1.
Indigenous peoples in Canada
–
Aboriginal peoples in Canada, are the indigenous peoples within the boundaries of present-day Canada. They comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis, although Indian is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors Indian and Eskimo have somewhat fallen into disuse in Canada and are pejorative. Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are some of the earliest known sites of habitation in Canada. The Paleo-Indian Clovis, Plano and Pre-Dorset cultures pre-date current indigenous peoples of the Americas, projectile point tools, spears, pottery, bangles, chisels and scrapers mark archaeological sites, thus distinguishing cultural periods, traditions and lithic reduction styles. The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal culture included permanent settlements, agriculture, civic and ceremonial architecture, complex societal hierarchies, the Métis culture of mixed blood originated in the mid-17th century when First Nation and Inuit people married Europeans. The Inuit had more limited interaction with European settlers during early period. Various laws, treaties, and legislation have been enacted between European immigrants and First Nations across Canada, Aboriginal Right to Self-Government provides opportunity to manage historical, cultural, political, health care and economic control aspects within first peoples communities. National Aboriginal Day recognizes the cultures and contributions of Aboriginal peoples to the history of Canada, First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of all backgrounds have become prominent figures and have served as role models in the Aboriginal community and help to shape the Canadian cultural identity. The terms First Peoples and First Nations are both used to refer to peoples of Canada. The terms First Peoples or Aboriginal peoples in Canada are normally broader terms than First Nations, as they include Inuit, Métis, First Nations has come into general use for the indigenous peoples of North America in Canada, and their descendants, who are neither Inuit nor Métis. On reserves, First Nations is being supplanted by members of various nations referring to themselves by their group or ethnical identity, in conversation this would be I am Haida, or we are Kwantlens, in recognition of their First Nations ethnicities. In this Act, Aboriginal peoples of Canada includes the Indian, Inuit, Indian remains in place as the legal term used in the Canadian Constitution. Its usage outside such situations can be considered offensive, Aboriginal peoples is more commonly used to describe all indigenous peoples of Canada. It also refers to self-identification of Aboriginal people who live within Canada claiming rights of sovereignty or Aboriginal title to lands, the term Eskimo has pejorative connotations in Canada and Greenland. Indigenous peoples in those areas have replaced the term Eskimo with Inuit, the Yupik of Alaska and Siberia do not consider themselves Inuit, and ethnographers agree they are a distinct people. They prefer the terminology Yupik, Yupiit, or Eskimo, the Yupik languages are linguistically distinct from the Inuit languages. Linguistic groups of Arctic people have no universal replacement term for Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people across the area inhabited by the Inuit. Besides these ethnic descriptors, Aboriginal peoples are divided into legal categories based on their relationship with the Crown
2.
First Nations
–
The First Nations are the predominant Aboriginal peoples of Canada south of the Arctic. Those in the Arctic area are distinct and known as Inuit, the Métis, another distinct ethnicity, developed after European contact and relations primarily between First Nations people and Europeans. There are currently 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. Under the Employment Equity Act, First Nations are a group, along with women, visible minorities. First Nations are not defined as a minority under the Act or by the criteria of Statistics Canada. Within Canada, First Nations has come into general use—replacing the deprecated term Indians—for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, individuals using the term outside Canada include supporters of the Cascadian independence movement, as well as U. S. tribes within the Pacific Northwest. The singular, commonly used on culturally politicized reserves, is the term First Nations person, North American indigenous peoples have cultures spanning thousands of years. Some of their oral traditions accurately describe historical events, such as the Cascadia earthquake of 1700, written records began with the arrival of European explorers and colonists during the Age of Discovery, beginning in the late 15th century. European accounts by trappers, traders, explorers, and missionaries give important evidence of early contact culture, in addition, archeological and anthropological research, as well as linguistics, have helped scholars piece together understanding of ancient cultures and historic peoples. Combined with later development, this relatively non-combative history has allowed First Nations peoples to have an influence on the national culture. Collectively, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples constitute Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, First Nations came into common usage in the 1980s to replace the term Indian band in referring to groups of Indians with common government and language. Elder Sol Sanderson says that he coined the term in the early 1980s, others say that the term came into common usage in the 1970s to avoid using the word Indian, which some Canadians considered offensive. No legal definition of the term exists, some Aboriginal peoples in Canada have also adopted the term First Nation to replace the word band in the formal name of their community. While the word Indian is still a term, its use is erratic. Some First Nations people consider the term offensive, while others prefer it to Aboriginal person/persons/people, the term is a misnomer given to indigenous peoples of North America by European explorers who erroneously thought they had landed on the Indian subcontinent. The use of the term Native Americans, which the United States government and it refers more specifically to the Aboriginal peoples residing within the boundaries of the United States. The parallel term Native Canadian is not commonly used, but Natives and autochthones are, under the Royal Proclamation of 1763, also known as the Indian Magna Carta, the Crown referred to indigenous peoples in British territory as tribes or nations. The term First Nations is capitalized, unlike alternative terms, bands and nations may have slightly different meanings
3.
Inuit
–
Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada and Alaska. Inuit is a noun, the singular is Inuk. The Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo-Aleut family, Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate spoken in Nunavut. In the United States and Canada, the term Eskimo was commonly used to describe the Inuit and Alaskas Yupik, however, Inuit is not accepted as a term for the Yupik, and Eskimo is the only term that includes Yupik, Iñupiat and Inuit. However, aboriginal peoples in Canada and Greenlandic Inuit view Eskimo as pejorative, in Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 classified the Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis. These areas are known in Inuktitut as the Inuit Nunangat, in the United States, the Iñupiat live primarily on the Alaska North Slope and on Little Diomede Island. The Greenlandic Inuit are descendants of migrations from Canada. In the 21st century they are citizens of Denmark, although not of the European Union, Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4,000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants, possibly related to the Chukchi language group and they spread eastwards across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture, the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture, Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as giants, people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit. Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as dwarfs, researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked the dogs, larger weapons and other technologies of the Inuit society, which gave the latter an advantage. By 1300, Inuit migrants had reached west Greenland, where they settled, faced with population pressures from the Thule and other surrounding groups, such as the Algonquian and Siouan to the south, the Tuniit gradually receded. They were thought to have become extinct as a people by about 1400 or 1500. But, in the mid-1950s, researcher Henry B. Collins determined that, based on the ruins found at Native Point, the Sadlermiut population survived up until winter 1902–03, when exposure to new infectious diseases brought by contact with Europeans led to their extinction as a people. In the early 21st century, mitochondrial DNA research has supported the theory of continuity between the Tuniit and the Sadlermiut peoples and it also provided evidence that a population displacement did not occur within the Aleutian Islands between the Dorset and Thule transition. In contrast to other Tuniit populations, the Aleut and Sadlermiut benefited from both geographical isolation and their ability to adopt certain Thule technologies, in Canada and Greenland, Inuit circulated almost exclusively north of the Arctic tree line, the effective southern border of Inuit society. The most southern officially recognized Inuit community in the world is Rigolet in Nunatsiavut, south of Nunatsiavut, the descendants of the southern Labrador Inuit in NunatuKavut continued their traditional transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s. The Nunatukavummuit people usually moved among islands and bays on a seasonal basis and they did not establish stationary communities
4.
Paleo-Indians
–
The prefix paleo- comes from the Greek adjective palaios, meaning old or ancient. The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic. Evidence suggests big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from Eurasia into North America over a land and ice bridge, small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. From c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE, ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and this allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior. The people went on foot or used primitive boats along the coastline, the precise dates and routes of the peopling of the New World are subject to ongoing debate. Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scrapers, are the evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Crafted lithic flaked tools are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to classify cultural periods, scientific evidence links Indigenous Americans to Asian peoples, specifically eastern Siberian populations. There is evidence for at least two separate migrations, between 8000–7000 BCE the climate stabilized, leading to a rise in population and lithic technology advances, resulting in more sedentary lifestyle. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age. Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia, ranges from c. 40,000 – c. 16,500 years ago and this time range is a source of debate and promises to continue as such for years to come. However, alternative theories about the origins of Paleoindians exist, including migration from Europe, the Paleo-Indian would eventually flourish all over the Americas. These peoples were spread over a geographical area, thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making knapping styles. Food would have been plentiful during the few months of the year. Lakes and rivers were teeming with many species of fish, birds, nuts, berries and edible roots could be found in the forests and marshes. The fall would have been a time because foodstuffs would have to be stored
5.
