Following the writing practice of learned Anishinaabe Elders Alexander Wolfe (Benesih Doodaem), Dan Musqua (Mukwa Doodaem) and Edward Benton-Banai (Geghoon Doodaem), this Midewiwin-like naming Manidookewin acknowledges Anishinaabe Spiritual teachings as belonging to the body of Midewiwin knowledge. Unlike any other study of Canadian literature, this dissertation is set up like a naming Manidookewin (ceremonial way) to resuscitate Midewiwin teachings that were forced underground during the fervor of colonial settlement and Christian proselytism. Therefore, this dissertation makes a valuable contribution to Canadian literary criticism because it uses Midewiwin teachings as a Spiritual path set down by ancestors to create a Manidookewin for engaging with selected contemporary Anishinaabe stories. An Anishinaabe-specific theoretical method, this Manidookewin attends to Midewiwin teachings carried by Doodaem (clan) relations in selected Anishinaabe stories written in English. A naming Manidookewin does not seek to render as meaningless all other critical interpretations, rather this ceremonial way adheres to Midewiwin Doodaem protocols for attending to the ways of ancestors. According to such protocols, I participate personally in this Manidookewin by entering the text as an Anishinaabekwe-Metis-Nehiowe (Plains Ojibway-Metis-Cree woman). Guided by the storied teachings of Anishinaabe paternal ancestors, I enter the text as a member of the Benesih Doodaem (Bird Clan) to negotiate discursive spaces for the re-settlement of Doodaemag, Manitoukwe, Chibooway and Nindawemeganidok, or Midewiwin Clan relations, a Mother Creator, Spiritual ancestors, and living relations.<p> In accordance with Midewiwin traditions, this naming Manidookewin relies on the previous work of community-acknowledged authorities. Therefore, Alexander Wolfes Earth Elder Stories: The Pinayzitt Path; Dan Musquas Seven Fires: Teachings of the Bear Clan; Edward Benton-Banais The Mishomis Book; Basil Johnstons Ojibway Heritage, Ojibway Ceremonies, The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway; and Gerald Vizenors The People Named the Chippewa: Narrative Histories provide the foundation for this naming Manidookewin. Their work is used to resuscitate Midewiwin teachings that appear to be submerged in written English in Marie Annharte Bakers Bird Clan Mother, Kimberly Blaesers Of Landscape and Narrative, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damms this is where we stand our ground, and Kahgegagabowhs The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation. Their work is also used to shine a light on the Midewiwin teachings recalled by Doodaem relations in Winona LaDukes Giiwedahn: Coming Home and Richard Wagameses Keeper N Me. Along with Anishinaabe scholars Margaret Noori, Lawrence Gross, Darcy Rheault, and Patricia McQuire, these writers are included as members of specific Doodaemag to show how Midewiwin teachings ground some Anishinaabe stories. In connecting stories written in English to Midewiwin and Doodaemag prechristian and precolonial systems of governance and signification, this study illustrates how Anishinaabe literature performs Spiritual and political functions by re-membering and relating Being to Gitchi Manitou, Manitoukwe, Chibooway, and Nindawemeganidok.

