It’s Indigenous Peoples Day, and I have a variety of reading selections to share over the next few days: something for every reading mood.

Pawaminikititicikiw’s (Wilfred Buck’) Kitcikisik (Great Sky) published in 2021, is a great introduction to Indigenous cosmology by a First Nations author, writing from within the Ininew (Cree) tradition, making it accessible to everyone.

He presents a series of large-scale, colourful images by Mistawasis Buck, with the stars in each constellation highlighted inside and the corresponding mythology in English on the facing page. (For some constellations, the following spread includes two translations by Cam Robertson, one in Cree and one in Cree syllabics, but not all the stories are translated,)

The first tells the story of Atima Acakosuk, the Dog Stars: the three stars in the handle of what’s also known as the “Little Dipper”. The four stars in the bowl represent the four directions to which the puppies were sent.

For each constellation there’s also a star map (and someone from NASA in the credits too, with names and symbols that a more science-y reader would appreciate).

Check out The Turtle (and there are other short informative videos on the channel too).

There’s also a picture of the Seven Sisters Spirit Constellation in the back of Bagone-Giizhig (The Hole in the Sky) (2021) by Leonard and Mary Moose, Anishnaabeg (Ojibwe) storytellers, which tells the story of the First People. You can read a little about them and see a photo of them together here, along with some of their other books.

This story is illustrated by Leonard, in ink and coloured pencils. It’s shelved in the children’s section and is told in English with key terms in Anishnaabemowin in red (with English translations alongside, in brackets) but ordinary words (like ‘wow’ and ‘yes’) incorporated into the text, so they read naturally.

There are entire passages translated in the back, via photographs of Leonard’s handwritten Anishnaabemowin; these offer a more complete story, for Anishnaabemowin readers). The introduction states: “Many of our Anishinaaabeg Teachings are recorded in the stars, which are our real sacred texts, not books like this one.” Like the story, this reminds readers from other cultures that everything shifts when your worldview emerges from the natural world.

Caleb Gayle’s We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power (2022) is likely an even-more-rewarding read for those readily familiar with southern North American history and geography, but even without a working knowledge in those subjects interesting questions emerge.

Gayle’s priority is the “faux science that undergirded racism” and how it justifies shifting power dynamics. How are Blackness, Indigeneity, and American defined and re-defined, and how is one included or excluded from those identities?

These are not new questions but here Gayle focuses on a group of Black people who were fully integrated into the Creek Nation a hundred years prior, only to have tribal leaders expel their descendants in the 1970s. “Imagine having to find blood that doesn’t exist—not because your father isn’t Creek, but because blood quantum was an arbitrary maneuver engineered by white men to determine how little land Indigenous people could keep.” (How tribes continue to use Blood Quantum is explored in Penobscot writer Morgan Talty’s new novel, Fire Exit, too.)

The aspects of the narrative that I most enjoyed were the grittier, nuanced bits where Gayle circles around the issues and occasionally leaves some questions unanswered—as with, for instance, his discussion about how the slavery inherent to the Creek Nation differed from the slavery they later adopted from southern, white slaveowners.

In a sense, much of Selina Boan’s Undoing Hours (2021) is about belonging too, as the poet works to learn the nehiyaw (Cree) language as a white settler-nehiyaw writer. It reminded me a little of the intimate process of learning a new language, as described in a novel by Xiaolu Guo, how core it can be for one’s identity, how much things shift and, even, transform. Readers, too, learn terms (like ‘frying pan’ and ‘fridge’ and ‘window’ in “my mother’s oracle cards said”) and quietly understand the significance of “in cree there is no word for half/brother”. One of my favourites is “minimal pairs are words holding hands” which presents the pairs, each in their own stanza, running from top to bottom of the page rather than side-to-side. There’s braiding hair and closet renovations, but there’s an epigraph from Anne Carson too: something for every reading mood. (Nightwood)

…between the warmth of language
and a four-walled room, a girl clicks beginner
cree on the internet, a divided circle…[…] nîpin
summer in northern Saskatchewan
thick with mosquitoes
July hatching
heart
“in six, the seasons”

Next, there will be talk of three other remarkable reads. Which of these stands out to you today?

NOTE: Whenever I post about Indigenous works, it’s quickly apparent how difficult it can be, especially for international readers, and for North American readers without ready access to a local independent bookseller, to access a book of interest. Of these four, only Caleb Gayle’s is from a mainstream publisher. If you’re interested in the others, both Strong Nations (shipping from “B.C.”) and Good Minds (shipping from “Ontario”) might be useful for your Indigenous reading generally, and Good Minds seems to be the only source for the first two books here (perhaps POD). Both strive to assist with soaring postage costs too. And I’ve included a link for the poetry collection to the publisher’s website, which in turn includes four purchasing options for epubs.