Canadian Indian residential school system
–
In Canada, the Indian residential schools were a network of residential schools for Indigenous people. The network was funded by the Canadian governments Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the school system was created for the purpose of removing children from the influence of the aboriginal culture and assimilating them into the dominant Canadian culture. Over the course of the existence, approximately 30% of native children. It has been estimated that at least 6,000 of these students died while in attendance, an amendment to the Indian Act in 1884 made attendance at day schools, industrial schools, or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children. Due to the nature of many communities, school locations meant that for some families residential schools were the only way to comply. School distance was used as a way to intentionally keep families from their children. Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed argued for schools at greater distances to cut down on family visits that he viewed as counteracting the civilizing of Indigenous children, parental visits were further restricted by the use of a pass system designed to confine Indigenous peoples to reserves. Disconnected from their families and culture, students who attended the school system often graduated unable to fit in to their communities or Canadian society. Forced to speak English or French and abandon their cultural heritage, on June 11,2008, a public apology was offered by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the Government of Canada and the leaders of the other federal parties in the Canadian House of Commons. Nine days prior, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to uncover the truth about the schools, the commission gathered statements from residential school survivors through public and private statement gatherings at various local, regional and national events across Canada. Seven national events held between 2008-2013 commemorated the experience of students of residential schools. The ‘civilizing mission’ rested on a belief of racial and cultural superiority, attempts at assimilating Indigenous populations began as early as the 17th century with the arrival of French colonists in New France. The establishment of day and boarding schools by including the Récollets, Jesuits. The political instability and realities of life also played a role in the decision to halt the education programs. An increase in orphaned and foundling colonial children limited Church resources, responsible for separating children from their families and communities, the system has been described as cultural genocide because its aim was killing the Indian in the child. Designed as a program, children were prohibited, in many schools. The primary stated goal was to convert Indigenous children to Christianity, the renewed interest in residential schools at the turn of the 19th century has been linked to the decline in military hostility faced by British settlers, particularly after the War of 1812. With the threat of invasion minimized Indigenous communities were no longer viewed as allies and this system of using established school facilities set up by missionaries was employed by the federal government for economic expedience
6.
Treaty rights
–
Treaty rights are certain rights that were reserved by indigenous peoples when they signed treaties with settler societies in the wake of European colonization. Treaty rights are not the only rights claimed by indigenous peoples, indigenous people claim inherent rights to self-determination, which implies that they be recognized as rights-bearing groups capable of self-determination and cultural survival. Later treaties, however, were generally about the cession of land from weakened Aboriginal peoples to expanding settler states and this principle, which was adopted by both Canada and the United States upon gaining independence from Britain, became the legal impetus for all subsequent treaties in North America. Likewise treaty rights were enshrined in Canada under section 35 by the package of reforms of 1982. A common critique of the treaty relationship is that treaty rights are special rights given to by the state because of their racial status, treaty rights are frequently subject to public debate, particularly hunting and fishing rights. Many Native nations have reserved rights to hunt and fish in their accustomed places and this leads to conflict with sports and commercial hunters and fishers, who are competing for the same limited resource in the same place. Another common source of conflict is management decisions about the land or rivers on which Native people have rights, report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba
7.
Numbered Treaties
–
The Numbered Treaties are a series of eleven treaties signed between the Aboriginal peoples in Canada and the reigning monarch of Canada from 1871 to 1921. These treaties provided the Dominion of Canada large tracts of land in exchange for promises made to the Aboriginal people of the area and these terms were dependent on individual negotiations and so specific terms differed with each treaty. These Treaties came in two waves—Numbers 1 through 7 from 1871-1877 and Numbers 9 through 11 from 1899-1921, in the first wave, the treaties were key in advancing European settlement across the Prairie regions as well as the development of the Canadian Pacific Railway. However, the Numbered Treaties are criticized and are an issue within the fight for First Nation rights. The 1982 Constitution Act gave protection of First Nations and treaty rights under Section 35 and it states, Aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed. This phrase however was never fully defined, as a result, First Nations must attest their rights in court as the case in R v Sparrow. Through centuries of interaction First Nations view the Numbered Treaties as sacred, Treaty Days are celebrated in Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. The relationship between The Canadian Crown and Aboriginal peoples stretches back to first contact between European colonialists and North American Aboriginal peoples, over centuries of interaction, treaties were established concerning interaction between the monarch and Aboriginal peoples. Both the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the British North American Act of 1867 established guidelines that would be used to create the numbered treaties. The Royal Proclamation occurred in 1763, and is considered to be the foundation of treaty-making in Canada and this proclamation established a line between the Appalachian Mountain from Nova Scotia and the southern region of Georgia, and prevented settlement beyond that specific area by white colonists. The Royal Proclamation was created as a result of the assertion of British jurisdiction over First Nation territory, as a result of these uprisings, the intention of the Royal Proclamation was to prevent future disputes. The Royal Proclamation stated that the only government that was able to purchase land from First Nations People was the British Crown. One of the stipulations of this agreement was that First Nation People were to be informed, when the British North American Act was created, a division of power was established between the Dominion Government and its provinces that separated First Nation Peoples and settlers. The federal government retained responsibility for providing care, education, property rights. Both the Royal Proclamation and the British North America Acts impacted the procedures of governmental and they set the stage for future negotiations that would occur, including the numbered treaties that would begin in 1871. Each treaty delineates a tract of land which was thought to be the territory of the First Nations People signing that particular treaty. For Canada it was a step before settlement and development could occur further westward. No two treaties were alike, as they were dependent upon specific geographic and social conditions within the territory being addressed, after confederation, the newly formed Dominion of Canada looked to expand its borders from sea to sea
8.
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
–
The commission culminated in a final report of 4000 pages, published in 1996. The original report set out a 20-year agenda for implementing changes and it proposed specific solutions, rooted in domestic and international experience, to the problems which have plagued those relationships and which confront Aboriginal peoples today. The Commission examined many issues which it deems to be relevant to any or all of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada, members of the Commission traveled to numerous Aboriginal communities to interview Aboriginal peoples on their past and current condition. The Commission issued its report in November 1996. Expansion of the Aboriginal land and resource base, recognition of Métis self-government, provision of a land base, and recognition of Métis rights to hunt and fish on Crown land. In an uncharacteristic move, Erasmus denounced the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada for forced integration of Aboriginal Peoples. Referring to the abandonment of Aboriginal languages, cultures and traditions, in response to the threat of extinction, institutes for the revitalization of Indigenous languages - like the Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute were established. Now running out of the University of Alberta, by 2016, CHILLDE had attracted over a thousand participants to its summer school programs
9.
Indian Act
–
The Indian Act, is a Canadian Act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still in force with amendments, it is the document which governs how the Canadian state interacts with the 614 First Nation bands in Canada. Throughout its long history the Act has been a source of controversy and has been interpreted in many ways by both Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal Canadians. The legislation has been amended many times, including over twenty major changes made by 2002, the act is very wide-ranging in scope, covering governance, land use, healthcare, education, and more on Indian reserves. Notably, the original Indian Act does two things affecting all Aboriginal people, It says how reserves and bands can operate, the act sets out rules for governing Indian reserves, defines how bands can be created and spells out the powers of band councils. Bands do not have to have lands to operate under the act. It defines who is, and who is not recognized as an Indian, the act defines a number of types of Indian people who are not recognized as registered or status Indians and who are therefore denied membership in bands. The Indian Act replaces any laws on the topic passed by a local legislature before a province joined Canadian Confederation, the Indian Act is not a treaty, it is Canadas legal response to the treaties. Nevertheless, its nature, imposed on indigenous peoples by the Canadian government in contrast to the treaties, is itself a source of discontent among Native peoples in Canada. It was an attempt to codify rights promised to Native peoples by George III in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the idea of enfranchisement predated the 1876 version of Indian Act and survived in some form until 1985. Reserves, under this legislation, were islands within Canada to which were attached a different set of rights, enfranchisement derives from the idea of franchise, which has gradually been degraded as vote. Indigenous people with the franchise were allowed to vote for representatives, were expected to pay taxes, by contrast, groups of people who lived on a reserve were subject to a different set of rights and obligations. One needed to descend from an Indian to be allowed to live on a reserve, the tenure of land in a reserve was limited to the collective, or tribe, by virtue of a Crown protectorate. The 1985 amendment to the Indian Act extinguished the idea of enfranchisement, under the section entitled Reserves in the Indian Act, it is stated that reserves are to be held for use and benefit of Indians. Marginal note, Use of reserves for schools, etc.18, not all people who self-identify as Aboriginal are considered Indians under the terms of the act. Only those on the official Indian Register maintained by the government are Status Indians, subject to the full legal benefits. Notably this excludes Métis people, Inuit people, and so-called Non-Status Indians, various amendments and court decisions have repeatedly altered the rules regarding who is eligible for Indian Status. Many bands now maintain their own band lists, though people accepted into band membership under band rules may not be status Indians, Bill C-31 clarified that various sections of the Indian Act would apply to such members
10.
