Their Example Showed Me the Way / Kwayask Ê-Kî-Pê-Kiskinowâpahtihicik : A Cree Woman's Life Shaped by Two Cultures
Overview
Emma Minde's portraits of the family into which she was given in marriage are touching and instructive. They show us a young woman leaving her home at Saddle Lake, Alberta, to join a household of strangers in Hobbema--with not only a husband she has yet to meet, but also four strong-willed adults who will shape her life: her husband's parents, Mary-Jane and Dan Minde, and Dan Minde's younger brother Sam and his wife Mary.
Emma Minde's autobiography focusses on her relationship with these two women, Mary-Jane Minde and Mary Minde. The education that the newly arrived wife received in their households was built on obedience, hard work and a firmly held set of beliefs, seen as essential preparation for a life of uncertainty and rapid change, hardship and constant struggle.
These reminiscences, told to Freda Ahenakew, offer rare insights into a life history guided by two powerful forces: the traditional world of the Plains Cree and the Catholic missions with their boarding-schools, designed to re-make their charges entirely. Rarely has the interplay of these two worlds--often in conflict, but often also, it seems, very much in harmony with one another--been sketched so eloquently as in Emma Minde's autobiography.
Emma Minde's stories are presented as she told them in Cree, with a translation into English on facing pages. With its Cree-English Glossary and an English Index to the Glossary, this work is an important Cree language resource.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780888642912
- ISBN-10: 0888642911
- Publisher: University of Alberta Press
- Publish Date: December 1997
- Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.72 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.95 pounds
- Page Count: 320
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