Not My Sister: What Feminists Can Learnabout Sisterhood from Indigenous Women

Tracey Lindberg

Dans le contexte du savoir autochtone, le discours politique de la sororite et de lalinguistique culturelle des relations se rejoignent, ajoutant des elements decomplexite et de genre aux definitions des roles, des responsabilites et desobligations dans les relations autochtones. Les lois relatives aux relationsautochtones utilisentparfois la mime terminologie que lefeminisme, sans adoptertoujours des definitions, des sens ni des contextes semblables. C'est pourquoiI'identification et la definition des droits et des roles des femmes dans un milieuautochtone peuvent informer et transformer la maniere par laquelle les femmesautochtones, les feministes et les femmes autochtones qui sont feministes, separlent du droit et critiquent les theories juridiques au Canada.

In the context of indigenous knowledge, the political language of sisterhood andthe cultural linguistics of relations intersect, resulting in definitions of roles,responsibilities, and obligations of indigenous relations that are complex andgendered. The laws pertaining to indigenous relationships, while sharing someterminology with feminism, do not always share definition, understanding, orcontext. For these reasons, identifying and defining women's laws and roles in thecontext of an indigenous framework can inform and transform the way in whichindigenous women, feminists, and indigenous women who are feminists speak toeach other both about law and about how we critique Canadian legal theories.

Once monthly I have lunch with a colleague. Each time we part, she says to me,"See yah, sis." It bothered me from the start and now it is regularized, in what shemust presume is a ritual for us. Part of my fear at offending her is that I have let itprogress to this point—she has called me sister for a year now. Part of it is that Ido not consider her a sister. More like a cousin, by marriage, twice removed.

When a feminist includes me in her understanding of sisterhood, she assertsthat her gynocracy has primacy over my history, culture, race, language, andtraditions. That line between gender and race is not very clear to me, but when Istand on it I can see the non-Indigenous women who are able to own the land wewere forced to move away from. From that line, upon which I do not balance sowell, I can take in the panoramic sight of the chasm separating the experience ofnon-Indigenous feminists and Indigenous women.

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There are sisters and then there are sisters.'

Nimus.^ Older sister.Nisimis. Younger sister.Nisimsack. Younger kinship/sibling.^

Indigenous sisterhood involves shared knowledge and experience. Anawareness in a restaurant, understood by the other Indigenous woman at the table,that the restaurant staff is being overly solicitous of the non-Indigenous men at thetable. A shared understanding in the auditorium at a grade school, that "parentingresponsibilities" mean something entirely different to a parent only one generationaway from some of the horrendous truths of the residential schools. Thecommunal fear that there will not be enough this time to feed everyone. Theshared collective shudder when the phone rings late at night. The same evidentweariness on the face of one just like us who has also mn herself ragged bycooking for her third funeral in two weeks. These women are my sisters.

It is also an intellectual distinction. The English language cannot fullyencompass the intricate web of relations in Indigenous families with the terms"kinship," "extended family," and "sisters." In English, we have to representourselves."* In our languages, no one is representing non-Indigenous people. Wehave found ourselves ascribed meaning and defmition by ostensibly intemal andintemalized definition.^ Our ways intrinsically build in a type of culturallyinformed subjectivity. We are grounded in the places and people that we comefrom and we cannot leave that behind. For those Indigenous people who speaktheir languages, this is the mountain, the other side of the lake—the places wherewe continue to exist independent of the newcomers. On the gendered frontier, wesend our word warriors out to meet you.

I am not sure of whom we are representative. I am sure, however, of whoprofesses to represent us.

1. Thank you to my sisters Priscilla Campeau and Janice Makokis for their discussion before,during, and after the writing of this piece.

2. Thank you to Maria Campbell for her translation and discussion of the Cree words used in thispiece.

3. It is important to note that gender is ascribed by birth but that in the perfonnance of some rolesand obligations there is no delineation of duty by gender.

4. We have strength in our representation: Harold Cardinal, Leroy Littlebear, Trish Montour-Okanee, and literary figures such as Maria Campbell, Louis Halfe, Greg Scofield, and MarilynDumont are honouring us in print.

5. For example, note the impact that anthropological works presented by presumed "culturallyneutral" parties have had on the establishment and presumption of Indigenous normativestandards. By comparison, in a Cree context, definitions of newcomers have been based onexternalized interpretations of newcomer action and mores.