British Columbia Treaty Process
–
Two treaties have been implemented under the BCTP. The Nisgaa Treaty is considered separate from the Treaty Process because those negotiations began before the BC treaty process was started, to represent the interests of First Nations involved with the process, the First Nations Summit was created. There are officially 60% of First Nations bands in the process, about 40% of First Nations are not involved in the treaty process. The Government of the Colony of British Columbia, however, failed to negotiate treaties and as a result. The few exceptions are the 14 Douglas Treaties on Vancouver Island, Treaty 8 in the Northeast of B. C. relations between Indigenous peoples and the B. C. First Nations were not allowed to organize or raise money to land claims. In the second half of the 20th century, demands for the recognition of Aboriginal title were buoyed by various court decisions in B. C. including Calder v. British Columbia and R. v. Sparrow. In 1990, the governments of Canada, B. C. Claims Task Force to investigate how treaty negotiations might begin and what they should cover. The following year, the government accepted the concept of Aboriginal rights as official policy. The Claims Task Force made 19 recommendations and suggested a six-stage process for negotiating new treaties, the British Columbia Treaty Commission is the independent body which oversees the treaty process. Treaty Commissioners were first appointed in April 1993, and the treaty process officially began in December 1993, by 1996,47 First Nations, representing more than 60% of Status Indians in B. C. had decided to participate. The first nation to reach stage 5 of the process was Sechelt First Nation, members of the Sliammon First Nation voted to reject their negotiated AIP in 2001, approved the AiP in June 2003 and negotiations are now nearing completion. Six of 12 member nations of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council likewise rejected their AIP, the five Maa-nulth First Nations of the Nuu-chah-nulth ratified their treaty in October 2007. The BC Government has ratified the agreement which is yet to be ratified in the federal parliament. Ditidaht First Nation has subsequently taken legal action against the Maa-nulth in a dispute over land, in 2002, the BC Liberal Party mailed out ballots for a provincial referendum on principles for treaty negotiations, sparking protests and a boycott. Of that money the Treaty Commissions total operating costs from 1993 to March 31,2009 has spent $34.2 million, one successfully negotiated treaty was rejected, by the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, in 2007. In July 2007, the Tsawwassen First Nation members voted 70% in favour of the treaty, a November 2007 court ruling for the Xeni Gwetin First Nation has called future participation in the process into question. The judges ruling included a non-binding opinion that the Xeni Gwetin could demonstrate Aboriginal title to half of the Nemaiah Valley, under the BC treaty process, negotiating nations have received as little as 5% of their claimed land recognized
11.
Idle No More
–
Idle No More is an ongoing protest movement, founded in December 2012 by four women, three First Nations women and one non-Native ally. It has consisted of a number of actions worldwide, inspired in part by the liquid diet hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence. The popular movement has included round dances in public places and blockades of rail lines, after the May 2,2011 Canadian Federal election, the Conservative federal government, led by Stephen Harper, proposed a number of omnibus bills introducing sweeping legislative changes. Of particular concern is the removal of the term absolute surrender in Section 208, a number of these measures drew fire from environmental and First Nations groups. In particular, Bill C-45 overhauled the Navigable Waters Protection Act of 1882, under the new NPA, the approval process would only be required for development around one of a vastly circumscribed list of waterways set by the Minister of Transportation. Many of the newly deregulated waterways passed through traditional First Nations land, many bills affecting First Nations people have failed to be passed. Numerous attempts to introduce bills have failed due to their low priority for past federal governments, in 1996 Bill C-79, the Indian Act Optional Modification Act died on the order paper. In 2002, Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act, in 2008, there was Bill C-47, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, to redress inequity in the treatment of women. That one died on the paper three times and is returned before Parliament, now called Bill S-2. The cancellation of the Kelowna Accords by the current federal government was seen as a betrayal by natives, further background to this is the feeling that the federal government has repeatedly acted in bad faith with Aboriginal peoples interests, and have violated treaties when it suited them. The feeling that the tactics of negotiating with the federal government have become meaningless has caused support for new tactics. The Conservative government bills beginning with Bill C-45 threaten Treaties and this Indigenous Vision of Sovereignty, the movement promotes environmental protection and indigenous sovereignty. Creating chapters across Turtle Island under the umbrella of the main INM, encouraging knowledge sharing about indigenous sovereignty and environmental protections. The press release notes that As a grassroots movement, clearly no political organization speaks for Idle No More. Furthermore, this is not just an Aboriginal Canadian movement and these pipeline projects will be stretching beyond borders carving through critical ecosystems and landscapes in the states. ”. With the magnitude and power of this project, these impacts will not end soon. These pipelines will stretch across borders and come into our own backyards here in the states, Idle No Mores vision has been linked by some commentators in the press with longstanding leftist political theories of indigenism. During the protests of late 2012 and early 2013, the framework of Idle No More has been frequently articulated in the Canadian press by Pamela Palmater
12.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada
–
Its headquarters are in Terrasses de la Chaudière, in downtown Gatineau, Quebec. First Nation, has used since the 1970s instead of the word Indian. The term Indian is used for legal and historical documents such as Status Indians as defined by the Indian Act, for example, the term Indian continues to be used in the historical and legal document, the Canadian Constitution and federal statutes. The word means people in the Inuit language — Inuktitut, the singular of Inuit is Inuk. Eskimo is found in documents about Canadian Inuit. The term Aboriginal is commonly used referring to the three groups of indigenous peoples as a whole. It is also used by Aboriginal people who live within Canada who claim rights of sovereignty or Aboriginal title to lands, the department is overseen by the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. The current minister, since November 2015, is Carolyn Bennett, the last minister under the Conservative government that lost the 2015 federal election was Bernard Valcourt. James Moore acted in the position between Valcourt and the previous minister John Duncan, iNACs responsibilities are largely determined by numerous statutes, negotiated agreements and relevant legal decisions. Most of the Departments programs, representing a majority of its spending - are delivered through partnerships with Aboriginal communities, INAC also works with urban Indigenous people, Métis and Non-Status Indians. INAC also works with urban First Nations, Métis and Non-Status Indians through the Office of the Federal Interlocutor, INAC also manages the resources and lands of federal lands, including land and subsurface leases and resource royalties. In 1755, the British Crown established the British Indian Department, the Indian Governors General held control of Indian Affairs, but usually delegated much of their responsibility to a series of Civil Secretaries. The responsibility for Indian Affairs and Northern Development rested with various government departments between 1873 and 1966, the Minister of the Interior also held the position of Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs after the Indian Affairs Department was established in 1880. In 1939, federal jurisdiction for Indian peoples was interpreted by the courts to apply to the Inuit, a revised Indian Act was passed in 1951. From 1950 to 1965, the Indian Affairs portfolio was carried by the Minister of Citizenship, on October 1,1966, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was created as a result of the Government Organization Act,1966. Effective June 13,2011, the department began using the applied title Aboriginal Affairs, when the Department of the Interior dissolved in 1936, Indian Affairs fell under the purview of the Department of Mines and Resources. This became the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in 1966, under the Federal Identity Program, the department is known as Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. Beginning in the early 20th century, the Canadian government sponsored annual expeditions to the Canadian North and these expeditions yielded extensive photographic documentation of the lives of northern indigenous peoples by participating explorers, engineers, scientists and medical staff
13.
