4. Stories on the transformative experience of war: from self-empowerment to a metaphysics of domination

The 20 interviewees associate their experience of the Salmon War with a range of outcomes, predominantly personal and collective self-transformations. There is a common assumption that the group emerged transformed from the episode. This chapter investigates the main theme of change in autobiographical memories as a result of participating in the uprising, and exposes the main figures and schemes of these stories of self-transformation.

The topics of collective action and uprising and their multifaceted and transformative effects have received growing attention in recent times, with revolt being identified as an accelerating global phenomenon. The study of uprisings provides fresh insights into the emergence of new social dynamics, movements, subjectivities, emerging rationalities, and the transformation of normative orders (Bertho, 2009; Drury and Reicher, 2000; Dupuis-Déri, 2016). Yet, the investigation of this intricate phenomenon, closely linked to the present, requires some new approaches and an ability to constantly renew our gaze.

Not surprisingly, the established order, including in micro-groups, tends to deny such occurrences, which threatens to undermine the foundations of their legitimacy. This is even truer for investigations of past revolts, stories about which have the normative power to modify the parameters for evaluating the current social order and generate historical reinterpretations, even decades after their occurrence.

The study of revolt thus requires a capacity for distancing oneself from actual categorisation and concepts, and a revalorisation of phenomenological approaches, embracing multidimentionality (Hamidi, 2019). It demands an epistemology that breaks with established orders to document episodes of their contestation. For investigators, it adds another challenge on top of the multiple forces producing oblivion. In fact, the investigation of uprisings should thereby comprise a greater consideration for their potentiality as a foundation, the subjective discontinuity they propose, and the alternative episteme it might suggest (Bertho 2009; Della Porta and Diani, 2006; Drury et al., 2005; Drury et al., 2003).

Involvement in collective action (such as protests, uprisings and riots) generates profound redefinitions of the boundaries of collective selfhood. Such experiences are coupled with radical changes in social identity, novel sets of social relations and the emergence of fresh social identities, as well as the actualisation of old ones and their celebration (Drury et al., 2000). Hence, the phenomenon of cultural re-emergence among marginalised groups can be significantly intensified in the context of political and cultural assertion (Chew, 2007).

Reemergence consists broadly of the return of the repressed normative order and the shared standards contained in cultural memory (Assmann, 2006). Uprising and revolt are thus associated with attempts to overthrow the related normative order, which is imposed and internalised. Identity politics must be considered in the light of a highly political, cultural fragmentation and the larger processes of hegemonic decline. That decline directly fosters the emergence of the dynamics of re-identification and carriers of a new discourse (Friedman, 2004).

New cultural forms were clearly generated out of the specific sociohistorical context of the Salmon War. Local subjectivities and epistemic mutations are directly linked in stories to wider global processes. In practice, the decline of external hegemony and definitions seems to be correlated with people divesting themselves from self-negating values and the emergence of new spaces for producing their own self-definitions (Black, 2007). Revolt as a concretisation of agency implies a rich form of self-design and symbolic mutations.

The experience of uprising has been associated with the phenomenon of collective self-objectivism (CSO), reinforcement and empowerment (Drury and Winter, 2003). The actualisation of people’s social identity is central to the experience of rebellion against illegitimate orders, practices and systems. In research, this form of categorical rejection, and the parallel quest for reversibility, is inseparable from the salience of identity politics. It is also known that normative order remains one of the most powerful determinants for human activity (Turner and Killian, 1987, p. 37),¹ attitudes and actions. Also, technologies of social control can be expected to change according to the alteration of social standards. The experience of uprising, and its related transformations, is coupled with the emergence of new modes of social control and the production of new self-representations (Marger, 2009): essentialisation and its underlying tyrannies that often reappear and serve to legitimise monocratic behaviours and justify the internal erasure of dissidence.

The Essipiunnuat’s experiences of the Salmon War in relation to their self-transformative dimensions are articulated around four main themes. The first concerns the remodelling of people’s relational system, mainly comprising the breakdown and re-forming of relationships, associated with a dynamic of reidentification and a switch of group reference. A second pertains to alterations in people’s self-conceptions and group self-identity, if not epistemic mutations presenting the Salmon War as a founding event for a new incarnation of the group. Thirdly, people noticed a phenomenon relating to collective self-empowerment; the reinforcement of their social identity is seen as a main outcome of their participation. Lastly, in-group re-ordering and the establishment of a new regime are voiced in the narrations as the central schemes. Although highly controversial, the self-transformation undoubtedly led to nihilistic undercurrents, forms of tyranny and the internal reproduction of psychological colonialism. This is inseparable, in stories, from the interiority of new post-war dominant actors.

Ways of relating: relational system remodelling

Many aspects of the relationships between those involved were significantly impacted upon by the experience of the war. In this book, the redefinition of a ‘collective self ’ is frequently highlighted as a major outcome of the uprising, associated with a double dynamic of the breakdown of relationships and the creation or reactivation of others. These changes apparently resulted in a double dynamic of dis-identification and re-identification in groups of reference. Ultimately, people notice a significant remodelling of their relational system, which would radically affect their social identity and the ways in which they related to Innu heritage.

Splintering

People link their experience of the war with breaks in relations and the emergence of new lines of demarcation. Their expressions of grief and forms of trauma correlate with the breaking down of their relationships and loom large in their stories.² These multi-levelled break-downs in relationships (with parents, friends, in-laws and so on) are often coupled with suffering as well as a desire to forget the whole event.

Following the war, relationships with the local populations and townships were very bitter. Those taking part report people no longer speaking to each other and animosity becoming the norm (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 6). They remember their great disappointment at experiencing these drastic regressions in human relations. Connections perceived before the war as authentic friendships were suddenly transformed into enmity, distrust and perceptions of hypocrisy (Adam, chapter 2, ref. 4).

The loss of childhood friends is recalled as sad, if not painful. Uncertainty about the surrounding township population in general emerged, and hovered over all levels of interaction between Essipiunnuat and Euroquébécois (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 6). The severance from the friends of early childhood is said to have produced the deepest wounds of all (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 3), and left the Essipiunnuat feeling miserable and rejected (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 2). Disruptions in intergroup relationships were experienced even by young children and teenagers; some of the youngest individuals remember with great emotion losing all their out-group friends (Karl, chapter 3, ref. 1). For example, Napeo recalls catching sight of his good friends and their fathers among the hostile crowd. Their relations were never the same again:

Relationships with in-laws were also affected. Stories reveal major wounds relating to out-group brothers-in-law who could not accept having a ‘savage’ in their family (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 3). In some cases, nervous tension existed in families for decades after the war. For some, such anxiety continues to exist even to this day. At the time, many individuals did not speak to one another, while some were forced to make familial visits when others were not present. The discomfort endured, since no-one was able to forget; people were always aware of the effects of the Salmon War on their relationships (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 3).

Divisions were also noticed within the group. These mainly concerned splits among the Essipiunnuat from those cooperating with people they considered to be ‘racist’. As several interviewees recall, the war allowed Essipiunnuat to see the ‘true faces’ of their own people, as well as to identify those who were against their own group. Individuals fell into this category primarily because they were overly friendly with those who were viewed as racist, or because they were only considering the issue in terms of monetary gain. As has been mentioned, it was more painful to fight ‘Indian’ traitors than ‘white’ enemies. In the end, the grief experienced in the war was accompanied by the appearance of new truths about their own community (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 5).

