#The Native Women's Association of Canada

[thefugitivesaint]

Jonathan Labillois, 'Still Dancing', 2014 "Mr. Labillois' Artist Statement: I donated this to the Montreal Native Women's Shelter to raise awareness of missing and murdered Native women in Canada. I hoped sharing it with others would bring this issue to the minds of many people, and hope that many of our sisters, mothers, aunts or daughters will never be forgotten. The idea for the title came from my little sister who said, "Dancers dance for those who cannot, the sick, the elders, and those who are gone. It's like all those women are still dancing thru her." (Source) Artist's page here.

#Jonathan Labillois #canadian artists #indigenous artists #The Native Women's Association of Canada

[coochiequeens]

Canada .....

The Native Women’s Association of Canada isreeling after Ottawa cut $48 million from the advocacy organization, resulting in a staff of 75 being reduced to 30.

“Leaving us to start the fiscal year with $10 million — that’s a very significant decrease,” CEO Lynne Groulx told Global News.

A national apprenticeship program and several smaller programs administered by NWAC ended in March and with that ended the federal funding.

Groulx said NWAC has long lobbied for stable core funding to operate, and not just project funding, which comes and goes.

The organization has found itself in the crosshairs of critics over how it has spent money in recent years, renovating its head office in Gatineau to include high-end event rental spaces, opening luxury “resiliency lodges” in Quebec and New Brunswick, and until this funding cut, planned to start a boutique hotel.

Also Canada

By Shay Woulahan. April 12, 2024

A trans-identified man and diaper fetishist in Canada who identifies as “non-binary” has won his legal case against the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) to have them pay for an experimental surgery that would leave him with both his penis and a “neo-vagina.” Ontario taxpayers will now be forced to spend up to $70,000 flying him to Texas for the surgery due to its unavailability in Canada.

The man, 33, was simply identified as KS in the lawsuit, and made international headlines last week after Ontario’s Divisional Court began deliberating on whether he was entitled to have an “penis-preserving vaginoplasty” covered by the province’s public health scheme.

See rest of article

#Canada #Native Women’s Association of Canada #Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) #$70000 of tax payer money #penis-preserving vaginoplasty #Women’s safety versus men's gender feelz

[tepkunset]

I was originally planning on holding off sharing this until June, but then decided to hell with that; why wait?

FURTHER RESOURCES:

Intersections: Indigenous and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Identities – this booklet from the Native Women’s Association of Canada is more intended towards 2S folks, but is still a great read for anyone.

Two Spirits, One Voice – This video from Egale is a great, no more comments needed.

A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder – This book by Ma-Nee Chacaby can be a difficult and emotional read, but very much worth it.

Becoming Two-spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country – I have yet to read this book by Brian Joseph Gilley myself, but heard positive things about it.

Please feel free to reblog with more suggestions, if you have them!

#two spirit #lgbtq #queer #indigenous

[godbirdart]

june 21 is national indigenous peoples day up here in canada; a day focused on celebrating the arts and cultures of our indigenous neighbours and communities.

if you’re looking for ways to support, or generally further your education on indigenous history, here are a bunch of links to help you get started! please go further and look up events hosted by your local community specifically, as some may not be listed on the sites below.

remember that if you cannot attend events or monetarily support businesses - you can always boost indigenous artists and voices online too.

indigenous tourism; lists businesses, events, and other indigenous-owned / led programs for the respective province or territory

indigenous tourism canada [generalized resources, event listings etc]

yukon

northwest territories

nunavut

british columbia

alberta

saskatchewan

manitoba

ontario

quebec

newfoundland and labrador

new brunswick

nova scotia

prince edward island

art

bill reid gallery of the northwest coast

lattimer art gallery

native northwest [while NNW itself is not indigenous-owned, it is a good way to discover artists and purchase their work. some artists sell on other sites too, so look around]

strong nations [sells books by indigenous authors]

