Mi’kmaw Fiddler Plays to St. Anne is a powerful Two-Eyed Seeing journey of truth-telling, healing, and cultural resilience. Elder John R. Prosper of Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation and settler co-author Dorothy A. Lander offer a deeply personal and historic pilgrimage, guided by Sainte Anne, the patron saint of the Mi’kmaq. Told through Elder Prosper’s lived experience of the 1942 Centralization Policy, which uprooted his family and sent his siblings to the Shubenacadie Residential School, and Lander’s call for settlers to confront their own intergenerational complicity, Mi’kmaw Fiddler challenges all Treaty People to harness their gifts of faith, music, and memory to walk together towards more authentic healing and lasting reconciliation.
NEW: Mi’kmaw Fiddler Joe Marble Plays to St. Anne is now available as an epub. Visit Kobo or Kindle or most any of your preferred online book retailers today.
$25.00
Elder John R. Prosper lives in Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation, Antigonish County, Mi’kma’ki. He moved to Paqtnkek in 1953 to live with his uncle, Maurice Marshall, and aunt, Teresa Johnson, after escaping from the Shubenacadie Residential School. He retired in 2015 after a 42-year career as Director of Operations at Paqtnkek. John R. serves as the curator of St. Anne’s Church and choir director at Immaculate Conception Church in Heatherton. He holds the lifetime position of Keptin on the Mi’kmaw Grand Council.
Settler Dorothy Lander is an author, educator, and cofounder of HARP Publishing, a Canadian independent press dedicated to decolonializing voices through the healing arts. With a background in education and community development, Dorothy’s work focuses on storytelling as a tool for articulating and celebrating the social determinants of health equity. She has contributed to projects exploring Indigenous-settler relations and leads initiatives that amplify marginalized perspectives through publishing and public engagement. NOTE: 80% of all sales goes directly to The St. Anne’s Church Restoration Fund.
Paula Paul, Land Code Coordinator, Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation, Mi’kmaki/Nova Scotia
Elder Albert Marshall and his late wife, Murdena Marshall, have often described Etuaptmumk or Two-Eyed Seeing as a co-learning journey, whereby distinct perspectives are brought together to formulate a new understanding of the world, something that cannot be understood using a single perspective. They have also shared that Two-Eyed Seeing is important because when differing perspectives come together in a co-learning journey, we learn to listen and understand one another in respectful and reciprocal ways. In this book, John R. and Dorothy have done just that – their pilgrimage can be very much understood as a co-learning journey – a unique gift that has been created by bringing together distinct perspectives on everything from the fiddle to the peony to the black ash. There are so many examples of Two-Eyed Seeing all around us, all the time, if only we take the time to notice. It is so refreshing to see that John R. and Dorothy have taken the time to notice and have shared what they have learned with us all. Wela’lin/Nakkumek for allowing us, your readers, to share in your journey.
Debbie Martin, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples’ Health & Well-Being, Dalhousie University.
Of the many tragedies associated with residential schools, one that often gets overlooked, is the fact that the colonialists behind the schools looked at sophisticated, learned cultures and—due to their own white supremacy—failed to recognize the genius that existed in the Americas. This failure is widely visible today, in the ongoing and ever-incorrect presumption that Indigenous cultures were vacant, merely awaiting civilization by white men. Etuaptmumk, two-eyed seeing, is an effort to appreciate the value of both western and Indigenous ways of understanding the world, and the interconnectedness of all living things on Mother Earth. It’s a high-minded concept that Elder John Prosper and Dorothy Lander generously embody in their ongoing friendship and work together. Here, they look at seemingly disparate aspects of personal and regional histories and connect them in ways that help us all better understand where we come from, who we are, and how we can more harmoniously, justly and sustainably live together on this planet.
Chris Benjamin, Author, Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School
Joe Marble’s story and the journey its authors traveled in its creation shed light on the ways that two vastly different cultural worlds connected, often without our awareness or acknowledgment. The practice of “two-eyed seeing” provided Nova Scotia’s indigenous peoples with the benefit of viewing the world—and thus learning—from both perspectives. To readers accustomed to analyzing their surroundings through a myopic Eurocentric lens, this narrative reveals its limits in comprehending not only the Mi’kmaw perspective, but also the complex world in which we live.
Bruce MacDonald, Retired Social Studies Teacher, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
9781990137174
epub: 9781990137979
6 x 9 | 74 pages
