This innovative study reveals the creative world of a Native
community. Once seminomadic hunters and gatherers who traveled by
horse wagon, canoe, and dog sled, the Dene Tha of northern Canada
today live in government-built homes in the settlement of Chateh.
Their lives are a distinct blend of old and new, in which
traditional forms of social control, healing, and praying entwine
with services supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a
nursing station, and a Roman Catholic church. Many older cultural
beliefs and practices remain: ghosts linger, reincarnating and
sometimes causing deaths; past and future are interpreted through
the Prophet Dance; "animal helpers" become lifelong companions and
sources of power; and personal visions and experiences are
considered the roots of true knowledge.
Why and how are such striking beliefs and practices still vital
to the Dene Tha? Drawing on extensive fieldwork at Chateh,
anthropologist Jean-Guy Goulet delineates the interconnections
between the strands of meaning and experience with which the Dene
Tha constitute and creatively engage their world. Goulet's insights
into the Dene Tha's ways of knowing were gained through directly
experiencing their lifeway rather than through formal instruction.
This experiential perspective makes his study especially
illuminating, providing an intimate glimpse of a remarkable and
enduring Native community.
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