Indigenous Canadian personalities
–
Over the course of centuries, many Aboriginal Canadians have played a critical role in shaping the history of Canada. From art and music, to law and government, to sports and war, Aboriginal customs, the Indspire Awards are the annual awards presented by Indspire, formerly the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. The awards were first established in 1993 in conjunction with the United Nations declaring the 1990s International Decade of the Worlds Indigenous peoples, june 21 is Canadas National Aboriginal Day, in recognition of the cultural contributions made by Canadas indigenous population. The day was first celebrated in 1996 following Governor General of Canada Roméo LeBlancs proclamation,1,172,790 million people reported having at least some Aboriginal ancestry in 2006, representing 3. 8% of the total Canadian population. This compares with increases of 20.0 per cent to 25.0 per cent for non-Aboriginal people obtaining college diplomas that is a gap between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal population. For additional Aboriginal leaders, List of Canadian Aboriginal leaders First Nation people have come from a background of history, economy, culture. First Nations become active politicians in the Canadian government holding a sense of pride, after Shanawdithits death in 1829, the Beothuk people became officially extinct as a separate ethnic group. Aatsista-Mahkan, became chief of the Siksika First Nation following the death of his father in 1871, aatsista-Mahkan was a signatory to Treaty 7, but he and his people continued living the plains Indian lifestyle following the bison until 1881. The Siksika Nation was then forced to settle on a reserve 60 miles east of todays Calgary, Big Bear was a Cree leader notable for his participation in the 1870 Battle of the Belly River. Following this, in 1873, Big Bear clashed with the Métis, francis Pegahmagabow was the First Nation soldier most highly decorated for bravery in Canadian military history and the most effective sniper of World War I. Mary Greyeyes-Reid was the first First Nations woman to join the Canadian Forces, tommy Prince was one of Canadas most decorated First Nations soldiers, serving in World War II and the Korean War. Mary John, Sr. CM was a leader of the Dakelh people, a story of her life is told in the book titled Stoney Creek Woman. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, was a Canadian politician of Dene descent in the Northwest Territories, ovide Mercredi is a politician of Cree descent and a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Harold Cardinal was a Cree writer, political leader, teacher, negotiator and lawyer who demanded, on behalf of all First Nation peoples, skowkale lawyer and judge, Steven Point, OBC, was the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 2007 to 2012. Harriet Nahanee was a rights activist, a Canadian residential school system survivor. Nahanee was arrested and imprisoned in 2007 at the age of 71 for trying to protect Squamish Nation territory, theresa Spence a chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation is a prominent figure in the modern Attawapiskat housing and infrastructure crisis and Idle No More protest. The arts and entertainment venue has seen Aboriginal peoples stand at the Oscars, Dan George OC, was chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Academy Award-nominated actor and an author. Adam Beach is an actor of Saulteaux descent from Dog Creek First Nations Reserve at Lake Manitoba, lorne Cardinal of Cree descent, is noted for playing First Nations roles in many productions
14.
Indigenous music of Canada
–
Aboriginal music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created by Canadas Aboriginal people. Each of the Aboriginal communities had their own musical traditions. Chanting – singing is popular and most use a variety of musical instruments. Traditionally, First Nation band governments, being resourceful and creative, First Nation bands made gourds and animal horns into rattles, many rattles were elaborately carved and beautifully painted. In woodland areas, they made horns of birchbark and drumsticks of carved antlers, drums were generally made of carved wood and animal hides. Drums and rattles are percussion instruments used by First Nations people. These musical instruments provide the background for songs, and songs are the background for dances, many traditional First Nations people consider song and dance to be sacred. For many years after Europeans came to Canada, First Nations people were forbidden to practice their ceremonies and that is one reason why little information about First Nations music and musical instruments is available. The closest word, nipi, includes music, the sound of speech, today, a revival of pride in First Nations art and music is taking and beauty of traditional First Nations art, music and musical instruments. Drums are closely associated with First Nations people, some people say, Drumming is the heartbeat of Mother Earth. First Nations made a variety of drums. There are also tambourine-shaped hand drums, war drums, water drums and their size and shape depends on the First Nations particular culture and what the drummer wants to do with them. In many First Nations cultures, the circle is important and it is the shape of the sun and moon, and of the path they trace across the sky. Many First Nations objects, such as tipis and wigwams, are circular in shape, First Nations people are recovering the knowledge, history often arranged with the dwellings placed in a circle. To this day, many First Nations people hold meetings sitting in a circle, meetings often begin with a prayer, with the people standing in a circle holding hands. Hand carved wooden flutes and whistles are less common than drums, chippewa men played flutes to serenade girlfriends and to soothe themselves and others during hard times. The Cree, Iroquois and Maliseet made and used whistles, archaeologists have found evidence that both wooden whistles and flutes were used by the Beothuk, an extinct tribe who lived in Newfoundland until the early days of European settlement. The human voice is the instrument of all First Nations
15.
Indian reserve
–
A single band may control one reserve or several, in addition some reserves are shared between multiple bands. In 2003 the Department of Indian Affairs stated there were 2,300 reserves in Canada, according to Statistics Canada in 2011, there are more than 600 First Nations/Indian bands in Canada and 3,100 Indian reserves across Canada. Examples include the Sturgeon Lake First Nation, which many bands, has only one reserve. 4, and Sea Island Indian Reserve No.3 are governed by the Musqueam Indian Band, in 2003,60 percent of status Indians lived on reserves. Of the 637,660 First Nations people who reported being Registered Indians and this proportion varies across the country. Many reserves have no resident population, typically they are small, remote, discontiguous pieces of land, Statistics Canada counts only those reserves which are populated as subdivisions for the purpose of the national census. For the 2011 census, of the more than 3,100 Indian reserves across Canada, some reserves that were originally rural were gradually surrounded by urban development. Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary are examples of cities with urban reserves, another multi-band reserve of the Sto, lo peoples is Grass Indian Reserve No. 15, which is located in the City of Chilliwack and is shared by nine bands, separate powers covered status and civil rights on the one hand and Indian lands on the other. Numerous aboriginal groups lived in the territory and disputed the sovereignty of the area. This promise led to the numbered treaties, after the Royal Proclamation and before Confederation in 1867 the Upper Canada Treaties and the Douglas Treaties treaties were signed. Some of these pre-confederation and post-confederation treaties addressed reserve lands, hunting, fishing, trapping rights, annuities, the rights and freedoms of Canadas First Nations people have been governed by the Indian Act since its enactment in 1876 by the Parliament of Canada. The provisions of Section 91 of the Constitution Act,1867, provided Canadas federal government exclusive authority to legislate in relation to Indians and Lands Reserved for Indians. Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve on Manitoulin Island is subject to the Indian Act provisions governing reserves even though its lands were never ceded to the Crown by treaty. The Indian Act gives the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs the right to determine whether any purpose for which lands in a reserve are used is for the use, title to land within the reserve may be transferred to only the band or to individual band members. While the act was intended to protect the Indian holdings, the make it difficult for the reserves and their residents to obtain financing for development and construction. To answer this need, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has created a housing loan program. Members of bands may enter into a trust agreement with CMHC, in other programs, loans to residents of reserves are guaranteed by the federal government
16.
