48 pages • 1 hour read
Richard WagameseKeeper'n Me
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Canada’s Assimilation Policies for Indigenous Peoples and the Foster Care System
Content Warning: The source text discusses racism, colonialism, and death by suicide.
Canada’s historical treatment of Indigenous people hinged on policies of cultural erasure and assimilation into a Eurocentric society. In 1876, the Canadian state passed the Indian Act that consolidated colonial legislation, seeking to control Indigenous peoples and assimilate them into the mainstream. The act has had a long impact on First Nations, dismantling their social structure and governance, banning their cultural practices, and establishing the tribal reserves and the residential school system. Indigenous peoples gained citizenship in 1951. Despite historical amendments, the act remains a barrier to Indigenous rights.
Residential schools were established in the 1870s and had a lasting impact on Indigenous peoples. For years, children were removed from their families, forced to abandon their cultures, traditions, and their faith and were segregated by sex. In many schools, children were prohibited from speaking their Native languages and were given European names. The students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Conditions in schools, including malnutrition and starvation, made children vulnerable to diseases and led to increased deaths. The last residential school closed in 1996. The system is connected to the many cases of post-traumatic stress, alcohol and substance addictions, and death by suicide within Indigenous communities. The Canadian government organized the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which operated from 2008 to 2015, to uncover the real history of residential schools. Many survivors shared their experiences. The commission concluded that the system of residential schools amounted to cultural genocide. Controversy over the effectiveness of the Commission remains.
Indigenous children are also overrepresented throughout Canada’s foster care system. The Children’s Aid Societies that the novel refers to were historically independent organizations in Ontario approved by the government to provide child protection services. The Canadian foster care system included the Sixties Scoop, a series of policies that continued a long legacy of displacement and cultural erasure, removing Indigenous children from their families. Between the mid-1950s and into the 1980s, thousands of Indigenous children were taken away from their homes, often without consent, and were fostered or adopted by white families. Indigenous people were rarely informed of their children’s placement, and many families continue searching for their lost relatives.
Cultural Context: The Ojibwe People
The Ojibwe tribe is part of the Anishinaabe peoples, a larger cultural group from the Great Lakes in Canada. It is included in Canada’s First Nations. The Ojibwe people are related to the Algonquin and Odawa peoples while also sharing traditional elements with the Cree. Their language, also known as Anishinaabemowin, belongs to the Algonquian language family. The tribe constitutes one of the largest tribal populations in North America and lives both in the United States and Canada. The tribe’s original homelands included the land today known as Manitoba, Southern Quebec, and Ontario, and extended into Western New York, Minnesota, North Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the 17th century, the Ojibwe migrated westward from the Great Lakes.
Traditionally, the Ojibwe resided in dome-shaped dwellings knows as wigwams and used birch-back canoes to travel. Their traditional attire was mainly animal-skin clothing. Men were responsible for hunting while women’s responsibility was to tan and process the hides into several forms of clothing. The Ojibwe were divided into politically independent bands that shared cultural traditions and intermarried. During the winter, separate family groups would disperse for hunting and would reunite as a band in spring or early summer. While men hunted and fished, women gathered wild rice and often planted corn, beans, squash, and maple trees to get sap for sugar. Ojibwe society had a patrilineal clan system. Similar to many Indigenous tribes, the Ojibwe relied on oral tradition and storytelling to pass on their cultural history and spiritual beliefs. Ojibwe faith centers on one Creator and includes diverse spirits. The tribe followed a communal way of life with several ceremonial gatherings that encouraged reciprocity and gift sharing.
After contact with the Europeans, the Ojibwe established trading relations with the whites, particularly the French traders. However, the fur trade severely impacted the traditional Ojibwe way of life. Natural resources were soon exhausted, and many traditional items were replaced by European materials. Hunters focused on trapping furs and hunting activities declined. Soon, the Ojibwe relied on white traders to sustain themselves. Since 1850, the tribe was forced to sign treaties, giving up vast areas of their homeland to live in reserves in exchange for payments as well as hunting and fishing rights on lands that the government controlled. With the decline of their traditional way of life, the Ojibwe became dependent on government assistance for their survival. Colonial policies like displacement and the residential school system reinforced cultural erasure and historical trauma.
Despite colonialism and loss of tradition, the Ojibwe remain one of the largest Indigenous populations. The community has a long history of activism and remains politically and culturally present. Throughout the 20th and the 21st centuries, the tribe has continued to assert Indigenous rights and needs and reestablish their cultural autonomy.
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