Indigenous Peoples
If you only have time to interact with a few things on this list, check out the ones with a star next to them.🌟
Items authored by Indigenous people have a green tick next to them ✅
Global
- Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Indigenous peoples, points out that indigenous land contains 80% of the world’s biodiversity, but local people are criminalized for their efforts to preserve it. ✅
- United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- What Conservation Efforts Can Learn from Indigenous Communities – UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
- The State of the World’s Indigenous People UN report (2021)
- Decolonial Atlas is a must if you like maps and history
- Learn more about territories and land acknowledgments
- IIFB – International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity
- Survival International
- Cultural Survival ✅
- UN photo album - Indigenous Peoples
Canada
"Indigenous peoples quickly found themselves living in an evershrinking bubble. Under the new dominion paradigm imported from Europe, Indigenous peoples no longer had the right to self-determine. The Indian Act imposed vast restrictions on nearly all aspects of the lives of First Nations peoples, while both Métis and Inuit communities underwent oppression, relocation, dispossession, and subjugation. Ever-increasing policies restricted social practices, including the right to ceremony, the right to determine who is and who is not a member of the community, and, most fundamentally, the right to land." - Ry Moran ✅
Online resources - general
- 150 acts of reconciliation, by Crystal Fraser and Sara Komarnisky 🌟 ✅
Here is a spreadsheet to track your own progress with the 150 Acts - University of Alberta free online course: Indigenous Canada 🌟 ✅
- Indigenous Issues Primers - Chelsea Vowel. Fantastic set of resources on all aspects of Indigenous culture and issues. ✅
- The Wolastoqey Ally Toolkit ✅
- About The Indian Act
- APTN News - Aboriginal People's Television News 🌟 [iPhone app] [Android app] - keep up with current affairs relating to Indigenous Peoples ✅
- The First Nations, Métis & Inuit Education Association of Ontario (resources for teachers) ✅
- CBC Indigenous
- CBC Unreserved podcast ✅
Online resources - Land Back
- Decolonial Atlas is a must if you like maps and history
- Learn more about Indigenous territories and land acknowledgments.
- Whose land are you living on?
- Yellowhead Institute which has a number of great resources on the concept of land back. ✅
- Russell Diabo - Find out about Russell Diabo's work as a First Nations policy analyst, history of resistance, and decades of advocacy. ✅
- The Briar Patch: Land Back issue
Online resources - residential schools
- Do you live near a residential school? (CBC interactive) 🌟
- Indian Residential Schools, “A National Crime” – Presentation
- Stealing Children to Steal the Land - Naomi Klein interview with Doreen Manuel and Kanahus Manuel ✅
Reports
- The Story of A National Crime (1922, Peter Henderson-Bryce) Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (final report, 1996)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action (2015) Spirit Bear’s Guide to the TRC Calls to Action (child-friendly language) ✅
- Other reports from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
- MMIWG National Inquiry Summary [MMIWG Final report]
Books
- INDIGENOUS WRITES: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel 🌟 ✅
- Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State, by Tamara Starblanket ✅
- 21 things you didn’t know about the Indian Act, by Bob Joseph
- Clearing the Plains, by James Daschuk
- Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga ✅
- Unsettling Canada: A National Wake Up Call, by Arthur Manuel ✅
- The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy,
by Arthur Manuel ✅ - The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King ✅
- 11 books for kids about residential schools
Solidarity
- Idle No More 🌟 ✅
Donate
- Indigenous Residential School Survivors Society 🌟 ✅
- First Nations Child and Family Caring Society 🌟 ✅ donate via CanadaHelps.org
- Orange Shirt Society 🌟 ✅
- Woodland Cultural Centre, which is next door to the Mohawk residential school in Brantford, Ontario. You can order an orange shirt from there and all the proceeds go to the Save the Evidence campaign (which aims to preserve the residential school to prevent genocide denial). ✅
- Non-Indigenous people — here’s what you can do, right now - TheDiscourse.ca
Articles
- Canada's Prisons are the new residential schools - Nancy Macdonald, Macleans, February 2016
- Rights and Reconciliation by Ry Moran ✅
- The Bathroom People by Niigaan Sinclair (2018) 🌟 ✅
- ‘The children were dehumanized’: Former caretakers at B.C. residential school share their story - Global News
- Dozens of First Nations do not have access to drinking water — The Guardian
- the government is fighting a human rights tribunal order to compensate Indigenous children who suffered in foster care — The Guardian
- A federal minister has admitted racism against Indigenous peoples is rampant within the healthcare system. — The Guardian
- Indigenous people are overrepresented in federal prisons and Indigenous women are killed at a rate far higher than other groups. — The Guardian
Indigenous language resources (Canada)
- Anishinaabemowin - The Ojibwe People's Dictionary
- Atikamekw dictionary
- Blackfoot dictionary
- Dakota (Sioux) dictionary
- Dene dictionary
- Innu dictionary
- Inuktitut dictionary
- Kanienkéha:ka - The Mohawk People's Dictionary
- Michif - Métis dictionary
- Mi'kmaq online dictionary (with pronunciation recordings)
- Nehiyaw Masinahikan - Online Cree Dictionary
- Why Indigenous Languages Matter - Canadian Geographic
- Mapping Indigenous Languages in Canada - Canadian Geographic
Pagan articles on Indigenous issues
- Terra Nullius, Terra Indigena, Terra Pagana, by Yvonne Aburrow (2020 article showing the link between the genocide of Pagans in Europe and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples in North America).
- Pagan solidarity with Wet’suwet’en
- Pagan statement of solidarity with Wet'suwet'en and Tyendinaga
- Clan mother fights back with spiritual fast by Dodie Graham McKay (2016)
- Protecting the Boreal Forest: Pimachiowin Aki by Dodie Graham McKay (2016)
- Canadian Truth and Reconciliation by Dodie Graham McKay (2015)
- The Wild Hunt Pagan News coverage of Indigenous issues
- Cultural appropriation page
Thanks to Robyn Lawson for some of the recommendations on this list.