First Nations in Alberta
–
First Nations in Alberta are indigenous peoples who live in the Canadian province of Alberta. The First Nations are those recognized as Aboriginal peoples in Canada excluding the Inuit. From this total around half of the lives on an Indian reserve. The rest of the population lives off-reserve, amongst the rest of the Canadian population, many of these are urban Aboriginals living in cities, especially Edmonton which had an off-reserve status population of 18,210 people in 2011, the second highest for any city in Canada. There are 48 First Nations or bands in Alberta, belonging to nine different ethnic groups or tribes based on their ancestral languages, there are a variety of ways of classifying the various First Nations groups in Alberta. In anthropological terms there are two broad cultural groupings in Alberta based on different climactic/ecological regions and the ways of life adapted to those regions. The Plains Indians of the south lived primarily in a prairie grasslands environment and relied on the bison as their major food source. Peoples in the central, aspen parkland belt of Alberta practised hybrid cultures with features of both the aforementioned groups, at the time of contact with Euro-Canadian observers, all of the indigenous peoples in Alberta belonged to several overlapping groups, lodges, bands, tribes, and confederacies. The smallest unit was the lodge, which is what observers called a family or any other group living in the same dwelling such as a teepee or wigwam. Several lodges living together formed a band, bands were highly mobile small groups consisting of a respected leader sometimes called a chief, possibly his extended family, and other unrelated families. The band was a unit of organization, as a band was large enough to defend itself and engage in communal hunts, yet small enough to be mobile. Lodges and individuals were free to leave bands, and bands regularly split in two or merged with another, yet no one would want to be without the protection of living in a band for very long. Bands among the Peigan people in southern Alberta ranged in size from 10 to 30 lodges, by contrast, a tribe is an ethnic affiliation. A tribe is group of people who each other as compatriots due to shared language. There are approximately nine indigenous ethnic or tribal groups in Alberta in the twenty-first century, within these boundaries there is much fluidity, however, as intermarriages and bilingual bands are once very common. As well the smallpox outbreak of 1780–1781 and the whooping cough outbreak of 1819–1820 decimated many bands, anthropologists and others often group peoples together based on which language family their ancestral language is from, as peoples with related languages often also have cultural similarities. All of the groups represented in Alberta belong to one of three large language families, and are related to other languages across the continent. These are the Algonquian, the Athabaskan or Dene, and the Siouan families, the list of tribal groups in Alberta is not fixed and is based on differing interpretations of what constitutes a tribe
17.
First Nations in Saskatchewan
–
First Nations in Saskatchewan constitute many Native Canadian band governments. First Nations ethnicities in the include the Cree, Assiniboine, Saulteaux, Dene. Historically the Atsina and Blackfoot could also be found at various times, in 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed a historic land claim agreement with Saskatchewan First Nations. Under the Agreement, the First Nations received money to buy land on the open market, as a result, about 761,000 acres have been turned into reserve land and many First Nations continue to invest their settlement dollars in urban areas
18.
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
–
The term Pacific Northwest is largely used in the American context. Prior to the contact with Westerners, warfare between nations, and the enslaving of captives was also a common to many of the groups. At one point the region had the highest population density of a region inhabited by Aboriginal peoples in Canada, the Pacific Northwest Coast at one time had the most densely populated areas of indigenous people ever recorded in Canada. The land and waters provided rich natural resources through cedar and salmon, within the Pacific Northwest, many different nations developed, each with their own distinct history, culture, and society. Some cultures in this region were similar and share certain elements, such as the importance of salmon to their cultures. Prior to contact, and for a time after colonization, some of these groups regularly conducted war against each other through raids. Through warfare they gathered captives for slavery, the Tlingit are one of the furthest north indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their autonym is Lingít, meaning Human being, the Russian name for them, Koloshi, was derived from an Aleut term for the labret, and the related German name, Koulischen, may be encountered in older historical literature. The Tlingit are a matrilineal society and they developed a complex hunter-gatherer culture in the temperate rainforest of the Alaska Panhandle and adjoining inland areas of present-day British Columbia and Yukon. The Tsetsaut were an Athabaskan people whose territory was at the head of the Portland Canal, decimated by raiding and disease, their survivors were absorbed into the Nisgaa. The latter people now hold their territories as they are now extinct. The Haida people are known as skilled artisans of wood, metal. They have also shown much perseverance and resolve in the area of forest conservation, the vast forests of cedar and spruce where the Haida make their home are on pre-glacial land, which is believed to be almost 14,000 years old. Haida communities located in Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, and Haida Gwaii also share a border with other indigenous peoples, such as the Tlingit. The Haida were also famous for their raiding and slaving, reaching as far as Mexico. There are about 10,000 Tsimshian, of which about 1,300 live in Alaska, succession in Tsimshian society is matrilineal, and ones place in society was determined by ones clan or phratry. Four main Tsimshian clans form the basic phratry, the Laxsgiik and Ganhada form one half. Gispwudwada and Laxgibuu form the other half, prior to European contact, marriage in Tsimshian society could not take place within a half-group, for example between a Wolf and a Killer Whale
19.
Languages of Canada
–
A multitude of languages are used in Canada. According to the 2011 census, English and French are the mother tongues of 56. 9% and 21. 3% of Canadians respectively,85. 6% of Canadians have working knowledge of English while 30. 1% have a working knowledge of French. New Brunswick is the only Canadian province that has both English and French as its official languages to the extent, with constitutional entrenchment. Similar constitutional protections are in place in Manitoba, many Canadians believe that the relationship between the English and French languages is the central or defining aspect of the Canadian experience. Canada’s linguistic diversity extends beyond the two official languages, in all,20. 0% of Canadas population reported speaking a language other than English or French at home. Finally, the number of people reporting sign languages as the languages spoken at home was nearly 25,000 people, Canada is also home to many indigenous languages. Taken together, these are spoken by less than one percent of the population, about. 6% Canadians report an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue. The following table details the population of each province and territory, with summary national totals, source, Statistics Canada,2011 Census Population by language spoken most often and regularly at home, age groups, for Canada, provinces and territories. The percentage of the population speaking English, French or both languages most often at home has declined since 1986, the decline has been greatest for French, the proportion of the population who speak neither English nor French in the home has increased. The table below shows the percentage of the total Canadian population who speak Canadas official languages most often at home from 1971–2006. In 2011, just under 21.5 million Canadians, representing 65% of the population, spoke English most of the time at home, English is the major language everywhere in Canada except Quebec and Nunavut, and most Canadians can speak English. While English is not the language in Quebec,36. 1% of Québécois can speak English. Nationally, Francophones are five times more likely to speak English than Anglophones are to speak French – 44%, only 3. 2% of Canadas English-speaking population resides in Quebec—mostly in Montreal. More Canadians know how to speak English than speak it at home, of these, about 6.1 million or 85% resided in Quebec. Outside Quebec, the largest French-speaking populations are found in New Brunswick, overall, 22% of people in Canada declare French to be their mother language, while one in three Canadians speak French and 70% are unilingual Anglophones. Smaller indigenous French-speaking communities exist in other provinces. For example, a community exists on Newfoundlands Port au Port Peninsula. The percentage of the population who speak French both by mother tongue and home language has decreased over the past three decades
20.
Inuit languages
–
The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The Inuit live primarily in three countries, Greenland, Canada, and the United States, Greenland census estimates place the number of speakers of varieties of Inuit there at roughly 50,000, while Canadian estimates are at roughly 35,000. These two countries count the bulk of speakers of Inuit language variants, although about 7,500 Alaskans speak varieties of Inuit out of a population of over 13,000 Inuit, the Inuit languages have a few hundred speakers in Russia. In addition, an estimated 7,000 Greenlandic Inuit live in European Denmark, thus, the global population of speakers of varieties of Inuit is on the order of nearly 100,000 people. However, there are no criteria for breaking the Inuit language into specific member languages since it forms a dialect continuum. Each band of Inuit understands its neighbours, and most likely its neighbours neighbours, in Greenland the official form of Inuit language, and the official language of the state, is called Kalaallisut. In other languages, it is often called Greenlandic or some cognate term, in those dialects, the name is sometimes rendered as Inuktitun to reflect dialectal differences in pronunciation. The Inuit language of Quebec is called Inuttitut by its speakers, and often by other people, in Labrador, the language is called Inuttut or, often in official documents, by the more descriptive name Labradorimiutut. Furthermore, Canadians – both Inuit and non-Inuit – sometimes use the word Inuktitut to refer to all Inuit language variants, including those of Alaska, see the article on Eskimo for more information on this word. The language of the Inuit is an Eskimo–Aleut language and it is fairly closely related to the Yupik languages and more remotely to the Aleut language. These cousin languages are all spoken in Western Alaska and Eastern Chukotka, some consider it a Paleosiberian language, although that is more a geographic than a linguistic grouping. Early forms of the Inuit language were spoken by the Thule people, by 1300, the Inuit and their language had reached western Greenland, and finally east Greenland roughly at the same time the Viking colonies in southern Greenland disappeared. It is generally believed that it was during this centuries-long eastward migration that the Inuit language became distinct from the Yupik languages spoken in Western Alaska and Chukotka, until 1902, a possible enclave of the Dorset, the Sadlermiut, existed on Southampton Island. Almost nothing is known about their language, but the few eyewitness accounts tell of them speaking a strange dialect and this suggests that they also spoke an Eskimo–Aleut language, but one quite distinct from the forms spoken in Canada today. The Yupik and Inuit languages are very similar syntactically and morphologically, the Inuit languages are a fairly closely linked set of languages which can be broken up using a number of different criteria. Traditionally, Inuit describe dialect differences by means of place names to describe local idiosyncrasies in language, The dialect of Igloolik versus the dialect of Iqaluit and this makes any partition of the Inuit language somewhat problematic. This article will use labels that try to synthesise linguistic, sociolinguistic and this scheme is not the only one used or necessarily one used by Inuit themselves, but its labels do try to reflect the usages most seen in popular and technical literature. Of the roughly 13,000 Alaskan Iñupiat, as few as 3000 may still be able to speak the Iñupiat language, Alaskan Inupiat speak four distinct dialects, Qawiaraq is spoken on the southern side of the Seward Peninsula and the Norton Sound area
21.
