Denyse Xavier, an Innu Kukum

I went to Mashteuiatsh – also called Pointe Bleue -, the Innu community in the heart of Nitassinan, to meet Denyse Xavier, an Innu who has experienced the ancestral way of life in the forest.

Denyse lives a little away from the reserve, on the outskirts of Pekuakami¹Name originally given to Lac St. Jean by the Porcupine Nation (one of the eight Innu tribes) , a lake that stretches as far as the eye can see like an inland sea²Area 1 041 km2.
Here the sky is lost in the peaceful waters of the lake, which only the swell disturbs…

Denyse is Innu, but many still use the term “Montagnais/e” attributed by the French, although it is no longer used since the 90s. Originally from Masteuiatsh, she grew up on the reserve in a foster family, because “the father was going to work outside”, as she told me in the first minutes of our interview.

But she also lived a large part of her life in the bush and knew the austere lifestyle of the nomads in the tent she shared with her brothers and sisters, after her mother left.

Upon arriving at her home, I immediately spotted an inunnguaq, ᐃᓄᙳᐊᖅ³literally ” imitation of a person “. on the lawn. It is a symbol that is often seen appearing at the bend in the roads and highways of the boreal and polar regions. This structure of stacked stones with the appearance of a human being is often confused with an inukshuk “that which acts as a human being”(ᐃᓄᒃᓱᒃ), a cairn used as a landmark by the Inuit.

This confusion also applies to the terms Inuit and Ilnu, two perfectly distinct terms; the former representing the indigenous people who occupy the Canadian Arctic, and the latter the one who occupy Nitassinan, a boreal territory located in the Labrador Peninsula…

As I approached the front door, a large black dog with Husky eyes leapt happily towards me. As I turned around, I saw Denyse standing in the corner of the door.

Denyse is part of the last generation to practice Innu-aimun⁴https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innu-aimun, the original polysynthetic language⁵composed of morphemes. that is now in danger of extinction.

She understands it, but doesn’t speak it fluently.
– We speak Innu among ourselves, but there are few of us who know it in the community, she tells me. The youngest do not practice it…

The Innu language is part of the Algonquian family. In this ancestral language, the notion of an animated word is essential. It is the language of the hunting territory, of life in the forest as it is anchored in the Innu nomadic culture. An oral tradition transmitted from generation to generation, it is now threatened by the contemporary way of life and the bilingualism introduced by colonization. If it is still spoken in the majority of Innu communities, it is no longer spoken in Essipit, a community of the North Shore, and tends to disappear in Mashteuiatsh. Today, 11,000 people in Eastern Canada still speak Innu-aimum.

After getting to know each other, we sat down on the patio. I gazed at her weathered face and her jet hair, fascinated by the expression in her eyes.

Soon I asked her about his life’s journey, especially his experience in the forest.

– We used to go to the woods all winter, but when school started, we couldn’t go anymore, so we stayed home, she said in one breath.

The dog approached her and stood at her feet without taking his eyes off me. Raising her head, Denyse said to me in an energetic voice,

– When I was eighteen, I started to do “l’école de bois” (school in the woods), as we call it. The teacher had a tent next to us. The teacher, who was Métis, received us in a “prospect tent,” she says.

The prospect tent is an iconic piece of the gold rush. It is this type of heavy-duty tent, originally used by prospectors and gold seekers, that is erected with tree trunks cut on site. But it is also the essential element of survival of the trappers that we heat with a wood stove.- Was the curriculum similar to the one given in the schools?

– Yes, he taught us French, math, geography and gave us Catholic education…

– I was not allowed to speak my native language as a child,” she whispers abruptly.
The native language and beliefs were taboo.
– It was the father who decided everything, because he was the one who made us live by hunting.
Denyse explained to me that in the past, the man was in

charge of the big hunt and the big work such as making canoes, while the woman was in charge of the small hunt, the maintenance of the camp and the tanning of the skins. Even if colonization changed the original model, it did not make the traditional way of life disappear. And when it comes to survival in a natural environment, the balance is quite natural in the daily tasks, the synergy being realized in a non-verbal communication between human beings…

– In winter, the father went on foot to hunt, we didn’t have a ski-doo. He would set traps, but over time, there were so many traps set by non-natives that the game started to run out.

I can feel the bitterness in his words; this endangerment of the ancestral way of life, of nomadic values, is a matter that the contemporary way of life threatens.