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In a Cree definition of the relationship my lunching colleague is referring to,these sisters are important because they are related to, and responsible for, mybrothers. Brothers who have shared the giftburden of ensuring that our boys areraised to be men and our girls to be courageous. Who had their role of providersstripped from them in the most public of humiliations as non-Indigenous standards(and European and male standards at that) were first applied to, and then usurped,Indian men's roles.

We stand beside our men.

We stand beside our men.

Those men who only learned what non-Indigenous people taught them aboutenforced perceptions of women's invisibility (through exclusion from legislationand the lack of acknowledgment of women's roles in government), women'sdisempowerment (by privatizing women's roles), and women's disposability (byaltering family bonds and not acknowledging traditional laws regarding respect,balance, and shared responsibility). If there is truly gender disharmony inIndigenous communities (and I do not comment on the same), then we need toaddress three misconceptions before we can even address the agendas put forth byfeminists:

1. Indigenous women have been equal in our nations, communities, andhouses before;

2. "equality" may mean very different things from Indigenous nation toIndigenous nation, and it certainly can mean something differentthan the definition identified in Canada; and

3. gendered roles were, and in some contexts still are, completelyacceptable in almost every Indigenous nation.*

We can argue that patriarchy is so entrenched in Indigenous nations thatfeminism is a viable tool for interpreting the oppression that men visit on womenand ameliorating the effects of the same. In much the same way that the socialistswere first in line to interpret capitalism and its effect on Indigenous economiesand nations, the tool has proven usefril. However, both analogies end at a placewhere Indigenous people started: egalitarianism. How useful the analogy is, then,is dependent upon how well those tools (of socialism and of feminism) work inthe context where egalitarianism has faced extreme and continuous pressure toreflect the values of non-Indigenous society.

6. Some of these roles are evident in our traditional ceremonial roles.

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Filters^ from other groups are important to the degree that they can advanceour own particular agendas. To the degree to which those filters can subsume andalter our own vision, they are less than useful and can sometimes be categorizedas destructive. The feminist filters are useful to the degree to which they supportthe Indigenous woman's agenda: recognition of our civil, political, and legalrights.^ However, there are many Indigenous nations with many women and manydifferent political concems. Feminisms, as homes to ideological theories,understandings, and beliefs, cannot encompass and further that which they do notunderstand—that which they cannot experience.

It is also quite evident that the tools, skills, arguments, and political clout thatwe as Indigenous people can borrow from feminisms are usefiil ones. However,like all restoration projects, we have to start with our own foundation andmaterials and complement and reinforce the same with the tools' that we choose.In some instances, the tools will be exclusively our own. In others, we may haveto borrow the tools of other homeowners to leam how to build our own tools. Stillin other projects, we may have to borrow the tools of others in similar orcomparable circumstances to aid in the restoration. However, we must alwaysretum them. They are not ours.

We do not know each other well enough to keep each other's stuff.

Can Indigenous women be feminists? I am certain that some are. Those toolshoused in the feminist shed offer some economic, political, legal, and socialsupport that some Indigenous women find lacking in their nations. However, I amnot convinced that it is a viable political altemative for Indigenous women toparticipate in feminist political agendas. Principally, I take issue with the fact thatthe terminology and philosophy of the feminist movements are principallyWestem based.

When the movements speak of the "right to life" they do not address themultiplicity of Indigenous women's understandings with respect to childbirth. I donot see our role as Cree women refiected in the choice dialogue. As well,feminisms fail to take into account Indigenous women's roles in child rearing andeducation. Certainly, it would be politically incorrect to state it—a generalized

7. I use the term "filters" to mean the political, social, racial, cultural, linguistic, economic, andsexual orientation experiences we possess as peoples that enable us to interpret situations andevaluate how we perceive the world based upon our experience of the same.

8. Indigenous women who have written brilliant pieces on Indigenous women's rights and whosepath breaking allows those of us who follow to see plainly the road ahead include PatriciaMonture, Mary Ellen Turpel, Janice Acoose-Pelletier, Larissa Behrendt, Emma LaRocque, andLee Maracle.

9. Like many commentators, I owe a debt of gratitude to Audre Lorde for developing language thatI can understand and speak in order to communicate the nature of the anti-colonial struggle that Iparticipate in daily. I refer specifically to her essay, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantlethe Master's House," in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 1984).

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perception is that many Indigenous women's roles in many nations (and mine isno exception) have included responsibility for the care of the children and elders.What role is there for this understanding in feminism? What of the understandingthat we are to play a supportive role to our men as well? While "support" cannotencompass the shared responsibility that men and women have for each other andwhen support has taken on a submissive connotation—what role can we playwhen "traditional women's roles" are examined and interpreted with suchdifferent-coloured eyes?

