Reclaiming ourselves one name at a time (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

OPINIONChristi Belcourt: Reclaiming ourselves one name at a time
Can aboriginal identity be reclaimed by changing names?

By Christi Belcourt, CBC
News<http://www.cbc.ca/news/cbc-news-online-news-staff-list-1.1294364>
 Posted: Dec 31, 2013 4:41 PM ET

*Editor's note: Today Hobbema will become Maskwacis
<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/hobbema-to-change-name-in-new-year-1.2476653>
—
Cree for 'Bear Hill'. To mark the occasion, we are publishing an excerpt of
an essay that Christi Belcourt wrote earlier in 2013, on reclaiming names. *

First Nations, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Indian, Aboriginal, Treaty, Halfbreed,
Cree and Status Indian are all fairly familiar English words but none of
them are the names by which we, the various indigenous peoples, call
ourselves in our own languages.

By contrast, how many Canadians have heard these names: Nehiyaw, Nehiyawak,
Otipemisiwak and Apeetogosan? Yet, these are who I am because these are the
names my grandparents used to describe and call ourselves.

Even Métis is not the name people called themselves in the language in
Manitou Sakhahigan, the community where my dad was born and raised. And
even that place is not known by its original name but by it’s
English/French name, Lac Ste. Anne.

Access full article below:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/christi-belcourt-reclaiming-ourselves-one-name-at-a-time-1.2480127
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