Women At The Heart Of The Circle

Women of Courage

Mariette Niquay-Ottawa
March 29, 2011
Manawan

"Grandmothers were clan mothers, but we don't listen to them anymore."

Mariette Niquay-Ottawa, Atikamekw

Children are at the heart of Indigenous families and communities. We need to take care of them, especially when their parents no longer can. In the past, clan mothers played this role, caring women who were respected by everyone in the family. When necessary, they knew how to use their authority to make sure the children were safe while the storm passed. Today, people no longer listen to them and there are still many children to look after. That's why Mariette Niquay-Ottawa, a grandmother, went back to work at a school.

Transcript

Interview with Mariette Niquay-Ottawa. A photo of her graces the sound of her voice.

Mariette :

My grandmother was a constant presence when I was young. It was matriarchal. The family, the one that always comes to mind, is my grandmother. Philomène was the clan mother. The clan mother had an important role to play. When things weren’t going well within a family, even if it was far away, news of this would be brought to her, and she would prepare to go and see the family, to help, to fix what was wrong. Nowadays, the role of grandmothers has changed a lot. I’m a grandmother and a great-grandmother. I continue to use the teachings I received I take care of my family, my children, and my grandchildren too.

My brother had gotten married. His wife had left him. He ended up with three children. His wife would leave for a month, two months, and then come back for a week, two weeks, then leave again. It continued like this for three, four years. When my grandmother found out about this, she knew that it wasn't about to change. She went to get the children. She turned to her family, her grandchildren, her children, to those who could babysit. She brought me one, Chantale. When she came here, she was brought to me. I had just gotten married, maybe five years before, and she said, “I'm bringing you your great-niece and you'll keep her.” She didn't tell me how long, and I didn't ask questions because I knew that it wasn't easy for my brother, so I said, “Okay, I'll keep her.” I kept her until she left, until she got married.
 
She placed the other children as well. These were the types of things that she could solve. Or, when we knew that someone was drinking, she would go to him, talk to him and even stay with the family for a while, until he decided to stop drinking, until he got his act together. Things like these, family things. There were also such things in situations involving abuse.

Eruoma :

You had better listen them, I think. They knew how to be tough when they had to.

Mariette :

I remember her voice, when she used her deep voice. You had better not talk back. She also had to deal with sexual abuse. People recognized her authority, everyone, even men. There's no more of that today. Grandmothers no longer have any power, nor any role, they’re no longer listened to.

When something happens to my children, to my family, to my grandchildren, I go see them, I handle it, even if it takes me several days, several weeks. Last fall, I had a granddaughter for whom it wasn’t easy. Her friends drink, smoke, and then she fell in love with a young man who was selling drugs. I had to pick her up two, three times at her boyfriend's house. I walked into the house. He didn’t want me to see her. He was hiding her, my granddaughter. I shouted, “I’m going to leave here when my granddaughter comes out of the room! I know she’s here!” I stayed there and at one point they said to me, “She's in the room over there.” Some people told me, “It can be dangerous sometimes.” There are still violent people out there.

I think that boyfriend’s been forgotten now. I know other women who have done this as well, who do things like this. If you consider your family, if you help your family, if you talk to your family, if everyone does that, all mothers, grandmothers... We have to get back on track. I want moms to play their role as moms, grandmothers as well. I no longer have any grandmothers, but they still inspire me. We need our mothers, our grandmothers.

Women of Heart

Lita Isaac
December 13, 2010
Listuguj

"Women are the backbone of our community."

Lita Isaac, Mi’gmaq

Indigenous women are strong and play an important role in the well-being of their communities. They get involved, accept responsibilities, juggle stress, home, work. They educate their children, often alone, feed them, protect them and teach them respect for others and diversity. They heal hearts and don’t hesitate to open theirs. Like Lita Isaac, they show compassion for those who are suffering and help those who fall get up again. They don't judge, but they try to understand. Indigenous women are strong because they can admit their weaknesses. They sometimes hide their tears when their sky gets too heavy, but their laughter can be heard beyond the mountains, when the nice weather returns.

Transcript

Entrevue réalisée avec Lita Isaac. Une photo d'elle ornemente le son de sa voix.

Lita :

From what I learned, our people were fishermen, hunters and gatherers but the men would go hunting in the woods. They were giving an offering of tobacco out of respect for the animal giving its life and then they would go and get the women for them to clean the animal, they would cut up and take care of the meat, giving it to the elders who couldn’t go to hunt. It was the women that stayed behind and took care of the kids, the cooking, would make sure that the kids, the men and the elders were fed. Today, it’s almost the same, we make sure.