The experience also translated into changes pertaining to the Essipiunnuat’s occupation of space. The most sociable in the group remember with sadness their exclusion from Euroquébécois social gatherings, and being prevented from going to places they used to frequent. After the war, they would have liked to do certain things but weren’t able to. Instead of mingling, people felt uncomfortable and preferred to stay away (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 3). Some young adults used to go out to bars regularly. However, after the war they stopped going to the Les Escoumins beer house, for example, and either went to other bars, or preferred to consume their alcohol at home. This lasted for many years, and some even retain this attitude today (Karl, chapter 3, ref. 5).

The impact of the Salmon War is therefore associated with a long-lasting severing of relations, with both in-group and out-group ramifications. The divisions did not spare friendships or family lines. Community members witnessed the development of new ties, predominately connected to those that were either ‘for or against us’. These relationship-break were overwhelmingly observed along racial lines. Those who were racist were clearly identified and classified in a fixed category. It was now increasingly considered impractical to eliminate racism from people who defined themselves as racist. Self-defined ‘whites’ were henceforth synonymous with being anti-Indian, and as completely ignorant of, or at the very least, impervious to, Indigenous stories and the human condition (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 5–8).

For this fringe of hardcore Euroquébécois ‘white’ supremacists, racism towards the Indians was deeply rooted, if not anchored permanently, so that no matter what an Indian did they despised him or her regardless once they had been identified as Indian (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 3). It was as if these individuals had a wall in their heart; they had no respect for any Indian. And ultimately, the Essipiunnuat firmly believed that the racist’s mind could not be changed through discussion (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 2).

Therefore, the Essipiunnuat felt that the rise of anti-Indian racism rejected their existence as humans, and was coupled with grief and pain. The white–Indian recategorisation was internally translated into an inner group polarisation of being for or against. Loyalty to the group became an imperative for the maintenance of relations. The racial divide failed to spare any social component, affecting even the smallest of family units and close, old friendships. If a generalised dynamic of relationships splintering along racial lines was observed, this movement of relocation also followed in tandem with elements of solidification and diverse reconnections. As Pierre articulates, ‘we did not only make enemies in the Salmon War, we also made a lot of friends’ (chapter 3, ref. 5).

Associations and solidarities

New social associations and connections were reported. Experiencing the war is said to have produced, or reestablished, strong ties between individuals, families, generations and other groups, resulting in various forms of in-group complicity. Such new links, framed by the specific sociohistorical context of the war and still in place to the present day, suggest the existence of a generational unit (Karl, chapter 3, ref. 5). The Salmon War is said to have soldered together the group (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 8). It produced a rearrangement of social ties, resulting in unity or consistency, ‘to be reactivated when required’ (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 12).

This phenomenon of solidification was primarily felt and observed within and between in-group families. These relationships were the most profoundly impacted by the experience of the war. This perception of change is more comprehensible when it is contextualised. Pre-war Essipit had been plagued with old in-family and inter-family feuds. As Tshak explains, families lived next to each other who had not met for decades. For example, a brother did not speak to his brother; a sister did not speak to her sister. The father told his children not to visit some neighbouring cousins and that they would be severely punished if they did so. This resulted in children not socialising with one another, thereby leading to feelings of hatred and extreme disassociation over several decades (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 5).

Inter-familial hostilities were allegedly being actively transmitted from generation to generation. These antagonisms had resulted in several Essipiunnuat, often neighbours and always with familial ties, not knowing each other at all. Members of the community – all related to each other in one way or another – were acutely aware of this situation. Yet, even if they knew of the existence of these deep-rooted conflicts, most members of the group did not know the reasons behind the silences (Tshak, chapter 3, ref. 5).

The Salmon War drastically transformed these circumstances, and it is said that it brought families closer together. Individuals who had never talked before were suddenly seen chatting and laughing together. Members of the community observed their own kin putting aside their issues, as if they had forgotten their entrenched conflicts. They seemed more interested in what was coming than in what was behind them. This observable fact had a tremendous in-group impact as it touched on a long-lasting fissure within this tiny group. These moments of reconciliation between families are remembered fondly:

The reunion and strengthening of links with other First Peoples, particularly other Innu, were also mentioned as a core outcome of the experience of the war. The circumstances of war it seems allowed people to experience feelings of proximity to other indigenous groups and the solidifying of links to these significant out-groups.

Indigenous rights were in the same state on all the rivers located on Innu ancestral domain, although they had different configurations.³ Thus, the Essipiunnuat uprising resonated immensely for all indigenous groups; other out-groups perceived them thereafter as defenders of indigenous principles. This had a tremendous impact, as they obtained protection from all Innu while isolated and distressed. The direct support of each Innu chief, as well as those from various Anicinabe and Atikamekw groups, created a perpetuation of opportunities for contacts, visits and meetings, and the development of common views between groups. The Essipiunnuat had, then, increased opportunities to communicate with other Innu and they experienced new feelings of closeness. They received validation for their acts of resistance, which generated an observable solidarity among these entities. From this point onwards, the groups were increasingly united in defence of their freedoms as First Peoples. A positive outcome of the experience of the war for the Essipiunnuat was thus the reconfiguration of their relations with other indigenous out-groups (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 4).

The reconciliation of families within the group and the reconnection with indigenous out-groups were two of the most salient elements of solidarity associated with people’s experience of the war. These perceptions of remarkable and memorable change can be traced back to pre-war conditions, justly characterised by in-groups and inter-familial gaps, as well as to the rising detachment from other indigenous out-groups in the period following World War Two.

Self-concept alterations: mutations and metamorphosis

People also associate their experience of the war with significant alterations to their self-perceptions and conceptions. The central point of these changes is noticeably the switch in reference group and an increase in self-identification as indigenous. This was nurtured by participating in the movement and is seen as a phenomenon that had remarkable consequences.

As involvement in collective action generally has a profound impact on self-identity (Drury and Reicher, 1999; 2000; Drury et al., 2003), metamorphoses in the self pertaining to perceptions, definitions, knowledge and value, are all potentially to be expected. People recall having experienced different types of epistemic and axiological mutations, as well as ontological changes, in their ways of being, acting and self-perceiving.

Above all, they perceive the labour of novel subjectivities inside themselves. Their perceptions of alterations and the metamorphosis of self-identity are apparently inseparable from their experiences of the war. The descriptions and explanations pertaining to self-transformation stories are articulated around three elements, as outlined in the following sections, which all depict the Salmon War as a catalyst.

Sui nullius, or the burden of reciting one’s own absence: war and social ontology

The first element pertains to the contextualisation of these changes, mainly narrations of the apparent non-existence of the group prior to the war. A dominant feature of these descriptions of the pre-war milieu concerns the presentation of the originality and indigeneity of the Essipiunnuat as dead and buried, corresponding to a collective state of absence; of sui nullius. What is known is that narrators tend to portray the reserve back then as a discrete district of Les Escoumins township, with no visible differences or distinctive traits between the two entities’ representations of the group.

