5. The Essipiunnuat’s actuality in light of the past

And we forgot because we must
And not because we will.

Matthew Arnold, ‘Absence’ (1857)

When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.

Nietzsche

Despite our wars, we will always have to make peace again.

Essipiunnu Elder (2009)

How can stories we tell about the past inform us about our current condition, our actuality?¹ This chapter will examine mnemonic practices in the stories, in order to exhume elements of the Essipiunnuat’s current condition in the light of people’s ways of relating to the Salmon War and their past. The first section outlines the main forces identified in the testimonies as favouring oblivion of the Salmon War, including interferences in remembrance, the social as well as the historical determinants of forgetting, and the normative charge contained in the memories of those who took part. The second section describes what accounts of the past reveal about the group’s current condition or contemporary realities, including nostalgia, social criticism and views on its current needs and cultural condition. The final section concerns elements of the stories pertaining to intergenerational transmission, including contents and means, as perspectives on collective self-design and reversibility.

The weaving of forgetfulness

Elements acknowledged as fostering the oblivion of the Salmon War are clearly identifiable in the stories. First, specific episodes that occurred between its ending and the moment people told their stories (mainly 2009–11). Second, there is logic to forgetting the war, ranging from the automatic oblivion of trauma, the will to forget as a consequence of cultural assimilation, to features of a desire to forget; and finally, reminiscences of the Salmon War reveal the non-absoluteness of forgetting and its high normative charge as a major event.

Interferences in remembering (1981–2011)

In recalling the Salmon War, people often refer to events that occurred after it. For example, in some cases, they systematically conflate the war with another event that occurred ten years later, the unemployment crisis. In different ways, such interferences in remembrance influence people’s relationship with the past. These in-between memories, confused with the Salmon War, operate as a veil over the past in general and as ‘dams’ preventing the return to dimensions of the past-self. They are significant since they inhabit the group imaginary and are part of its current condition; obstacles people stumble over when on the path of remembrance. These incidents provide elements that are now included in people’s cultural inventory and their conception of their past and are therefore inherent in their present.

The following incidents often arise in conversations about the war and it is necessary to describe them in order to grasp their implications for memory. They are, respectively, the agreement of 1982 that officially ended the war; the reintegration of new members (for example, women who had married Euroquébécois men, and their children) following the 1985 partial redefinition of Indian status pertaining to women as contained in the Indian Act; and, finally, the internal crisis of 1990, remembered as the ‘unemployment benefit’ crisis that led to intense tension and violence within the group. This followed internal denunciations of fraud and allegations of attempts to oust leaders established for a decade.

Post-Salmon War agreements on fishing (1982–)

In July 1981, after a violent intervention by the people of Les Escoumins to counter Innu resistance, the Essipiunnuat ended their salmon fishing season. The following year, Québec and Essipit reached an agreement. The government recognised the group’s right to spread a community net west of Escoumins wharf, and to distribute the catches among members. The group was ‘granted’ a Québec licence on this basis. In parallel, Essipit agreed to participate in a study conducted by the Canadian government on the impact of their fishing activity. The study did not lead to any conclusive findings.

Subsequent negotiations led to the Essipit–Les Escoumins co-management of salmon fishing on the river, and strategies of development for sport fishing in the early 1990s, well documented by Paul Charest (2009; 2012). Community fishing and the distribution of salmon were abandoned thereafter, allegedly because the amount of salmon in the river decreased. Salmon were only caught for the annual summer community gathering (in the sea on the coast of the reserve, and not in the Esh Shipu River). As with any other sport fishermen, Essipiunnuat were allowed to fly fish on the river if they bought the same Québec state licence required by other Euroquébécois.

These negotiations and agreements on salmon fishing, and the constraints they created for the Essipiunnuat, were received with much scepticism. As documented previously, the requirement to pay the Québec government for a licence was viewed as illogical and humiliating. If some people accepted the idea of paying fishing fees in order to support salmon conservation activities, they categorically refused to buy a licence from the state. They argued that, as Innu, they did not need any state permission for hunting or fishing; for them, this was the core issue. It was interpreted as an invalid and unacceptable concession, a violation of the principles they stood for and for which they had been ready to die during the war (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 18). The requirement was seen as a symbolic surrender of their inherent sovereignty. Some inhabitants categorically refused to get the licence and preferred not to fish at all:

Fundamentally, these concessions were interpreted as the group being caught in the government’s game. The latter was primarily interested in preventing the expansion of Innu assertion of ancestral sovereignty. The spreading of a net by the wharf meant the assertion of inherent rights outside the mere borders of the reserve, and the Innu tipenitamun clash with Euroquébécois and Crown claims to sovereignty. Granting a licence for communitarian fishing was therefore the preferred means of stopping this growth and reaffirming that Innu rights flow from the sovereignty of the Crown (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 7).

Similarly to the first explorers’ strategy of awarding small mirrors to chiefs in exchange for ancestral territories to which ‘they belonged as humans’, and from which they could not be alienated, it seemed incoherent to be ‘granted’ a right when they already had that right (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 30). Older people therefore interpreted the agreements that followed the war as governments playing tricks in order to extinguish Innu sovereignty, a treason, in their eyes, against the spirit of the Salmon War (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 5).

Less than a decade after the rebellion, the council decided to stop community activities so that members could not fish salmon together any more; a situation that those who took part in the study lamented and which provoked lasting rancour:

Bill C-31 (1985)

Until 1985, in accordance with the Indian Act, women with Indian status who married non-Indian men lost that status. They were required to leave their community, and their children lost their rights as well. Thus, according to federal legislation, they were not considered Indian anymore. But non-Indian women who married Indian men obtained the status and were legally considered ‘Indian’. In the mid 1980s, this legislation was judged as discriminatory against women, and the situation changed partly in 1985 when the Canadian parliament passed Bill C-31 modifying the Indian Act. Some of the discriminatory provisions pertaining to the status of women were ended. A number of women and their children who had been denied or lost status and/or band membership in the past had that membership suddenly reinstated (Canada – Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1985).

In Essipit, this resulted in a significant increase in the number of band members. The return of the women to the community was allegedly opposed by some of the leaders (Mestenapeo, personal communication, December 2011). Some of these new members had been living outside the reserve in Les Escoumins. Consequently, some individuals who were against Essipit in the Salmon War, and had been enemies, became members ( membre apparenté in French, or ‘related member’) of the band, a situation that was to cause tension for a long time (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 23). Some confess to having had images in their mind of these people as individuals who had been ready to fight against Essipit, and felt aggrieved that they now belonged to the group (Adam, chapter 2. ref. 3).

Individuals who acquired their status in 1985 were called the ‘6.2’. The arrival of those among them who had fought against the group in the Salmon War resulted in direct confrontations (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 3). This return of the women and their children with reinstated membership came with a phenomenon unique in the history of the group: an increase in non-members resident in the community. These mostly comprised the Euroquébécois husbands (who were not band members) of these women, often self-reliant individuals who were unlikely to be submissive.

Thirty years after the Salmon War, some of the most committed warriors still felt sad when observing people who were against the reserve, or who were not at all committed to its defence. They felt pushed aside. A direct link is made between this situation of former enemies in positions of authority, and a form of collective amnesia of the war, including a disregard for the actions of the most committed warriors (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 3). Some of these former enemies, including family members of Georges, were recruited and placed in key positions in the band administration. Now in a position of power, they would have no interest in remembering the war or the actions of those who committed to it; they would, instead, do everything they could to prove their allegiance to the council:

The unemployment benefit crisis (1989–90)

In 1989 a member of the band contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in order to expose fraud in Essipit. The band council and its managers were accused of defrauding the Canadian federal system of unemployment insurance. The RCMP opened up a communication channel with one of their liaison officers and initial meetings were organised in the parking lot of a shopping centre (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).

Soon after, the RCMP set up a tactical squad that entered Essipit in the summer of 1989. Helicopters and police surrounded the community. Roads were blocked. The administrative offices were occupied. All computers and community archives were seized. In an attempt to resist the intervention, a barricade of cars parked in the middle of the road was quickly formed. But the size of the RCMP squad rapidly outnumbered the rioters, who were taken by surprise by the sudden use of tear gas (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).

All employees of the band council were questioned, and many of them were blackmailed and threatened with more than $30,000 in penalties if they were found guilty of fraud and of non-cooperation (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6). But if they did cooperate with the investigation, they could be rewarded with full protection and a reduced sentence. Band managers pressured those requesting their silence to avoid the risk of retaliation. A growing climate of mistrust arose in the community, and violence broke out between supporters and opponents of the regime. Dubious information was circulating. Serious doubts possessed certain individuals who had shared information with the federal authorities under pressure.

Leaders maintain that band managers and council members were not benefiting personally from the fraud, as some informants had claimed. They defend the idea that the community used the federal unemployment insurance to create jobs. The system set up by the managers consisted of giving employees with seasonal jobs higher wages than they would normally receive, so that they could receive higher unemployment benefits. Thereafter, they gave back a portion of their wage so that more jobs could be created. This procedure was well established and all employees were aware of it. It was not necessarily illegal or in violation of federal law.

The council’s official discourse is that the system developed was legitimate, and that the actions were based on an integral Innu right to self-government. From this perspective, the actions of the council that led to the crisis in 1990 were a continuation of the principles defended in the Salmon War. The difference was the type of rights being defended (Mesnak, chapter 4, ref. 3). However, a court case resulted in the conviction of four members of the band administration. The council decided not to appeal the decision, allegedly to facilitate reconciliation in the community. The leaders decided not to have members of the council’s political branch condemned, in order to demonstrate their enduring trust in them. An agreement was reached, and the community had to pay more than $750,000 back to the government. But the greatest cost remains the internal divisions in the group.²

The general assembly blamed the informants and cast suspicion on employees. Some families were excluded from the distribution of salmon. All political opponents were described as being behind an attempted coup and were publicly accused of being enemies of the group. There were divisions in all families between supporters and opponents, and the community experienced its darkest hours. The council identified a community member as the mastermind and the individual mainly responsible for the government’s attack on the community. He was judged a traitor by the general assembly, especially because of his higher education and his role in the mobilisation of members against the council. Despite objections from the League of Rights and Freedom, he was condemned to leaving the reserve. Stones were thrown at the front windows of his house (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).

Employees identified as informants could resume their positions only if they asked publicly for forgiveness before the assembled members. Some submitted to this public humiliation, but others did not. In 2000, the band council decided to draw a line under the episode; no one need henceforth apologise or request forgiveness. In this way, the council implicitly recognised that responsibility for what happened was shared, something that would facilitate in-group reconciliation (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 10).

The new members had arrived (following Bill C-31) in the midst of this crisis. They were caught between two in-group clans at war and were under pressure to take sides (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 3). However, some of the new members had been ambivalent in the Salmon War, and had sometimes been the enemy. Some were eagerly looking for opportunities to show allegiance to their new group, and the unemployment crisis helped them to demonstrate loyalty, to quickly integrate and erase their previous shameful deeds (Justin, chapter 2, ref. 3). However, this resulted in collaborators being zealously condemned and informants being stigmatised (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 1). Those who did not live on the reserve during the conflict and did not directly experience it are the ones who tended to be the most intolerant and did not accept the amnesty (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 10).

Unlike the Salmon War, which is associated with the solidarity of the group, the 1990 crisis concerns deep and unhealed collective wounds resulting from contention and polarisation. Those who experienced the episode still suffer from it privately even though it occurred three decades ago. Mourning is not over and the resentment is toxic (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 7). Many questions remain unanswered and there is a lack of information pertaining to the events of 1990 that contributes to the perpetuation of a general uneasiness about it (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 10). Some people still feel that they were victims of an injustice. They cannot explain or forgive their treatment to this day:

Consequently, the stories frequently express the belief that this episode in their history ‘should be forgotten all together’ (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 7). The conflicts generated by the Salmon War wound down much more rapidly than those from 1990, about which there is palpable tension to this day (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 10). Crueller than the Salmon War in its impact on families and relations, the 1990 episode generally induces silence and a strong willingness among members to forget (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 2).

In the stories, interviewees often conflate the episodes of 1980 and 1990. This confusion usually comprises the elements of the unemployment crisis being inserted into Salmon War and accounts range from asserting that the RCMP had a role in 1980 to stating that people were attacked with tear gas. Some people completely confused the two events while others’ memory of the Salmon War disappeared beneath their recollections of the unemployment crisis. It is also noticeable that some statements, which need closer examination, simulated forgetfulness or complete amnesia (Ivan, chapter 4, ref. 1; Karl, chapter 4, ref, 3; Alyha, chapter 4, ref. 1). Indeed, entire memory blanks, real or simulated, were often invoked as a reason for refusing to be interviewed. The occurrence of the 1990 episode would reinforce a collective propensity to forget the past, including memories of the Salmon War (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 16).

References to events that occurred between the Salmon War and the present day are significant; they are clearly linked with the Salmon War and interfere in the rememorisation or oblivion of it in different ways. Therefore, these past events have a direct impact on the remembrance of the Salmon War. They institute, each in their own ways, dams or negative conditioning favouring disconnection with the past and the forgetting of preceding episodes.