That the women's movement represents all women has also been provenfallacious in terms of the sponsorship by a women's movement of the "women'svote." Indigenous women, my sisters, were not represented in that movement andwere not sponsored in that law. Indeed, even if it were possible to give up our"Indianness," we were still not women enough to vote in Canadian elections'"(pre-supposing that any Indigenous women even perceived themselves asCanadian citizens and not addressing the historic and contemporarymarginalization of Indigenous women from participation in territorial and IndianAct^^ reflective decision-making). This history of the "women's right to vote"does not even include our women. Suffrage did not extend to Indigenous women,who were considered less than non-Indigenous men and women and not quitehuman. Our history includes an understanding that Indian people as a whole livingon reserve could not vote federally in Canada until after 1960. We experiencedthat with our brothers. Where was this notion of sisterhood when non-Indigenouswomen had the vote and women defined as Indians under the Indian Act did not?Until 1960, no Indian/7e/-.yon living on reserve could vote in a federal election.

What role is it then that feminisms can play in the re-assertion of "equality"for Indigenous women when they do not define equality in the same terms thatIndigenous women did? They do not understand the thousands of years ofinteraction where we lived well with our men prior to their two hundred years onour soil, and they do not suffer the same oppression to the same degree thatIndigenous women have suffered it. What if their equal does not equal my equal?

What place does feminism have in the continued oppression and attemptedsubjugation of Indigenous people? In this struggle, many of our men have fought(often with valour) for all Indigenous people. Our men have suffered the sameracism as Indigenous women. They have suffered the same atrocities andindignities as us. The fact that they leamed gender discrimination along the way

10. Indian women could not vote in band elections in their nations until 1951 {Indian Act, 1951, c.29, s. 1). It should be noted that women defined as Indians under the Indian Act were not legallyallowed to vote in Canadian elections until 1960. Provincially, Indians were specificallylegislatively excluded in some jurisdictions. Notably, the right to vote in all provinces was notextended to Indian people until 1969 (see <http://www.ainc-inac.gc.caych/rcap/sg/cg9_e.pdf> at56 (date accessed: 16 March 2005).

11. Indian Act, R.S.C., 1985 c-I 5.

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from non-Indigenous women and men draws a line in the sand over which I am,frankly, unwilling to risk crossing over until joining hands over it meansaddressing those shared concems that we as Indigenous peoples have. Thoseinjustices—historic and contemporary—have paid some attention to gender. It isno accident that the profound political strength and input of our women was thetarget of categorical and ongoing attacks by the Indian Act, '̂ which took ourIndian status and the privileges associated with that status from us and ourchildren.'^ I once read somewhere that feminism cannot be considered applicableto Indigenous nations until it addresses the emancipation of Indigenous men. Thisis an axiom for many Indigenous women. Until feminism can make room under itsshield for the amelioration of the impact of, and the steady aim of, colonization atIndigenous peoples, the political movements have no space for many Indigenouswomen. How can you call me sister when you do not take care of my brothers?How are we kin when you do not participate in the education of our nephews,cousins, sons (including the un-leaming of racism, classism, ageism, and sexism)?Some would argue that this does not address the reality of women's existence inIndigenous nations. It is the ideal and perhaps not an achievable one, the argumentgoes. This is not my proven fact.

Nichakwus. Woman so close as to be related. Like a sister-in-law.

It must be painfiil to hear it, and I am certain that it is not easily accepted.You are not our sisters by virtue of gender. Gender does not address our spiritualand cultural obligations. In a real and enduring way in the place that I comefTom—where many of our women come from—spirit and culture address genderobligations. I share this with every woman who understands what it is to have themen serve you at a ceremony and who know what that means. This sharedunderstanding is also an obligation. To this date, I have not shared this withanyone but my sisters.

The fact that we reflect each other physically does not eradicate the issue:how can I call you sister when you were oppressor first? Sisterhood is the ideal, Ithink. It is perhaps not an achievable one. We are supposed to be able to get tothat place where we are able to trust each other and treat each other as sisters.Share secrets. Tease our brothers. Compare shared experiences.

