{"id":51134,"date":"2017-01-10T19:09:09","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T19:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51134"},"modified":"2017-03-25T15:44:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T15:44:15","slug":"the-complex-issue-of-indigenous-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51134","title":{"rendered":"The complex issue of indigenous heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The complex issue of indigenous heritage<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Toronto Star<\/a>
\n2017-01-10<\/p>\n

Don Smith<\/strong><\/a>, Professor Emeritus of History
\nUniversity of Calgary<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nArchie Belaney<\/a>, famously known as Grey Owl<\/a> until his dealth in 1938, is an example of the complex issue of indigenous identifcation. (TORONTO STAR ARCHIVES)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Acclaimed novelist Joseph Boyden<\/a> faces controversy surrounding his heritage but there is a long history in North American of blurred lines.<\/em><\/p>\n

The question of the indigenous identity<\/a> of prize-winning novelist Joseph Boyden<\/a> had raised great media attention. It is a complex issue.<\/p>\n

Joseph-Louis Gill (1719-1798), one of the famous 18th century chiefs of the Abenaki First Nations<\/a>, resident at Odanak<\/a>, just west of Montreal, was \u201cwhite.\u201d But only in a biological sense, as both his parents had been captives adopted into Indian families and raised in Indian fashion.<\/p>\n

Among the Red River M\u00e9tis in the 19th century, the M\u00e9tis patriot, Andr\u00e9 Nault (1830-1924), was born of French Canadian parents who had become fully integrated into the Red River M\u00e9tis community in what is now southern Manitoba. The buffalo hunter and captain of the M\u00e9tis stood by his first cousin Louis Riel<\/a> in the Red River Resistance<\/a> of 1869-70, serving in his provisional government. Three of Nault\u2019s sons took part in the events of 1885 in Saskatchewan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Joseph Boyden\u2019s case no evidence, to my knowledge, has emerged that he was raised in an indigenous community. He was not a Joseph-Louis Gill or Andr\u00e9 Nault. Instead, his Aboriginal connection relates to his distant indigenous ancestry on both his mother\u2019s and father\u2019s side. This enters into another realm entirely.<\/p>\n

I have studied the life of Archie Belaney<\/a> (1888-1938), the Canadian writer who presented himself as indigenous, as Grey Owl, the son of a Scot and an Apache woman. He died on April 13, 1938. The day after his death the Globe and Mail<\/em> termed him, \u201cthe most famous of Canadian Indians.\u201d Then, within just one week the story broke. It was revealed that he was actually born and raised in Hastings, England<\/a>. His \u201cracial\u201d origins were a total fantasy…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed novelist Joseph Boyden faces controversy surrounding his heritage but there is a long history in North American of blurred lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,459,8,3015,6462,20],"tags":[25958,25957,6994,6993,16792,25959,4798,2117],"class_list":["post-51134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-canada","category-history","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-archie-belaney","tag-don-smith","tag-donald-b-smith","tag-donald-smith","tag-joseph-boyden","tag-joseph-louis-gill","tag-the-toronto-star","tag-toronto-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52907,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51134\/revisions\/52907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}