The logic of forgetting: a microsociology of oblivion

What are the main elements contributing to the forgetting of the Salmon War, as exposed in the stories? What are the ‘dams’, the centrifugal forces or elements mentioned as obstacles to rememorising and to reconnecting with its imaginary? Identifying those forces that are favourable to the oblivion of the event, its silencing or denial, taking into account the deep rupture in intergenerational transmission that comes with it, could facilitate a better understanding of the group’s cultural condition, or, to use an expression coined by the artist Jimmie Durham, of ‘what we know about ourselves and what we want to be’ (quoted in Lippard, 1993).

The study of amnesia in its most subjective forms offers insights into the shadowed side of the self, what we don’t what to know about ourselves and don’t want to be. It is assumed here that forgetting is not given fair value in research as a decisive dimension of cultural memory. Forgetfulness relates to what we don’t want to know anymore, including that which we don’t want to be and don’t want to reproduce through transmission to the next generation. It is shadowy yet potent, as it intensely affects cultural investment and shapes the future self. The study of oblivion as a produced and subjective outcome deserves closer attention.

Whether unintentional, intentional, or more social in nature, the phenomenon of forgetting has severe normative implications. In all cases, forgetting and its causes shape an individual’s access to the collective inventory of experience, and therefore the capacity for evaluation. It also has consequences for the imagination. Loss of memory can be automatic, as in the case of childhood trauma. It can also be more densely subjective, as a manifestation of a willingness or desire to forget and erase something judged irrelevant, embarrassing, unbalancing for the self-image, or worthy of desacralisation through silencing. Forgetting can also be social in nature; for example, the absorption of a dominant selective memory, through ‘antinomic’ elements and images, can result in self-denial. In addition to those already discussed, four other determinants of forgetting the Salmon War surfaced in the stories: traumas, the protection of relationships, interests in denial, and a bureaucratic will to ignorance through erasure and rewriting.

Traumas and mnemophobia

The Salmon War was deeply associated with negative feelings of fear, sadness, suffering and shame. For many, whether they participated directly in the war or not, it was a traumatic experience in which they faced violence, humiliation and aggression. The automatic forgetting of negative and traumatic experiences is well known (Widom and Morris, 1997; Sheflin and Brown, 1996), and is particularly intense when it concerns the experience of abuse as a child, or of military combat. The experience of being abused significantly affects the recalling of an episode and the circumstances surrounding its occurrence (Van der Kolk, 1997).

People describe how the intensity of their feelings of stress, fear and diverse suffering effectively explains why they forgot episodes of the war. Paradoxically, the wish not to relive such an episode, related to remembrance and the ability to resist, remains a mainstay of their desire to forget. The worst times, those associated with intense feelings of stress, for example, are more or less forgotten automatically, and people express disconnections with memories of the war together with a desire not to relive such situations and emotional states (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 2).³

One individual was a teenager during the war. He was beaten and slapped in the face on one occasion but had completely forgotten about it, although he remembered it while being interviewed. As he was wondering if anyone had taken pictures during the Salmon War, he suddenly remembered that he had himself been doing so. As his memories returned, he recalled that he had been asked to take photographs and that it was because he was taking photographs of Euroquébécois who were trying to beat up Innu that he had been attacked.

Karl began crying during his recounting of certain episodes of the war as he remembered the times when he suffered. He confessed that forgetting had brought him internal peace, but that such inner calm came only with the passing of time (chapter 4, ref. 1).

Another type of forgetting of the war pertains to individuals’ life circumstances. Each person has a particular relationship with her or his own past. For some, events that occurred before the war made their relationship with their past highly problematic, and that was also true of the Salmon War. For example, one Essipiunnu had experienced a traumatic situation during his childhood – the loss of a friend in tragic circumstances. This seems to explain why a form of mnemophobia had overtaken him and led to a desire to turn away entirely from the past.

For others the Salmon War happened to coincide with a difficult period in their lives. One older woman, for example, did not want to recall anything about that exact time because she had been in the process of getting divorced and being thrown out of her house. Another person preferred not to speak about the war because she had almost died in a car accident during that period. Mention of the Salmon War reminded someone else that he had been dependent on drugs at the time. In almost all of these cases, the desire not to talk about the war, or the past in general, was accompanied by great discomfort, suffering and manifestations of shame.

Protection of relations

Forgetfulness as a means of being able to ‘co-exist’ is described as a core element contributing to the forgetting of the war. Unlike other movements of decolonisation, the Essipiunnuat had to remain alongside the ‘colonisers’, or be symbiotic with them. This highly particular situation must be given careful consideration if we are to comprehend the importance of silencing memories of the war in order to recreate links and find stability in relationships. As opposed to various decolonisation processes around the world, Innu individuals and families, largely outnumbered over time by the settler population, must exist side by side with the local Euroquébécois population in perpetuity

In many cases, the silence surrounding the events of the war was a prerequisite to maintaining relationships. Former enemies linked by family ties would speak with each other again, but never of the Salmon War (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 1). The impact of the war on the group’s social relations was long-lasting and some divisions persist to the present day. In order to re-establish relations with the people of Les Escoumins, especially former friends, some people decided to put aside the bitterness associated with the memory of war. To a certain extent, this became a social necessity (Karl, chapter 3, ref. 5).

Despite being hidden and harder to detect, racism directed towards the Innu still exists in Les Escoumins – extending to within the group itself and among employees of the band – and has existed for as long as people can remember. Yet, since the Essipiunnuat must live closely tied to this village, they have developed a thick skin so that they can talk to their colleagues, clients or neighbours, despite being conscious of the racist attitudes held by some of them (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 25). But there remain open wounds, despite the passage of time (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 25). The impact of such silence on Essipiunnuat self-conception now needs to be investigated.

Certain interviewees now work in pubic-facing careers and are forced to serve ex-enemies. One individual explains that when former foes speak to him, he answers because he is obliged to. Yet, were it not for his position, he would act differently:

The main reason invoked to explain why ‘moving on’ is imperative is that not doing so would only penalise those who constantly remember the war. They live day-by-day with their former enemies and meet them each time they go out into any public spaces outside the reserve. Therefore, cultivating the memory of the war and remembering the injustice suffered results in self-exclusion from local networks of relationships, and also leads to self-penalisation. The forgetting and silence are, therefore, ways of complying with the requirements of living together, coupled with an inability to forgive. In Tshak’s words, ‘If the smoke evaporated, the burn scars would still be vivid’ (Tshak, chapter 4, ref. 2 and 3).

This leads some people to maintain that the primary function of the Essipiunnuat’s silence and lack of assertiveness is to please the Euroquébécois. The episode then becomes a negative moment to be forgotten altogether (Justin, chapter 4, ref. 2). Everyone taking part acknowledges that they did not talk about the war afterwards. They kept it inside, mainly to stop the intergenerational transmission of their inner hatred and resentment towards the other Les Escoumins community:

As for others involved in the study, Pishimnapeo, for example, maintains that it is better not to mention names of past opponents in remembering the war because it could hurt people needlessly, and could be used to attack those who do not deserve it. In his view, opponents were more guided by their ignorance than being really opposed to Essipiunnuat claims and inherent rights. Many of them would now realise their foolishness (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 1).

Interests in denial

The role interviewees played in the war has a central impact on remembrance or non-remembrance, as demonstrated earlier. It is a pivotal determinant of forgetfulness. Some members who were not committed at the time now have a certain social status in the community. Some were not previously members of the group but became so in 1985. Some Euroquébécois, whose parents were openly enemies of the ‘Indians’, are now married to Essipiunnuat and/or are employed by the community, either by its administration or in its enterprises. The evaluation of these past-selves and the roles played in the war directly determine a willingness to forget the event in order to maintain a positive self-image and/or to protect their integration within the group. These elements help to explain this willingness to forget, to silence, to erase, and, in some cases, to effect a simulation of forgetfulness.

One individual, for example, was a band council member at the time of the interview. In 1980, he was in his mid 20s. He was reluctant to give an interview about the Salmon War and, during it, he admitted that he had been partying and drinking a lot at that time. He had not been committed to the war at all and did not participate. He was also working outside the community in lumber camps. He dates his integration into and commitment to the community to 1986. He was keen to discuss his role as a warrior in the unemployment crisis but preferred not to talk of the Salmon War and to forget all about it. Therefore, it seems that he does not remember it because of his activities at that time, which appear to be a source of shame for him; this results in a willingness to forget the whole event (Justin, Chapter 4, ref. 1). Members’ friendships with Euroquébécois, and their choice not to commit in order to protect these relationships, were also mentioned as a central cause of non-participation. Today, such an attitude is, for many, a source of embarrassment (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 5).

As mentioned above, certain individuals who were formerly hostile to Indians, not only became members of the group in 1985 but became influential in decision-making processes. A former councillor, for example, whose role in 1980 was allegedly hostile to Essipit, is known to have been a fierce protector of the leaders under attack in 1990. This role earned him great recognition from Georges, who presented him as his ‘saviour’ and included him in the decision-making circle (he became a band councillor as well). Other individuals’ parents were anti-Innu leaders but they now have family ties with Essipit and influential positions in the band administration (Maxence, chapter 2, ref. 5).

There are other examples of willingness to put the Essipiunnuat’s past, and more specifically the Salmon War, aside. Deep inside, these negative self-perceptions or bad-selves ‘to be soon forgotten’ remain correlated with assertive indigeneity and a cultural memory specific to Innu norms and their defence. Also observable is not only the will to forget their past ‘anti-Indian’ role, but the image of the rebellious Innu from which it was built. The cultural assimilation of the Essipiunnuat has already been widely discussed. However, this dynamic of assimilation has not stopped with the Salmon War. Essipiunnuat absorption of the Euroquébécois imaginary continued after the war in often subtle ways.

The arrival of new members and their families in the wake of Bill C-31 after 1985 clearly had an impact on remembrance of the Salmon War. The subsequent economic developments of the community, and the extensive employment of Euroquébécois within the organisation, reinforced the predominance, and therefore the absorption, of their social imaginary. Intermarriage with Euroquébécois remains common. Euroquébécois dependent on Essipit for their incomes tend to distance themselves from the hostile, if not racist, postures of their parents during the war, and from the event in general.

But this phenomenon of forgetfulness and silence about the war appears to surpass the need to maintain relationships and friendships or income security. Québec’s colonial selective memory and national narrative shouldn’t be underestimated as a fertile soil for oblivion among Essipiunnuat, and for the erasure of indigenous postures and rewriting in accordance with Euroquébécois collective identity needs. Commenting on a stage play called Invention, University of San Diego professor Julie Burelle (2014) testifies to a long-standing cultural dynamic of rewriting in Québec, pertaining to this society’s relationship with First Peoples:

The absorption of the Euroquébécois imaginary, which is characterised by a deep-seated psycho-cultural denial of the existence of the Innu, is a powerful determinant of amnesia. Once internalised through assimilation, it appears as a core element of cultural oblivion and self-denial among the Innu themselves. In the case of Essipiunnuat, the effect of being overwhelmed with Québécois’ nationalist discourse and interpretations not only marginalises the Innu referential but also other dimensions of the group memory. It includes, for example, the particular case of the Ross family, whose Eeyou as well as Gaelic legacies, especially the non-French and non-Catholic aspects, are not valued; indeed, they have been almost entirely erased. One might question the links between the Euroquébécois cultural hegemony and the Essipiunnuat, and the mutilation of significant sections of the group and families’ diversity of inheritances. They have led to the marginalisation of a major proportion of the Essipiunnuat inventory of experiences. Stories thus report complex linkages between systemic directed forgetting, assimilation, breaks in the transmission of cultural memory, and the advancement of collective amnesia.

The power of ignorance: institutional oblivion

Forgetting the Salmon War is likely to be, above all, linked to the current circumstances of the social order. According to band council statistics, more than 55 per cent of Essipit’s hundreds of employees (in public administration and band council-owned enterprises) are Euroquébécois.⁴ Most of the clients of the community enterprises, which have a turnover of more than $10 million, positioning Essipit as the fifth largest employer in the Upper North Shore region, are also Euroquébécois. While speaking of the war, a former band administrator said, ‘make sure you do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg that is recreational tourism’. Economic development and financial advantages are the first priority of many; the belief that cultural oblivion is a condition of stability looms large within the group, particularly among the Euroquébécois community’s employees. For example, conversations were had to the effect that racist Euroquébécois employees are tolerated within Essipit’s enterprises.

Memory of the war clearly has the power to destabilise the established economic system, which is not only based on Euroquébécois investment in Essipit, but on employees’ psychological stability and fragile Innu– Euroquébécois relationships. These circumstances tend to favour the use of ‘Innu’ symbols, illustrated by the Innubliable marketing campaign, as a varnishing over and simulacrum of indigeneity, feeding sui nullius. Picard-Sioui (2017) perceptively illustrates the paradoxical attitude of Euroquébécois (who mostly live near First Peoples communities), in a chapter entitled ‘During this time, in the neighboring city’ (p. 49). He says it is often characterised by a mixture of racism, opportunism and duplicity. Indeed, as the event that propelled the new generation of leaders to the forefront of local politics, the Salmon War and its memory remains the founding myth of the new regime. As time passes, the story tends to be rewritten around the unified idea that the leaders stood and succeeded in repelling the enemies and held the fort. The Salmon War remains the basis on which the legitimacy of the regime, and the communitarian principle, is based; and the same regime must control the interpretations and representations of the event and of the group’s past. The contemporary parameters of remembrance, at least up to 2016, tended to be configured for the purpose of enhancing the aura and the cult of a leader.