Knowledge of distinctiveness is, however, attributed to some individuals, such as a handful of older people who were initiated into their Innu heritage through indigenous militants, intergenerational contacts and experiences of nutshimit (living in the forest, on the land). Indeed, only this minority was allegedly informed of past inter-group conflict as well as of inter-group demarcations. Interestingly, interviewees generally assumed, and reproduced, the unified postulation that there was nothing on the reserve, as it was devoid of meaning before the war. The question of where this perception came from naturally arose. One hypothesis which could be formulated at this stage is that this unified dimension has to do with a certain rewriting and with the production of a new in-group master narrative generated by those in a situation of power who had monopolised public speech. It will be further explored how a metaphysics of domination may have arisen from the idea of an absence of self or sui nullius. This would have resulted in erasure of previous markers of Innu referents in order to valorise an entirely new self, structured in accordance with a chronology of specific actors’ deeds, instead of a rebirth in continuity with the previous generations and ancient cultural memory.

Generational inventory of experience and perception

The assertion is also made that there were no differences, or only minor ones, between the two groups living in the area before the war. For the youngest in particular, and especially for those who had been less immersed in the group for various reasons, including familial ones, the people of Essipit and Les Escoumins not only did everything together but were also alike in their manners and ways of being (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 1–6). This led one person to wonder when interviewed whether he was in fact Innu or indigenous before the war:

Perceptions of pre-war differences and of any distinct Essipiunnuat entity tend to increase according to how old individuals were at the time of the war. This was especially salient among people older than 30, as inter-group distinctions were already known. And yet, they remained silent. Their indigeneity was largely associated with their experiences at school and with racism, which resulted in their fear of asserting an ‘Indian identity’. Attempts to hide this distinctiveness identity would be strongly remembered by all (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 5).

During the time of the war, those already in their 50s had previously experienced an epoch when any identification as Indian was buried. As with the older generation, such individuals lived in a time when the psychology consisted of hiding their indigeneity in order to avoid problems with other people and to prevent their offspring from being penalised. Silencing and dissimulating their Indian self was not only the norm but also a means of survival. According to their interpretation, to talk of being Indian used to signify the risk of being harmed or even killed, and this was an overwhelming part of their collective memory (Pishimnapeo, chapter 3, ref. 1). Thus, despite the overall richness of the Elders’ inventory of experience and cultural memory, the notion of silencing indigeneity was a predominant part of their heritage due to a variety of sociohistorical circumstances. Under colonial rule, the Essipiunnuat have been collectively conditioned to not be Indian.

As a result, on the eve of the Salmon War, most Essipiunnuat simply hid their indigeneity, or were not even aware of it, and lacked awareness of the group to which they felt they belonged. Yet the sense of novelty they experienced depended greatly on their experiences and access to collective memory. For the younger generation, this perception of change was particularly acute, as many had never left Essipit and had experienced little, if any, social interaction with people from other indigenous groups (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 3).

Stories suggest that if some people were still self-defining as Indians on the eve of war, a certain number of Essipiunnuat appeared to have forsaken Innu referentiality in relation to themselves and the collective self. They had absorbed many aspects of Euroquébécois conceptions, including their colonial selective memory. Many probably self-identified as Euroquébécois and tended to look down on Innu identification and its referents. In this context, the hypothesis could be made that even those who knew the differences and elements of Essipiunnuat self identity might have been convinced of its fatal degeneration when others increasingly absorbed the idea that the group had no history. These elements should not be minimised as determinants of silence about war and cultural oblivion. The investigation starts then to sense the shadows of oblivion that loom large in the cultural condition of the pre-war generations. Produced by centuries of oppression, this oblivion made the Essipiunnuat particularly vulnerable to the idea of their non-existence, reinforced by the absorption of the Québec imaginary and colonial fictions as well as deep inner traumas. Were these fragilities going to be used for domination by the new leaders of the group and, if so, how?

These elements facilitate an explanation of generalised depictions of the Essipiunnuat cultural condition on the eve of the war, with the outward appearances of sui nullius, despite the long and rich history of the group. Significantly, discrepancies are observable between a person’s discourse about continuity in their personal cultural indigeneity and their talk about others, and the group, which is represented as entirely de-indigenised. Yet it should be kept in mind that this central image of absence and its contextualisation are also related to contemporary discourse. A pre-war sui nullius significantly valorises subsequent changes and the new regime that was established, especially those that present themselves as either the creators, obstetricians of a commonly perceived collective self or as a ‘father figure’ .

The collective self is depicted in stories as either created, new, reborn, revived, or just emerging from hibernation; stories report the emergence or reemergence of a collective identity after the event. A sense of novelty was apparent among all the generations who took part in the war, but was more evident among the youngest, whose inventory of experience was less loaded. They possessed a greater sense of having made a new start, a collective birth, as if they were beginning to live, as if everything had begun with the occurrence of war (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 8).

This time marked the end of the silencing of their sense of being Innu, and the affirmation of a collective existence. Two different possible interpretations about the nature of the self emerge: that it came either before or after the experience of war. The Essipiunnuat’s collective self-assertion of indigeneity appears to have been outside the field of the memory and experience of the vast majority of those involved.⁴ Instead, they had generally experienced the silencing of indigeneity, when it was not being hidden or totally denied. In this sense, the event is commonly presented as the beginning of a shared notification or awareness of a collective entity, as an act of assertiveness and radical self-definition.

As will be demonstrated later, the increased and overwhelming role that a new generation of leaders (‘the cell’) was to play in the public assertion of a collective self, and their power to define its substance and form, made inevitable over time the question of their own relationship to the past and Innu heritage. While this section may not solve the complex question of the genesis of the ‘self ’, it will certainly ask difficult questions related to the essentialisation and subsequent use of this self, one that is successively asserted, contested, attacked and brought into being in alignment with increased acceptance of identifying with it.

Indeed, these actors (and consequently the group they directed), had to face their own paradoxes; their desire, perhaps, to essentialise the Essipiunnuat identity in order to instrumentalise and reproduce certain representations of the group for the strategic purpose of social control. These questions are inevitable within a group beset by profound policies of oblivion and plagued by intergenerational ruptures and collective discontinuities. Its absorption of Canadian and Québec colonial mythologies having resulted in epistemic schisms and antinomies, it is a group overwhelmed by its colonial surroundings, that has been forced again and again over the centuries to redefine the parameters of its collective self and escape the powerful claws of the sui nullius.

Traumas thus loom large in intergenerational cultural transmission. This phenomenon also affected the leaders, who, despite their good intentions, were to design new collective features without necessarily having adequate cultural resources to overcome the tendency for revolutionaries, seeking control, to feed off the very imaginary with which they have chosen to break. Their powerful desire to present themselves as ‘genitors’ rather than ‘obstetricians’ leaves the question open of how much the leaders reproduced discourse to the effect that ‘we had no history’.

Cultural identity revitalisation: ‘You cannot have your cake and eat it’⁵

The mutation that people experienced due to their increasing identification with Innu culture and references is a second alteration in self-conception. As has already been stated, the circumstances of the war placed people in a dilemma about their sense of self. The Essipiunnuat had experienced accusations from other Innu of being ‘white’, allegedly because of their physical appearance and the fact that the language, Innu-aimun, had not been transmitted to the children in the period following World War Two. In turn, it was not only the surrounding Euroquébécois who had intensively discouraged identification as Indian, but also Canadian colonial policies and institutions. In the Salmon War, every Essipiunnuat was confronted with the dilemma of whether to be Innu or not, with predictable, painful consequences. They were asking themselves some highly personal questions, such as:

The oldest, predominantly men married to Euroquébécois women, as well as a group of young and highly motivated students who self-identified as Indian, already knew which side they were on. The emergence of a local, collective indigeneity resonated with many. The leaders were asserting Essipiunnuat indigeneity and values in public spaces and community meetings, as well as in the media. For many, this was all new. Many members had become Indian by status (in accordance with the Indian Act), and often their children had not even been told about their indigenous background. Whether born or reborn, in the confusion of war, resistance and uprising, an embryonic Essipiunnuat sense of self provided opportunities for identification with and attachment to this rejuvenated social identity. Yet increasingly, this new self was to be fed from the discourse being produced by the new young leaders as the intergenerational power-shift took shape.

