audiobook Latino Immigrants in the United States by Ronald L. Mize; Grace Peña Delgado in History

Description

This book seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi'kmaq culture hero Kluskap serves as a key persona in discussing issues such as traditions; changing conceptions of land; and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi'kmaq culture as timeless; two important periods in its history are examined. Within the first period; between 1850 and 1930; Hornborg explores historical evidence of the ontology; epistemology; and ethics - jointly labelled animism - that stem from a premodern Mi'kmaq hunting subsistence. New ways of discussing animism and shamanism are here richly exemplified. The second study situates the culture hero in the modern world of the 1990s; when allusions to Mi'kmaq tradition and to Kluskap played an important role in the struggle against a planned superquarry on Cape Breton. This study discusses the eco-cosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants which could be labelled a 'sacred ecology'. Focusing on how the Mi'kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental relations in interaction with modern society; Hornborg illustrates how environmental groups; pan-Indianism; and education play an important role; but so does reserve life. By anchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi'kmaq traditionalists have; to a large extent; been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.