Author(s)
Hornborg, Anne-ChristineKeywords
ReligionshistoriaCanadian Mi'kmaq Indians
animism
phenomenology of landscape
lifeworlds
environmental issues
traditionalism
Full record
Show full item recordAbstract
This book seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi'kmaq culture hero Kluskap serves as a key persona in discussing issues such as traditions, changing conceptions of land, and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi'kmaq culture as timeless, two important periods in its history are examined. Within the first period, between 1850 and 1930, Hornborg explores historical evidence of the ontology,epistemology, and ethics - jointly labelled animism - that stem from a premodern Mi'kmaq hunting subsistence. New ways of discussing animism and shamanism are here richly exemplified. Thesecond study situates the culture hero in the modern world of the1990s, when allusions to Mi'kmaq tradition and to Kluskap played animportant role in the struggle against a planned superquarry onCape Breton. This study discusses the eco-cosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants which could be labelled a'sacred ecology'. Focusing on how the Mi'kmaq are rebuilding their traditions andenvironmental relations in interaction with modern society,Hornborg illustrates how environmental groups, pan-Indianism, and education play an important role, but so does reserve life. Byanchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi'kmaq traditionalists have, to a large extent, been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.Date
2008Type
bookanthology/bookIdentifier
oai:lup.lub.lu.se:3018e786-6006-415b-8c79-9c4803d1334fhttp://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3018e786-6006-415b-8c79-9c4803d1334f
urn:isbn:9781315595375
urn:isbn:978-0-7546-6371-3