education and resources

two-spirited people of manitoba

alberta indigenous history timeline [pdf]

alberta indigenous history resources

british columba history timeline

list of first nations peoples [wikipedia; could be incomplete / inaccurate]

cbc indigenous [indigenous-focused news]

missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

national centre for truth and reconciliation

native land interactive map

orange shirt day

qikiqtani truth commission

lil’ red dress project

whose land interactive map

charities / support / donations

clan mothers healing billage & knowledge centre

first nations health authority

indian residential schools survivor society

indigenous peoples resilience fund

qajuqturvik food bank

niqinik nuatsivik nunavut food bank

nunavut food security coalition

reconciliation canada

urban native youth association

additional links are always appreciated

#national indigenous peoples day #long post #wall of text

[humanrightsconnected]

It’s International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples! Learn from Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Illuminative, Lakota People's Law Project, Native American Rights Fund, Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), NDN Collective, and PINGO’s Forum how to defend Indigenous rights! 

#indigenous #indigenous rights #indigenous women #indigenous peoples #indigenous people #indigenous culture #native #natives #native american #native americans #ndn #american indian #first nations #land back #landback

[tiredwitchplant]

Everything You Need to Know About Veggies and Fruits: Cranberries

Cranberry (Vaccinium Macrocarpon)

*Kitchen *Medical *Feminine

Folks Names: Bog fruit, Marshworts

Planet: Mars

Element: Water (juice), Fire (berry)

Deities: Astarte, Marjatta,

Abilities: Healing, Protection, Love, Lust, Positive Energy, Courage, Passion, Action

Characteristics: Native to Eastern North America and northern Asia. Small, slender, evergreen shrub growing to 1 ft with oval, dark green leaves, pink flowers and round/slightly pear-shaped red berries.

History: This jewel-toned gem of the bog is native to North America and a traditional food from Samhain through Yule. Its association with the American Thanksgiving meal is long rooted in tradition, but there is no historical evidence proving it was actually served at that first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims. Despite this, cranberry something or other is commonly found on Thanksgiving and Christmas feast tables all across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Cranberry garlands made by stringing hundreds of the hard round red berries with a needle onto a long sturdy string is a traditional Christmas decoration. It is believed that cranberries got their name due to cranes always eating them and the blossoms of the berries look like the head of cranes. It is considered a sacred fruit in some indigenous circles such as Algonquian and Iroquois.

How to Grow:

Easy to Plant: Relatively

Rating: Moderate

Seeds accessible: Sometimes seasonal

How to Plant Cranberries

Video Guide

Where to Buy Seeds

Magical Properties

Can be used as a substitute for wine

Dried cranberries can be used in a charm to honor the wisdom of elders or as an offering to ancestors

It’s bright color signals energy, passion, courage, rejuvenation and rebirth

Can lend abundance, love and healing in kitchen spells

Since they are from the bog, it said to be feared by evil spirits and can offer protection

Placing a bowl of cranberries under one’s bed can restore depleted energy and cure an illness

Drinking the juice with your partner on a dark moon can keep your relationship free of trouble and continue to go strong

Can help link wisdom and guidance of ancestors

Can be utilized in energy cleansing rituals to remove negative energies from the aura

Is said to restore chakra alignment balance and create harmony

Burning bundles of cranberry stems can purify the energy of space and promote spiritual well-being during rituals and meditating

Medical Usage:

A classic remedy for urinary tract infections and can prevent and treat problems such as cystitis and urethritis

Can help to disinfect the urinary tubules and may be taken for problems associated with poor urinary flow such as enlarged prostate and blade infections

Can be used long term to prevent the development of urinary stones

Research in 1994 showed that cranberry juice helped really well with UTIs in women

Sources

#witch community #witchblr #witchcraft #paganblr #nature #witchcraft 101 #plants and herbs #green witch #occulltism #cranberries #cranberry juice #cranberry sauce #kitchen witch #thanksgiving #fruits and vegetables #berries #baby witch

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

from Sakyadhita Canada Association of Buddhist Women "Spirit of the Solstice" by Maxine Noel, Sioux.