Conclusively, people associate the occurrence of war with a new cultural identification that has resulted in the revitalisation of their cultural identity, followed by a blooming of affirmation and the triggering of an individual and collective assertion of who they were. The circumstances of war provided new opportunities for self-definition (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 1–2, 6). The community’s awakening to its own indigeneity, culture and freedoms, including the subsequent transformations following the war, can be traced back not only to the re-emergence of a collective Innu cultural identity but to the discourses of the leaders and to people’s identification with it and its absorption (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 7).

Collective self-consciousness: ‘The bear was not yet dead’⁶

Thirdly, people referred to their renewed self-knowledge and self-awareness as having been acquired through identification with an Innu cultural referential. The reinstating of Innu cultural values as a worthwhile point of reference is interpreted in the stories as a cause of successive major changes, one of which was an increased awareness of an Essipiunnuat collective self. The partial reabsorption of the Innu cultural imaginary and conceptions are directly correlated with a new sense of self-knowledge and subsequent alterations in self-perceptions, attitudes and behaviours.

It might be expected that individuals’ switches in reference group would engender correlated modifications of attitudes and types of actions (Marger, 2009). A survey of associations between the local context of political and cultural assertion and the recognition of emerging new subjectivities in narration might also be affirmed (Chew, 2007). The combination of collective agency, in an environment of cultural hegemony, and the reemergence of a repressed normative contained in cultural memory, is also, then, a well-known phenomenon (Assmann, 1997).

Descriptions of self-transformation as a result of war clearly converge in identifying a correlation between the reinstatement of the Innu cultural referential as a valuable point of reference and a variety of ensuing observable facts. Epistemic mutations are coupled with types of action, experiences of cultural regeneration, and increased receptivity to re-emerging normative schemes.

Mutual aid and camaraderie as emerging norms

The increased in-group cooperation is the most observed and commented-on change in the testimonies. Stemming from the experience of resistance, people explicitly express the appearance of a collective consciousness whose central impact is the establishment of mutual aid as a dominant norm, during but also after the war. This new sense of mutual help is often interpreted as the direct result of the establishment of the ‘indigenist-communitarian principle’.

This principle became the dominant ideology following the war. It became omnipresent, and the base and mode of legitimisation of the ‘communitarian system’ that was to be shaped thereafter. People’s identification with this principle, but also its increased imposition to become the only acceptable philosophy, is considered the main determinant of the subsequent cultural renewal experienced by the group. As mentioned earlier, this ideology was a major tool in the movement’s war strategy. As Sam says, ‘Fishing was communitarian from the beginning to the end, from catching salmon to its equal distribution among all families. At this time, everybody was involved’ (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 1).

The spread of a spirit of camaraderie in the group is also mentioned as one of the, if not the greatest, sources of pleasure in people’s stories. It is this re-emergence of mutual aid as a normative scheme that is the decisive element in the development of self-awareness. This occurrence seems to have actualised a core element of the group’s tradition. In addition to reconnecting people with a facet of their group’s memory, it supposedly caused a breach in the dam separating them from their heritage (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 9).

Mutual aid is but one example, albeit a very significant and central one. Its praxis was presented and recognised as an actualisation of an ancient philosophy. The experience validated people’s indigeneity, allowing them to feel Innu on a daily basis. It is mainly to this method of experience that people trace back the resurfacing of an Indigenous axiology and its absorption (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 4). It led individuals to be more receptive to an internal indigenous culture and external possibilities. They were also able to reminisce about previously unconsidered values and principles transmitted by their parents’ generation, such as respect for their sense of being indigenous and defence of Innu-aitun as Innu worldview, knowledge and way of life.

It was clear that they linked the reevaluation of their previously disparaged indigenous cultural heritage with being radically committed to its defence. They spoke of having discovered the extent to which they belonged to the Essipit community, as well as their group’s attachment to its culture and indigenous values. As formerly documented, the observation of cooperation and unity also expanded the possibilities of victories and triumphs (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 1).

Transformations between 1980–5

Community members also related reconnections with their indigenous cultural referential to observable changes in behaviour, in addition to more uniformity around certain issues. For example, when attacked because of their indigeneity, their responses were more targeted, affirmative and self-confident (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 3). These changes in behaviour sometimes took the form of a personality reversal. People known previously as quiet and pacifist, or as not participating, demonstrated extraordinary qualities radically different to their former behaviour (Adam, chapter 2, ref. 7). Emotionally, pride and self-confidence replaced fear and shame. People began to display their indigeneity in every possible way. The uneasiness of being ‘Indian’, coupled with the widespread reflex to hide their indigeneity, was replaced with direct eye contact and non-ambiguous statements; suddenly increased respect largely replaced bullying and racism (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 5).

This development of attitude was described in terms of everyone looking up at once and refusing to back down, despite the inherent inconveniences and dangers involved (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 9; Adam, chapter 3, ref. 6). It is to their experience of the Salmon War that narrators trace back the genesis of a subsequent Essipiunnuat collective pride:

People were undoubtedly witnesses to radical change in how they saw themselves in terms of the group to which they belonged. Their experience of war transformed their view. Their perception and evaluation of the group would henceforth be overwhelmingly effectuated through an indigenous-communitarian point of view, including new principles, values and cultural schemes. In other words, their worldview was now to be approached from a new episteme.

Listening deeply to the stories pertaining to transformations in self-identity associated with the experience of war, reveals the occurrence of significant individual as well as collective epistemic mutations. These metamorphoses are quite intricate and thus I do not intend to expose them exhaustively at this point. Nevertheless, people clearly portray the Salmon War as a founding event.

The Salmon War as a founding event

This new perspective following their experience would result in a deep awareness of the oppression of First Peoples in general, and, moreover, of the Essipiunnuat’s profound dehumanisation throughout their history. As exhibited, the epistemic revolution encountered by the Essipiunnuat was coupled with a phenomenon of resacralisation, as opposed to the colonial heritage of dehumanisation and ‘chosification’ (Césaire, 1972): the colonial process of metamorphosing people into things, tools or objects. Fundamentally, this paradigm shift allowed individuals to recognise their struggle as inscribed in a larger project, shared by all oppressed people, to defend their dignity as human beings with definitive values and principles (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 2; Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 4).

As a result, it was primarily as indigenous people that they conducted their subsequent struggle – ‘indigenous’ here interpreted in the sense of being human, with an inherent value that deserves integral respect and also urgent recognition (Napeo, chapter 3, ref. 5).

