Who Are You Joseph? Who am I? Who are WE?

So to be honest, I didn't know who Joseph Boyden was before all this started. I still haven't read any books, writings or heard any speaking or debates etc. It was only through this video that I heard about the ballet and I recalled sharing info on that in Facebook.

I think he cleared up a lot. I could relate to many things, I was sad that someone called up his 85 year old Catholic mom and asked  her a bunch of questions without him knowing..that I could totally relate to and I'd be upset. That said it sounds like they've all been pulled closer and many people reached out.

This is a huge issue on Turtle Island- "currently so called Canada" and I think he cleared up the money stuff, said he shared that prize money of $5000 with the others, which is nice...

and I know how hard it is to document this info about Indigenous ancestry, it's hard. It has taken me 10 years to find my family the information in the archives. I totally understand about wanting to protect family and privacy and I think anyone should be able to understand that.

I have don't have the blood quantum and I was using label wrong.
 https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/10/labels-thanksgiving-truth.html

I am not connected to a band, or nation even though I want to be, that's why I signed up to the Reconciliation Carving Cohort at Langara, was to make more connections.

There's a lot of pain and denial in our family, names were changed to protect them from racism but it was a way of assimilation. Read this page about marriage à la façon du pays


""One of the problems of searching the native families is that they didn't always use the same name and the clergy didn't always record the name the same way each time. Hence Barra is sometimes Barry, Berra, Burra etc.

Fur trade society developed its own marriage rite, marriage à la façon du pays (after the custom of the country), which combined both First Nations and European marriage customs." http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/



Joseph Boyden admitted he spoke out of turn and that he had no place to speak about the Missing and Murdered Women...I don't know what he said. People make mistakes and get caught up in things.

I try to be careful, I don't want to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. We learn best from our worst mistakes sadly. We need to be forgiving.You need to be on a higher level and help others get up there with you. Don't let the pull you down, reach out a hand and help them up if you can.

https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/forgiveness-signs-double-rainbows.html



It's complicated though.

I find it interesting how this whole thing is bubbling up! Great ready because it's going to blow! It has to right?

So we have to see the whole thing for what it was, was it about labels, blood quantum, money, funding, Indigenous rights, inequality, suicide, art, love, family, ....yes and so much more.

It's a good interview above, you should definitely listen to it. I send out love and light to his mom and his family and to him and the people who reached out to him.

We are all struggling with the colonialist legacy and it's not an easy ride.

If you got to the party late, read the rest of these important articles on this related link, where I tried to gather them together to give a true, fair, opportunity to get the full story and form your own opinion.

Indigenous Identity - the Joseph Boyden saga continues-Updated!!
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/01/indigenous-identity-joseph-boyden-saga.html


Here's what I can trace of my ancestry and it was really really hard. Sadly I still do not know my Gr. Gr. Grandmother Theresa Eliza Enos's maiden name- her Indigenous name. These things take time but sometimes the info just isn't to be found. Time will tell.
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/enos-poirier-ancestry-kalapuya-iroquois.html


Well I think this a question we are all asking ourselves really? Don't you agree?



Well, who are you? (who are you? who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (who are you? who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (who are you? who, who, who, who?)
'Cause I really wanna know (who are you? who, who, who, who?)

I have all these questions when I create my art and my stories and I think about what people will say and if they'll ask the same questions that are being asked.

Like when I wrote down my vision and painted and made a little video...is that all cool.
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/01/my-vision-salmon-woman.html 



Or when I painted "Tail of Tears"
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/10/tail-of-tears-painting.html

See I rarely sell any of my work, most of it is gifted. This painting I have actually forbidden it ever to be sold.

That said when I painted all these other works I questioned where I stood in all of it. https://tinawinterlik.blogspot.ca/2015/10/mama-spirit-bear-cubs.html

After I painted it, I fell in love with it and couldn't sell it. I feel she watches over me. That said part of me questioned whether I am allowed to refer to her as Spirit bear...

Many of my works were created thinking that I could split any money made with the people, group, band, nation for the which the project/art was created...but I just haven't because I have so many questions...
http://savemycoast.blogspot.ca
http://zipolitazcv.blogspot.ca
Forest Fairy Tale
Pow Wow Photographic Project 


This is video is over an hour but it well worth it!



And here's another weird thing, it's there so many times when I ask myself the same question, am I Indigenous ENOUGH to apply for this...what ever it is, a job, a course, funding, art residence, ....

I don't think I really ever thought much about my ancestry until Angel went to school. On the paper it said something about did I want her to be taught Aboriginal studies and asked what are ancestry. Supposed to check a box but I just check here and there and wrote that we were Metis, Songhees but nothing to prove it. This happened every year and no one ever really explained the differences...I don't think most people know..

That's why I wrote this blog post. "This isn't Dances with Salmon you know!!"



So many questions about labels, rights, cultural appropriation. It is all so relevant and important because it's all connected.

Everything is connected.