As the former chief who took office in 1979 and left in 2012 maintains, 99 per cent of the population was supportive. He clearly over-stresses the unity of the group. He depicts the war as the genesis of collective pride and unity, but also of the beginning of the defence of indigenous rights. It is presented as the moment when the community took charge of itself, but also when the council decided to be the leader and sole source of authority within the group. A link is clearly made between the leadership in the war and the results of their actions three decades later. It is no exaggeration to say that, based on the evidence, the interpretations of the past by the former chief and Georges serve to depict them as the ‘creators’ of everything that the group did.

Stories report an interest in remembrance to the extent that it serves those who benefit from it; it reinforces their heroism, their virtues and legitimates their power. Memories of the Salmon War are, therefore, a power issue that affects the very foundations of the system’s legitimacy, as well as being threatening to several members of the group. It is not surprising, then, that my research became increasingly represented, and to a certain extent perceived, as a threat to the leadership. However, the gradually polarising effect of research, as a space where people’s stories and interpretations were released, has made it possible to see clear lines of demarcation and new data concerning those supporting the principal leader and those who have opposed him.

At the other end of the spectrum stand those who felt cheated and humiliated after the war (see the previous section ‘Commitment in the light of experience’). The perception exists that people’s spontaneous participation and enthusiasm were, in fact, used to serve the new leaders and the establishment of self-serving power devices. This feeling of being instrumentalised is revealing. For these individuals, speaking of the Salmon War has a potential to delegitimise the contemporary regime of power by revising its mythology; it breaks the unified dimension, but also potentially positions them as dissident. It might explain, in part, why some individuals did not want to speak of the Salmon War, or said ‘Don’t you think that we’ve had enough of it?’ (Jeanne, chapter 3, ref. 5). The current bureaucratic and social order in the community appears, therefore, to be another filter encouraging the production of a kind of self-knowledge that fits with the established forms of control. More dramatically, this selective memory includes a specific representation of the ‘Indian’, impregnated with both Canadian and Euroquébécois representations, superimposed onto existing inner phenomena of sui nullius and mnemophobia.

The small community of 729 members, with 215 living on-reserve and 514 off-reserve (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, n.d.)⁵ has a huge bureaucracy considering its size, and includes Essipiunnuat and non-Essipiunnuat. The administration and its enterprises employ hundreds of people, for a population of 215 resident members.⁶ As McGoey (2007) demonstrates, regulatory bureaucracies imply a will to ignorance, which works ‘to circumvent a regulator’s ability to carry out its explicit aims and goals’. The creative use of ignorance is often key to a regulator’s survival. It enables entities to maintain relations with other entities, such as industries. It is essential, therefore, to look carefully at how ignorance can be a strategic resource within ‘regulatory and bureaucratic structures’ (McGoey, 2007; 2012). As the case of Essipit suggests, selective memory and strategic forms of forgetfulness are key to facilitating increased relations and joint ventures with external corporations, and ensuring the psychological comfort and cultural safety of the majority of Euroquébécois employees. They also contribute to close links being forged with governments and to the concentration of power.

Essipiunnuat who live on-reserve, especially those who work for the band administration and the band administration as a whole, are dependant on just two sources of income: governmental monetary transfers and capital from community-owned enterprises. The relationship with the state became more cooperative, and the financial transfer flow increased. Indeed, the Essipiunnuat have developed significant band council-owned businesses that have evolved in the capitalist realm; the band and its administration is the fifth largest employer in the region. The Salmon War, with its normative charge, thus tends to actualise past-selves and norms that have the potential to destabilise these relationships; it speaks of decolonisation through revolt, of solidarity and the defence of principles at all costs, including Innu tipenitamun, that tends to be antinomian to neoliberal paradigms of domination and alienability pertaining to the relation to the Earth.

Whether effected through erasure, selection or silence, forgetfulness seems to play a role of desacralisation or to promote ‘abandonment’ of what would otherwise be sacred; and favours some sets of norms to the detriment of others. In any case, such practices help to better understand the past and contemporary experience of anomie. Silence surfaces as the preferred medium in the production of forgetfulness. It perhaps best illustrates the fragility of oblivion, and how forgetfulness is hardly absolute.

Reminiscences and the fragility of oblivion

What is mysterious about oblivion is that it is never really achieved.⁷

P.L. Assoun (1997, p.155)

When truth is buried underground it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.

É. Zola

Forgetfulness, especially in its subjective forms, is by no means total. The act of forgetting, whether automatic, or as a manifestation of willingness or generated by particular social circumstances, remains inextricably linked to the forces and contexts that shaped its nascence. Each in their own way, people reported the presence of the Salmon War in their individual present and the resilience of memory against the forces favouring forgetfulness. They also pointed to the great silence surrounding the event. Curiously, those who had lived through it, and who recognise its importance in their lives, have not generally spoken about it again. Yet, behind this silence hiding lasting reminiscences, there were emotions and values valiantly defended. For the majority of those involved, in their consciousness at least, it is as if the Salmon War happened yesterday.

The medium of silence

Élisabeth, aged five at the time of the war, never spoke of it again – with her mother, father or anyone else (chapter 4, ref. 1), even though her father was one its main protagonists. As with others of her generation, she knew the war was about fishing, a community salmon net and external opposition to indigenous fishing rights. Her memory of the use of guns was that of a small child (chapter 4, ref. 3). She remembers the sensations she had at the time, including the smells, and yet has no idea of the causes of the event. She recognises that the Salmon War has no meaning for her now, but that it did have an impact on her life. She feels a need, above all, to know (chapter 4, ref. 2).

In fact, even the warriors, it seems, avoided discussing the war once it was over. The post-Salmon War attitude was principally characterised by silence (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 7), presented as the preferred medium of forgetfulness. On the other hand, silence is also depicted as a strategy to avoid reliving an emotionally traumatic experience (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 8). The Essipiunnuat were noticeably more calm and submissive after the war. The undeclared reason behind this silent obedience was the deep fear of having to experience such events again and a terror about them ever being repeated (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 3).

The paradoxes of emotional reflux

Memories of the Salmon War are frequently presented as open wounds. Enemies are remembered clearly and many have not been forgiven; the passing of time ‘has not healed us’ (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 3). Despite forces favouring forgetfulness, the stories suggest difficulty in forgiving but also in forgetting. The feeling of having been persecuted in a moment of great weakness left indelible emotional traces in people’s memories. People swear never to forget acts of cowardice of which they were the victims, such as those who took advantage of their weak position to inflict pain on them and attempt to make their situation even more difficult (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 1).

This deep resentment is coupled with fear. Stress and racism also remain central to interviewees’ emotional memories. Some confess that their life was marked forever by what they saw, and that their emotions are so vivid they remember even the smells when episodes occurred (Esther, chapter 4, ref. 1). Whenever people speak about the war, it is as if ‘they ripped off a plaster and re-opened the wound’ (Esther, chapter 4, ref. 5). To this day, rage erupts when unpleasant episodes from the Salmon War are mentioned (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 1 and 2).

The normative burden of memory

As revealed in the previous chapter, the Salmon War is linked to past-selves with specific normative components. To speak today of the war plunges those who were involved into the struggles of the time. It refers to indigenous unity and power, Innu tipenitamun and thorough resistance to its usurpation as well as acts of sedition. It brings to the table the condition of the Essipiunnuat as a colonised people belonging to a wider indigenist movement, with their own particularities and a specific set of norms. People remember having defended their link to Assi at all costs, but also the extent to which they had to stand up for themselves (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 2 and 6).

To invoke the Salmon War signifies the reanimation of the awareness of the Innu’s defence and reappropriation but also government and colonial society’s constant attempts to tear them away, not only from the Earth, but from the epistemological foundations of their thought, rooted and inseparable from the ancestral domain. Talking about the Salmon War reanimates forms of historical consciousness too – that ancestral territories and ecosystems were destroyed by governments and corporations, for example, including the extermination of the salmon in the Esh Shipu River, and that Essipiunnuat fishing practices were blamed for harming the river’s salmon population. These memories are linked to the historical lies and myths that were constructed at the expense of an Innu perspective and which aim to legitimise the occupation of the Innu homeland and the legal domination of First Peoples in the region.

Therefore, the Salmon War was not only about the salmon but the whole Innu way of life and strategies for reinstating its integral value. Narration of the war refers to forms of assertion, as a people, and the means to collectively render things sacred. Stories of the war are a form of sacralisation (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 2). Reactivating the memory of the Salmon War reminds us that people acted in line with their ancestors’ conceptions of their ancestral sovereignty and freedoms, for their defence, and in recognition of the fact that this way of being remains possible (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 12).

Memory as a loaded gun

During the conversations, people were explicitly concerned with the impact of narrating their experience of war. They understood that the history of one generates and reproduces the history of all. They reported that one must be careful of what one says and does in relation to the Salmon War; providing people with more facts could bring back increased spite and resentment (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 1–2; Esther, chapter 4, ref. 4).

More than three decades on, the Salmon War, a central aspect of the group’s inventory of experience, has the potential to be reactivated at any time, with an outburst of emotion and normative stances. As one collective identity can be reactivated through access to new information and transmission, narrators perceive that the past memories of the war can re-enter public spaces and dynamise the present at any time. As Raoul says, ‘it was very powerful; you felt that it was very strong. There are things that were not done; some would have done them and would do it again today. I am certain’ (chapter 4, ref. 3).

Reporting their experiences repeatedly brings people back to the present, resulting in forms of evaluations of the present as a function of the normative content identified in their past-self in the war. The past appears as an evaluative tool of the present, involving critiques of the contemporary social order. For example, remembering the behaviour of the government towards the Innu reminds them that they face the same issues today, and that the same long-standing objective of their extinguishment still remains. Accordingly, resistance is still necessary, if not more so today since the state has even greater means to usurp, transgress and annihilate First Peoples’ cultural memory and inherent sovereignty:

In Essipit, remembering the Salmon War, and talking about how it developed, is therefore a defiant act in many respects. It recalls, for example, how things work when dealing with governments. Remembrance reactivates the knowledge that uprising and rebelling can trigger internal forces, which result in increased external respect and recognition, as well as internal self-empowerment and auto-development (Riel, chapter 4, ref. 1). But this spirit of rebellion is twofold and could also become instrumentalised by internal agents to generate feelings of cohesion and fictions of collective consent. Interestingly, since Essipit is more economically self-reliant today, there is a perception that if the same conflict occurred now, the potential for violence would be greater. Indeed, the Essipiunnuat are today self-confident and materially secure. Greater numbers of Euroquébécois work for them than in the past. In any war, there would be direct as well as covert action. According to Raoul, people remember the extent to which the group can gather together and fight and they would do so again (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 15).

It is principally the consequences of forgetting their real condition as a colonised people and its continuity over time that would lead the Essipiunnuat to enter a war again for the purposes of survival, if the consciousness of their collective condition is not translated into daily acts of resistance. On the one hand, forgetfulness would worsen their condition, produce forms of relaxation that would make more likely a desperate fight to avoid the tragic gap of nothingness, and also lead to greater alienation at the hands of an all-powerful bureaucracy and the devices of the Crown. On the other, remembrance carries a whole set of norms associated with people’s struggles, including the purpose of their sacrifices. These memories are patent vectors of Essipiunnuat norms, inherent sovereignty and a historical consciousness of colonisation. The collective experience of war entered the collective inventory of experience, making anamnesis to past-selves, in the sense of reminiscence, a constant possibility. Thus, the study of stories suggests that the group memories of the Salmon War are a loaded gun, waiting for the right moment to revolt against the forces aiming at genocide and collective annihilation, and working internally to marginalise Innu views and interpretations. In this sense, narrating the past has direct implications for the present.

Contemporaneities: the mirror of memory

Illusion is heeded to disguise the emptiness within.

Arthur Erickson

It is a promise of oral history that stories about the past are always produced from the present and can mirror it (Thompson, 2000). The act of narrating the past is modelled by current social circumstances, including the social order and evaluations of the value of the past for the present. In their stories, Essipiunnuat included views on their present condition with variable degrees of intentionality.

As a subjective act and manifestation of agency, narrating consists of the reproduction of norms, of stories that invoke what has value and what has not. Narrating implies norming, and the production of representations and signs with ethical charges. When it implies memory of the past, the narrator makes selections and choices that increase the possibilities for sacralising components of individual and collective past-selves. Discourses about the past are therefore nets to contemporise past elements in people’s current condition.