Meanwhile, the transformation of rationale allowed members to reconsider the potential of the group itself. It also led to a reinterpretation of history from an Innu perspective and a potential for rewriting and self-design, in addition to what occurred during the Salmon War. From this renewed point of view, the denial of Essipiunnuat ancestral sovereignty as a responsibility to the Earth and future generations, including fishing, was not only illegitimate and depreciating, but also a clear transgression of the sacredness of the Innu people as human beings. As such, these offences deserved to be stopped by all possible means.

This new episteme confirmed that ‘the bear was not yet dead’. Furthermore, people increasingly recognised themselves as actors of history. They realised, in Raoul’s words, that ‘our history was not yet finished’ (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 9).

Fruits of uprising: the sweet and the sour

As shown, collective self-assertion had a great impact on internal self-definitions and the sense of a collective existence. This was not foreign to the project of collective assertion itself, which is to say the realisation of a collective identity. Experiences in the collective actions of war were explicitly associated with a panoply of outcomes, akin to the perception of collective self-empowerment.

In their study, entitled ‘The phenomenology of empowerment in collective action’, Drury et al. (2005) show that perceptions of self-empowerment are widely related in people’s accounts of collective actions; empowerment remains a core outcome of action. In accordance with their phenomenological approach:

They call such a phenomenon ‘collective self-objectification’, or CSO (ibid., p. 312).⁷ Its presence is the most determining element in the emergence of collective self-empowerment or the notification of an empowered self. In contrast, the failure of CSO would be featured in people’s accounts of disempowerment. Out-group reassertion, success and hegemony reinstate self-perceptions of powerlessness. Defeat and the reimposition of out-group definitions of legitimate practices are experienced as disempowering (ibid., p. 312).

The collective actions of the Essipiunnuat were previously interpreted as self-assertiveness for the defence of indigeneity and freedoms against hostile attempts, by the out-group, to impose an illegitimate order and to foster the annihilation of indigeneity and inherent sovereignty. Also repeatedly mentioned is how the representation of an ‘ empowered self ’ is crucial in people’s depictions, the shared perception of immense in-group power, and potentialities conditional to unity and the consistency of in-group links. Descriptions of action reflect the incredible sense of self-legitimacy animating the actors. People directly associate their actions with the realisation of their identity as Indian, Essipiunnuat or Innu (Adam, chapter 2. ref. 3 and 8; Mathias, personal communication; Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 9; Ivan, chapter 2, ref. 5; Mesnak, chapter 2, ref. 3).

Furthermore, the most committed actors often describe their participation in collective action as the greatest source of pleasure in their entire lives. Accordingly, it could be stated that there has already been a demonstration of CSO in the light of previous analysis. However, since the event occurred in the 1980s, it is relevant now to consider more closely group members’ interpretations of how the collective experience of participating in the war empowered the group, as well as the experiences and interpretations that may correspond to disempowerment in the longer run. It is also of relevance to look at how people described the empowering and disempowering effects of their uprising and the post-Salmon War.

Collective self-empowerment

In-group power was presumably generated as a main outcome of the war. This new capacity played a major role in the collective actions that followed and in subsequent developments exercised by the group. Perceptions of collective self-empowerment are illustrated in the stories through four main points: collective self-care, a sense of self-legitimacy, effective self-determination and an upgraded group inventory of experience.

Caring for ourselves

The experience of the war is said to have generated an overall in-group self-benevolence or self-care, an enhanced concern and kindness towards oneself (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 3). The group would develop a renewed and higher sense of its value, a consideration for itself and its members. The collective uprising would generate an ethos of members looking after themselves, each other, and their community (Karl, chapter 3, ref. 8).

Together with increased social and cultural revitalisation, the practice of war resulted in new feelings of pride, and an increased sense of aesthetics and inner beauty (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 1; Adam, chapter 3, ref. 6). This amplified consideration for in-group affairs and for themselves includes the revalorisation of cultural heritage and practices; greater value was accorded to Innu science, including laws and practices. People immediately began to value being Innu and, as a consequence, were concerned with autonomising and producing new socioeconomic institutions and devices in order to be in a position to make their own decisions. According to Raoul, the concern for oneself can be traced back precisely to this experience of collective action (chapter 2, ref. 16).

A boost in members’ participation in public affairs and learning at that time is reported, together with a real sense of belonging to the group, which as a result appeared to acquire a new and shared value. At that moment people would have discovered, felt and understood the real meaning of the communitarian-indigenous principle. As a group, they were metamorphosed. This new sense and respect for the collective was presented as the source of a fresh, extraordinary and lasting increase in strength (Raoul, chapter 2, ref. 16).

Self-legitimacy

The experience of war also generated a sense of self-legitimacy resulting in increased actions based on a new discernment of in-group power and strength. Before the war, for example, people would not resist the intervention of state agents during hunting episodes, which often included intimidation and the seizure of their equipment (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 2). After the war, state agents were directly asked to move away so that Essipiunnuat could immediately hunt and fish before speaking to them. The insistence of agents would not only be met with a refusal to comply, but a categorical order to stay away (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 4).

Following the war, actions aimed at achieving greater autonomy and amplified in-group power, including the assertion of its symbols and re-inhabiting collectively ancestral territories, were augmented. Unlike the pre-war attitude, group members were now saluting defiant and assertive stances. The experience of the war thus significantly modified the definitions of legitimate practices. Members would from then on increasingly encourage, support and validate actions destined for a collective purpose, even the most radical ones. Community members encouraged this to defend what was right for the community, what was ‘communitarian’. Assertions of indigeneity bloomed, as well as actions aimed at defending the community (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 8).

Stories suggest that the backlash which followed the collective uprising reinforced the group’s conviction of being in the right. The aggression strengthened their collective sense of fairness and the legitimacy of their non-compliance. The evaluation of Québec authority and culture had been altered. Rather than diminishing their will to fight, the repression of the Essipiunnuat is said to have given authority to in-group figures and engendered greater validation for rebelling. The defence of indigenous freedoms and culture was thereafter not only recognised by some as necessary, but a majority confirmed it as primordial and considered it to be an important factor merging with the nature of the group identity (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 1).

Effective self-determination: directing and propelling our own canoe

The collective experience of war is also portrayed as the source of diverse and unique developments in the community. This was supposedly the initial trigger of a wider process of collective autodynamisation, expansion, affirmation and reterritorialisation in various fields. It is said that the result was the whole group’s greater self-determination. The Salmon War is, then, conceived as a manifestation of collective subjectivity but also as a catalyst for greater agency, mainly based on an aggregation of individuals around a common objective, including the capacity to engage in a chosen direction. The experience would generate unity and grounds for the group’s development and would lead to an improvement in collective wellbeing (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 1 and 2). The formation of a new myth and its absorption can also be perceived here.

A metaphor often used by interviewees is that the salmon net was initially used to gather people, then produced in-group unity, and then reinforced the movement, rather than just being used to capture salmon. If perceptions converged in the recognition that the experience of war was at the origins of a new and shared community vision, they also identified with the emergence of a new way of putting it into operation.

The aftermath of the collective experience of war was linked to the new regime that resulted and new modes of social control being developed. The Salmon War was coupled in people’s accounts with the communitarian system which then evolved, bringing socioeconomic in-group prosperity. This experience was correlated with a system resulting in a shared understanding that all actions conducted by individuals had the purpose of ameliorating the collective wellbeing of each and every one (Adam, chapter 2, ref. 6). Interpretation of the Salmon War then became foundational for the new local regime.