Following the writing practice of learned Anishinaabe Elders Alexander Wolfe (Benesih Doodaem), Dan Musqua (Mukwa Doodaem) and Edward Benton-Banai (Geghoon Doodaem), this Midewiwin-like naming Manidookewin acknowledges Anishinaabe Spiritual teachings as belonging to the body of Midewiwin knowledge. Unlike any other study of Canadian literature, this dissertation is set up like a naming Manidookewin (ceremonial way) to resuscitate Midewiwin teachings that were forced underground during the fervor of colonial settlement and Christian proselytism. Therefore, this dissertation makes a valuable contribution to Canadian literary criticism because it uses Midewiwin teachings as a Spiritual path set down by ancestors to create a Manidookewin for engaging with selected contemporary Anishinaabe stories. An Anishinaabe-specific theoretical method, this Manidookewin attends to Midewiwin teachings carried by Doodaem (clan) relations in selected Anishinaabe stories written in English. A naming Manidookewin does not seek to render as meaningless all other critical interpretations, rather this ceremonial way adheres to Midewiwin Doodaem protocols for attending to the ways of ancestors. According to such protocols, I participate personally in this Manidookewin by entering the text as an Anishinaabekwe-Metis-Nehiowe (Plains Ojibway-Metis-Cree woman). Guided by the storied teachings of Anishinaabe paternal ancestors, I enter the text as a member of the Benesih Doodaem (Bird Clan) to negotiate discursive spaces for the re-settlement of Doodaemag, Manitoukwe, Chibooway and Nindawemeganidok, or Midewiwin Clan relations, a Mother Creator, Spiritual ancestors, and living relations.<p> In accordance with Midewiwin traditions, this naming Manidookewin relies on the previous work of community-acknowledged authorities. Therefore, Alexander Wolfes Earth Elder Stories: The Pinayzitt Path; Dan Musquas Seven Fires: Teachings of the Bear Clan; Edward Benton-Banais The Mishomis Book; Basil Johnstons Ojibway Heritage, Ojibway Ceremonies, The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway; and Gerald Vizenors The People Named the Chippewa: Narrative Histories provide the foundation for this naming Manidookewin. Their work is used to resuscitate Midewiwin teachings that appear to be submerged in written English in Marie Annharte Bakers Bird Clan Mother, Kimberly Blaesers Of Landscape and Narrative, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damms this is where we stand our ground, and Kahgegagabowhs The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation. Their work is also used to shine a light on the Midewiwin teachings recalled by Doodaem relations in Winona LaDukes Giiwedahn: Coming Home and Richard Wagameses Keeper N Me. Along with Anishinaabe scholars Margaret Noori, Lawrence Gross, Darcy Rheault, and Patricia McQuire, these writers are included as members of specific Doodaemag to show how Midewiwin teachings ground some Anishinaabe stories. In connecting stories written in English to Midewiwin and Doodaemag prechristian and precolonial systems of governance and signification, this study illustrates how Anishinaabe literature performs Spiritual and political functions by re-membering and relating Being to Gitchi Manitou, Manitoukwe, Chibooway, and Nindawemeganidok.

The thesis titled Putting Chopin and the Rez Together: Multicultural Features in Tomson Highway's Work focuses on the work of renowned Native Canadian playwright, novelist, and musician Tomson Highway. The paper analyses those features of his writing and music that express the idea of multiculturalism and hybridity. It discusses the nature of the characters in his work and the image of the central character of Native mythology, the trickster. The analysis of dramatic techniques and music shows the way Highway combines his Euro-Canadian education and Native sensibility. Highway supports and promotes the notion of multiculturalism by his work. It has helped him to find personal as well as creative independence.

This thesis explores the issues of representation and identity through an examination of the writings of Thomas King and Mudrooroo. The particular focus of the dissertation is on the similar yet distinctive ways these authors explore past and present possibilities for representing Indigenous peoples in fiction. This discussion has a largely Canadian-Australian cross-cultural comparison because of the national milieux in which each author writes. The research question, then, addresses the authors' common approaches to Indigenous, colonial and postcolonial themes and the similar textual attitudes to the act of representation of identity in writing. In order to explore these ideas the chapters in the thesis do not each focus on a particular author or even on a specific text. Each chapter examines the writings of both authors comparatively, and reads the novels of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo thematically. The themes unifying each chapter occur in four major movements. Firstly, the Preface and Chapter One are primarily concerned with the methodology of the thesis. This methodology can be summarised as a combination of general postcolonial assumptions about the impact of colonial texts on representations of Indigenous peoples; ideas of reading practice coming from North American and Australian Indigenous writing communities and cultural studies theories on race. A movement in argument then occurs in Chapters Two and Three, which focus upon how the authors interact with colonising narratives from the past. Chapter Four shifts from this focus on past images and explores how the authors commonly re-imagine the present. In Chapters Five and Six the dissertation progresses from charting the authors' common responses to colonising narratives -- past and present -- and engages in the writings in terms of the authors' explications of Indigenous themes and their celebrations of Indigenous presence. These chapters analyse the ways in which King and Mudrooroo similarly re-envisage narrative process, time and space. Overall, the thesis is not interested in authorisations of Thomas King and Mudrooroo as 'Indigenous writers'. Rather, it argues that these authors on either side of the world use very similar techniques to reject previous representations of Indigenous people, and, importantly, attempt to change the meaning of and approach to representation. In so doing this thesis finds that the novels of both authors respond to colonising semiotic fields, as well as reducing the importance of such fields by incorporating them within a larger framework of repeated and multiple evocations of Indigenous identity. The writings of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo share a selfconscious textuality. The same tales and emblems are repeated within each author's entire oeuvre in order to reinforce their thematic trope of re-presentation as a constantly evolving process. Finally, the thesis concludes that a significant common effect of this similar approach to re-presentation is an emphasis on the community over the individual, and a community that can be best described as pan-Indigenous rather than specific.