12. Ibid.13. I would note that I do not use either "enfranchisement" or "disenfranchisement" to define this. It

is my position that the enforcement of Canadian standards and definitions of "Indianness" usingCanadian law in no way impacts citizenship in our nations or the rights and obligationsassociated with that citizenship. However, I admit the legal reality: that the Indian Act was usedto deny us access to reserve lands and a voice in the now largely entrenched Indian Act bandcouncil-style govemment. The impact of that in terms of our ability to speak and rear ourchildren in our language, live near family members, participate in spiritual, economic, social, andother essential aspects of our nations has been devastating.

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We do not have the same shared experiences.

We do not have the same relationships with our men.

Our secrets are not the same as yours.

This is our business now,

"Hey, sister. Give a brother a hand? " He says to my nichakwus and I as we passby him at the Churchill subway station on Jasper Avenue. He is hungry and seeskinship in us. So many times, I have heard people close a prayer with "All of myrelations. " As we walk past him, I think of that, "He is a relation." Total strangerat a subway stop.

Nistas. Older brother,Nissimus. Younger sibling,

I hear many Indigenous people speak of "our White brothers" but I hadassumed the English language was not precise enough to capture the full nature ofthe relationship shared by Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. Myfacility with my own language is very limited, but I know enough to understandthat my kinship family is large and welcoming, I also know enough to see that it isa gift—and never to be taken for granted that they ensure that the effects ofcolonization do not wound me too deeply. They take care of my physical,emotional, and spiritual needs. For these reasons, they are family. Feminists andnewcomers will have to accept that biology is not family.

In our territory, family was the unit through which our governance took place,indeed takes place. Survival was dependent upon relations, relations weredependent upon laws, laws were based upon governance, and how you governedyourself and your family was based upon your understanding ofthe roles assignedto you by the Creator, In a sense, your obligations (while broad and universal)were also part of your familial relations, I am not sure how far this extends andhow universal this understanding is, but I have heard women from the land theylive on discuss this across North America, In this sense, the experience is ofwomen in our families and nations with differing obligations depending uponfamily, territory, and history.

In my understanding, assumptive gender-based relations and sharedexperiences are as foreign as the assumption that you ceased to be an Indianperson when you married a non-Indian man. Just as the Indian Act constructed andinterpreted Indigenous peoples as pan-Indians and attempted to regulate regardless

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of difference'"*—seeing all women as united by gender—the blanket inclusion ofIndigenous women's identities, experiences, and understandings within "the"women's movement is offensive and exclusionary and is based upon compulsory"whiteness." More than that, we have become subject to the subversion of culture,spirituality, and race to gender. With respect to the insistence that we cannotorganize and empower effectively without regard to the impact of colonization onour men, governments, and communities, my response is: if we are holdingoppressors and sub-oppressors accountable for their actions and inaction byreviewing their participation in colonizing Indigenous women, let us first examinethe external imposition of colonization to see how it triggered our internal strife.After that we can address our interaction, any shared responsibility, and the rippleeffect on our nations.

We cannot participate in a context-free movement. Context, in this case, isintegral to our ability to collaborate. Context includes history and the history ofwomen in Canada is not shared by Indigenous women—women who were noteven considered people.

There are brothers and then there are brothers.

Part of the particularity of our languages, those that have been pulled frommany of our tongues and for which we have been beaten by our presumed kinshipfor possessing, is the differentiation of relationships based upon situations. We areable to distinguish between individuals based upon the way that they act.

They are my brothers because they looked at me before I went to theirinstitutions and succeeded. My brothers still suffer because our populations weredecimated and our institutions legislated beyond existence or driven underground.

We are a part of the same whole. I am not separate from them. They knowwhat it is like to have the clerk walk past you and serve someone else. They knowwhat it is like to dream that you speak the old language. They know the loggingtrucks will not stop. They know those trees in the fi-ont row are thinning by theback. They know the sting of the small town stare. They know the pain in yourstomach when they drive by land their relations were once a part of and fromwhich they are now disentitled.

And.

They know the smell of birch burning and the sound of it snapping. Theyknow the meaning and import of the words "my girl." They know the taste of

14, Resulting in the inclusion of non-Indigenous women in the governance and citizenship of FirstNations and the exclusion of First Nation women from governance and citizenship in our nations.

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dried meat in butter and crave it occasionally. They know what it is like to piecetogether this identity blanket out of scraps.

To ally principally with feminists and not with our men is like removing alayer of tissue in a tree—the rest of the stalk is weakened and the wholediminished when you remove a fundamental part of its being. A fiindamental partof our strength as nation members is our commitment to the health of the whole.While I recognize that feminisms in no way require that we subvert this goal, thatthe goal is to empower nation members so that we are equally strong, places us atcompletely different starting places, with completely different finish lines.