OTHER important links I would like you to look at please.

https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/forgiveness-signs-double-rainbows.html
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/reconciliation-through-indigenous.html
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/09/cultural-appropriation.html
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/10/more-on-cultural-appreciation-and.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/01/16/oh-please-joseph-boyden-not-the-victim-in-indigenous-ancestry-saga-paradkar.html 

Enos & Poirier Ancestry- Kalapuya, Iroquois, Portuguese, Songhees, Metis

This page is a work in progress, there's so much more I want to add. I am learning so much.

I want to thank Dennice Goudie for reaching out to me and helping me find out about my great grandma. I am very very grateful for all the hard work she has done. It's amazing.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ENOS ANCESTRY

This info is from the Joao Ignacio d'Almada (John Enos)

------------------------------------------------------------------
I recently got the John Enos Diary it is in the BCarchives and the scanned it and sent it and from it I found out this. I will be adding more info later.

I don't get this maternal grandson of Bernardo Jose de Fontes

Great Great Great Great Grandparents- Manuel Francisco d'Almada and his wife Ana Bernardina Dos. Prazeres

Great Great Great Grandparents- Jose Ignacio d'Almada and his wife Bernardina Jacintha

Great Great Grandparents- Joao Ignacio d'Almada (John Enos) & Theresa Eliza Enos (Songhees)

Great Grandparents- John Joseph Enos- Mary Anne Poirier

Grandparents- Joseph Enos - Anna Anderson

Parents-Shirley Enos- Leonard Winterlik

-------------------------------------------------------------
I just found out about this and it is very exciting!!!!

Marie Ann Maranda dit Le Frise (Iroquois & Kalapuya ) (Mary Ann Poirier's grandmother)

Joseph Thomas Brulé (Mary Ann Poirier's grandfather)

(second marriage--- same woman)
Mary Ann Brule Vautrin http://www.sookenewsmirror.com/community/303481881.html

Children from first marriage

Ellen Thomas Brulé (Mary Ann Poirier's mother)

Joseph Poirier (Mary Ann Poirier's father)

Mary Ann Poirier (Tina's Gr. Grandma)

married John Joseph Enos (Tina's Gr. Grandpa)

Here are more related links, keep in mind that this is the most recent posts so some of the info on the older posts are not accurate as I have since learned more info.

Related Links:
Enos & Poirier Ancestry- Kalapuya, Iroquois, Portuguese, Songhees, Metis https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/enos-poirier-ancestry-kalapuya-iroquois.html
https://tinawinterlik.blogspot.ca/2016/03/my-portuguese-and-songhees-heritage.html
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/09/my-heritage-and-7-generations.html

http://portuguesepioneersofbc.blogspot.ca/search/label/joe%20silvey
http://portuguesepioneersofbc.blogspot.ca/search/label/john%20enos 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Mary Ann was born at Marysville (Corvallis) in the Willamette Valley of Oregon in 1834.  Her parents were of Iroquois and Kalapuya blood; she was raised to age 15 at the Catholic Mission at St. Paul )

This is such an interesting page I want to share all of here...but for now, read this please and check out the link.
http://www.salemhistory.net/people/native_americans.htm

"As a semi-nomadic people, the Kalapuya(s) lived in permanent winter homes and migrated throughout the Willamette Valley during the warmer months. They traded regularly with their Molalla and Cayuse neighbors as well as other Northern California, Oregon coast, and Columbia River tribes." (Kalapuya, page 4)

Food
The Kalapuyas were hunters and gatherers. Women did most of the gathering, while men were the hunters. Salmon, trout, and eels were part of their diet as were birds, small game, deer, bear, and elk. Grasshoppers and a type of caterpillar were considered delicacies. Other food items included hazel nuts, berries, tarweed seeds, and wapato. (Zenk, page 547-548)



Camas root was the Kalapuyas' most abundant and important staple. This "bulbous root plant resembles an onion in shape and consistency but is considerably more bland in taste," according to "Cooking up Camas," an article in Historic Marion. A member of the lily family, "camassia quamash" still grows in the Willamette Valley; it is known for its beautiful blue spring time blooms.

Kalapuya women dug the camas with forked wooden sticks and then roasted and dried the root in pit-ovens. This mixture was also pressed into cakes or loaves for later use as food or as a valuable trade item. 


From this webpage
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/a_la_facon_du_pays.html
 à la façon du pays

"Fur trade society developed its own marriage rite, marriage à la façon du pays (after the custom of the country), which combined both First Nations and European marriage customs.

Life was difficult and precarious for both sexes in nomadic Indian tribes, and other commentators felt that the women did not question their role which was essential for survival. However, it did not accord with European notions of femininity for women for women to be strong. The Hudson's Bay Company men found the unladylike strength of Chipewayan women particularly astonishing. On one occasion David Thompson sent one of his strongest men to help a Chipewyan woman who was hauling a heavy sled; to the man's surprise, it took all his strength to budge the load. The Chipewayan themselves took the superior strength of women for granted. As a famous chief Matonabbee declared, "Women... were made for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do." Samuel Hearne perceived that the Chipewayan evaluated women by different criteria than did the European. Physical prowess and economic skill took precedence over delicate features:

Ask a Northern Indian, what is beauty? he will answer, a broad flat face, small eyes, high cheek-bones.. a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook-nose, a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt. Those beauties were greatly heightened, or at least rendered more valuable, when the possessor is capable of dressing all kinds of skins, converting them into the different parts of their clothing, and all to carry eight or ten stone in Summer, or haul a much greater weight in Winter.