Aboriginal English in Canada
–
Aboriginal English, also known as First Nations English, refers to varieties of English used by the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. They are outwardly similar to standard Canadian English from the perspective of a non-Canadian, however, they differ enough from mainstream Canadian speech that Aboriginal peoples are often identifiable by their speech to non-Aboriginals. Since the 1990s, Aboriginal Englishes have also adopted many features of African American Vernacular English under the influence of music which is very popular with urban Aboriginal youth. The use of these dialects is not well perceived by the non-Aboriginal majority, evidenced by mockery. Some features of the dialects, for example, may have led aboriginal children to be diagnosed as having a speech impairment or a learning disability. Academics have begun to recommend that Canadian schools accept Aboriginal varieties of English as valid English, few written works appear in Aboriginal English dialects, an exception is Maria Campbells Stories of the Road Allowance People, a collection of Métis folktales. An Margareet he knowed he wouldn dare take dem cause dat woman you know hees gots a hell of a repetation for being a woman when he gets mad. Dat man he have to be a fool to steal from hees table
22.
Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
–
Canadian Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families. Canadian syllabics are used to write all of the Cree languages from Naskapi to the Rocky Mountains, including Eastern Cree, Woods Cree, Swampy Cree. They are also used to write Inuktitut in the eastern Canadian Arctic and they are used regionally for the other large Canadian Algonquian language, Ojibwe in Western Canada, as well as for Blackfoot, where they are obsolete. Among the Athabaskan languages further to the west, syllabics have been used at one point or another to write Dakelh, Chipewyan, Slavey, Tłı̨chǫ, syllabics have occasionally been used in the United States by communities that straddle the border, but are principally a Canadian phenomenon. In Cree, for example, the consonant p has the shape of a chevron, in an upward orientation, ᐱ, it transcribes the syllable pi. Inverted, so that it points downwards, ᐯ, it transcribes pe, pointing to the left, ᐸ, it is pa, and to the right, ᐳ, po. The consonant forms and the vowels so represented vary from language to language, *The obsolete sp- series, which is not supported by Unicode, is here represented by Latin and Cyrillic letters, there is no good substitution for spi. The clockwise 90° rotation relates vowels as the later series sh- does, because the script is presented in syllabic charts and learned as a syllabary, it is often considered to be such. This is unlike a syllabary, where each combination of consonant. All were written with a line to show the vowel was short. These were originally written midline, but are now superscripted, the consonants -l and -r were marginal, only found in borrowings, baby talk, and the like. These, and -h, could occur before vowels, but were written with the final shape regardless, the vowels fall into two sets, the back vowels -a and -o, and the front vowels -e and -i. Each set consists of a vowel, -a or -e. In all cases, back-vowel syllables are related through left-right reflection, how they relate to front-vowel syllables depends on the graphic form of the consonants. Symmetrical, vowel, p-, t-, sp-, are rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise, while those that are asymmetrical top-to-bottom, c-, k-, m-, n-, s-, y-, are rotated 180 degrees. The lower front-vowel syllables are derived this way from the low back-vowel syllables, for example, all scripts except the one for Blackfoot use the triangle for vowel-initial syllables. By 1841, when Evans cast the first movable type for syllabics and he instead filed across the raised lines of the type, leaving gaps in the printed letter for long vowels. This can be seen in early printings, later still a dot diacritic, originally used for vowel length only in handwriting, was extended to print, Thus today ᐊ a contrasts with ᐋ â, and ᒥ mi contrasts with ᒦ mî
23.
Inuit grammar
–
The Inuit language, like other Eskimo–Aleut languages, exhibits a regular agglutinative and heavily suffixing morphology. The language is rich in suffixes, up to 700 per dialect, making very long. For example, in Nunavut Inuktitut, ᑐᓵᑦᓯᐊᕈᓐᓇᖖᒋᑦᑐᐊᓘᔪᖓ tusaatsiarunnanngittualuujunga I cant hear very well and this sort of word construction is pervasive in Inuit language and makes it very unlike English. In one large Inuktitut corpus – the Nunavut Hansard – 92% of all words appear only once and this makes the application of Zipfs law quite difficult. Furthermore, the notion of a part of speech can be complicated in Inuit language. Fully inflected verbs can be interpreted as nouns, the word ilisaijuq can be interpreted as a fully inflected verb – he studies – but can also be interpreted as a noun, student. Because of the rich and complicated morphology, this article can present only a limited. It is based largely on the Inuktitut dialects of north Baffin Island, the morphology and syntax of Inuit language varies to some degree between dialects, but the basic principles will generally apply to all of them and to some degree to Yupik as well. Inuktitut verbs fall into two categories with different morphological properties, non-specific verbs and specific verbs. Many verbs belong in both categories, and can either set of endings depending on the type of information about the verbs arguments that speakers intend to communicate. Others are restricted to one category or require a change in order to move between categories. Every fully inflected Inuktitut verb can act alone as a proposition, no other words are required to form a syntactically correct sentence. This section will cover two of the most common sets of endings for these two verb classes and a small selection of verbal modifiers. Inuktitut has a large and diverse set of verbal inflexions, of which this article can only cover a small portion designed to give some sense of how the Inuktitut language works, non-specific verbs are verbs that either are intransitive, or have an indefinite noun as their object. In English, a noun is marked by the lack of the article the or. In Inuktitut, when it is the object of a verb, it is distinguished by the use of a non-specific verb, a definite noun, in contrast, requires the use of a specific verb when it is the object of a verb. For action verbs, it indicates that the action has recently completed, mixing tense. Inuktitut verbs are divided into state verbs and action verbs, however, the distinction may not match how non-Inuktitut speakers would categorise verbs
24.
Inuit religion
–
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with religions of other North Polar peoples, traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity, but traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition, Inuit who balance indigenous and Christian theology practice religious syncretism. Inuit cosmology provides a narrative about the world and the place of people within it, rachel Attituq Qitsualik writes, The Inuit cosmos is ruled by no one. There are no mother and father figures. There are no gods and solar creators. There are no eternal punishments in the hereafter, as there are no punishments for children or adults in the here, traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are often precautions against dangers posed by their harsh Arctic environment. Knud Rasmussen asked his guide and friend Aua, an angakkuq, about Inuit religious beliefs among the Iglulingmiut and was told, We dont believe. Authors Inge Kleivan and Birgitte Sonne debate possible conclusions of Auas words, because the angakkuq was under the influence of Christian missionaries and their study also analyses beliefs of several Inuit groups, concluding that fear was not diffuse. First were unipkaaqs, myths, legends, and folktales which took place then in the indefinite past. Among the Canadian Inuit, a healer is known as an angakkuq or Inuvialuk. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton, the Inuit at Amitsoq Lake had seasonal and other prohibitions for sewing certain items. Boot soles, for example, could only be sewn far away from settlements in designated places, children at Amitsoq once had a game called tunangusartut in which they imitated the adults behavior towards the spirits, even reciting the same verbal formulae as angakkuit. According to Rasmussen, this game was not considered offensive because a spirit can understand the joke, the homelands of the Netsilik Inuit have extremely long winters and stormy springs. While other Inuit cultures feature protective guardian powers, the Netsilik have traditional beliefs that lifes hardships stemmed from the use of such measures. Unlike the Iglulik Inuit, the Netsilik used a number of amulets. Even dogs could have amulets. In one recorded instance, a boy had 80 amulets. One particular man had 17 names taken from his ancestors and intended to protect him, tattooing among Netsilik women provided power and could affect which world they went to after their deaths
25.
