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According to the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre, “All First Nations Sweat Lodge ceremonies are intended for prayer and healing” (Strong Nations). As a “purification ceremony” a sweat can be a stand along ceremony or be linked to other ceremonies (Indigenous Saskatchewan Encyclopedia). Each First Nation will focus the “placement of the stones” for the
Research methodologies are systems used to understand the information and knowledge we encounter as researchers. Every research methodology (and there are numerous!) has its foundation in specific beliefs and theoretical groundings. Indigenous research methodologies “encompass tribal or Indigenous epistemologies” (Kovach (Nêhiýaw and Saulteaux), 2009, p. 21), meaning Indigenous research methodologies are representative of specific cultural ways of being.
For many of us, we celebrate the New Year on January 01 perhaps without realizing its roots in the Roman Empire and Christianity. The calendar most used is known as the Gregorian calendar, created in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII (Tikkanen, 2018 ; De Guzman, 2023).
Thousands of Indigenous men and women have served in the Canadian military, starting in the First World War despite status First Nations people being exempt from conscription. Exact numbers aren’t known because enlistment forms didn’t only provided options other than First Nations or European identity (Métis veterans ; Sheffiel
First Nations beads can be traced back to over 10,000 years ago when most beads were “made of shell, pearl, bone, teeth, stone, and fossil stems” (Aboriginal Perspectives U Regina). Christi Belcourt, a Michif visual artist from Manito Sahkahigan (Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta), explains that “beading is not simply decorating material goods ...
Travis Klemp (Métis) illustrates how “tattooing has been a prominent aspect of identity for many different Indigenous Peoples” since “long before European contact on Turtle Island” in his article: “Reconciliation Through Reclaimed Ink” (Destination Indigenous).
Sometime in the early 1900s the “Jingle Dress Dance began with the northern tribe Ojibwa” and later became well known in “Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario” (Sacred Springs Powwow). According to the story, the first Jingle dress was “seen in a dream” when a “medicine man’s granddaughter grew sick”, during the dream “his spirit guides ...
Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grass-roots movement started by Phyllis Webstad from the Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation to acknowledge the harms inflicted on Indigenous peoples through the residential school system (Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre). Phyllis is a residential school survivor.
In Anishnaabemowin/Ojibwe manoonmin “is the word for ‘good seed’ or ‘good berry’ and is a wild rice, “a very valuable grain that has been used by the First Nations people from parts of North America, as food, for thousands of years” (Kawartha Lakes Public Library).
Smudging is a “sacred ceremony to most First Nations” (Indigenous Saskatchewan Encyclopedia) and Métis Nation (Fiola, 2015). Smudging is a significant aspect of Indigenous culture across Turtle Island, connecting people to “spirit and to the creator” using the “sacred medicines sage, sweetgrass, cedar, and tobacco” (