– We stayed in the woods in a prospector’s tent and we stayed there until spring, she explained to me. We slept there with my grandmother and we waited for the stove to be lit, because we would wake up with our eyelashes bleached by the frost. And we had to sleep with “cannage”…
– Cane? I asked.
She burst out laughing.
– We used to slip “cans of carnation”⁶cans of condensed milk under our clothes, we would stick them to our skin so that they wouldn’t explode under the cold. There was no water or electricity. We had no potatoes or vegetables, we lived with the elements,” she says.

Denyse speaks at full speed, she is thirsty for this truth that springs up in spite of herself in her words, without varnish or detour.
I was stunned by her testimony, considering the seasonal averages of the region. The living conditions during the winter period in the northern territories are so extreme that they require an extraordinary resistance.

– The father went to work and we knew what we had to do… I took care of my three brothers and my little sister,” she says.
– When Mom got divorced, I took care of my little brothers in the tent.
When I asked her what she believed in, she said,
– I believe in nature. Respect for me is the most important thing, for everything that lives, that’s my beliefs…
This includes, of course, respect for the ancestors and spirits, according to the animistic perceptions of the natives.
Then, after marking a time, she continues,
– The father, he lived in the woods all his life, until he was eighty-five, she said. He did not want to go down… she said by laughing.

– He had built a cottage without water without electricity, with a generator, and he carried his water every day”.

The Innu always settle near a river; a basic rule of survival. Denyse was silent for a few seconds, her eyes lost in thought.

– In our nomadic traditions, we leave with the bare necessities, the tent, salt, flour, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, a few canes, but when that runs out in winter, we eat hares, beaver, moose, whatever we bring back from the hunt…
– What is the priority for the Aboriginal women, the Innu women, today? I asked.
She burst out laughing.
– We are the guardians of the ancestral knowledge, and for the claims, it is the women who put themselves forward to declare the hostilities…
She let a moment pass and murmured,
– I am an environmental activist, I often go to dams to protest against clear-cutting.

Suddenly her face darkened as she said these terrible words to me, jumping to another subject,

– I had two children, two girls, fortunately, she said, because a surgeon took everything away from me… I had a hysterectomy and a bowel operation when I was twenty-eight, both of which I should not have had,” she adds without emotion, “because of a misdiagnosis by a surgeon in town”.

Denyse’s face is impassive, but her piercing gaze tells another story, that of a violence suffered and killed by a thousand Aboriginal women over several generations; that natural gravity that slams into your face like violence…

The consequences of the genocidal practices⁷https://www.aspects-sociologiques.soc.ulaval.ca/sites/aspects-sociologiques.soc.ulaval.ca/files/uploads/pdf/Volume_14/3_boursiquot2007_0.pdfused until the 1970s are written on the faces like an open wound, I thought. Unfortunately, I had heard of tubal ligations and

forced sterilization⁸Read Karen Stote’s book, entitled “An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women” (2015) in my encounters with Aboriginal women.

Denyse is one of the many victims of “system failure”, systemic discrimination or just plain medical ignorance, as female anatomy is still an area of little scientific interest. Just look at the use of unisex drugs for anatomically and physiologically different bodies…

– I had my children with a non-aboriginal man. I lost a generation because I said ‘yes’ when I got married,” she says flatly,
– That means I became a ‘half-breed’ according to the law. And now that I’m divorced, they won’t give me back my status…
– That “other part of me that I’ve lost”… she says with emotion.
– My daughter has her native card, but my son doesn’t have the right to have his card, it’s the same thing…

The same case is an allusion to the Indian Act, a law created on April 12, 1876; or more precisely, a forced assimilation protocol designed during colonization to deprive Amerindian nations of their most fundamental rights, such as identity status, culture and territories… Although it has been amended many times, this vestige of colonization still allows the federal government to administer Indian status, First Nations local governments and reserves, and defines government obligations towards them. Particularly discriminatory, this law has caused thousands of Amerindian women to lose their status after marrying men who do not have Aboriginal status⁹https://sencanada.ca/en/sencaplus/opinion/first-nations-women-children-deserve-federal-action-to-address-ongoing-indian-act-discrimination/.

– What about hunting? Do you practice ?
– When I was young, with my father, I was used to it, but now I am too sensitive. I can hunt hares, partridges, but not moose. I’ve seen them fall, and it made me feel sorry for them, it made me cry… she says with emotion, before continuing,

– But now, we are lucky when we see a moose. There are so many hunters in the woods, whites and mestizos who have obtained lots of land, and those who come to the outfits, there are people everywhere, there is not a fork where there is not a camp … And they tell us that we are not at home, even though it is our territory!