Iroquoian languages
–
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking, today, all surviving Iroquoian languages except Cherokee and Mohawk are severely endangered, with only a few elderly speakers remaining. In 1649 in the middle-Beaver Wars, the tribes constituting the Huron, many of the survivors gathered, displaced away from Lake Erie well to the north of their previous territories, ultimately forming the Wyandot nation. Ethnographic and linguistic work with the Wyandot tribal elders yielded enough documentation for scholars to characterize and classify the Huron. The languages of the tribes that constituted the tiny Wenrohronon, the powerful Susquehannock and the confederations of the Neutral Nation and they are historically grouped together, and geographically the Wenros range on the eastern end of Lake Erie made them abutting neighbors sandwiched between the two larger confederations. To the east of the Wenro beyond the Genesee Gorge was the lands of the Iroquois, the Susquehannocks and Erie were militarily powerful and respected by neighboring tribes. These groups were called Atiwandaronk, meaning they who understand the language by the surviving Huron, the group known as the Meherrin were neighbors to the Tuscarora and the Nottoway in the American South and may have spoken an Iroquoian language. There is not enough data to determine this with certainty, attempts to link the Iroquoian, Siouan, and Caddoan languages in a Macro-Siouan family are suggestive but remain unproven. Six Nations Polytechnic in Ohsweken, Ontario offers Ogwehoweh language Diploma, an Ethnohistory of the Nottoway, Meherrin and Weanock Indians of Southeastern Virginia, Ethnohistory, Ethnohistory, Vol.14, No. 3/4,14, pp. 103–218, doi,10. 2307/480737, JSTOR480737. Chilton, Elizabeth, Social Complexity in New England, AD 1000–1600, in Pauketat, Timothy R. Loren, Diana Dipaolo, North American Archaeology, Malden, MA, Blackwell Press, pp. 138–60, OCLC55085697. Goddard, Ives, ed. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol.17, Languages, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution, ISBN 0-16-048774-9, OCLC43957746. Lounsbury, Floyd G. Iroquoian Languages, in Trigger, Bruce G. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol.15, Northeast, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 334–43, OCLC58762737. Mithun, Marianne, Untangling the Huron and the Iroquois, International Journal of American Linguistics,51, pp. 504–7, doi,10. 1086/465950, mithun, Marianne, The Languages of Native North America, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-23228-7, OCLC40467402. Rudes, Blair A. Iroquoian Vowels, Anthropological Linguistics,37, history of the Indian tribes of Hudsons River. ISBN9781557862259 Snow, Dean R. Gehring, Charles T, Starna, in Mohawk country, early narratives about a native people. An anthology of sources from 1634-1810
26.
Wyandot people
–
By the 15th century, the pre-contact Wyandots settled in the large area from the north shores of most of present-day Lake Ontario, northwards up to Georgian Bay. They were located in the part of what is now the Canadian province of Ontario around Georgian Bay. Drastically reduced in number by epidemic diseases after 1634, they were dispersed by war in 1649 from the Iroquois, today the Wyandot have a First Nations reserve in Quebec, Canada. They also have three major settlements in the United States, two of which have independently governed, federally recognized tribes, due to differing development of the groups, they speak distinct forms of Wendat and Wyandot languages. Early theories placed Huron origin in the St. Lawrence Valley, with some arguing for a presence near Montreal, in 1975 and 1978, archeologists excavated a large 15th-century Huron village, now called the Draper Site, in Pickering, Ontario near Lake Ontario. In 2003 a larger village was discovered five kilometres away in Whitchurch-Stouffville, the sites each were surrounded by a palisade, as was typical of Iroquoian cultures. The Mantle Site had more than 70 multi-family longhouses, subsequently they moved from there to their historic territory on Georgian Bay, where they were encountered by Champlain in 1615. In the early 17th century, this Iroquoian people called themselves the Wendat, the Wendat historic territory was bordered on three sides, by the waters of Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. Early French explorers referred to these natives as the Huron, either from the French huron, according to tradition, French sailors thought that the bristly hairstyle of Wendat warriors resembled that of a boar. However, these negative etymological meanings conflict with the bon Iroquois attitude held by the French fur traders and explorers, an alternate etymology is from the Algonquin words ronon, or Irri-ronon. It was pronounced Hirri-ronon by the French, eventually shortened to Hirr-on, other etymological possibilities come from the Algonquin words ka-ron or tu-ron. The Wendat were not a tribe, but a confederacy of four or more tribes with mutually intelligible languages, according to tradition, this Wendat Confederacy was initiated by the Attignawantans and the Attigneenongnahacs, who made their alliance in the 15th century. They were joined by the Arendarhonons about 1590, and the Tahontaenrats around 1610, a fifth group, the Ataronchronons, may not have attained full membership in the confederacy, and may have been a division of the Attignawantan. The largest Wendat settlement, and capital of the confederacy, was located at Ossossane, near modern-day Elmvale and they called their traditional territory Wendake. Closely related to the people of the Huron Confederacy were the Tionontate and they lived further south and were divided into two groups, the Deer and the Wolves. Considering that they formed the nucleus of the later known as the Wyandot. Tuberculosis was endemic among the Huron, aggravated by the close, despite this, the Huron on the whole were healthy, the Jesuits wrote that the Huron effectively employed natural remedies and were more healthy than we. The earliest written accounts of the Huron were made by the French, news of the Europeans reached the Huron, particularly when Samuel de Champlain explored the Saint Lawrence River in the early 17th century
27.
Georgian Bay
–
Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula, to its northwest is the North Channel. Georgian Bay is surrounded by the districts of Manitoulin, Sudbury, Parry Sound and Muskoka, as well as the more populous counties of Simcoe, Grey, the Main Channel separates the Bruce Peninsula from Manitoulin Island and connects Georgian Bay to the rest of Lake Huron. The shores and waterways of the Georgian Bay are the domain of the Anishinaabeg First Nations peoples to the north. The bay was thus a major Algonquian-Huron trade route, Samuel de Champlain, the first European to explore and map the area in 1615–1616, called it La Mer douce, also a reference to the bays freshwater. It was named Georgian Bay by Lieutenant Henry Wolsey Bayfield of the Royal Navy in 1822, Georgian Bay is about 190 kilometres long by 80 kilometres wide. It covers approximately 15,000 square kilometres, making it nearly 80% the size of Lake Ontario. If Georgian Bay were considered a lake in its own right, it would be the fourth largest lake located entirely within Canada after Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake and Lake Winnipeg. Eastern Georgian Bay is part of the edge of the Canadian Shield, granite bedrock exposed by the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. The granite rock formations and windswept eastern white pine are characteristic of the islands, the rugged beauty of the area inspired landscapes by artists of the Group of Seven. The western part of the bay, from Collingwood north, and including Manitoulin, Drummond, Cockburn and St. Joseph islands, there are tens of thousands of islands in Georgian Bay. Most of these islands are along the east side of the bay and are known as the Thirty Thousand Islands. Manitoulin Island, lying along the side of the bay, is the worlds largest island in a freshwater lake. The Trent–Severn Waterway connects Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, running from Port Severn in the corner of Georgian Bay through Lake Simcoe into Lake Ontario near Trenton. Further north, Lake Nipissing drains into Georgian Bay through the French River, in October 2004, the Georgian Bay Littoral was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. Archeological records reveal an Aboriginal presence in the regions of the Canadian Shield dating from 11,000 years ago. Evidence of later Paleo-Indian settlements have found on Manitoulin Island. At the time of European contact, the Ojibwe and Ottawa First Nations, the Huron and Tionontati inhabited the lands along the southern coast, having migrated from the northern shores of Lake Ontario
28.