That said, the passage of war resulted in people feeling increasingly at home on the land, even if this was outside the reserve. The war was conclusively associated with the subsequent increased reconnection with ancestral lands outside the borders of the reserve (Adam, chapter 3, ref. 5).

Updated inventory of experience

Interviewees maintained that going through the war had increased their inventory of experience; it had increased in-group knowledge but also their capacity for evaluating present conditions. It provided new information for better discerning in-group potential. This enrichment of the group knowledge allows, then, for the possibility of reactivating the self-knowledge harvested in the war in situations when actions of resistance would be required.

In this sense, people thought of their individual and collective actions during the conflict as having released potentialities, as generating a new inner force and a new sense of self-value, but also a shared referential, a generational unit allowing for the projection of the self into the future, a vision of continuity. Several narrators report the emergence of a new consciousness in the power of unity, an almost limitless power of human capacity when amalgamated (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 7).

This new knowledge was presented as proof that a small but determined group could defeat a larger group, and that it could obtain what it wanted. In addition, it was realised that success depended entirely on the consistency of in-group social bonds, a unique and effective unity of will, including the consciousness that they were able to come together when necessary (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 12). This force of collective freedom also entered into the self-imagery of the group, the defence of these indigenous rights being directly related to the perception of the phenomenon of collective self-empowerment. People felt and realised that collective indigenous rights were stronger than individual and commercial approaches. These rights at their core asserted an actualised indigenous self. That assertion is therefore presented as a cause of greater unity among in-group members, but also of an increased solidarity with indigenous out-groups (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 6 and 11).

Indeed, in-group members were not afraid to charge and go to the front when these collective rights were at stake. In turn, they would then feel the strength of pride in themselves, and would receive admiration from other in-group members. As a result, they would be contributing to the success of all Essipiunnuat. Direct action was henceforth interpreted as a necessary condition for collective success (Tshak, chapter 2, ref. 1). The empowering effect for the group, as gained from experiences in the war, was presented by some as the cause of future victories in contentious circumstances with out-groups, such as during the conflict with the federal government during the 1990s employment crisis.

Resistance and out-group representations

Another aspect of upgrading the inventory of experience concerns the possibility of influencing the perceptions of out-groups. As people noted, out-groups were transformed by observing the resistance of the Essipiunnuat. Public opinion was changed significantly and the Innu communities vividly remember seeing transformations among their enemies. External respect, recognised after the war within a Euroquébécois fringe, is explained by the fact that the Essipiunnuat fought against their enemies primarily to defend their principles. This struggle, impregnated with self-respect, inspired recognition even from enemies (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 6).

On the opposing side, people confirmed that if the Essipiunnuat had not resisted, the Euroquébécois’ representations of ‘Indians as cowards’ would have been validated. Thereafter, the inventory of experience of the ‘enemy’ was also modified, with new data showing that the Essipiunnuat would not accept intimidation and would stand up for their freedoms as long as it took, despite beatings and suffering, even to the point of endangering their own lives (Esther, chapter 3, ref. 2).

A memory of reversibility can be traced back to the fact that the Essipiunnuat elected to look directly into the eyes of their enemies. They firmly told their oppressors that they would not comply with their idea and representation of the Indian, and that they were fellow humans and thus deserving of the utmost respect. These facts also entered into the Essipiunnuat inventory of experience. Links were consequently made between resistance and transformation of out-group representations (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 3).

Essipiunnuat stories articulate an extended and lasting perception of collective self-empowerment or of an empowered self. The foremost characteristic of this mutation relies on increased collective intelligence, a self-knowledge that led the group to greater auto-dynamisation, empowerment and self-determination. But this new information seems to have exceeded the passage from surplus-powerlessness to auto-dynamisation, or from the perception that ‘we cannot’ to a firm belief that ‘we can’. It included a more practical awareness of the potential of the collective self and how it can be used, of the strength it can release in certain circumstances; in other words, of the practical value of people who have engaged in actions against their enemies in order to realise their social identity.

As previously shown, evidence tends to the hypothesis that the younger actors engaged in the war already understood its potential, and to a certain extent it could have been planned and shaped to establish and legitimise a new regime of power; the extent to which participants in the war were ‘used’ became a subsequent and central object of controversy among Essipiunnuat.

Collective disempowerment: shadows of cultural oblivion

The experience of the Salmon War is widely referred to as a source of empowerment and increased collective agency. However, the stories also contain explicit evocations of disempowerment, of the reimposition of out-group conceptions and the state’s definitions of legitimate practices, as well as the reproduction or continuity of exogenous representations inside the group. If the passage of war was characterised by a reconnection with an indigenous referential, which resulted in epistemic mutations, new subjectivities and indigenisation, the post-Salmon War disenchantment felt by many was also related to alleged dissociations from these self-conceptions.

Those who interpreted the results of the post-Salmon War negotiations as an intricate commodification of their cultural symbols⁸ experienced disempowerment. As will be analysed later, this discourse focuses on changes in relational contexts with hostile out-groups, the purpose and legitimacy of the agreements signed with them, and inner differences in the receptivity of external recognition.

More significantly, it reflected an enduring in-group controversy over the nature of indigenous rights, laws, heritage and sovereignty and the interruptions of the decolonisation process. Yet it also refers to ways authority was exercised within the group, and the effects of that. A deeper understanding of features of disempowerment requires a study of post-Salmon War circumstances and the new modalities of Essipiunnuat reception to state recognition.

Conditions during the post-Salmon War period: perceptions of groups’ interactions

Interviewees noticed significant changes in their relations with out-group actors as a result of their acts of defiance and self-assertion. One major impact was state authorities’ recognition of Essipiunnuat rights, in addition to changes in public opinion, including relations with the local Euroquébécois population. These changes contrasted radically with pre-war and in-war representations.

René Lévesque’s involvement: Québec’s new approach

Following the war, external actors increasingly recognised Essipiunnuat collective rights. As early as the end of 1981, and partly as a result of the impact of the Salmon War, the Québec state modified somewhat its approach to Innu rights and territorial negotiations. One of the principal changes was that the government did not require, at least on the surface, the extinguishment of Innu rights and the renouncing of collective self-determination as a prerequisite for negotiation. Effectively, the Québec premier, René Lévesque, founder of the nationalist Parti Québécois, publicly recognised at this time that extinguishment was no longer a state imperative in its negotiations with the Innu (Girard, 1981). Lévesque openly recognised First Peoples as having similar rights that he was pursuing for his own people, a collective right to self-determination. The issue of Innu sovereignty and its sources, different from European conceptions, remains complex, however; furthermore, Lévesque’s recognition of Innu ancestral sovereignty was most likely strategic and limited to European definitions. Yet this was a major change, particularly for the Essipiunnuat who were closely linked to the fate of Québec society and who had suffered negative if not racist propaganda and stigmatisation as well as the manoeuvres of the minister Laurent Lessard. He had played a predominant role in calling for the repression of the Innu uprising, and so Lévesque effectively decided from then on to deal with the Innu people himself. This change in the Québec discourse would have resonated deeply among the Essipiunnuat.

Figure 12. ‘Les Escoumins’, 1980s, Institut culturel et éducatif montagnais (ICEM), 16440.