[Red Pine (translator) :: Bill Porter (author)]

* * * *

“Look: this is January the worst onslaught is ahead of us Don't be lured by these soft grey afternoons these sunsets cut from pink and violet tissue-paper by the thought the days are lengthening Don't let the solstice fool you: our lives will always be a stew of contradictions the worst moment of winter can come in April when the peepers are stubbornly still and our bodies plod on without conviction and our thoughts cramp down before the sheer arsenal of everything that tries us: this battering, blunt-edged life”

― Adrienne Rich, Your Native Land, Your Life

#solstice #Maxine Noel #Sakyadhita #Buddhist Women #Spirit of the Solstice #Red Pine #Bill Porter #poem #poetry #Adrienne Rich

[mistershr1mp]

Yokohama Ladies Night Leftovers are on! Which means I finally get to post my pieces for it!!!

This is an exceptionally meaningful project for me being my first ever zine!! Especially a zine that perfectly aligns up my alley (one about pretty women in the theme of magazines). I love every page of this book, and every piece of art created by a group more talented than I could have ever imagined. I really hope you guys feel and appreciate all of the love put into this project. There are 60+ pages of illustrations, writing, recipes, cosplay, and interactive bits for you as well!

I send all of my thanks and love to both the mod team as well as all of my peers in the zine!!! I’ve been sat here for the last hour staring at this project in awe. Please consider grabbing one of our leftovers!!! All proceeds go to the Native Women’s Association of Canada!!!

Watch out for my pinch hitter and spot art pieces I’ll be posting soon!! :)

#sorry I’m very happy about this #shrimpgallery #art #anime #artists on tumblr #artwork #manga #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bsd art #lucy maud montgomery #lucy bsd #margaret mitchell #Margaret bsd #Louisa Alcott #Louisa bad #bsd guild #guild #bungo stray dogs guild #bungo stray dogs fanart #bsd zine #zine

[neechees]

Heyy Justin. This ask probably seems so out of left field but what are some of the best native charities/associations in Canada? Specifically for indigenous women. Trying to donate funds and am not familiar with which do the most help 😭

I don't know if I can necessarily gage which one does "the most help", but here are a few organizations that focus on Indigenous women (the first four are based in Canada, but the second two INCLUDE Canada but are not Canada exclusive)

Native Women's Association of Canada will be your best bet. They have a number of resources and advocate for Native women, & is also trans inclusive

Downtown Eastside Women's Centre: a Vancouver based Women's shelter. They also do a yearly march to bring attention to mmiw women & is led & created by Native women. They've already done the march this year, but the donations still go to the marches as well as the shelter, which I believe many Native women in Vancouver use.

Indigenous Women's fund of Canada: works on helping Indigenous women with education & advancing their education

Native Women's Resource Centre of Toronto: charity & resource centre based in Toronto that gives a number of services to Native women, such as housing programs & emergency services

National Indigenous Women's Resource Centre: raises awareness, provides resources and training for awareness and workshops about violence against Indigenous Women

Sovereign Bodies Institute: they have a mmiw database for mmiw in the US and Canada, and it's trans inclusive. They aim to help people affected by sexual & gender based violence

You could also always just donate to ndn ladies on tumblr, and that helps just as much.