The positions adopted by Indian women in labour, either squatting or kneeling over a low object, seemed to lessen the length and pain of parturition. Concerned at the lack of help and attention which "the sex" received in childbirth, Samuel Hearne endeavoured to explain to Indian women the benefits of the use of midwives as in Britain.. He was met with the contemptuous response that such interference was probably the cause of the humpbacks, bandy legs and other deformities which the Indians observed among their English visitors. James Isham, on the other hand, found Indian attitudes commendable. After observing how soon Cree women resumed their heavy work, he was prompted to suggest that Englishwomen were too often unnecessarily pampered. "I think it's only pride and ambition, that takes in Keeping their bed a full month, and putting a poor C'n to Charge and Experience for aught."

Isham also noticed that Indian women were not very prolific. Children were generally spaced two or three years apart. In attempting to account for this lack of fertility compared with European women, prevented conception. Indian mothers suckled their children for several years, never having recourse to wet nurses that was then common practice amongst the wealthier classes in Europe. The traders considered that such a long nursing period had a detrimental effect upon the women because it resulted in premature aging, but the Indians had their own reasons for supporting this practice. If children were weaned before the age of three, the Indian women at Severn House informed William Falconer, they would develop large bellies from having to drink too much water and this would make them poor travelers unable to withstand fatigue. Furthermore native women had to nurse their children until they were old enough to eat solid, adult fare. As one observer succinctly wrote: "They give babies nothing but milk or else present them with a leg of goose."

The Europeans did comment favourably on the practicality of the Indian cradle which allowed the children, encased in soft skins, to be conveniently carried on its mother's back. A silky, dried, absorbent moss, which frequently changed, took the place of diapers. Isham thought this was such a "good Saving Method", dispensing with the trouble and expense of washing, drying and buying cloth for clouts, that it could be advantageously adopted by "the poor folks in our own Nation".

Excerpt: "Many Tender Ties"

 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/

This explanation here explains very well why I can not find the name of my great great grandma who was Songhees. It's so sad, vile and disturbing. Why people felt they were so much better. Sadly many privileged people still think similar thoughts...I pray that the work we are doing today enlightens everyone and things truly change for the better...for now I am grateful to understand more  about what went on and why.

"One of the problems of searching the native families is that they didn't always use the same name and the clergy didn't always record the name the same way each time. Hence Barra is sometimes Barry, Berra, Burra etc.

Fur trade society developed its own marriage rite, marriage à la façon du pays (after the custom of the country), which combined both First Nations and European marriage customs.

During the 1800s and into well into the 1900s, there was social stigma attached to anyone with Native ancestry. A prime example of the sentiment of the time is contained in a letter found at the BC Archives (MS 0182 - Yale or Reel # A01658). It's referenced as 'no 11,' a letter to James Murray Yale from a friend, Mary Julia Mechtler. On page 2, she writes:

"Continue to keep your good resolutions of not taking an Indian wife, on account of yourself as well as of the dreadful fate that generally awaits the Bois Brule offspring of such a connection. Reflect what every man owes himself. What apology can a white man make to his children for mixing and polluting his pure blood with that of a savage. How dare such a person pretend to principle and feeling! Fie upon him for a selfish monster! I hope, my dear James, you will never have such a reproach to make to your conscience.""

After reading this I feel like puking. Shame on Mary Julia Mechtler, but she learned  her hate and ignorance from somewhere and that is the lesson we must take from this, do not teach hate, be careful of what we have learned and learn never to teach hate to our children. For if we do, we shall never have peace.

Important links I want to share

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/bibliography.html#Many%20Tender%20Ties  pp 27-29

http://www.ctsi.nsn.us/chinook-indian-tribe-siletz-heritage/our-history/part-i

http://www.grandronde.org/

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/marriage-sources.html#Joseph%20Brul%E9%20Marie%20Ann%20Maranda%20dit%20la%20Frise

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~goudied/

https://www.familytreedna.com/

Okay to be updated and continued as I said I have a lot to add here. 

Here are more related links, keep in mind that this is the most recent posts so some of the info on the older posts are not accurate as I have since learned more info.

Related Links:
Enos & Poirier Ancestry- Kalapuya, Iroquois, Portuguese, Songhees, Metis https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/11/enos-poirier-ancestry-kalapuya-iroquois.html
https://tinawinterlik.blogspot.ca/2016/03/my-portuguese-and-songhees-heritage.html
https://mylangaratrccarvingjourney.blogspot.ca/2016/09/my-heritage-and-7-generations.html

http://portuguesepioneersofbc.blogspot.ca/search/label/joe%20silvey
http://portuguesepioneersofbc.blogspot.ca/search/label/john%20enos