State agents’ attitude

Modifications to the Québec state’s approach to relations with the Innu also translated in the field into radical changes in state agents’ attitudes to ancient ancestral practices of hunting and fishing. This was striking. For example, state agents now simply asked the hunter to show his Indian card to prove his status. Rather than being antagonistic, the agents would now respond with ‘all right, that’s fine, thanks’. People related this change of attitude directly to the fact that they had resisted, that they had risen up and fought to defend themselves and their rights (Pierre, chapter 2. ref. 5). In general, then, the uprising was seen as having not only improved conditions for exercising indigenous rights, but also of having increased the respect of the state and its representatives towards them (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 5).

Public opinion

This change had a great impact on public opinion and on the neighbouring townships and the people of Les Escoumins. Indeed, the latter were forced to recognise, whether they liked it or not, that the Indians, as well as their rights, existed outside the reserve’s borders. An agreement on the co-management of the river that they had categorically rejected before the war – based on the fact that Indians did not have any rights and were not a distinct people – was signed. Television and radio recordings from this period show the mayor of Les Escoumins denying any inherent right pertaining to land outside of the Essipit reserve’s borders, known today as their ancestral territories or the homeland. These inherent rights, even if denounced and generally not appreciated by the Euroquébécois, were henceforth perceived to be facts that must be acknowledged. This was highly significant for the Essipiunnuat, who had faced the denial of their ancestral sovereignty and existence for centuries (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 2).

Unsubmissiveness: the Indian as resistant

Indeed, the Essipiunnuat struggle had somehow impressed on the Euroquébécois, or at least made them aware of, the indigenous determination to resist attacks, repression, and the symbolic and concrete denial and violation of their rights. They were used to facing behaviours that were generally more submissive or tolerant of their denial and racism. Now, in their own backyard, they had witnessed organised resistance to their actions and it was a novelty. For the first time they had seen directly, often with astonishment, the Essipiunnuat in-group solidarity, strength and determination to resist external aggression. These new images cut deeply into the Euroquébécois’ previously widespread social representations of degenerating, invisible, weak and submissive Indians.

Apparent decline of conflict

According to those who took part, their resistance and new power brought respect. The integration of the Essipiunnuat into the management of the river was interpreted as recognition. Yet, the uprising also generated a crisis of legitimacy among local Euroquébécois. It questioned the validity of their discourses and hegemonic positioning as pioneers and returned a painful image of themselves as colonialists (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 6 and 11). The direct confrontation with the Innu, and the witnessing of the indigenous group’s stubbornness, is said to have demotivated many hostile Euroquébécois who ‘were not real warriors with a clear vision of their struggles’ (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 6). In fact, a softening of relations between the people of Les Escoumins and Essipit was observed thereafter (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 5). People of Les Escoumins now possessed new information in their own inventory of experience. The inter-group dynamics had changed overall, and the Essipiunnuat were generally highly sensitive to these out-group changes and how their former enemies interacted with them.

Receptiveness to state recognition: genesis and stratagem

If the experience of the war altered Essipiunnuat self-evaluations, it also went some way towards transforming their perception of the Québec state and authorities. Negotiating directly with the state was a new experience for almost all of those who had participated in such activities. Most people now felt that state officials took them seriously, whereas previously they had denied their very existence and rights. The attraction of Québec nationalism for some of the younger leaders, and their relations with Québec officials, should not be underestimated as an influence favouring the rapprochement with the province.

As changes in the relational context with out-groups were observed, they were generally welcomed very positively considering the dramatic experience they had just been through.⁹ In particular, the Essipiunnuat were now hearing a new discourse pertaining to their rights and recognition, accompanied by new positive attitudes towards them.

However, this external recognition was not received in the same way by everyone. In fact, two main polarities in this respect appeared in the stories, materialised around the notions of indigenous rights, their value, nature and sources. Fundamentally, an in-group crisis around a proper definition of indigeneity, or being Innu, was reported, and also its sacralisation or commodification as a major post-Salmon War determinant of disempowerment.

Recognition and the discomfort of indigenisation

For many, involvement in the Salmon War corresponded to the first and most significant connection to their cultural identity as indigenous or Innu. This was when they first defined themselves as indigenous, or consciously assumed their chosen group of reference. For this category of people, their primary identification as indigenous was apparently generated more by their participation in the war than from previously transmitted collective and cultural memory, stories, knowledge and culture, even if the war allowed for forms of transmission.

Due to their age, acquired status through marriage, inter-generational ruptures in transmission, or simple self-denial, some people had not been in touch with any Innu cultural referents. Instead, they had widely absorbed Euroquébécois concepts and social imagery. Their new self appeared fragile and not deep rooted; they were simply speaking French while their access to any Innu cultural referential was limited to an extent. But the very particular circumstances of war, with its specific reconnections and emergent norms, led them to commit more radically to this group of reference. They found themselves immersed, individually and collectively, in a movement that had been propelled to the forefront of indigenous resistance.

Recognition that gives birth to the self

The testimonies suggest that for them, the perceptions of out-groups – external recognition from the authorities and its inherent representations – became a preponderant source of their self-image as Indian. The government’s recognition of their rights corresponds to the birth of their rights. For them, this recognition was greatly empowering, almost constitutive of their empowered self, if not genesiac. The state was therefore identified as the major source of Innu normativity. This was not new, however, for it merely reproduced the century-old policies of the Crown that culminated with the ‘Indian essence’ or racialisation of indigeneity, as materialised in article 91(24) of the Canadian Constitution of 1867 and put into operation through the Savage, then Indian, Act; the entire state policy aimed, through sophisticated devices, to gradually make this ‘essence’ extinct through assimilation and the interpretation of Innu ‘rights’ as being rooted in state law.

The perception, by some, of state recognition of indigeneity and the rights associated with it as the genesis of the group, was an internal continuation of such policies. If the war fostered self-identification as indigenous among people, state recognition of indigenous rights ensured the exogeneity of their source and location outside an Innu self. This particular type of reception for external recognition revealed a particular in-group positioning. Some people observed that, for those who acquired Indian status through marriage, or those who had no access to Innu conceptions, for example, this overwhelming external recognition noticeably released them from the various discomforts of indigenisation.

This receptivity of recognition as genesiac, or having generated their own existence, led several people, including some of the new leaders, to perceive that the state had produced rights which had not previously existed, a posture revealing an internalised form of terra nullius – the successor to, and advancement of the term sui nullius. For these individuals, including some leaders, it was evident that ‘ Indians’ remain, fundamentally, objects produced by the Crown. It was therefore essential to maintain cooperation and negotiation with the state at all costs – alternately simulating indigeneity and sameness – in order to obtain more rights, in the name of realism, to progress and evolve in accordance with external standards.

From this perspective, indigenous rights are not only negotiable with the state, but must be agreed upon in order to exist. The collective freedoms of the Essipiunnuat are therefore entirely correlated to state representations and definitions of legitimacy, and ultimately form the basis of the band council’s authority as created in accordance with the Indian Act. This authority is also therefore deeply rooted in the Canadian constitutional regime. For this category of receptors, culturally disconnected, the empowered self was born from the womb of the Crown. Increased access to its ‘milk’ is the best promise of empowerment. For them, continuous state recognition after the war resulted in a constant sense of empowerment (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 1). In this context, cultural oblivion, as the underlying strategy of policies towards First Peoples in Canada, systematically invalidates Innu’s epistemology of ancestral sovereignties and laws, relation to Assi, and ways of governing themselves.