#anonymous #ndn #ndn ladies add ur donate links if you choose

[queenlua]

this dude’s wikipedia entry is the most buckwild nonsense i’ve seen all week

ok, you know you’re in for a good time when this

and this

are the first two things you see, right?

tl;dr, John R. Brinkley was the early 1900s version of quack-doctor-meets-Rush-Limbaugh; his big thing was these goofy surgeries to restore male verility by implanting them with goat testicles.  which is extremely funny except for the part where people died!

normally THAT would be the craziest shit a dude had going on, and yet—

well, okay, first, let’s hear about the dude’s dad:

Brinkley senior's first marriage was annulled because he was underage.[3] After he reached adulthood, he married four more times, and outlived each of his young wives. 

five marriages!  holy shit.  was the dad poisoning these women or...

anyway, Brinkley himself has a similarly messy love life.  for instance, here’s one way to handle a divorce:

Sally filed for divorce and child support, but after two months of payments, Brinkley kidnapped his daughter and fled with her to Canada. Sally Brinkley, unable to obtain an extradition order from Canada, dismissed her suit for alimony and child support, allowing Brinkley to return to Chicago with the child. 

In Memphis, Brinkley met 21-year-old Minerva Telitha "Minnie" Jones, a friend of Crawford's and the daughter of a local physician. On August 23, 1913, after a four-day courtship,[14] Brinkley and Jones married at the Peabody Hotel, even though he was still married to Sally Brinkley. Minnie and John Brinkley honeymooned in Kansas City, Denver, Pocatello and Knoxville. Brinkley was arrested in Knoxville and extradited to Greenville where he was put in jail for practicing medicine without a license and for writing bad checks.[13] Brinkley told the sheriff that it was all Crawford's fault, and gave investigators enough information that they were able to arrest Crawford in Pocatello. The two former partners met again in jail.[13]

imagine your OTP...

in addition to all the goat gland transplants Brinkley was doing, he started concurrently running a radio show, which sounds like such a DELIGHTFULLY mixed bag of material:

Brinkley spoke for hours on end each day on the radio, primarily promoting his goat gland treatments. He variously cajoled, shamed and appealed to men's (and women's) egos, and to their desire to be more sexually active. In between Brinkley's own advertisements, his new station featured a variety of entertainment including military bands, French lessons, astrological forecasts, storytelling and exotica such as native Hawaiian songs, and American roots music including old-time string band, gospel and early country.[32]

life before podcasts...

also, it’s kind of interesting to see an early predecessor of the whole “truth is paywalled but the lies are free” phenomenon here:

Fishbein's interest in putting Brinkley out of business grew and he wrote more articles featuring stories about people who had grown sick or died after seeing Brinkley. But the [American Medical Association] journal's readership was mostly restricted to other doctors, while Brinkley's radio station poured directly into peoples' homes every day.

eventually, Brinkley’s empire of lies collapses, and good riddance, but also i gotta admire his absolute determination to keep going anyway:

Brinkley reacted to losing his medical and broadcast licenses by launching a bid to become the Governor of Kansas, a political position that would enable him to appoint his own members to the medical board and thus regain his right to practice medicine in the state.

“i would simply become the government,” said he

and he goddamn near succeeded, too, if it weren’t for a rude twist of fate:

Three days before the election, the Kansas attorney general (who had prosecuted Brinkley before the medical board) announced that the rules surrounding write-in candidates had changed, and that the doctor's name could only be written in one specific way for the vote to count (as J. R. Brinkley). As a write-in candidate, he received more than 180,000 votes (29.5 percent of the vote) and lost to Harry Hines Woodring, later Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[42] An article published at the time in The Des Moines Register estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 ballots were disqualified in this manner. Woodring later admitted that had those votes counted, Brinkley would have won.[43][44]

anyway, he gets so big mad after all this that he moves to the Mexican border, where the Mexican government is VERY eager to help him build the Most Enormous Fuck-You Radio Station In History:

The Mexican government, eager to get even with its northern neighbors for dividing up North America's radio frequencies without giving any to Mexico, granted Brinkley a 50,000-watt radio license and construction began on XER, his new "border blaster" across the bridge from Del Rio in Villa Acuña, Coahuila (since renamed Ciudad Acuña).[16] As construction got underway, Fishbein and the U.S. State Department desperately searched for a way to shut Brinkley down. [...]

