YLE News reports that Finland and Sweden steadfastly refuse to ratify the nearly 22-year-old ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, aka Convention 169, “the only [European Union] countries yet to do so.” The Scandinavian holdouts are embroiled in land disputes with their respective Sámi populations. If you’d like to learn more, Minority Rights Group […]
Not long after complaints to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology compelled it to cancel a series of portraits of missing and murdered women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a family member of one of the victims has spoken out in defense of the exhibition. In a recent article in the Georgia Straight, Ernie Crey — brother of […]
aptn National News had a very interesting story on Friday (Jan 14/11) which you can now view on their website. After supposedly hearing a flood of complaints from its residents, the Cree community of Ouje-Bougoumou in northern Quebec has taken the rather unusual step of banning ‘native spirituality practices’ including sweatlodges, pow wows, rain dances, […]
This week, developments in the disparate fields of arts and law had something in common according to critics: the undue appropriation of Aboriginal voices by non-Aboriginal people. In the first case, we find Tony Merchant, a controversial lawyer attempting to sue Canada on behalf of thousands of people who feel they’ve been unfairly denied the […]
At eight years old, he says he was chosen by bimhachiiwhasoo, the Life Giver, to bring healing and to help others. Harry Snowboy, a medicine man from the Cree Nation of Chisasibi in northern Quebec, has done something few others in his position have. He’s written a book about his life, and perhaps most interestingly, […]