Then after a while;
– And, half of the time, they just hurt them, and we find the carcasses in the fall… They have no respect.
Coming face to face with leisure tourism and hunting as an “experience” irritates many natives, for whom subsistence hunting is still part of their way of life. Prayer trees are proof of this. Animals are entitled to respect, just as human beings are, because they are part of the great Whole, the sacred circle. And this notion of interdependence is attached to the animist belief that a vital force animates all beings and natural elements without distinction…

Denyse takes me to her garden and sits in a swing. I can see her eyes sparkle as she lists her grievances with the Band Council, whether it’s about how to redistribute social assistance during a pandemic, or how to get a building permit.

– Because we lived in the bush, we never had a house on the reserve. I bought a piece of land with my partner. Now he has passed away. I’ve been fighting for seven years to get a variance to build a house and put in a pipe, but the band council has always refused me, even though I’m a real native. I don’t even have the right to put up a tent in my garden, she deplores, even though we are settled on Innu land… Again and again the consequences of this Indian law, accentuating the vulnerability of women.
Suddenly Denyse changes the subject and confides in me,
– In Masteuiatsh, we don’t have any criminality, but on the other hand, our young people don’t do anything, they hang out on the street.
– There is a lot of drug addiction on the reserve. But in our community, we take care of them, like we do with our alcoholics. In every small community, there are always some. Only those who are educated get jobs. But we are nomads!” she said, laughing and pointing to the trees.

– We’re used to being in the woods, not sitting in a classroom for hours five days a week… Our freedom is important. There are many who don’t want to go to school. I have a diploma as an educator for small children. I used to work in the woods with my husband, but now I am in Pointe Bleue. Now I work as a part-time cook… I can’t complain,” she said as she left the terrace.

Following her in the garden, I ask her,
– What is the ratio of men to women among the natives?
– It’s equal. Of course, my mother always followed my father, he was the one who decided, but contrary to what is said in the media, the natives do not use violence against women. We are treated well. You only have to look at the statistics of feminicides in the world to see that this violence does not come from us! But we have another problem to solve here… A big problem, she murmurs in a deep voice.

Her expression freezes.
She lets it pass for a while, then throws it away,
– The territory…

– Does not having a treaty guarantee its protection?
– The territories do not belong to the band council, but to the families. And in Masteuiatsh, there are only eight families of Innu origin… We have seen ten thousand “new natives” – Métis and self-proclaimed – settle on the territory…

Then,
– The Northern Plan in James Bay, it ended in a treaty to give up the territory.
Denyse was referring to the James Bay Agreement, a treaty that allowed the construction of hydroelectric dams in the region to proceed, while recognizing Cree and Inuit rights in return for compensation¹⁰https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_de_la_Baie-James_et_du_Nord_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois.

Denyse agreed with me on the scope of the issues at stake in the Plan Nord, both environmentally and economically, as this project threatens the survival of the last great natural sanctuaries.

The communication strategy speaks of it as a sustainable development project carried out in partnership with the Aboriginals, combining massive exploitation of the territories and protection of biodiversity. These are troubling words when we know the real impact of mining activity on the fauna, flora, rivers and water tables.

The Northern Plan concerns more than 1.2 million square kilometers, lands that include the entire territory of Quebec located north of the 49th parallel, north of the St. Lawrence River and its gulf.

The resources and the energy potential of this northern territory make one dream: energy resources, minerals among which elements highly sought after for new technologies that are called rare earth elements and whose extraction is extraordinarily polluting, and of course forestry, wildlife and tourism resources. These lands are mainly populated by First Nations and Inuit. Inuits, Naskapis, Innus, Crees, Atikamekws and Anishinabegs are directly concerned by the Northern Plan. Their hunting territories will be impacted by the drastic changes that will result from the implementation of this project with its 17 mining projects and its economic development.

As for environmental protection, the project announces that “50% of its territory will be devoted to non-industrial purposes, to the protection of the environment and to the safeguarding of biodiversity.” Poor compensation, because if wildlife reserves and ecotourism projects will see the light of day, it is only some 20% of the territory that is concerned, the other 30% being a hypothetical promise of recovery of industrial wastelands !

– In this project, we need a magnifying glass to see the protected areas! Says Denyse, laughing.

Like Denyse, I don’t know if we should be happy about this concession, considering the massive and long-lasting damage that will be caused by the extraction of these famous rare minerals and other exploitations. If we look at the disaster experienced by the boreal forest and at humanity’s appetite for consumption and recreation, there is food for thought…

– But we don’t want to give in, because not everyone has a territory in our reserve. The Band Council says that if we want government assistance, it has no choice but to give up our territories, because everything above our territory belongs to us, but what is below belongs to the Queen, the Crown…

Is the argument justified? I asked myself inwardly.