Though Brinkley's American radio license had been revoked, XER's signal was so strong that it could still be heard in Kansas.[49] In 1932, the Mexican government allowed Brinkley to increase his wattage to 150,000 watts. Several months later, Brinkley was allowed to increase to one million watts, "making XER far and away the most powerful radio station on the planet" that, on a clear night, could be heard as far away as Canada. According to accounts of the time, the signal was so strong that it turned on car headlights, made bedsprings hum, and caused broadcasts to bleed into telephone conversations.[50] Local residents claimed to not need a radio to hear Brinkley's station; with ranchers claiming that they received it through their metal fences and in their dental appliances.[51]

jfc, USA, maybe you should’ve fuckin been nicer to Mexico is all i’m sayin

anyway he’s big rich for a while but then he dies penniless with a bunch of counts of mail fraud against him, so.  about what you’d expect.

(big thanks to this rando blog post for alerting me to this dude’s existence, lol)

#in conclusion Kansas was always Like That #honestly i probably shoulda just screencapped the bigass radio bit and put that front and center but #it's such a banquet of goofiness. i couldn't choose

[dailydemonspotlight]

Wendigo - Day 30

Race: Jaki

Alignment: Dark-Law

May 1st, 2024

Full disclosure; Wendigos are a very, very touchy subject. As a being that is inherently connected to Algonquian mythology, and one that has a lot of misconceptions surrounding it, I'm just going to profess that, as a person who is whiter than white, if anyone who is Algonquian wants to correct any factoids here, I would happily accept it. The last thing I want to do is misrepresent anyone's culture or disrespect it. I know this may sound a bit hypocritical, but I just wanted to make my intentions clear.

Anyway, with that out of the way, today's demon of the day is the Canadian flesh-eating witch, the Windigo! Also spelled as Wendigo, these evil spirits exist almost as a cautionary tale, of sorts, warning against the dangers of greed and hunger in Algonquian tradition.

Appearing most-often in stories told within groups of people such as the Ojibwe and the Cree, these monsters are flesh-eating spirits who reside in the mountains and trees of wintertime Canada, their appearances gaunt and smelling of death. Strongly associated with famine, the north, the cold, and starvation, these giant beasts were most famous for their propensity for slaughtering people, though their hunger would never be satiated, no matter how many men, women, and children they would eat. As told in quite a bit of folklore, the Windigo would grow in proportion to whatever it had just devoured, thus never letting it be full, always starving yet still representing the excess of gluttony. These beasts were also capable of human speech in many traditions, commonly taunting their victims or toying with people who dared to investigate them.

My personal favorite story surrounding the Windigo has to do with the idea of them being humans-turned, people corrupted by greed and hunger who cut off their own humanity and cooperation with their fellow man, forms twisting into these great, gaunt beasts. Windigo are utterly terrifying in many ways, their hunger never satiated and always looking for their next meal. They work as a potent metaphor for greed and starvation, though unfortunately, this has led to quite a bit of co-opting from other people groups who view them less as an inherently Algonquian myth, and more as a 'cool, spooky monster.' A shame, honestly.

Now, what do I mean by inherently Algonquian? It's simple- not only are these tribes still around, but Windigo, from my knowledge, are connected intrinsically with the struggles of those peoples. Things like famine, the fear of the cold, and the terror of starvation, they all tie back into the aggrandizing greed that the Windigo represents. As Brady DeSanti, an Ojibwe scholar, put it, "[The Wendigo] can be understood as a marker indicating... a person... imbalanced both internally and toward the larger community of human and spiritual beings around them." The Windigo, as well, is seen as representing the consumption of not only people, but entire cultures as well- in a way, it could be seen as a metaphor for colonialism, tying it back to the ever-present issues that Native Americans have always faced. Wendigo are the embodiment of manifest destiny, the ever-present greed and hunger for more leading to heedless destruction under the belief that what they found was this.

