Campfires, eagle feathers, wild horses, and a life in harmony with nature: our image of the Indigenous people in Canada is romanticized and marked by clichés. Historian Manuel Menrath lets them tell their own stories.
He set off for the northernmost regions of Canada and met Cree and Ojibwe on their reservations. In more than a hundred interviews, they told him about their lives – their relationship with nature, their ancestors, their history – and about the country known today as “Canada,” whose creation for them is associated with great suffering. They spoke of animals that have disappeared, of ancient rituals and of the atrocities that occurred in the residential schools, where their children were forced to assimilate into white society.
Their stories deal with the social and psychological devastation of cultural genocide, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. In the Cree village of Attawapiskat alone, 100 young people attempted suicide in 2016 – the very year in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recognized – far too late – the rights of the Indigenous people.
Manuel Menrath’s fascinating and deeply impressive book recounts – in their own words – the lives of those who have lived in Canada for thousands of years.
»This is an important book because it includes our voices. It is good that we are heard in Europe through it. For our history has been ignored for centuries.« - Chief Stan Beardy, Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (2000-2012) and Chief of Ontario (2012-2015)