Three main characteristics of Essipiunnuat relations to their present existences surface in the stories. One of these is nostalgia; another concerns elements of social criticism and the evaluation of the current social order and governance. The last pertains to the perception of collective needs for norms, and features of the current cultural condition. These trends in memory offer rich insights about the group’s actuality.⁸

Nostalgia

‘Yearning for yesterday’, is a key characteristic of nostalgia (Davis, 1979). This reflects the etymology of the term from the Greek nostos and algia, literally a ‘painful yearning to return home’, or homesickness (ibid.). Nostalgia reveals contexts of ‘present fears, discontents, anxieties, or uncertainties even though those may not be in the forefront of the person’s awareness’ (Davis, 1977, p. 420). Feelings of nostalgia can express dissatisfaction with the present, when not actual melancholia, and of past selves. It reports a temporal and spacial dimension, mainly regrets about past times and ageing, and the disappearance of certain elements of the natural (ecological grief ) or social landscapes associated with pleasant ways of being. It therefore encompasses recognition of an exceptional past, ‘imbued with special qualities, which, moreover, acquires its significance from the particular way we juxtapose it to certain features of our present lives’ (Davis, 1979, p. 13).

As Fred Davis proposes, sociologically nostalgia often erupts out of a people’s isolation. It is used strategically to boost their sentiment of belonging and participation in social life. Nostalgia involves both idealisation of the past and a distancing from the present. The violation of sacred items may reveal particular aspects of a group’s vulnerabilities and contortions, as in the case of mythologising its origins. But what are the main examples of people’s nostalgia that have emerged along with their stories of the war?

Gatherings and the spirit of unity

People express nostalgia for past gatherings that used to occur throughout the year. These include celebrations in winter (mainly New Year’s Eve and Christmas) and inclusive meetings that were organised in the home of each head-of-family; these were gatherings characterised by exchanges and visits between all families in the community, all related to each other. During these events, ‘houses were filled all the time with people from other families who were visiting’ (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 14).

In addition, the traditional duck-hunting trips took place in the spring, during which groups of hunters would gather at Pointe-Sauvage. These events are remembered as day-long feasts, a celebration of the new season (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 6). Another was the ancestral summer gathering, now commonly called pow wow.⁹ People would make campfires at home of the head of the family. Everyone would join in. They would sing, and everything would be shared. What people loved most was feeling at home, playing simple games and being together (Esther, chapter 4, ref. 4).

For those who said they missed these gatherings, it was the family or community spirit of solidarity and reciprocity that they remembered and which they most regretted losing. If there were some chicaneries in winter gatherings, a wider family spirit existed. Today, this has been replaced by each family staying in their home and not visiting other families, resulting in isolation and solitude, especially for the elderly (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 14). The pow wow has also collapsed alongside this unity felt at gatherings, and it has proved almost impossible to revive it (Esther, chapter 4, ref. 4). This collective spirit that is perceived as having been lost was a way to live one’s life with others, and to support each other (Édouard, chapter 5, ref. 1; Karl, chapter 4, ref. 2). It leads one Elder to say that ‘we call ourselves communitarian all the time but I feel that we have become the Innu community with the least solidarity’ (Paula, personal communication, December 2015).

Innu vision and way of life

There is also nostalgia for the way of life of parents and grandparents that interviewees remember from childhood and early adult life. For example, they recall hearing their grandparents conversing in Innu-aimun. They fondly remember other Innu arriving from Pessamit or elsewhere and being welcomed and respected. They remember everybody being hunters and trappers (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 14).

They remember receiving teachings from the older people, mornings by the sea, being told stories from Essipiunnuat history and way of life (Tshak, chapter 4, ref. 5). They also reminisce about the taste of traditional food, and in particular of fresh salmon, which they present as a condensed symbol of their whole childhood (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 1). Others are nostalgic for their grandfathers’ vision of Essipiunnuat ancestral sovereignty, the supreme value they gave it and a dread of losing that sense of worth (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 8).

Collective commitment and resistance

Essipiunnuat expressed a need for more information about the war – pictures or film of the events, for example. One individual recounted how he returned regularly to the wharf trying to find the net he had concealed under the dock decades ago; he confessed that this net was an obsession for him and regretted not having found it. He still thinks about it often (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 1, 3 and 9).

This individual’s fixation, shared by others, illustrates the nostalgia felt by the older generations, including the Salmon War generation. It concerns the experience of being committed to the community, and being engaged in resisting the external violation of their inherent rights. This nostalgia is associated with their observations of the post-Salmon War generation. They are sceptical about the new generation’s ways of identifying with the group and the likelihood of their commitment in any future war of resistance. They tend, instead, to see misidentification and a lack of interest in public affairs. Their assessment is that there would be fewer warriors among the young, and lower levels of engagement in the community among young women especially, for example. In general they believe few individuals from the current generation would be ready to go to the same lengths they went to for Innu sovereignty (Esther, chapter 2, ref. 9 and 12).

Nostalgia thus looms large in the stories. Those involved in the research explicitly relate the nostalgic issues mentioned to the group’s present dimension. They overtly denounce, often with a sense of powerlessness, the increased fragmentation within the group, and the disappearance of their cherished communitarian spirit, its values and practices. They observe rapid changes in the group’s way of life, and the dissociation with ancestral conceptions and perspectives. They also note the lack of engagement of the post-Salmon War generation in resisting external oppression, and they are doubtful of this generation’s readiness to face any future war. Overall, the present generation seems disconnected with the spirit that animated those involved in the Salmon War. That said, the fact that the event is not spoken of goes a long way to explaining this dissociation from the recent past.

Social criticism: voicing incoherence

In their recollections, people often turned their gaze on the present and there was a trend towards using reconnection with the Salmon War as a springboard for articulating a collective self-critique. This suggests the use of memory as an evaluative tool for the present. Interviewees draw parallels between the past and present. As a result, their stories contain critiques of the group’s current social order and highlight the normative base from which they are built: the standards, values and concepts specific to the generations that participated in the war. All together, these views offer insightful reflections on the present, in particular the perceptions of legitimate relations with states, conceptions of indigeneity, the sources of indigenous laws and internal modes of governance – central themes of the war that continue to resonate to this day.

Relations with states

One issue raised in the wake of recollecting the war concerns contemporary leaders’ ways of relating to other states.¹⁰ The current process of negotiating treaties, for example, comes in for heavy criticism, especially from the eldest involved. Negotiations that occurred during the Salmon War are compared to those of today. A distance is perceived between the values defended then and now, and compared with past negotiations, the contemporary ones are seen severely lacking (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 16).

A perception exists that the indigenous heritage, laws and inherent rights that were defended so perilously in the Salmon War are no longer the touchstone they once were for the leaders. With agreement after agreement, interviewees say, the fundamental right to live free, feed oneself and be self-reliant – ‘the first right that must be defended as Innu’, – is gradually being eroded. There is a feeling that compromises are being made over these rights and that such compromises should not be accepted (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 1).

The negotiation process, which has been ongoing for forty years, is interpreted by its main critics as a strategy of the government to reduce First Peoples to the point of accepting the abandonment of their ancestral sovereignty and inalienable responsibility, as Innu, to protect Assi for future generations (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 5). The state is succeeding in achieving the fundamental goal of its policy, which is the abandonment of inherent indigenous rights ‘in exchange for a few crumbs from the table’ (ibid., ref. 6). The Essipiunnuat will then be forced to accept that they are ‘just Canadian citizens like any others’. The signature on a ‘treaty’ would then result in illegal annulments of Innu tipenitamun, a cession of ancestral lands and ultimately the consented extinguishment of indigenous sovereignty, which other Innu groups would regard as treasonable. One individual says he was opposed to the treaty negotiation process from the beginning:

Negotiations with governments over ‘land rights’ and treaties are therefore seen as a waste of time and money and of no benefit to the community (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6). There is the perception that the administration and propagandists hired by the administration emphasise only selected aspects, deliberately hiding consequences of signing a treaty, such as new payment obligations, taxes and the state being released from its fiduciary obligations.

Indeed, the ‘autonomous self-government’ promised by successive Canadian administrations is tantamount to a lie told in order to obtain surrender. Since the real cost of signing for the group remains unknown (no member to date has been allowed to see or analyse the treaty) individuals’ consent would not be fully informed (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 18). Indeed, as things stand, the costs of administration would increase, and local members would be forced to pay income and other taxes for the benefit of the bureaucracy (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 6). Others denounce the tendency of the leaders to impose self-restrictions on Essipiunnuat’s traditional hunting and fishing practices in order to endlessly accommodate Euroquébécois society (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 3).

The idea that there is such thing as a ‘granted autonomy’ would be a simple lure, the best illustration of the leaders’ loss of the true meaning of the group’s freedom. This approach would be rather counterproductive since it incites individuals to minimise their concerns with self-determination. To promote this illusion is seen as contributing to the colonisation and exploitation of one’s own people (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).¹¹

As an Elder recalls, ‘we asked them at the meeting if we could see the treaty before its ratification. They told us that we wouldn’t understand its language anyway. Indeed, they send non-Innu employees of the band to inform us about the treaty and our rights as Innu’ (Paula, personal communication, 2016).¹² Indeed, various band employees are paid with funds coming from agreements with federal government and loans to the band. Problematically, these actors can hardly be critical of the modern treaty process and its implications for the Innu since they are, in fact often not Innu while being paid to advance and ratify it. Discourse pressuring members to consent to the treaty are particularly observable among Euroquébécois employees of the band, often nationalists who have no political power in the community and tend to be highly complacent in their dealings with band authorities as well as the Québec provincial state.

Innu tipenitamun: the inalienability of Assi and the untradability of Innu obligations

Former leaders allegedly set financial gain above principles such as inherent ancestral rights and Innu tipenitamun. These, it is asserted, ‘they were ready to sell out’ (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 5). This is antinomian for fundamental Innu principles since, as Ernest argues, ‘even if you are a millionaire, it will not free you from being indigenous. You cannot eat money.’ A scathing critique holds that those who love money tend to be more respected in the community than those for whom ancestral principles are sacred. Those leaders who could most easily be bought would, therefore, comply readily with external authorities, and behave with members of the group as if they were ‘a God ... for whom your opinion has no value’ (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 8 and 9).¹³

There is fierce opposition to the idea of any commodification of indigenous ancestral sovereignty, which is seen as sacred (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 1). Yet there are people in the community, and among the decision-makers, who want to be indigenous and have rights but who do not want to stand up for any of these rights, since they fear a confrontation. This attitude is seen as being a danger to the community:

As an Elder mentions, there are two sides to economic development. It can enrich the community, but it can also be a veiled way to commit blackmail. Once a community has enjoyed material comforts it will be reluctant to lose them, and this can make it more dependent and obedient to the hand that feeds. Development is therefore accompanied by a sort of fear, and a likelihood that members of the community will compromise on principles and be easier to control. It can also erode their sense of the sacredness of their indigenous rights (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).

‘They try to make you believe things’: perspectives on power and recolonisation from within

As previously described, another aspect of criticism pertains to in-group modes of decision-making in the name of the ‘collective’, namely that the views of members are not taken into account. This sense of exclusion was shared by interviewees of all ages. There is also the perception that current decision-making does not reflect what is in the communal interest, in spite of the council’s constant statements that its actions are for the people. This is seen as one of the greatest problems the community faces today: a permanent democratic deficit (Mestenapeo, chapter 2, ref. 5). It gives the impression that ‘they try to make you believe things, that they invent things’ (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 4). The overwhelming role of the former director of communication was also denounced as monopolising public discourse about the group and framing a story uniquely in accordance with the perspective of the administration. There is also the feeling, mentioned by many in the study, of being included ‘only when it suits them’ (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 7).

Interviewees confessed to losing interest in meetings, since ‘in their hearts’, they did not believe in practices opposed to ancestral modes of deliberation (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 19). Moreover, they felt that they would be excluded from decision-making circles again once they were no longer needed (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 8). These attitudes would serve to explain the decline in motivation to participate in community affairs, the shared sense of powerlessness experienced by ordinary members and the perception that it is one tiny cell that makes all the decisions.

Secondly, a sentiment exists that there is a ‘gang’ mentality. As another Elder describes, you are in the ‘gang’ if you comply with the decision-makers, and out of it if you contest their authority. If you’re not in the gang, you will not receive the benefits of being a member and of belonging to the community. Therefore, one ‘must know how to get into the gang’, sometimes ‘keeping silent about what is going on against one’s conscience and the truth’. Speaking your mind freely can result in fierce exclusion. To express disagreement with decision makers can result in not being listened to again. One needs to ‘be there but lower the head, listen and say “yes”. And if you are an elected member of the council and you are against “them”, then they make sure you will not be there for long’ (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 5 and 10). This is mentioned as the second greatest political weakness inside the community.

A third element of governance inspiring strong criticism concerns the exclusion of the majority of members from assisting the general assembly, voting in elections, and benefiting from some of the other advantages arising out of belonging to the group. This exclusion touches around 580 ‘off-reserve’ members who live outside the reserve.¹⁵ This situation, contrary to a recent Supreme Court decision, is known within the administration but perpetuated, most likely as a way to maintain political power and influence, and collective consent, through a small and weakened general assembly. Some critics maintain that this exclusion mainly serves a small minority in retaining power and control over community affairs. Their main opponents and dissidents, who were forced to leave the community, are then left with no voice. Indeed, the managers would instead prefer an increase in the number of those without rights, such as Euroquébécois workers and affiliated members through marriage (but without status), since they are easier to control.