Women are the backbone of our community, I don’t know about the outside communities. We have more power emotionally, we have more strength, more understanding, we’re compassionate and we know when to use these different emotions. I look up to a lot of men, but I look up to women as the ones with bigger shoulders, the ones who can carry more, we juggle more, juggle our stress, our house, our job, politics.

This is our community, we have a beautiful community. Yes there’s apples who are good and bad in every community, we have a beautiful area, we have the mountains, water, the lakes, natural medicines, our elders walk in the community and feel safe. It’s women that point that out. I found that women could express it easier. Men are more reserved, men have to be macho. This generation now, we’re more open minded to things that are gonna change. Back then it was taboo, somebody that might have been in an interracial relationship or might have been gay, now we tell the children “You know, my friend is gay, and that’s ok, they are happy, and we respect that.” Back then they didn’t believe. Or somebody that might have problems with addictions, drugs or alcohol, back then we put them down, we’re all guilty of that, because it made us feel uncomfortable. Today we understand it now.

We have to understand it, we have to try to assist if we can, we can’t heal everybody but understanding is the first step towards healing, not judging but trying to put yourself in their shoes for a couple of minutes. So with our generation now, it’s the women that are starting to take this initiative, my generation I find we’re more understanding and are trying to teach our children that.

Men are strong too and they do heal, but women are more sooner to admit that they do have a problem or that something is not right. They’re sooner to admit without being afraid to be judged. For a man, when it comes to healing, he might hesitate or might not express that he has problems or addictions that need to be healed, because of their pride, because they have to be strong, that’s the way they feel. Women let down our heart more, we express more of the problems about us or the community. We’re not doctors but we try to find solutions. It’s easier for the women to accept and to take that first step in healing than men. Maybe I might be wrong but that’s from what I see.

Women and Political Engagement

Hélène Boivin
November 2, 2011
Mashteuiatsh

"Women will take more and more place in politics."

Hélène Boivin, Innue

It isn’t always easy when Indigenous women want to get involved in politics and move from the family circle to power. They must make their way through a world of men, sometimes facing intimidation or discrimination, and find the strength and courage within themselves to gain respect. They want to become equals, allies, to carry forward the struggles that will contribute to improving the status of women in their community and nation, for the common good. The challenge is daunting, but there’s hope! Young women are more educated and involved. In the future, they’ll be walking in the footsteps of pioneers like Hélène Boivin, on the path of individual and collective recognition.

play_video

Report of an interview with Hélène Boivin.

When you come to an Indigenous community, you see more women who went to university. There are fewer men...

[…]

There are few women in politics, and all that... But you have fewer dropouts among women. But you see, here, in the community, in Mashteuiatsh, we realized that, at one point. For example, at the administrative level […], the body of which is the Conseil des Montagnais of Lac-Saint-Jean, we realized that, well, that there, and this is still the case, you see there have been tentative attempts, but the senior management positions, I am not talking about the senior political positions, but the senior management positions, are held by women.

[...]

In the field, it’s women who hold senior administrative positions. But at the political level, men hold these positions...

[...]

For the past fifteen years, it has been a fact, it’s undeniable: it’s women who, for the most part, have held senior administrative positions.

[...]

Well, women, they’re fighting to change laws because laws, as you know, are discriminatory, including the issues that are ongoing, that is, the issues that are defended by Indigenous Women. There’s still the issue of violence, and the rights to matrimonial ties. Because a woman who’s on the reserve, according to the laws, has no right to property in the event of divorce. Women have changed this to ensure that women, in the event of divorce, can be entitled to half of the family's assets, because that was not the case in the past. So where do I see women... I think that women will continue to want things to change, to want laws to change to avoid always being in unfair situations of discrimination. But it's a shame that we have to... It's a shame that, we still have to fight for it. You know, here’s another example for you, currently, the “hunting territories”, in quotation marks, are not bequeathed to women. Most of the time, they’re bequeathed to men. Some, but not many, bequeath their territory to girls. Regardless, I also think that women will occupy a more important place in the political levels of the future, because that’s what they want. I’m speaking for here. You know, I believe that there are three girls who followed the Women and Governance course here, because following what we experienced in Ecuador, we established a partnership with ENAP [The University of Public Administration], and we set up a support program, to support and teach French-speaking Indigenous women who want to go into politics.

[...]

That means that there’s a desire to go into politics, and to get involved at the political level. There’s sincere desire...

Women of Heart

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