All of this goes to say, Wendigo are a very hard topic to parse, made of several connecting pieces- folklore, colonialism, greed, hunger, betrayal, corruption, all of these combine together to make the terrifying face of this Algonquian monster. As such, it is very, very hard to talk about sufficiently, especially for my proclivities. However, how about its portrayal in SMT? In opposition to the typical pop-cultural depiction of the Wendigo, its design in the series is incredibly unique. The white fur gives way to an idea of a stereotypical yeti, the black skin is gaunt and worn, and the blue patterns give it a strange feeling of being wrong, in some way. The headdress adorning its head has the appearance of antlers, connecting this otherwise otherworldly design to its more contemporary counterparts, but otherwise its design is unique and honestly really interesting. It definitely feels like its own thing, disconnected from most pop-culture definitions. In gameplay, the Wendigo... evolves from Jack Frost, for some reason? But it serves as a physical attacker with an ice specialty when it comes to magic, making it a decent early-mid game demon.

Overall, with its interesting folklore, unique design, and prowess in gameplay, Wendigo is a very interesting demon.

#shin megami tensei #smt #megaten #persona #daily #wendigo

[fatehbaz]

On July 11, 2021, I arrived [...] at Tapachula International Airport in the Mexican state of Chiapas – a grandiose title for the diminutive compound and runway plunked down amidst tropical vegetation just west of Mexico’s border with Guatemala [...]. [T]he woman who served me juice at a market stall reported that, out of every 10 people nowadays, five were Haitian, three were Cuban or something else, and two were chiapanecos (natives of Chiapas). [...] Another of my interlocutors was a young Nicaraguan [...]. [H]e recounted to me the highlights of hitchhiking through Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico, where he was promptly apprehended on a minibus by Mexican immigration officers. [...] [H]e ended up imprisoned for 23 days in Tapachula’s notoriously overcrowded and abuse-ridden estación migratoria – “migration station” – which had thanks to the either witting or unwitting irony of a previous Mexican government been christened Siglo XXI, meaning “21st century”. Inside, he had apparently contracted COVID [...] but reckoned that the psychological torment had been just as bad or worse. [...] As The Associated Press reported back in 2019, Siglo XXI – said to be Latin America’s largest immigration detention centre – is a “secretive place off-limits to public scrutiny where cellphones are confiscated and journalists aren’t allowed inside”. The AP had itself been denied access but had heard testimony according to which “women slept in hallways or in the dining hall among rats, cockroaches and pigeon droppings as children wailed, mothers reused diapers and guards treated everyone with contempt”.

[Text by: Belén Fernández. “‘I was a prisoner of Mexico’s US-backed migrant detention regime’”. Al Jazeera (English) - Essay. 24 February 2023.]

---

As of the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2022, there had been no fewer than 2.38 million apprehensions of undocumented people on the US-Mexico border, an increase of 37 percent from the previous year. Between September 2021 and June 2022, meanwhile, Mexico detained a record 345,584 people transiting its territory, most of them en route to the US. [...] Tapachula’s Siglo XXI, Mexico’s largest immigration detention centre [...]. At the inauguration of the prison in 2006, then-Mexican President (and former Coca-Cola Mexico CEO) Vicente Fox had assured everyone that detainees would enjoy “all the comforts” – including human rights – in keeping with Mexico’s “humanist policy” [...]. In his book [...], AMLO [current Mexican President Obrador] jubilantly recalls his July 2020 summoning to Washington by the “gentleman” Trump for the signing of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) [...]. As journalist Garry Leech has pointed out in the book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry, the USMCA might “be more accurately called the United States Migrant Control Agreement”, thwarting as it does the free movement of Mexican and other labourers across borders while rolling out the red carpet for corporate capital. [...] In April 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reported that, thanks to bilateral discussions, the Mexican government had “made the decision to maintain 10,000 troops at its southern border, resulting in twice as many daily migrant interdictions”. Indeed, [...] [m]igration policy in Mexico has undergone unprecedented militarisation. Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) has been increasingly populated with current and former members of the armed forces, notwithstanding the military’s track record of torture and extrajudicial killings. Behind all the dehumanised talk of “border security” and “interdictions”, of course, is the fact that this is an all-out war on extremely vulnerable people criminalised for their vulnerability. [...] In the end, this is not Mexico’s war. But by taking migration enforcement orders from the US and replicating the brutality of a US border security regime, Mexico is reinforcing a militarised US border that discriminates against Mexicans themselves [...].