Those who are off-reserve would be excluded, mainly as a strategy of control and monopoly. This treatment is perceived as unjust and as delegitimising the local system. It also compromises the land claim process on which those who live off-reserve will ultimately be called to vote but without having been efficiently involved in the negotiation beyond cosmetic initiatives for political marketing purposes. This also weakens the community, as there will certainly be other ‘wars’ to face in the future. Those who are off-reserve are sidelined, and the community is deprived of their support. Since they are uninformed and may feel excluded, they cannot play their potential role as a supporter and as ambassadors for their community and culture (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 5 and 6).

Meanwhile, there are flaws in the argument that those who are off-reserve did not participate in the development of Essipit, and therefore should not benefit from it. Indeed, they should have the ‘same access to the common wealth’ (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6). The community cannot provide them with a living since they already have work elsewhere. Offering them increased knowledge about local situations would transform them into ambassadors. Finally, their exclusion from the decision-making process increases dramatically the risk that any community initiative would collapse as their number grows (Ibid). Discrimination inside the reserve, including racism and the stigmatisation of indigenists, as well as impunity, is the best guarantee that things will crumble in the long run and that members will move away from each other (Mestenapeo, chapter 2, ref. 5).

As best described by Elders, some of whom have been observing political life on the reserve for more than six decades, the denunciations of discrimination come with the observation that justice inside the reserve is not the same for all, that there are inequalities. Dissidence results in not being considered as an equal. This possibility of being identified as unorthodox and then excluded is a sword of Damocles hanging over every member on a daily basis. Until recently, this decision would be made by one person in particular, who controlled the council. It is said that the chief was only his puppet. Elements of autocracy result in a decline in honesty,¹⁶ and consequently the impossibility of obtaining consensus among the group (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 9 and 10). Manifestations of authoritarianism, coupled with bureaucracy, would engender an erosion of individual liberties and the density of social interactions. This is seen to result from some leaders being too enamoured with power:

Therefore, stories of the Salmon War generate explicit critiques of the current social order, its legitimacy and the practices of those ensuring its maintenance. Such criticism reveals the perception of a distancing from Innu values and conceptions, and a need to return to a set of normative values on which these critiques are based. It demonstrates a need to return to ancestral norms, including the spirit of resistance to that which threatens them, as was manifested in the Salmon War, in order to preserve social cohesion, and to ensure self-defence and a continued existence. If the rationality of power sees short-term gain in engineering fragmentation, its logic amputates and weakens the group in the long term, particularly in its future struggle with external actors.

As shown, stories of the war are normatively charged and include radical critiques of the present. They echo the intimate links between modes of social control, the decline in social interactions and their succeeding effects on collective erasure and anomie engendered by and benefiting both the colonial regime and the internal bureaucratic monocracy. A major effect of such recolonisation through cultural oblivion guarantees detachment from Innu conceptions of inherent and ancestral sovereignty; this facilitates transgressions and more importantly the weakening and decline of resistance to extinguishment. The production of cultural oblivion is thus the core ingredient in the manufacture of Innu consent through the accelerated absorption of colonial definitions and interpretations; it allows an implicit abandonment of the epistemological foundations of their ancestral sovereignty as inferior sources of knowledge and laws.

Cultural condition: tracking the present

As Mol (1977) demonstrates, demand for identity remains a fundamental need of human societies. In fact, this need is a requirement for establishing norms as it identifies what is sacred and what is not. Group identity is, then, shaped by tendencies towards sameness and integration of traits for stability and the maintenance of wholeness. The strengthening of boundaries around the unit enables it to remain well functioning in its environment. In engaging with bolstering their wholeness, humans succeed in achieving health rather than death and reacting effectively to sources of change and danger. However, groups are sui generis and come to exist as entities independent of their individual members. As a result, the greater efficiency of mutual support (in facing attack, in defence or in hunting) is the main explanation of these aggregations, which allow complementarities to better fulfil deficiencies in each unit. For Mol, the search for identity is fundamentally a sociopsychological need for symbols and norms for self-conservation (Mol, 1979).

Langenberg (2005) sustains that sacralisation, through group narration in particular, and as a manufacturer of norms, has a function of social standardisation for the maximisation of in-group capacities, forces, strengths, and their coordination towards a unified willingness to solve common problems. It uncovers a search for mutually consistent decisions. As Andrew Russell (2005) suggests, standards can emerge ‘as a consequence of consensus, the imposition of authority, or a combination of both’. Social standardisation appears, therefore, as the process of ‘articulating and implementing technical knowledge’ pertaining to the praxis of unification and coordination (ibid.).

In their descriptions, Essipiunnuat consistently evoke the current condition of the group and its needs. Their discourse includes perceptions of their own needs, as the Salmon War generation, but also their observations about the post-Salmon War generations, including an overall concern about intergenerational dealings. Anxiety about the future and deep concerns about the cultural continuity of the Essipiunnuat are commonly voiced. The focal point of these accounts is the discernment of an accelerated phenomenon of cultural oblivion, coupled with a need for identity, which exposes the complex interactions between collective oblivion and anomie. Furthermore, there is a deeper collective requirement for norms and rooted self-design to move beyond the crisis of auto-referentiality inherent in psychological colonialism.

Surfacing epistemologies: perspectives on uneasy truths

(i) Collapse of the collective

The stories contain a range of observations filled with perspectives on the state of mind of the post-Salmon War generations. The perceived disappearance of an esprit de corps is a main characteristic. This spirit of solidarity and enthusiasm for the common good has faded away, giving way to a small-minded, egocentric individualism and an obsession with a superficial materialism and consumption. The Essipiunnuat are, it is claimed, more concerned with intimacy (‘their own back yard’), and less attracted by public spaces when not plagued by social phobia. A decline of indigenous heritage and perspectives is a phenomenon observed among all generations, together with the fading away of their representations in the public sphere (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 11).

(ii) Dissociations and the politics of abandonment

Collective alienation from indigeneity appears more patently, however, among the post-Salmon War generations. Younger people tend to distance themselves from the dominant ideology of the band council and, instead, construct identities considered as more ‘real’. This may suggest a phenomenon of misidentification (Costa and Fleming, 2009), which is to say a survival strategy that the minority subject practises ‘in order to negotiate a phobic majoritarian public sphere that continuously elides or punishes the existence of subjects who do not conform to the phantasm of normative citizenship’ (Munoz, 1999, p. 4).

According to Mestenapeo, this phenomenon of dissociation with an indigenous self has to do with the politics inside the community, tinged as it is with autocratic practices and neoliberal ideology. If the definition of Indian status is clear in a reserve according to federal law, members’ recognition and identification with Innu philosophy seems really close to the ground. Generally, Innu identity is only asserted when it is in one’s interest, and denied when perceived as a burden. The dominant mind-set, for example, is characterised by opportunism. It consists of using the ‘Indian status card’ only when it suits one’s interest, such as not paying tax. The state’s definition of ‘indigeneity’, embodied in the Indian Act and profoundly antinomian with ancestral conceptions of kinship and citizenship, has now come to the fore. Colonial law is therefore overwhelmingly identified as the only source of indigeneity. When a section of members abandon Essipiunnuat’s ancestral conception of inherent rights, these are greatly threatened. This is partly because ‘the customs of the group have been long devalued and relegated to last place’, in favour of cultural erosion and ‘assimilation’ with Euroquébécois society (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 13). In other words, not knowing that you are indigenous and that you have your own set of laws is the last stage before ceding them. Interestingly, the Essipit experience has the potential to highlight the ultimate and often unseen stages of colonialism in its psychological and legal forms, and to be of great relevance to other Innu and First Peoples.¹⁷

Ultimately, this posture makes the member ‘a single individual among other individuals’; it generates the erasure of cultural identity. The post-Salmon War generations have become the victims of a community in which there are legally First People, but they are unaware of what that means (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 13). In this context, neoliberal ideology and its epistemological foundations tends to replace Innu philosophy and the humanitarian values and love for the earth that it embodies. This opportunism is also noticeable among Euroquébécois, who have changed their minds about Essipit and want to be closer to it now there are potential financial advantages (Édouard, chapter 4, ref. 2). Psychological and symbolic needs are boosted by additional absorption and internalisation of neoliberal ideology, as well as the colonial selective memory. The group’s assimilation to neoliberal paradigms, widely antinomian to Innu axiology and a powerful force in determining cultural oblivion, is presented as generating self-ignorance and psychological needs commodified and compensated for by material consumption. These phenomena, present in the dominant society, are likely to be more acute in a community already fragile in its connection with indigenous heritage and which has a heavy story of oppression and submission to a long-ranging cultural hegemony.

Stories report that a significant proportion of the younger generations is experiencing a profound crisis of identity. They often take refuge in a Euroquébécois self, the deep crisis of the latter adding to their own psychological coloniality. In some cases, indigenous identity can even be seen as a foreign one, inspiring uneasiness if not actual shame. Prejudice against First Peoples, as a manifestation of self-ignorance, is an existing phenomenon among these generations (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 11). Recent conversations on social media involving Essipiunnuat in their mid 30s have explicitly shown the existence of racist rhetoric towards other Innu. The issues surrounding racism and xenophobia, as much towards other Innu as towards other groups (in particular Muslims), are a taboo subject in the community.

The cultural amnesia experienced by the youngest generation has been previously described, and furthermore the Elders observe a generational gap between conceptions of collective identity and values. This gap is said to have produced forms of amnesia but also a sense of anomie, felt deeply among the youngest. People see the decline in self-identification as Innu as a great, perhaps the greatest, challenge for the group, and a source of its weakening. Ignorance of one’s own past among the post-Salmon War generations was clearly voiced, both by the Salmon War generation and the next.

In addition to the social criticism previously reported, there is the perception of a patent feeling of distance, an anxiety for the disaggregation of the current social order among interviewees, and an inability to assess the value of things. This dissociation from what are seen as valuable collective norms exposes, in its breach, a rising demand for identity and a clarification of collective standards.

There is an underlying and shared awareness of the intimacies between amnesia and anomie, their threat to collective maintenance and as a path towards cultural annihilation in a complex and multifaceted dynamic of auto-genocide. There are clear voices, especially those of Elders, which are calling for wakefulness to the imperatives of remembrance, self-defence, uprisings and war, if necessary. The post-Salmon War generations are generally depicted as less committed, and doubts were expressed about their ability to engage and fight in future wars for the group. In Esther’s view, for example,

(iii) ‘We did not show them’: effects of intergenerational communication breakdowns

If a conflict similar to the Salmon War were declared today, some warriors doubt that there would be many people on the dock, apart from those who were there in 1980–1. Above all, it is this identification with the community and the readiness to mobilise that has been lost (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 5), a capacity widely based on members’ absorption of common standards. Younger generations would also be keener to transgress Innu norms because of intergenerational ruptures in the transmission of Innu-aitun. For example, imprudence in practising traditional activities is a good example of the younger generation’s lack of expertise. As Jeanne maintains, the decline of ancestral hunting and fishing practices should be laid at the door of the previous generation, not the youngest one – the children: ‘They were not taught. If they had been shown adequately, they would be practising it. If our young people are imprudent [on the sea], it is because they were not accompanied by adults and shown.’ (chapter 4, ref. 2).

As an older woman says, however, this task of communicating ancestral knowledge is hard when dealing with the ‘generation of child prodigies, those who know everything before learning it’ (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 2). These young people would be less receptive to ancient teachings, less inclined to listen than to speak. Before, the boys would listen carefully to their fathers during fishing and hunting expeditions; they knew that it was a question of living, of having food to eat, but also of preventing accidents. This type of knowledge inspires no respect in the young, who do what they want to when they want to. Consequently, if they ‘do not return by themselves towards traditional knowledge and practices, they will not learn anything and do nothing’. One needs to be with someone who knows and has experience in order to learn, and to listen to that person, ‘as in life’ (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 2).

(iv) Psychological condition of the youth

Young people are presented as disoriented, and generally unsure about norms and what has value and what does not. They have a hard time assessing their own needs, their capacity for self-evaluation decreased by their disconnection from oral traditions and veiled by amnesia. According to Pishimnapeo, it is essential to take a psychological approach in order to understand the current generation. Only an understanding of their psychological needs would allow intergenerational transmission and cultural continuity to be reanimated. He gives as an example one of his nephews, aged 23, the father of two children, who was seeing a psychologist because of suicidal thoughts. The old man remembers being struck by what he saw, the inability of this young man to take responsibility for himself and figure out his own way in life, despite the means available to him (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 2).

(v) Symptoms of cultural oblivion

Pishimnapeo identifies an alarming psychological need for norms among the youth. He sees this absence of a sense of what has value in life as a major determinant of a rampant desire among the youth to die. In his view, this need could best be met by favouring a move ‘back to basics, to Innu philosophy and way of life’. Yet, internal feelings of emptiness and nihilism among the youth must be put in the context of a generalised material wealth among the new generation, a situation completely opposite to the previous one when ‘work for survival was the only thing we had in mind’ (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 2). He stresses that the generation that preceded his own gave them an increasing strength in the face of challenges. As he says, ‘Kids today have everything easy, which might explain why their problems appear so insurmountable and why they kill themselves so easily.’ If he does not wish them to return to his time, since it was too hard and full of suffering, he believes that knowing about their hardship and ‘being told their truths’ may make them wiser and stronger, that being bluntly honest, despite the discomfort it entails, is part of the remedy. Although it may shock them at first, in the long run it would reinforce intergenerational relationships, since they would know that the Elders can be trusted.

