The legacy of Dress-Up Creek : formal education for Northern Algonquian hunters

Abstract

Thus far, formal education for Canada's Native people has centred on a Euro-Canadian view of the world and the values and definitions which such a view supports. The researcher proposes a different set of values and definitions based on a hunter-gatherer, and specifically Northern Algonquian view of the world. In the first three chapters, the author criticizes current Euro-Canadian social scientific assumptions about and descriptions of hunter-gatherers, paying particular attention to Northern Algonquians. This critique is synthesized with a similar critique of Euro-Canadian education for Canadian hunter-gatherers and particularly for Northern Algonquians. To offer practical illustrations as well as the opportunity for the author to 'ground' his assumptions, this study next focuses on the development of a course ouline of Cree land skills in the schools of the James Bay Territory. of northwestern Quebec. This study is finally brought to a conclusion with a description of a the strategy this researcher has developed for formal education for Northern Algonquian hunters.