Lake Huron
–
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south, the name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the Huron people inhabiting the region. The Huronian glaciation was named due to evidence collected from Lake Huron region, the northern parts of the lake include the North Channel and Georgian Bay. Across the lake to the southwest is Saginaw Bay, the main inlet is the St. Marys River and the main outlet is the St. Clair. By volume however, Lake Huron is only the third largest of the Great Lakes, being surpassed by Lake Michigan, when measured at the low water datum, the lake contains a volume of 850 cubic miles and a shoreline length of 3,827 mi. The surface of Lake Huron is 577 feet above sea level, the lakes average depth is 32 fathoms 3 feet, while the maximum depth is 125 fathoms. It has a length of 206 statute miles and a greatest breadth of 183 statute miles. Cities with over 10,000 people on Lake Huron include Sarnia, the largest city on Lake Huron, and Saugeen Shores in Canada and Bay City, Port Huron, a large bay that protrudes northeast from Lake Huron into Ontario, Canada, is called Georgian Bay. A notable feature of the lake is Manitoulin Island, which separates the North Channel and it is the worlds largest freshwater island. Major centres on Georgian Bay include Owen Sound, Wasaga Beach, Midland, Penetanguishene, Port Severn, a smaller bay that protrudes southwest from Lake Huron into Michigan is called Saginaw Bay. Historic High Water The lake fluctuates from month to month with the highest lake levels in October and November, the normal high-water mark is 2.00 feet above datum. In the summer of 1986, Lakes Michigan and Huron reached their highest level at 5.92 feet above datum, the high-water records began in February 1986 and lasted through the year, ending with January 1987. Water levels ranged from 3.67 to 5.92 feet above Chart Datum, historic Low Water Lake levels tend to be the lowest in winter. The normal low-water mark is 1.00 foot below datum, in the winter of 1964, Lakes Michigan and Huron reached their lowest level at 1.38 feet below datum. As with the records, monthly low-water records were set each month from February 1964 through January 1965. During this twelve-month period, water levels ranged from 1.38 to 0.71 feet below Chart Datum, the Great Lakes Circle Tour is a designated scenic road system connecting all the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. Lake Huron has the largest shore line length of any of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron is separated from Lake Michigan, which lies at the same level, by the 5-mile-wide, 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac, making them hydrologically the same body of water. Aggregated, Lake Huron-Michigan, at 45,300 square miles, is technically the worlds largest freshwater lake, when counted separately, Lake Superior is 8,700 square miles larger than Huron and higher
29.
Southern Ontario
–
Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, situated south of Algonquin Park, it covers between 14 and 15% of the province, depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts. The region is home to one-third of Canadas population, Southern Ontario differs greatly from Northern Ontario, in that it has a larger population, different climate, and different culture than its northern counterpart. It is broken into smaller subregions, including Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, Southern Ontario is part of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, which extends northeast into Quebec. Southern Ontario can be distinguished from Northern Ontario because it is far more densely populated and contains the majority of the cities, major roads. Northern Ontario, in contrast, contains natural resources and remote wilderness. Although it has no coastline, the region has an abundance of freshwater coastlines on three Great Lakes, as well as smaller lakes such as Lake Simcoe and Lake St. Clair. It is a vineyard region and producer of Canadian wines. Territorial Southern Ontario was explored and colonized by the French in the 17th century, Southern Ontario was where a large portion of the battles took place during the War of 1812, and was a major destination for escaping slaves using the underground railroad. Following the enactment of Prohibition in the United States in 1919, Southern Ontario is home to over 94%, or 12.1 million, of Ontarios total population of 12.9 million people, compared to approximately 750,000 in Northern Ontario. For thousands of years, Ontario has been home to aboriginal communities. Over 200,000 aboriginal Canadians live in Southern Ontario today, Southern Ontario was colonized by the French and the British. Since the late 20th century, many immigrants have come from Asia, the region is one of the top destinations for immigrants worldwide, particularly the Greater Toronto Area. The area has a manufacturing sector. Since the mid-2000s, Ontario has produced more vehicles per year than the state of Michigan, in a cross-border definition, a swath of Southern Ontario could be considered a part of the Rust Belt. Factory closings because of restructuring, globalization have for the past few decades taken their toll. This is most evident in the southern tier cities which have large automobile or associated industrial bases, such as Windsor, London, St. Thomas. Still affected by these factors but to an extent is Hamilton, the centre of steel production, and Sarnia
30.
Canada
–
Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
31.
Iroquois
–
The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a historically powerful northeast Native American confederacy. The Iroquois have absorbed many other peoples into their cultures as a result of warfare, adoption of captives, the historic Erie, Susquehannock, Wyandot, and St. Lawrence Iroquoians, all independent peoples, spoke Iroquoian languages. In 2010, more than 45,000 enrolled Six Nations people lived in Canada, the most common name for the confederacy, Iroquois, is of somewhat obscure origin. The first time it appears in writing is in the account of Samuel de Champlain of his journey to Tadoussac in 1603, other spellings occurring in the earliest sources include Erocoise, Hiroquois, Hyroquoise, Irecoies, Iriquois, Iroquaes, Irroquois, and Yroquois. In the French spoken at the time, this would have been pronounced as or. In 1883, Horatio Hale wrote that the Charlevoix etymology was dubious, Hale suggested instead that the term came from Huron, and was cognate with Mohawk ierokwa they who smoke or Cayuga iakwai a bear. Hewitt responded to Hales etymology in 1888 by expressing doubt that either of those words even exist in the respective languages, a more modern etymology is that advocated by Gordon M. Day in 1968, who elaborates upon an earlier etymology given by Charles Arnaud in 1880. Arnaud had claimed that the word came from Montagnais irnokué, meaning terrible man, Day proposes a hypothetical Montagnais phrase irno kwédač, meaning a man, an Iroquois, as the origin of this term. More recently, Peter Bakker has proposed a Basque origin for Iroquois. g and he proposes instead that the word derives from hilokoa, from the Basque roots hil to kill, ko, and a. He also argues that the /l/ was rendered as /r/ since the former is not attested in the inventory of any language in the region. Thus the word according to Bakker is translatable as the killer people, a different term, Haudenosaunee, is the designation more commonly used by the Iroquois to refer to themselves. It is also preferred by scholars of Native American history who consider the name Iroquois to be derogatory in origin. An alternate designation, Ganonsyoni, is encountered as well. More transparently, the Iroquois confederacy is also referred to simply as the Six Nations. The history of the Iroquois Confederacy goes back to its formation by the Peacemaker in 1142, each nation within the Iroquoian family had a distinct language, territory and function in the League. Iroquois influence extended into present-day Canada, westward along the Great Lakes, the League is governed by a Grand Council, an assembly of fifty chiefs or sachems, each representing one of the clans of one of the nations. The original Iroquois League or Five Nations, occupied areas of present-day New York State up to the St. Lawrence River, west of the Hudson River. The League was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, in or close to 1722, the Tuscarora tribe joined the League, having migrated from the Carolinas after being displaced by Anglo-European settlement
32.
Great Lakes
–
Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the worlds surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is 94,250 square miles, and the volume is 5,439 cubic miles. Due to their sea-like characteristics the five Great Lakes have also long been referred to as inland seas, Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country. The southern half of the Great Lakes is bordered by the Great Lakes Megalopolis, the lakes have been a major highway for transportation, migration and trade, and they are home to a large number of aquatic species. Many invasive species have been introduced due to trade, and some threaten the regions biodiversity, though the five lakes reside in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. The lakes form a chain connecting the interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, the lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several smaller lakes, often called inland lakes. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the area of the entire basin is about the size of the UK. Lake Michigan is the one of the Great Lakes that is located entirely within the United States. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U. S. states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both Ontario and Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes, Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, New York and Wisconsins jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and the remaining states into one of the lakes. This designation, however, is not universal and those living on the shore of Lake Superior often refer to all the other lakes as the lower lakes, because they are farther south. This corresponds to thinking of Lakes Erie and Ontario as down south, vessels sailing north on Lake Michigan are considered upbound even though they are sailing toward its effluent current. The Chicago River and Calumet River systems connect the Great Lakes Basin to the Mississippi River System through man-made alterations, the St. Marys River, including the Soo Locks, connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, the St. Clair River connects Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair. The Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, the Niagara River, including Niagara Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal, bypassing the Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River connects Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean
.JPG)