(vi) Marginalisation of Elders

Memory and ancestral teachings are vectors of subversion, since they offer a platform for reassessing the present time. In many aspects, the authority of Elders and the power of their experience and stories were transferred to new out-group and in-group actors such as bureaucrats, communications consultants, and especially lawyers, trained and educated within the dominant institutions and not brought up absorbing Innu perspectives and practices. It is not surprising, then, that younger members do not identify as indigenous in a community that distances itself, explicitly or not, from these values. In this context, a cultural revolution would be the least that would be needed to reinstate Innu philosophy, not as the only source of reference but at least as a valuable one. It would offer a cultural environment that effectively valorised Innu culture and respected ancestral teaching and laws in all aspects of community life. The intergenerational transmission of cultural memory is useless if the social environments in which the young evolve do not reinforce these values, but instead devalorise them for, among other reasons, the purposes of political domination and trade.

In such cases, ensuring that young people identify as Innu could be an impossible task and an insurmountable challenge; they would be less likely to take this path if their parents and community leaders refused to take it. With the community having moved away from esprit de corps, and with the prevalence of a rather negative perception of indigeneity, they have few windows through which to absorb and live in accordance with Innu standards (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 14).

A double-edged search of standards: the reserve as fertile soil for monocracy and resistance

While it is generally assumed that memory has a large normative load, it is as important to consider the effects of collective memory loss, a direct one being the production of anomie. It is not surprising that in parallel with observing the advancement of cultural oblivion, stories also report a common search for standards and norms. The need for identity acknowledged among the youngest members echoes a wider concern with normativity and the cultural continuity of the group. Stories suggest that the community recurrently faces situations of war, during which it must stand and resist and defend its dignity. Each time, the community is obliged to specify what is sacred for it and adapt its internal order accordingly. An example of a potential future situation would be a confrontation with the federal government over the recognition of First People and their ongoing sovereignty (Mesnak, chapter 4, ref. 3).

The continuous struggle for recognition and respect would always require, for Innu, a movement that includes other First Peoples. The defence of Innu tipenitamun, the fundamental collective right to self-determination and the imperative of indigenous auto-governance, concerns all First Peoples. The upcoming struggle will need to be translated, as for others in the past, into affirmative action at the grassroots level. The result of this war will depend on First Peoples unification and their ability to stand together. According to Sam, if members are ‘to mobilise to defend the common good, common norms must be clearly asserted, known and shared’ (chapter 4, ref. 6).

The multifaceted need for norms and their internal reassertion, beyond mere administration and political marketing, is presented as a way of preventing their transgression. In relation to the government, one’s consciousness of what is sacred and has value is a protection against attempts to ‘buy’ and reduce inherent indigenous rights. The auto-definition of internal norms increases the capacity to evaluate external offers, and to remember their sources and historical context in order to prevent the repetition of past mistakes, such as being fooled by government into being ‘parked in a reserve’ (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 14).

(i) Demobilisation

It is often suggested in the stories that the historical condition of the Essipiunnuat requires a permanent readiness to engage in resistance, and there is therefore a need for warriors. Indigenous rights are the subject of intense jealousy among the Euroquébécois population. Since the idea of ancestral sovereignty encounters hostility, courageous people are needed to assert it. As Pierre remarks, ‘this is what is terribly missed in the reserve these days’ (chapter 4, ref. 6). A politics of exclusion, mainly a matter of internal domination that was underway in the community at the time of the interviews, would seem to undermine the group’s capacity to quickly mobilise and become stronger in a situation of war. The current decision-makers tend to withdraw into a closed circle, which is seen as ‘not good at all for the community’ (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6).

(ii) ‘It cut us off from memory’: overcoming intergenerational silences

Among the youngest, there is a persistent and unsatisfied need to know more about the Salmon War; they recognise that their knowledge of it lacks central elements. One person mentions his urge to know the circumstances of the community before the war, in the hope that he would be better informed about why he was suddenly involved in such strife (Adam, chapter 5, ref. 10). Élisabeth maintains that people of her generation need to know why this event occurred, and to hear it from the mouths of those who took part themselves. In her view, the fundamentals of the war, the reasons for it, and why it became so confrontational must be uncovered, to give some of the younger people in the study the chance to understand their strong, unexplained emotions:

Thus, explaining the Salmon War to the youngest generation would open a direct window onto the history of the community and its memory, and give them access to a wider inventory of experience. It would foster a better understanding of the genesis of the contemporary Essipiunnuat and of the current internal system and its normative foundations. Ultimately, Élisabeth believes that it would boost younger members’ sense of inclusion. It would show them how participating in an event to defend the common good can increase the consistency of the group, including the pleasure of belonging to a group that defends itself and ‘what is sacred’ (chapter 4, ref. 4).

Conclusively, intergenerational rupture not only concerns the transmission of the inventory of experience pertaining to the Salmon War but the indigenous memory of the group and the norms at its foundations. It results in a rather gloomy perception of the post-Salmon War generations and their ability to ensure the cultural continuity of the group. But this dissociation with Innu philosophy of law is related to the wider social context and the societal condition of the group, characterised by its dissociation with customary principles, authoritarianism and the integration of a neoliberal ideology and being submerged in the bath of the wider North American society. The heavy effects of the Euroquébécois colonial erasure should also never be minimised. The Essipiunnuat would seem to be facing the weakening of indigenous values inside the group and a reduced access to its heritage.

(iii) Psychological recolonisation and the new dams of silence

For the youngest generations of Essipiunnuat, especially the most marginalised, this weakening of indigenous values is voiced as a form of psychological distress and disorientation – the feeling that nothing has value. Interviewees make a direct link between self-ignorance and the transgression of Innu norms, as well as between amnesia and anomie. They also notice a dynamic of misidentification with indigenous referents among the youth, a far-reaching decrease in commitment and a low receptivity to Innu philosophy and values. As opposed to the Salmon War generation, the post-Salmon War one has always known material security, but it is now plagued with an intense psychological and symbolic need for identity. At its most basic, this reveals the inherent burden of belonging to a group steadily reorganised in accordance with the colonial reserve and ‘Indian’ status as a conceptual foundation, alongside a persistent demand for sacredness, the transcendence of materiality, and the experience of immanence while living on the land (nutshimit).

Linked to the observed collapse of the group’s esprit de corps is a need for collective standards, something felt by everyone interviewed for the research. Without a clear sense of what is good or bad for the group, there is no possibility of identifying transgressions of the group’s dignity or freedoms, or of mobilising members for their defence. They would otherwise be condemned to negotiate the modalities of their own burial as Innu. Only a wider understanding of their community and its background will lead the post-Salmon War generation to overcome its disorientation, find explanations for its ambivalent feelings towards the community and be able to engage in defending its continuity beyond the unified dimensions and monopoly of public discourse inherent in monocratic rule.

Does the feeling of emptiness, absence and melancholia in the post-Salmon War generation reflect a form of the collective’s agony? Either way, the post-war generation’s desire to know deserves close attention since it is calling for intergenerational investment in collective self-conservation. The intergenerational gap felt in relation to the Salmon War is perceptibly related to a disconnection from cultural memory, which, as Assmann and Hölscher have shown, affects capacities for the ‘concretion of identity’ (‘we are this and not that’). They rightly point out that the capacity to reconstruct a concept of the self and actualise it within a contemporary frame of reference, to access collectively shared knowledge through transmission and the cultivation of values among the current generations, is a prerequisite for individuals’ sense of obligation towards the group (Assmann and Hölscher, 1988). Consequently, it could eventually mobilise the new generation of Essipiunnuat in forms of collective resistance. How can it be ensured that the younger generation’s desire to hear and to know will meet the older generation’s desire to talk and transmit?

This would help to deal with a heavy, if not unbearable, colonial heritage that has swallowed and crushed whole peoples over centuries; the type of overwhelming sociohistorical processes with no transformative outcomes and apparent reversibility.

Figures of continuation: from planned annihilation to self-designs

After thinking well and having once taken, I an Indian, the decision to write, here is what I understood: anyone who thinks to accomplish something will encounter difficulties but despite this, she should never get discouraged.

An Antane Kapesh (1979, preface)

Essipiunnuat have expressed their views on the past and the present, but they have also reflected on a possible continuation for the group. As cultural oblivion is produced, it can be countered through communication and stories. Interviewees spoke a great deal about what should be transmitted to the youngest generation and how it should be done. What they wish to transmit of their experience and essipiunnu cultural memory clearly evidences their interpretation of current needs, the group cultural values and what should be normative and cherished for the benefit of future generations.

Intergenerational transmission concerns making investments in order to determine future choices; it attempts to shape a future collective self. As a subjective act of sacralisation, transmission can be defined as a performance of self-design composed of strategies aiming to find what has value and ways of relating as well as defining commonalities. Such strategies also aim to identify what is shared and what deserves to be defended. Based on information contained in the inventory of experiences, it carves out a model that should be reproduced rather than avoided.

Transmission, based on the imagination of a possible self, relies and feeds on the pre-existing data of a group, on feelings, and on signs as well as images. This type of communication, as practised by the older generation, through narration but also through silence about the past, is a powerful determinant for the sense of self of the next generations. In this last section, the contents of what people think should be transmitted to a future generation, about the Salmon War, will be looked at as well as the means for achieving this transmission.

What to transmit: a confluence of stories

Take care of yourself.

Paul Ross Jr.

Three main themes emerge from people’s stories in terms of the content that ‘should be transmitted’ to current and future Essipiunnuat generations. They correspond to the cultural memory of the group, its experience of the Salmon War and fundamentals of the group’s cultural laws and practices.

Essipiunnuat oral tradition and memory

Interviewees mentioned four main components of the group’s experience that should be transmitted. The wider stories of all First Peoples of Turtle Island, prioritising those who have a historical relationship with the Essipiunnuat, such as other Innu communities: the Eeyou, Atikamekw, Anishinaabeg, Wendat and Mohawk etc., is one component. Younger people need ‘a global view of indigenous communities’. They will then be in a better position to reflect on the presence of all First Peoples on the continent, and more easily recognise and appreciate the existence of their own group, its history, way of life and historical condition (Riel, chapter 4, ref.3).

The younger generation needs to be told about the ancient way of life of their ancestors. They should be aware of the Innu way of life that moves in accordance with seasonal displacement. They might then appreciate the historical significance of the mouth of the Esh Shipu River as a meeting place, as well as a central dimension of ancestral custom, which consists of always returning to the location of your birth in summertime, as the salmon do (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 6). They should be told that life on the reserve has not always been as it is now; until quite recently (the early 20th century) there were, for example, few houses, surrounded by ‘beautiful landscapes, looking like a paradise, not polluted’. Indeed, it has been requested that the agricultural experience of the group should not be hidden away after being sedentarised on the reserve. Agricultural practices were complementary to fishing, hunting and trapping activities. It should be clear that since sedentarisation, agricultural practices ‘were also necessary to survive when living in the reserve’ so that ‘everybody had a garden and a cow, horses, chickens and pigs; farm animals’. The idea is that agriculture, as a component of autarky, is also part of the collective experience of the group (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 6).

The collective experience of colonialism, this sinister dimension of memory, should not be ‘neglected since it is central to the history of the community’ (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 4 and 5). Understanding the colonial history of the Essipiunnuat will provide them with keys to decode the actual issues facing the group. Among other elements, children and young people should be aware of the racism that their ancestors have endured, including the discrimination encountered at school and the mistreatment to which ‘savages’ were submitted (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 3 and 4). They should be able to see the links between the problems we face as First People today, the history of our colonisation and the catastrophe of the residential school system. It must be made clear that dimensions of our current human condition are related to children being forcibly removed from their family at an early age by the authorities, the type of violence they experienced, and how they were widely abused by priests and nuns. They need to know that First Peoples never gave their consent and the authorities never asked permission. The lives of these children, as with today’s young people, were with their parents. Back then, Innu life was on the land. In the residential schools, they were not learning anything ‘Innu’; they did not feel good, and they were missing their parents terribly so it was hard to concentrate and learn. That was their culture, they were proud of being indigenous, but they were kidnapped; they wanted to return to be with their parents but could not. The residential school system deeply traumatised our societies, and the effects are felt to this day (Riel, chapter 4, ref. 3).

Figure 13. Essipiunnuat, members of the Ross family c.1940 (family archives).

An alternative Canadian history is needed, other than the one in the books that indigenous children were forced to study at school, in order to show how this country’s goal has been to undermine indigenous sovereignty (Édouard, chapter 4, ref. 4). It needs to be emphasised that the history of Canada is about oppression based on colonialism and attempts to extinguish indigenous cultures and rights. The history of the Essipiunnuat that children will hear and read should be clear about the fact that their ancestors always resisted usurpation (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 2).

