cultures.“You don’t understand,” James said, “Sharing is the law. The Land owns itself.”Who loans the land? Who will restore the land? The waters?By working with the land, with our communities, we can work towardsspaces ofDecolonizationTransformationTruthReconciliationAre we there yet? No.James’s best friend, Walter Wastesicoot, visiting now at this home on MurrayLake, was compelled to write the following in response to this text by Elwoodand me: As a residential school Survivor, I have learned much of the colonizer’smalice. He offers me reconciliation while I have an outstanding case againsthim for sexual and physical abuse suffered while resident at one of hisinstitutions of assimilation. He offers my people reconciliation while he holdsour lands and resources in abeyance, ensuring our continued survival by hishand only. Reconciliation is said to be a personal privilege, offered to one whohas made amends for past wrongs. Something is skewed in the colonizer’soffer of reconciliation. He carries with him centuries of shame, for which I andmy people will continue to suffer in a marginalized existence in his hope forreconciliation.Does taking responsibility for the effects of colonization diminish the shame?But the seeds are there.66 | Sandra Semchuk and Elwood Jimmy
Notes1 Elwood Jimmy acknowledges the following resources that were helpful in composingthis interaction with Sandra’s and James’s artwork: The Alberta Encyclopedia and theRoyal Alberta Museum; Cuthand, Doug (2007). Askiwina—A Cree World. Regina, SK:Coteau Books; the Blue Quills First Nations College website (available at: http://www.bluequills.ca/); and the words and thoughts of others, including my mom, who knewabout the stone.2 Ka kiss is kach e whak is the spelling of the Rock Cree word used by the late JamesNicholas as he understood to be the basis for the word, Saskatchewan. It is this versionof the word that appears in the photographic installation.Cultivating Canada | 67
Page 1 and 2: Sandra Semchuk (with James Nicholas
Page 3 and 4: Cultivating Canada | 55
Page 7 and 8: ‘On Loan’: Thoughts on stolen s
Page 11 and 12: eaking the prairie wool and clearin
Page 13: This stole strength. This stole ide

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