Esta dissertação trata de duas obras autobiográficas escritas por autoras nativas que ganharam reconhecimento na década de 70: Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel (1975), da nativo-canadense Lee Maracle, e The Turquoise Ledge: a Memoir (2010), da nativo-americana Leslie Marmon Silko. A importância destas autoras para a Renascença Nativo-Americana/Canadense é inegável, e cada uma delas contribuiu fazendo uso de estratégias diferentes: enquanto Maracle começou sua carreira com Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel, de cunho autobiográfico, Silko esperou mais de trinta anos para publicar The Turquoise Ledge. A problematização de se ver estas obras pelo olhar estritamente ocidental, ou estritamente nativo, é discutida, assim como o aparentemente inevitável tom político dessas narrativas. Ainda que mais de três décadas separem a publicação das obras selecionadas, perguntas como: Estas obras podem ser consideradas literatura?, Elas têm como principal propósito engrandecer feitos pessoais das autoras?, ou Como essas narrativas contribuem para o empoderamento do povo Nativo? podem nunca chegar a serem respondidas, mas, de fato, incitaram a escrita desta dissertação e nortearam nossa análise / This dissertation brings to the fore two autobiographical works by Native women authors who first gained recognition in the 1970s: Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel (1975), by Native-Canadian Lee Maracle and The Turquoise Ledge: a Memoir (2010), by Native-American Leslie Marmon Silko. These womens undeniable importance to the Native American/Canadian Renaissance is clear, and each of these authors decided to contribute to Native literature using different strategies: while Maracle started her career with Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel, an autobiographical work, Silko waited over thirty years to publish her The Turquoise Ledge. The problematization of seeing either works strictly through Western or strictly through Native perspectives is also addressed here, along with the apparently inevitable political tone present in both narratives. Despite the fact that the two selected works have been written over three decades apart, questions such as: Can these works be considered literature?, Do they have as main purpose to highlight the authors personal accomplishments? or How do they work to empower the Native people? may never be answered, but they did incite the writing of this dissertation and guided our analysis

Esta dissertação trata de duas obras autobiográficas escritas por autoras nativas que ganharam reconhecimento na década de 70: Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel (1975), da nativo-canadense Lee Maracle, e The Turquoise Ledge: a Memoir (2010), da nativo-americana Leslie Marmon Silko. A importância destas autoras para a Renascença Nativo-Americana/Canadense é inegável, e cada uma delas contribuiu fazendo uso de estratégias diferentes: enquanto Maracle começou sua carreira com Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel, de cunho autobiográfico, Silko esperou mais de trinta anos para publicar The Turquoise Ledge. A problematização de se ver estas obras pelo olhar estritamente ocidental, ou estritamente nativo, é discutida, assim como o aparentemente inevitável tom político dessas narrativas. Ainda que mais de três décadas separem a publicação das obras selecionadas, perguntas como: Estas obras podem ser consideradas literatura?, Elas têm como principal propósito engrandecer feitos pessoais das autoras?, ou Como essas narrativas contribuem para o empoderamento do povo Nativo? podem nunca chegar a serem respondidas, mas, de fato, incitaram a escrita desta dissertação e nortearam nossa análise / This dissertation brings to the fore two autobiographical works by Native women authors who first gained recognition in the 1970s: Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel (1975), by Native-Canadian Lee Maracle and The Turquoise Ledge: a Memoir (2010), by Native-American Leslie Marmon Silko. These womens undeniable importance to the Native American/Canadian Renaissance is clear, and each of these authors decided to contribute to Native literature using different strategies: while Maracle started her career with Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel, an autobiographical work, Silko waited over thirty years to publish her The Turquoise Ledge. The problematization of seeing either works strictly through Western or strictly through Native perspectives is also addressed here, along with the apparently inevitable political tone present in both narratives. Despite the fact that the two selected works have been written over three decades apart, questions such as: Can these works be considered literature?, Do they have as main purpose to highlight the authors personal accomplishments? or How do they work to empower the Native people? may never be answered, but they did incite the writing of this dissertation and guided our analysis