A pedagogy of the Salmon War

The Essipiunnuat who witnessed the Salmon War view it as ‘the most important chapter in the history of the community; and it should be always remembered’ (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 7). Since the war was a core event for the group, it is essential that younger Essipiunnuat place it in its historical context. They may then be more able to understand the issues at stake for the community – the importance of the movement as well as the symbolic importance of the salmon net. They will be better armed to ‘decipher and read the actual condition of the community, realise where we started, what was done, and that everything has not always been easy as today, that some people fought for what they have today’ (Adam, chapter 5, ref. 6).

For the Salmon War to be a whole chapter in the history of the community, it is not the people who fought, or their enemies who should receive attention, but the objectives pursued at the time (Adam, chapter 5, ref. 6). It should be known that the Salmon War was waged ‘to defend our rights, to have them recognised by the dominant society; we were requesting respect for our dignity as First People’ (Édouard, chapter 4, ref. 4). The Salmon War should be presented as the reason why the community still exists today; it was a struggle for collective survival in the face of renewed attempts to extinguish inherent Innu rights and annihilate Innu cultural identity (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 1).

The praxis of resistance is central to the experience of the Salmon War and it is a core component of transmission. Memories of the war contain a panoply of examples of good practice and of role models who resisted oppression and the extinguishment of inherent collective rights and rebelled against illegitimate authorities (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 8 ). The experience of war also comprises lessons on how to succeed in resistance and war. For example, if the decision is made to go to war:

The power of unity and the conditions for an optimisation of collective potentialities is certainly a central theme of the Essipiunnuat experience of resistance. Transmission should therefore include information about the fact that though small, if you are determined, you can fight a bigger group; that ‘when you want something essential for you, you can get it as long as you unite, and you are not afraid to charge’ (Tshak, chapter 4, ref. 1). Future generations should remember how the whole community came together and reached a relative unity of will, but also why it arrived at this decision to fight to protect the rights bequeathed by the ancestors for future generations. ‘They should be informed about what is primordial and what is not, and that we defended something that was really sacred for us’ (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 6).

The results of resistance, cultural assertion, uprising and waging war should be presented (Adam, chapter 5, ref. 6). The outcome of the movement of resistance has to be understood, as should the ‘truth about interethnic relations, and above all the increased respect towards the Innu following the war; that resisting oppression can bring more respect from enemies’ (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 3). It is imperative they know ‘where they come from; that if they are here today, it is because wars were waged, and that there were moments of assertion resulting in external recognition’ (Adam, chapter 5, ref. 6 and 8). They must be informed that resistance ‘triggered the assertion of who you are’ and that ‘it allowed us to pass from a state of shame at being Indian to reclaim, and even be proud of, being Essipiunnuat today with its advantages and disadvantages.’

They should also know about the positive consequences of standing up for one’s identity: among these being the rise of community auto-development, the emergence of the communitarian system, and the unity of will around the objective of acting together for the wellbeing of everyone (Adam, chapter 4, ref. 3). A recurring theme in the stories is that the coming generation should be made aware that the group is always at risk if it does not defend itself and is blindly obedient to the state:

A fundamental teaching is that if you stop standing up for your rights as an indigenous person or group, you will lose them. Indeed, to renounce your rights means to renounce your Innu heritage, and vice versa. Stories suggest that knowledge of one’s indigeneity is the cornerstone of resistance; if one does not feel Innu, it is highly unlikely that attempts at extinguishment will be resisted. Children and young people’s introduction to the defence of their inherent rights can only be translated into practice if it is based on the transmission of a cultural identity and values (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 12). Receptivity to an ancestral conception of sovereignty and vision, such as Innu tipenitamun, ultimately depends on identification with Innu values and cultural identification remains a prerequisite for any successful initiative of resistance (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 2).

Essipiunnuat cultural heritage: from respect to the art of consensus

The last theme for transmission to the next generation, concerns the intergenerational communication of norms and core components of Essipiunnuat heritage and stories.

Transmission of a specific ethic of respect for all life is central. This core element of cultural identity is translated, for example, in the common disapproval of selling meat from animals that have been hunted and the assertion that ‘moose should be killed only for our subsistence’ (Édouard, chapter 5, ref. 5), although in some cases, ducks can be exchanged for bullets (Pierre, chapter 5, ref. 4). The guiding principle that an Innu must only collect what he really needs, and not ‘cause harm’ while hunting, fishing or trapping, includes the obligation to disapprove of practices that are disrespectful of these codes. The ancestors teach that you should not shoot a duck, for example, if you might not be able to retrieve it. It must be transmitted that the act of not wasting is not only ‘a respect for the environment but above all a respect for your pantry and for yourself ’ (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 4). For someone to be able to say ‘That is enough, I’ve killed one or two moose, and that is enough for my people, I can stop’ is a sign that they have acquired an essential element of ‘being’ Innu (Raoul, chapter 4, ref. 7). It is also a ‘sense of sharing’ and ‘to leave food for others’. This is perceived as a fundamental truth, that ‘if one does not respect nature, one lacks respect for one’s own rights and for oneself as human, but also for future generations who will suffer from such deeds.’ (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 12).

A ‘good’ Innu is careful and prudent in conducting his or her traditional activities and life in general. They do not jeopardise their own or others’ security needlessly. Yet, prudence is something that has to be learned, as ‘any animal that will teach his baby to take care and watch out’. It has to be taught to children as part of their cultural heritage to survive in their environment. This is why ‘there needs to be an older person accompanying the young person, until the young person is able to do it alone’ (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 3). Prudence is central since it prevents accidents, and helps younger people ‘not to get lost’ (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 4).

Transmission of the sense of dignity in indigeneity is seen as crucial. It implies a sense that your culture is valuable, that the indigenous point of view is valid and deserves consideration and respect. Pride in being indigenous reduces tolerance of attacks on indigenous human dignity. Yet, this sense of indigenous honour also includes appreciation of past generations and consideration for the ancestors and their wisdom. Only a sense of dignity and honour can lead children and young people to be assertive in front of enmity, looking directly and confidently into their opponents’ eyes:

It is seen as imperative for children and young people to overcome the colonial representations of Innu society as deficient and degenerate, condemning people identified with it to failure, dependence and despair. The new generations should be aware that being Innu is ‘something very positive in our lives’ and ‘a treasure of knowledge and wisdom that you hold’ (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 4). Not adopting this attitude is to dishonour your own heritage; not recognising and honouring the deeds of preceding generations and our ancestors is an unacceptable sign of ingratitude (ibid.). We have to remember that some people fought for the rights we have now, that sacrifices were made in confrontation and war (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 8). Young people need to know that to fight for your dignity is the greatest source of pride (Ivan, chapter 4, ref. 3), but also that it is not by being disrespectful that you gain respect. On the contrary, that ‘respect is best acquired by offering it to others, especially to those who do not know it and cannot give it to you’ (Riel, chapter 4, ref. 1).

Figure 14. A present-day Essipiunnuat site (personal archives, 2010).

An Essipiunnu does not receive orders from anyone. He needs no licence from any authority, either indigenous or from Québec. No government has authority over an Essipiunnu (Pierre, chapter 5, ref. 4). It is his own consciousness and mind that guide him. Accepting rules over Innu activities signifies obedience and submission to external control. That is how freedoms are lost (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 12). When the Québec and Canadian authorities do not respect Innu rights, there needs to be an automatic response, since ‘if you give them an inch they take a mile’ (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 5). In the group, freedom of speech is a core value. When there is a problem, ideas should be suggested fearlessly, and solutions proposed (Pierre, chapter 5, ref. 9). Young people have to be taught not to expect things to fall into their lap, but instead to take steps to realise them:

What has been lost, and should be reinstated, is intrinsic resistance to any form of usurpation (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 7): ‘Do not let anybody oppress you’ (Ivan, chapter 4, ref. 1). Young people should be taught that they have rights, but also that these rights should be protected, even if it means waging war. Young Innu must understand that,

The young should be taught never to accept the withdrawal of their inherent sovereignty. They need to have instilled in them ‘the strong feeling that nobody will take away what I have’ (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 6). In waging war for one’s rights, it is not enough to be persuaded about the worthiness of the cause, one must also persuade others. But it should be clear from the first that these rights are sacred and non-negotiable, and are not redeemable for money. They cannot be put on the negotiation table (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 17). It is essential that future generations can always return to the source of their rights, and reassert them.

First Peoples should never play the government’s game. When governments come forward with proposals, Innu members should ask ‘Do we really need that to live? Is it essential for us?’, so that ‘before selling our rights, there are many other things to do’ (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 7). Young people should be able to discern between legitimate and illegitimate authority, respect the first and revolt against the second. ‘We should train them to judge what is fair and what is not. But they should be able to accept just a “no”. This is part of living together in a community’ (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 3). A central element of transmission remains communitarian spirit and values. The young should learn to be communitarian, which also signifies resisting that which goes against the interests of the group (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 5).

In the stories, elements that should not be transmitted were also mentioned, such as enemies’ personal names. Certain vulnerable individuals or their descendants could be harmed by being named (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 4). Indeed, interviewees offered ‘gentler’ versions of certain episodes, removing images of violence. Some felt that the younger generation should be told as little as possible about the use of violence, because it causes more harm than good. When being related to the young, accounts of the war should also emphasise the importance of dialogue and negotiation (Riel, chapter 4, ref. 2). However, there are debates among participants about what should or should not be transmitted; some pleaded for the integral transmission of information, including the fact that participants in the war had been inclined to solve problems with their fists (Maxence, chapter 4, ref. 4). One Elder, however, suggested that the younger generation should be told little of the Salmon War. The emphasis on the past should instead focus on the ancient way of life of their ancestors, including the virtues and care required to achieve success. The mythologising of the Salmon War, serving a specific role of legitimation, tends to overshadow other more fundamental components of the Essipiunnuat’s past, such as ancestral teachings and concerns with intergroup harmony (Jeanne, chapter 4, ref. 2).

The praxis of cultural continuity

People identified specific tools, devices and means by which the content is to be transmitted. These techniques define even more precisely conceptions of Essipiunnuat heritage and its continuity. They propose a range of tactics for intergenerational communication and transmission, but direct encounters, contacts and community projects are prioritised.

Direct encounters: meetings, reflections and actions

An increase in intergenerational encounters is imperative to improved transmission. Meetings between young and older people should be organised regularly to discuss issues pertaining to hunting, fishing, customs and rights (Mestenapeo, chapter 4, ref. 11). Honesty should guide the intergenerational exchanges. Children should be told the naked truth, and the parrêsía might ‘catch their attention and make them think, even if they ... get upset at first’ (Pishimnapeo, chapter 4, ref. 2).

In Napeo’s view, emblematic communitarian actions should be launched in the same spirit as the symbolic net that was spread to catch salmon for everyone during the war. It was considered crucial for older people and the young to taste the fresh salmon. Children should be involved at every stage, gathering salmon with their fathers and uncles, cleaning it, sharing it around the houses and offering it into the hands of the older community members. Such actions facilitate intergenerational connections, producing pleasure and joy for everybody. The quantity is not as important as the fact that you took it yourself to someone else in the community, and they are happy to be given something that is precious to them. But this could also be done with partridges, moose and seals. This is investment in your community, increasing your greatest treasure: communitarian values and spirit (chapter 4, ref. 5).

Community gatherings and empowerment

An increase in meetings and other encounters between members of the group was seen as important, as communal celebrations are an essential point of exchange and transmission. However, these meetings should be more inclusive, since off-reserve members tend to be left out. Many have never lived in the community, so they often do not know about their group and have had no access to its traditions. This results in non-identification with the community, and in hostility as well as idealisation. One proposal is to organise a communitarian hunting trip in the spring. A small camp could be set up. That would create space to be together and to participate in exchange. Those who had not grown up on the reserve would learn more about their community, and some would go on to become ambassadors for it. After the community hunt, a celebration and dinner could be organised. It would facilitate exchange between those living in the reserve and those living away from it, and therefore reinforce the community’s inner peace. There would be a general invitation sent to all members (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 5).

Remember together: memory projects

As well as the wish to learn more about the experience of others, some participants in the war expressed a desire to tell their own story. These life stories are perceived as the most important material to be included in an oral history of the Essipiunnuat. There is a wish to participate in community oral history initiatives such as requesting that a circle be set up to ensure that as much information as possible is documented and potentially transmitted. Although it is better to cover some subjects through individual interviews, ‘we remember better in a group, together’, says Ivan (chapter 4, ref. 6). The meetings between individuals would enhance their memories, find complementarities, and a higher level of remembrance would be reached.

The importance of producing a document for future generations was identified; a book they can refer to forever, with references to the past and the time of their ancestors. It would make a link between past and future generations:

The history of the community should be conducted among the general public, house by house, person by person, and be based on a community oral history project. The information will then be complete. There is nothing better than consulting the community directly (Tshak, chapter 4, ref. 4). A book is identified as the best tool for memory; it is less expensive than a film and it should include many pictures (Sam, chapter 4, ref. 2 and 3). A document specific to the Salmon War was requested and a more general one on the history of Essipit, with a focus on purpose and results (Édouard, chapter 4, ref. 4). Such documentation will prove to future generations that this war was really waged, and it would include the names of those who were involved and their actions (Ernest, chapter 4, ref. 15).

