Dialogue with Thérèse: Territory

Guest Writers: Thérèse Niquay & Michel Duval

Thérèse Niquay is the Director of Community Services and Projects, Atikamekw Community of Manawan.

 Michel Duval is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist, researcher in immunotherapy and partnerships with patients and families at CHU Sainte-Justine. Michel is a Co-Lead of the Knowledge Mobilization Group and a member of the Senior Leadership Committee at ACCESS.

This is part of a series of dialogues shared by our guest writers about truth and reconciliation, developing connections, the power of cultural and spiritual supports.

 

Michel: Thérèse, I went back to the transcripts of our conversations in the past few months, and I realised the word that came up most often was “territory.” I cannot remember a discussion with an Atikamekw person where we did not use the word “territory.” Territory is important for you.

Thérèse: When we were living out in the woods, I was present for the birth of one of my sisters, four years younger than me, right in the middle of winter. My grandmother was the midwife. That moment marked an important stage in my life. Together with my mother, she cared for my baby sister, she changed her diapers in the middle of winter in the tent. We had to keep the tent warm, and we also had to make sure that when she changed the diapers, my little sister stayed warm too. My grandmother would have me hold a small blanket close to the stove to warm it up so that she could wrap my baby sister in it. I remember that very clearly. For me, it was a teaching, a value, showing me that I had to help take care of my little sisters and little brothers.

I remember all the care my mother gave us; all the attention she showed us when my father had to go off into the woods to hunt. Little by little, we became aware of our place in the family and of how important each person is. We developed ideas about respect and responsibility.

Michel: You were talking about territory, and then you connected it back to what we have already discussed, “Connection, the Respectful, Responsible and Reciprocal Relationship”, as Cree researcher, Shawn Wilson calls it. I did not learn to connect such different ideas like that. In our world, we make boxes for concepts, and we put words on the boxes. When you speak – and I see this with many Atikamekw people – you speak more broadly. For us, words are attached to things, to boxes, to closed off concepts. You see things in terms of context. And when I went out on the territory with you, I felt that even more strongly, because when I am with you on the territory, I really have the feeling that we are part of something much bigger.

Thérèse: Territory and connection go together. We say “Nitaskinan” (our territory) our Atikamekw homeland. You cannot say “Nitaskinan” because you are not its guardian. You can say “kitaskino” (the territory).

Michel: Wow, the word changes depending on the relationship with what it names. I have seen the same thing with the words for grandmother – kokom (grandmother), noko (my grandmother), and okoma (his or her grandmother). The territory or the person cannot be separated from the relationship we have with them. That makes me dizzy!

Thérèse: “Nitaskinan” does not mean that the territory belongs to us; it means that we belong to the territory. “Nitaskinan” is our pharmacy, our pantry, our church. Out on the land, there are many places where people (for one reason or another, because they were on the territory) were buried there. In winter, we would place the body on a platform and leave it on the land. That was simply how life was; the body would feed the animals of the forest, and it helped to nourish the earth as well. We cannot go against nature; we cannot go against life. Even when death comes, we cannot go against life. We have to accept that death is part of life too. This has made me think a lot, really a lot, about the importance of this very strong bond that connects us to the territory, because our ancestors – our grandfathers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, great grandfathers – they are part of the territory. They belong to a spirit world, and we meet those spirits again. This is really a way of understanding life in which the spiritual dimension is important. Cities where everything is artificial do not attract me at all. I prefer to go to places where I can be in contact with nature. Trees, mountains, rivers – for me, that is what life is. A dense, busy city for me, is hell. Paradise, for me, is nature.

Additional Reading :
Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson (2008).