[Text by: Belén Fernández. “The Three Amigos and the US war on asylum seekers in Mexico.” Al Jazeera (English) - Opinion. 9 January 2023.]

---

Mass graves are, of course, often associated with war [...]. But here in Mexico, we are also witnessing a US-backed war – and a pretty “dirty” one at that. In this war, the unmarked bones in the corner of the Tapachula municipal cemetery are but a tiny fraction of the casualties. [...] Many had traversed the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama – another 21st-century battlefield and mass migrant grave in its own right, where plenty of asylum seekers go in one side and never come out. [...] And there is something about the municipal cemetery of Tapachula that encapsulates the profound inhumanity of a system that denies refugees dignity even in death, forcing them to die undocumented and unidentified, with no sign that they ever existed at all. The mass grave also signifies untold emotional trauma for family members of the persons buried therein, who have no way of knowing that their loved ones have ended up in the far back corner of a Mexican graveyard. [...] He himself had worked at the cemetery for 35 years, during which he had never felt scared, because “it’s the living you have to fear, not the dead.” To be sure, there is much to fear in a world where the US is allowed to violate international borders at will while fuelling a ludicrously lucrative “border security” industry that effectively sentences poor people to death.

[Text by: Belén Fernández. “Letter from a mass grave in Mexico.” Al Jazeera (English) - Opinion. 26 January 2023.]

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Mary Two-Axe Earley

Mary Two-Axe Earley was born in 1911 in Kahnawake, Quebec. For twenty years, Earley campaigned against a discriminatory provision in Canada's Indian Act that allowed indigenous men, but not indigenous women, to retain their official Indian status when they married non-natives. She founded Equal Rights for Indian Women, and was a founding member of the Québec Native Women's Association. Earley's efforts resulted in the passage of Bill C-31, an amendment to the Indian Act that created a process for reinstatement of women who had lost their status due to marriage.

Mary Two-Axe Earley died in 1996 at the age of 84.

#aboriginal women #native women #indigenous women #canada #canadian #history #Youtube

[scotianostra]

Scottish writer, Sheila Burnford was born on May 11th 1918.

Sheila was born and educated in Edinburgh then Harrogate College in Yorkshire, England.

She was one of the first women in Scotland to receive her Aviation Certificate. During the Second World War she worked as an ambulance attendant and driver. Sheila married David Burnford, a surgeon in the Royal Navy, and in 1948 the Burnford family emigrated to Canada, settling at Port Arthur in western Ontario.

Sheila loved the great outdoors, particularly walking and hunting. She became friends with local artist Susan Ross. The two shared an interest in the lives of indigenous people and they inspired each other in creative endeavours.

Both Sheila and Susan were members of the Port Arthur Puppetry Club. It was during her time with the Club that Sheila began writing – scripts at first and then articles describing life in Northwestern Ontario for English magazines and newspapers such as Punch and the Glasgow Herald.

Sheila was a great animal lover, although she always said she had a practical view of them. After the death of her Bullterrier, Bill (who had kept her company during the Blitz in the Second World War), she decided to write a book, in part to memorialize him.

That book became The Incredible Journey.

The animals in the book were based on the personalities of her own animals. In addition to Bill, she had a Siamese cat (Simon) and a Golden Labrador (Raimie). She researched incidents similar to the ones in the book and used the area around her home and cottage (Loon Lake) to describe the terrain.