– Can your territories be invaded?
She laughed.
– They are. There are more than 10,000 “new Indians” (referring to half-breeds and self-proclaimed Indians), and all they want is hunting grounds, to save themselves from taxes and to have the Indian card. With all this, soon there will be no more government aid…

Denyse marks a silence before getting excited,
– It was the band council that seized my land. The worst

thing is that they are going to sell them at 3% active royalty on the mine. This is in the agreement in principle that they signed with the government in 2004 for the exploitation of the territory.
Denyse is not happy.

– The elders rose up to oppose this project, because the band council illegally took over the territories of the Innu families, she says vehemently. It put them on a map and negotiated without the consent of the families, she writes.

She lets it pass for a while, and then launches,

– He even blocked cutting on my land! We are still fighting for our rights. After that, we are looked at in the wrong way on the reserve, because we are bigger, we the real Innu. As I was saying, there are about eight authentic Innu families on the reserve, some two hundred souls…

She shrugs her shoulders and adds,

– We have tribal councils like Mamuitum or Aishkat Innuat, freedom and self-determination, “exchange circles” but in reality, it is the same business. They practice the same strategy of communication and use young people to instrumentalize them…

Looking at her, I feel this weariness towards the backstage of power…

For Denyse, combat is something that is part of her, something for which her life has prepared her. Life in the woods, daily survival, strengthened by the experience of these great hunting grounds that she has traveled in the footsteps of her father…

The harsh winters known from early childhood, it leaves its mark, it makes you strong because there is no choice. It’s either this or fall… I thought.

– When we protested against the power station in Val Jalbert, the three non-natives among the accused got nothing, only the natives got a fine of 5,000 coins. The Greenpeace lawyer who was supposed to defend them got a VIP seat for the pow wow by the band council. He did not defend the natives, she said with a touch of bitterness.

Denyse’s dog suddenly gets up and runs out onto the lawn at full speed.
– He is the one who cuts down all the trees, he is the one who sponsors the pow wow…

The green-washing or eco-whitening is a marketing strategy of the big companies, a lure which today, does not have any more catch on the majority of the people, I thought but the people of the “COM¹¹secteur de la Communication et Publicité” remained hung to the “powder to the eyes” which they sold in the Eighties.

Denyse sighed.
– We’re going to dance around that pole, in the name of destroying the territory! She says with a touch of sarcasm,

before adding,
– The real gatherings, that is practiced in the wood. We eat together, we make gatherings where we play the teuiekan, that has nothing of the commercial pow wow…

Unfortunately, we’re witnessing the usual power struggles in communities, between progressives and traditionalists; strong opinions on the future of the territory that don’t meet the elders criteria.

But what sustainable development can we expect from a system based on the exploitation of material and human wealth, as it has been defined throughout history ? Or from a culture whose evolution has never freed itself from its cult of the ego and its greed ?

At the time of the major climatic deregulation that we are living, the question does not have to be asked anymore, especially not to the politicians paid for their communication services, I thought.

– We are fighting back. Other members of our families have set up camps, and have not registered with the council. Unfortunately, we are not enough real Innu to defend our lands, she repeats…

The number is not important, on the other hand the truth, that which is spurting out, is a torrent which will sweep away the last illusions of this consumerist world…

Two years have passed since I spoke with Denyse. The situation she described then is far from having improved, since it triggered blockades on the logging roads, which eventually led to the intervention of Ian Lafrenière, the Minister of Indian Affairs…

After two blockades organized by the Mashk Assi collective and the Atikamekw collective Ekoni Aci. in the last week of July, Denyse and Diane Blacksmith, two kukums territory’s keepers, opposed the Résolu forestry company, one of Canada’s largest, curbing its activities on the traditional territory of Inuat families; an action Mashk Assi was keen to distance himself from.

The kukums blocked the Girardville road, before positioning themselves on the logging road near km 59 of the Domtar road, in the Mistassini sector. Asserting their ancestral rights under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, they called for a complete halt to the company’s logging operations, while demanding that the Mashteuiatsh Band Council be paid the logging royalties.

First Phosphate’s prospecting for “critical” minerals used in the manufacture of electric batteries was also halted during the blockade.

Minister Ian Lafrenière intervened to put an end to the blockade when groups of extremists and complotists protesters tried to instrumentalize the cause of the two kukums.

The list of major environmental deniers… includes “Résolu”, an unethical giant which, according to Greenpeace (survey in 2017), is endangering the survival of caribou in Quebec and northern Ontario; a company playing denial with force, able to attack Greenpeace despite the evidence of its large-scale harmful actions. Bought out by Paper Excellence, it is run by an heir to Sinar Mars, the Indonesian pulp and paper company accused of deforestation and infringement of the human rights of indigenous peoples.