One time I took a job teaching at a First Nations College in northern Alberta. Iwas the only Indigenous faculty member from a university to come in and teach atthat time. However, there were a few other faculty members there—all of themnon-Indigenous. On my first day of classes, a faculty member approached me andsaid "Hello, Cousin. " I looked at her. She was not family. She did not appear tobe a First Nations person. I wondered if I had offended her by not acknowledgingher as a relation or if she actually was a relation who was pleased to see me. Istared at her and she said, "My old man and your old man are cousins, so thatmakes us cousins." My mind raced to process this. Later I learned that both sheand her partner are non-Indigenous people. There was no kinship link that I coulddiscern. Somehow we had become cousins through marriage in her mind.

Mooniaw. White man.

Mooniaskweo. White woman.

This presumptive familial affiliation without introduction and withoutrelationship is at least uninformed. At most, it is appropriating the very specialrelationship that my blood and my history have earned and served to create.Misuse of that—in an era (still very real) where we still are beginning tounderstand what has been stolen from us, or attempted, by virtue of colonizers'actions and inaction—is sensitive and viewed with keen eyes by our people. Theassumptive relationship, the assumption of the authority to name the relationshipand define the relationship is as much a part of the colonial legacy as falselyasserting presumed jurisdiction over our lands.

If we start at the terminology, the ingrained implicit postulations, which areostensibly understandings, I am compelled to admit that on paper we sometimeslook the same. That image of defeated and suffering woman that we have hadapplied to us looks quite similar to the historical image of disempowered andsilenced settler women that shows up on the pages of history and legal texts. Thatwe experienced the separation from our nations and men is one aspect of history.That we were separated from our roles and selves is a part of the same history.

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How we responded to encroachment on our territories by settler women and menis a part of the history we share with non-Indigenous women. I do not understandthe ability to ignore what we shared.

And while I do not want to repeat history, I am unwilling to transcend(surmount, overcome, conquer) it until we re-visit it, and it is leamed properly andleamed from. Quite like the racist memorabilia that I collect (racist salt and peppershakers, souvenirs for travelers with stereotypes of Indigenous people on them),these visits will serve as a reminder of the history that we shared and settlerwomen benefited from. I do not want to forget how ugly and owned we were tothose who could afford to constmct us and encase us in plastic.

Maybe the reason that our languages seldom differentiate between gender andsex is because we are supposed to stand as one. In Cree, as Neheyiwak we arepeople. As Iskwew (women), we have specific stories, ceremonies, dances, andtraditions but Iskwew are not a segment of Neheyiwak. We are the people;womanhood is our obligation and gift. That gendered line, as I mentioned at theoutset, is not clear, and it zigs, zags, and becomes invisible depending on who weare with, what we are doing, and when we are doing it.

As for the inevitable "where do we go from here?" question, I am tempted tosay: "You built it, you figure it out." But I am not as hard at three in the momingas I am at noon. I never used to think that apologies were important until wrongdoers refused to give them." Now I understand the import. Someone has toresearch, interpret, acknowledge, and apologize for non-Indigenous women'soppression of Indigenous peoples. Perhaps owning the history of oppression andtaking responsibility for the shared telling of that story is an excellent way to ownand begin to set the stage for apologies, amends, and reparations. Perhaps this is astart—the willingness to acknowledge the shared and infested boiling pot ofcolonization and to shed the shield of "Whiteness" that protected non-Indigenouswomen from us. From the other. Once non-Indigenous women take responsibilityfor their action and inaction, then we can begin to address the possibilities withrespect to ways to live most peaceably among each other.

This is not about blaming; this is about being able to name the layering ofracism and sexism that blankets us in colonial times. This is about reclaiming thepast that belongs to us but which has not been told or which has been told but hasnot been heard. This is about taking responsibility for anti-colonial education—and you cannot educate people about how not to repeat the mistakes of the pastunless the mistakes are identified and the past revisited. Once we have those

15. I refer, specifically, to the United Church of Canada's refusal to provide a full and appropriateconfession/apology and instead opting to provide a national note of regret with respect to theirparticipation in the residential schools and the colonial legacy and impact of the same onAboriginal peoples.

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mistakes identified—^we have a shared experience. Our secrets are the same. Wecan talk about reconciliation. We move one step closer to tea and bannock.

Nearer to Nichakwus.