The production of a well-made and attractive documentary, able to capture young people’s attention, was proposed, in order to show future generations the strength and power of a community that is united. It would be used as a tool for intergenerational communication. The film could put the Salmon War in the wider context of the extermination of First Peoples on Turtle Island or the Americas, and especially in the United States. The Salmon War could, in this context, be presented as an awakening. Raoul recommends calling the film The Awakening of a Force, which refers to a power that was ‘buried, a force that was more individual but that merged, that became a kind of terrific communitarian might’ (chapter 4, ref. 8).

The necessity of establishing a community strategy in order to empower young people and give them opportunities to connect with Essipiunnuat ancestral knowledge was pointed out. Priority should be given to reinforcing their relationship with the land and the community, but also with other parts of the world. First, training for young people should be organised, while they are ‘not too old, because at 16–17 they are often already spoilt to a certain degree’. During the weekend, for example, a small group of people could go into the forest. Pierre suggests ‘not to put too much pressure on them, let them go … you will see which ones are the best, those who like it the most. Some of them might become trappers’ (chapter 4, ref. 7). The idea is to return to the basics. It should be part of their education to taste ‘the real life, freedom. Your identity, as indigenous, is based on freedom.’ The young must ‘experience their freedom and learn to be free’ (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 6).

Young people should be involved in concrete initiatives for the autonomy of the community, such as a community garden. It was also mentioned that a conference should be organised for schoolchildren with a speaker accompanied by someone who took part in the war, who could begin by saying, ‘It is the pride of being indigenous, of being Innu, and above all of being from the community of Essipit, that brings me in front of you today’ (Riel, chapter 4, ref. 5). They should also be given more opportunities to travel and have exchanges with other communities around the world. Children should be told, ‘go and explore beyond your community; travel, but come back to reinforce, enlarge your community, improve it and pass on all the wealth and knowledge obtained outside of your community and the children’ (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 4).

The establishment of a small museum on Essipiunnuat heritage and memory was proposed; a house of cultural memory. There would be lots of visual elements, photographs and images, as well as an illustrated chronology of the history of the community to orientate the visitor. One section should be dedicated to the ancestral hunting territories, with a special focus on family ancestral territories. All of this should be illustrated with geographical maps. There should also be information about how these territories were usurped. The benefit of such a space would be particularly important for the youngest generations who could find out about their family lines, their ancestors. They would visually see their ancestors in relation to Assi. There should also be information on the ancestors’ way of life, their tools, how they travelled (with their dogs, for example). This would be an excellent tool for introducing the community to foreigners. The young people would be proud of that. It would give them the feeling that the community is old, that their ancestors were indigenous. Tools (snowshoes, arrows, clothes and so on) could be exhibited, alongside explanations of how they were made. It would empower them to be reminded that their ancestors were First Peoples. The museum could be started from material that already exists in the community. People would say, ‘Some have blonde or red hair, some have blue eyes, but there was cultural transmission, and they are still indigenous.’ There would be stories about the Ross and Moreau families, but also the Dominique, Bacon, Aglée, Nicolas, Denis, Napentie families and so on (Tshak, chapter 4, ref. 4).

The power of research and materials for transmission

People reported the need to ensure that the results of the investigation would be accessible to members as well as transferred to future generations. The present book (originally a community-based PhD research project) was seen as a device for gathering cultural information, for facilitating intergenerational communication and also conserving cultural knowledge for future generations (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 9).

The research was seen as a tool to give younger people access to the experience of those who lived through the Salmon War. Their experience and testimony could help younger people to understand many things concerning their own background:

The information gathered could be transmitted in different forms, according to the community’s needs (Karl, chapter 4, ref. 8). People who took part in the project could gather and listen to the results of the investigation, although some of them asked that access such gatherings be restricted, since ‘remembering the Salmon War is very likely to awaken old demons among our neighbours [meaning people of Les Escoumins]’ (Esther, chapter 4, ref. 6). Younger members of the community would attend as well as leaders. At the end of the presentation, intergenerational exchanges would be encouraged (Mesnak, chapter 4, ref. 3). The young people could ask questions and the older people could answer (Napeo, chapter 4, ref. 9). The presentation should be accompanied by a booklet or a short film. It would refresh memories (Ivan, Chapter 4, ref. 6). Many stressed the importance of incorporating pictures and images (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 7).

Some people asked that this investigation be used for a book or even a documentary, since it would illustrate how the Innu have always fished in the mouth of the river, and that between 30 and 40 families came each summer to do so. A history of salmon fishing in the river would make visible to younger people the symbolism of the changes imposed on the Essipiunnuat way of life over time. Young people need to understand the transformations that have led up to today; especially how changes in their way of life were determined by the arrival of the lumber companies and how the Innu were displaced. There could even be a permanent exhibition which would include pictures of our past warriors, as a way of honouring them with pictures and texts (Mesnak, chapter 4, ref. 3).

Beyond dams and masks: the hard work of truth

Stories about the Salmon War inform the present time and condition of the group in different ways. They report on social determinants that contribute to keeping the memories of the war in the past, when not pushing them into oblivion. They mirror sentiments of nostalgia, social criticism and direct observations about present circumstances. They reveal the hardship of seizing the present, what it means to speak under colonial rule, and the profound effect exerted by the barbells of psychological colonialism on the group’s relationship with the past, and therefore its own truths. Essipiunnuat’s stories expose the imperative for group continuity, mainly through considerations of what should be transmitted to the youngest generations, but also by examining how this might take place.

Traversing these rich perspectives highlights how silence has not erased the Salmon War from the group’s memory. Deeply entrenched as it is in people’s life-stories, its evocation generates a strong emotional and normative charge. Because of this, the Salmon War has a quasi-incendiary potential to destabilise social relations and the established orders, outside as much as inside the group. Reconnecting with the memory of war provoked interviewees’ reimmersion in their past-self schemas, generating the actualisation of their past postures. It is by understanding the normative power of the memories of war, in the minds of the participants, that this research has revealed the fine architecture of its forgetfulness.

The post-Salmon War generations live in a community, or are linked to a community (in the case of those living off-reserve), they often know little about. They live with the social and emotional heritage of the past and the shadows of intergenerational trauma, but without much knowledge of what preceded their time. In this context, it is natural for these younger generations to ignore, disregard or even deny an indigenous heritage that the society into which they are now, to different degrees, deeply related perceives as negative, degenerative and deficient. But wasn’t this sui nullius and the production of the Indian-as-object empty of an Innu subjectivity the endgame of an entire Canadian regime’s strategy in respect of First Peoples up to now? Isn’t Essipit a ‘success’, and the recognition it has received from mainstream society, including the government, a mark of its epistemological collapse?

In his book The Imaginary Indian (1992), Daniel Francis reported eloquently on the ‘Indian’ as the ‘creation of the European’ (what I’ve called in this book the ‘Indian-as-object’). As he explicitly states, ‘while Indians are the subject of this book, Native people are not’, and he adds that his investigation is not about ‘native cultural history’ but ‘the images of Native people that White Canadians manufactured, believed in, feared, despised, admired, taught their children.’ (p. 21)

But what happens when a leader or people ‘representing’ First Peoples wear the costume of the ‘imaginary Indian’? When the exogenous images produced are internalised or used for marketing purposes, political control or simply to conceal an ignorance or ambivalence about their heritage as First Peoples, what then?

Our interest thus lies in the way by which Innu, especially those in positions of power, reproduce and use these images, generating a simulacrum of indigeneity (the ‘simulated-Indian’). To borrow an image from An Kapesh, what are the consequences of putting on Punchinello’s coat? Perhaps as Francis asserts, ‘it is part of the legacy of the Imaginary Indian that we lack a vocabulary with which to speak about these issues clearly.’ (Francis, 1997, p. 9.)

The fact remains that the post-Salmon War generations are facing an impressive number of dams which prevent the intergenerational flow of stories. One is the intensive channelling of local voices through various, often highly sophisticated, methods of communication that has helped to dissolve Innu critics and perspectives, as well as to shape the idea of collective consent to modern treaty processes. These practices have had a mutilating effect on the diversity of internal perspectives in favour of a single official story serving the purposes of band council authority and colonial governments’ interests.

The post-war generations do indeed witness the overuse of the term ‘Innu’, for it is used in superficial and decontextualised ways, either about political strategies and negotiations with municipalities and states, or as a term exploited and commodified for the purposes of marketing. The existence of the simulated Indian is inseparable from financial and corporate interests, even if they have a community base. This reinforces already existing feelings of inner emptiness associated with indigeneity: the fear of death, the amnesia, lack of self-knowledge, psychological distress, and dependence that come with living on a colonial reserve. Such places were purposedly designed to generate an ‘absence’ of the Innu; the only allowed subjectivity being the desire to forget and disappear. It must be stressed that this perception of emptiness and distance is particularly experienced by off-reserve members who now compose the majority of Essipiunnuat but have no political rights.

The post-Salmon War generations (at least up to 2016) voice a need for identity and belonging within a group that is struggling with the forces of forgetfulness and a constant fear of cultural annihilation, which favours a metaphysic of complete domination. It will take yet more time to assess the impact of the internal regime of power, with its progressive authoritarian features. Neither jobs, bank accounts, real estate, cars nor recognition or approval from colonial society can heal the psychological scourges of colonial violence; it is only a superficial bandage for the soul. If Essipit’s experience with socioeconomic development over the last four decades is important and rich, the Essipiunnuat’s experience in psychological recolonisation is equally if not more so; it is an extraordinary window, which may benefit other First Peoples, onto the fact that ‘playing the good Indian’ is not without consequences.

But at this point, there is clear evidence in the stories that autocracy has progressively made the entire group captive to the projected interiority of one individual, psychologically, at the very least. Though a fascinating topic, the study of the relationship between an individual leader and his own past goes beyond the scope of this investigation. Nevertheless, it remains highly relevant for future research within the wider context of the phenomenon of rewriting under autocratic rules, such as has been happening in the United States since 2017.

___________

1 In this chapter, ‘actuality’ refers to what is considered as ‘real’ or ‘facts’ about the group’s actual cultural conditions according to the stories.

2 ‘It cost the community a lot, but it is not the money that hurts. It is the human cost that was enormous. It is the human relations that have been hit hard. Yes, and in all families. There are no exceptions. We are a very small community.’ (Adam, ch. 4, ref. 10)

3 Various elements of post-traumatic syndromes were identified.

4 For more information, see the Essipit band council website: http://www.innu-essipit.com/index2.php?rubrique=lesessipiunnuat. It should also be noted that a number of these Euroquébécois employees tend to self-identify as ‘eastern métis’; this phenomenon, widespread in Québec, afflicts the Essipiunnuat with a new form of cultural colonialism whose harmful effects of erasure are now known (Leroux, 2019).

5 The band administration makes a rigid differentiation between on-and off-reserve members. Off-reserve members cannot access the general assembly, vote in elections or access some programmes reserved for the residents only. This is an important issue in the group, especially in 2019, since there is a long-term strategy of forging consent for the signature of a modern treaty by trying to control as far as possible the political power of the members and the general assembly.

6 Non-resident members have no political rights; they cannot run for, vote in or attend the assembly.

7 Ce qui est mystérieux avec l’oubli, c’est qu’il n’est jamais réellement réussi (my translation).

8 The term ‘actuality’ is used in the sense of people’s perceptions of Essipiunnuat’s reality and actual conditions.

9 The use of the term ‘pow wow’ has generated controversies in recent years, in Essipit and in wider Québec society. [See Cassidi’s interview with Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine (2016), an article on the use of ‘pow wow’ as a title of a TV show in Québec.] The term refers originally to a form of collective ceremony among First Peoples. In Essipit, it is currently used to name a form of annual festival that includes social activities, music shows and consumption of alcohol, but that has little to do with its original meaning. In some communities, the choice was made to conduct two gatherings, one closer to the original pow wow and its ceremonies, with spiritual and symbolic meanings, and another more public and commercial and more like a festival.

10 Although some of these criticisms could, to a certain extent, also be applied to managers and representatives, leaders and\or band administrators here refers primarily to those who were in place at the time of the main interviews in 2008–9 and until 2016.

11 Consultants and law firms working for the band are natural defenders of the process of negotiation and its outcomes. Opponents to the process are demonised, further reducing the space for criticism to be heard. Overall, the negotiation process has become an ‘economic activity’.

12 The then chief Martin Dufour sent letters to some of the Elders asking them not to criticise the council in public.

13 This is a reference to the former general manager, Georges.

14 In the sense that ‘it would have all been sold.’

15 Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, http://fnp-ppn.aandc-aadnc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/Search/FNRegPopulation.aspx?BAND_NUMBER=86&lang=fra (consulted 10 Jan. 2019).

16 For an extensive study of truth-speaking ( parrêsia) and its implications, see Foucault (1984).

17 For further reflections on the discursive construction of Indigenous identity under the conditions of colonization on Turtle Island, see Coburn, 2019).