The book was an international bestseller and was eventually translated into more than 17 languages. It would win a number of awards, including the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children.

In 1963 the Walt Disney adaptation of the film was released. The premiere of the film was held in Port Arthur with over 10,000 people lining the streets for the parade preceding the showing. Actors from the film and the film’s director, Fletcher Markle, attended the premiere. Although the book was based in Northwestern Ontario, it was actually filmed in the Toronto area.

In 1964, Sheila published her second book, The Fields of Noon, a collection of essays on life in Northwestern Ontario. It included a number of essays that had previously been published in English periodicals.

In the late 1960s, Sheila and Susan Ross spent a great deal of time visiting native reserves in Northwestern Ontario. Both women had long held interest in native life and found the opportunity to actually learn about native life to be irresistible. While there, Susan Ross drew sketches of the people and Sheila observed. As a result of these visits, Sheila published Without Reserve, using some of Susan Ross’s drawings as illustrations.

Sheila and Susan next travelled up to Pond Inlet and experienced the life of the Inuit, including travelling by dog sled to see the narwhal. From this experience came One Woman’s Arctic. This book also included illustrations by Susan Ross.

The Incredible Journey was acclaimed as a children’s book, even though Sheila herself did not think of it as a children’s book. In 1973, she published an actual children’s book, Mr. Noah and the Second Flood. The story focused on the impact of consumerism and waste on the planet.

Sheila’s last book, Bel Ria: Dog of War, was the story of a little dog caught up in the horrors of the Second World War. In writing the book, she drew upon her own experiences in the Blitz and used research to maintain authenticity.

In 1984 Sheila Burnford died of lung cancer. She had moved back to the UK to live with her second husband, Dr. J.D. Loughborough.

In 2017, a documentary of her life, Long Walk Home: The Incredible Journey of Sheila Burnford, was released by Sheba Films.

#scotland #scottish #nature lovers #author #history #canada

[mousedetective]

Organizations To Help Indigenous People

I've been reblogging three separate posts for a while now and I thought I'd combine them all into one for maximum ease. Please reblog this list and help these organizations if you can!

Warrior Women Project

Sitting Bull College

First Nations COVID-19 Response Fund

The Redhawk Native American Art Council

Partnership With Native Americans

Native American Heritage Association

National Indigenous Women's Resource Center

Indigenous Women Rising (abortion access fund)

Indian Residential School Survivor’s Society

Stop Line 3

Honor The Earth

The Lakota People’s Law Project

Amazon Frontlines

‘Āina Momona

The Native Wellness Institute

The Native Americans Rights Fund

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation/University of Manitoba

First Nations Child & Family Caring Society

Native Women's Association of Canada

Indspire

Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre

Micmac Benevolent Society

Mawita'mk

Advancing Indigenous People In STEM

Community Outreach and Patient Empowerment

The Association on American Indian Affairs

First Nations Development Institute

American Indian College Fund

Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (CARE)

Hopa Mountain

Indigenous Values Initiative

Native American Disability Law Center

People’s Partner for Community Development 

If anyone has links to other organizations that help indigenous people, please feel free to add them!

#indigenous people #native americans #native canadians #indigenous organizations #support indigenous people #support native people #signal boost #for a good cause #please reblog #please help #please share #please donate

[carrieeve]

It was always you

Bellamy and Clarke have been best friend for most of their lives. They had big, ambitious dreams and they helped each other achieve them--it was Clarke who convinced Bellamy to give his musical career a shot and it was Bellamy who supported Clarke as she tried to get her writing going.

Now that they are both at the peak, their lives are changing once again but at least they have each other. There's just that one little detail, where Bellamy wishes Clarke doesn't pick up on the fact that his new album is about Clare and Clarke doesn't want him to figure out that the happy ending she wrote for her characters is the one she's been hoping for the two of them...

moodboard by @luminouswriter // donation made to The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) // @t100fic-for-blm

#the 100 #bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #i wrote a thing #calebrity au