Recognition as a stratagem

A second type of receptivity to external recognition corresponds to the interpretation of state recognition as a mere stratagem, a ploy to take Indians into the trap of extinguishment through the subtle legitimisation of state conceptions and devices – stratagems of the Canadian state to obtain the Innu people’s abandonment of their inherent obligations and the surrender of their sui generis ancestral sovereignty (Innu tipenitamun). Cultural disruptions and assimilation meet the interests of the Crown and the assertion of its absolute supremacy and sovereignty to the point of becoming the only legitimate source of indigenous law and rights. It is through inciting the Innu to sameness and cultural assimilation that the Crown eventually succeeds over time in making them accept the erasure and negation of their historical ancestral conception of sovereignty and their inalienable rights to self-determination (Samson, 2001), in patent violation of the international jus cogens.¹⁰

Some people were aware of these stratagems, especially that state recognition of their rights was a double-edged sword. This is reflected in their analyses of the post-Salmon War negotiations and agreements. Older people in particular were aware that the Essipiunnuat leaders were becoming increasingly trapped in the state stratagem in return for short-term gains. They correlated this abduction by state definitions of indigenous rights with a subsequent decline in in-group participation and, ultimately, the reinterpretation of the Salmon War as a collective defeat. This discernment is particularly acute among these older individuals, the traditionalists, who have received ancestral teachings or have kept regularly in touch with other indigenous groups. They directly correlate their feelings and perceptions of disempowerment with the new leaders’ multi-faceted post-Salmon War opportunism and their increased use, or commodification, of Innu symbols.

Some stories accuse leaders of having complied in a cowardly, unforgivable way with state definitions of proper traditional activities as indigenous, if not their Innu identity, because they could be bought and thought of the Innu ancestral domain (or more widely, Assi) as transferable. As will be demonstrated, this posture is very similar to the critique articulated around the comprehensive land claims negotiation process which disregarded indigenous conceptions, including inherent sovereignty. Following their experience in the war, people’s expectations for integral respect of inherent indigenous sovereignty were high. State recognition merely validated their own Innu conceptions and released them increasingly from exogenous definitions; it gave the people human dignity, a dignity as Innu. But in their view, it was to alter nothing of their collective rights and duties, forever rooted in Innu tipenitamun, their ancient conception of sovereignty as responsibility. For them, there is no link between state recognition and the nature of their collective rights, for they had existed long before colonisation. If colonisation and settlement contributed to the usurpation of these rights, at no time did they alter their existence and nature. Their lands would remain unceded, and Innu tipenitamun would be integrally preserved, despite the mood of the dominant society and the Crown (Mestenapeo, chapter 3, ref. 4; Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 2; Pishimnapeo, chapter 3, ref. 7; Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 2; Pierre, chapter 3, ref. 8).

For people in this category, who already had access to Innu referentiality and philosophy of law, their experience of the war had not enhanced their knowledge of those rights, but only the extent to which they were recognised by the state. This was meaningful chiefly in relation to the practice of ancestral activities; this was the great difference. No longer would the state agents harass them. However, any compromise with state imposition of what legitimate indigenous practices are remained unacceptable.

Indeed, for these individuals, such recognition did not change the arbitrary nature of the actions of the state based on a specific conception of power and sovereignty. The state changed its manners, but kept its ability to command the Indians and to remove the rights they recognised (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 1). For them, recognition had either much less value, no value at all, or it was a state strategy to take something from them. As such, Indians needed to be more vigilant than ever, as an older war was continuing, despite the end of the contentious battle over salmon fishing. Negotiations with the state with regards to indigenous rights capitalised on the founding principles of the group itself. It was an immoral and at the very least inadequate reification of indigeneity and a clear and unforgivable transgression that resulted, above all, in a dangerous form of disempowerment.

Legitimising the devices of the state

Several people afterwards felt they had been fooled, mainly by the government but also by their leaders who negotiated with the state. The Essipiunnuat eventually ‘got caught in the Québec government net’. As Pierre describes extensively, somehow the Salmon War had been lost and they entered into a game by signing an agreement that the government needed more than they did. The state had a stratagem. The Innu had inherent rights; signing an agreement over these rights was serving the state and could only result in new delimitations of these rights. To spread a net by the wharf meant, for the government, the symbolic expansion of the Indians, their occupation of a land beyond the reserve. The government sought to stop this. The negotiations finally resulted in the issue of a licence being a requirement for Innu community fishing. Some saw this as a betrayal of the group’s fundamental principles and a systematic legitimisation of state devices. To a certain extent the group had been forced back to its former position, as the state was subtly becoming the source of their sovereignty and ‘rights’ (Pierre, chapter 2, ref. 4).

Individual Essipiunnuat fishermen would now need to pay a provincial licence fee, as the Euroquébécois did, to fish in the Esh Shipu River. The problem with this was not about finance, but the fact that the Innu needed any licence at all, especially as one had never been required before for fishing and hunting. People felt that they were again being assimilated and their rights were being disregarded. This was firmly interpreted as unacceptable, and the leaders were accused of not truly believing in inherent indigenous rights. Even if the community was co-manager of the river, its members had fought the government at great peril to their lives and their leaders were now requiring them to obtain a permit to fish salmon from the river. This was viewed as absurd, and yet, to a certain extent, revealed the new leaders’ thinking (Pierre, chapter 4, ref. 1).

Some of the older generation also felt they had returned to a time when the European Crowns were exchanging territories for ‘a few small mirrors’.¹¹ With the Salmon War and the negotiation that followed, the Essipiunnuat had in accepted the ‘gift’ of a right that in they already possessed in accordance with their Innu legal tradition, and they were not comfortable with this idea (Pierre, chapter 3, ref. 2 and 3; Mestenapeo, chapter 3, ref. 9). Schedules and laws were imposed on the Essipiunnuat, which were understood to be more favourable to the settler population. This was an excessive self-restriction to their rights when the whole of the Innu homeland was in fact their ancestral domain (Napeo, chapter 3, ref. 5).

As previously documented, the upcoming leaders excluded some of the older leaders on the basis that they were too uncompromising in their approach towards indigenous rights, as well as too honest to play the ongoing political game. For those excluded, these negotiations and their results were to remain illegitimate to this day. Consenting to the usurpation of Essipiunnuat sovereignty and definitions was incredibly disempowering, if not a form of collective self-annihilation, and completely contradicted what they had resisted in the war.

Stories evidence that this dynamic of reification of indigeneity was, indeed, serving the interests of some individuals who were willing to legitimise their newly acquired authority over the group. Consequently, recognition was perceived as a state stratagem for imposing its own definitions and to legitimise practices in parallel to feeding an increased internal authoritarianism. The most disempowering aspect was perhaps awareness of internal attempts to legitimate power. The post-Salmon War era therefore left a range of Essipiunnuat with the bitter taste of having their extensive sacrifices in the war devalued. Their voices resonate with the disempowering sense of having been used for ends they had not consented to or stated during the war. One may wonder to what extent this disillusionment contributed to the non-transmission of stories about the war to the next generation and the production of cultural oblivion.

Internal reordination: the path to monocracy

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A commonly perceived fruit of the uprising remains the emergence of an ‘empowered self ’, a notion shared by almost everyone, despite the post-Salmon War reevaluations and experiences of disempowerment. This empowered self was to become critical to the post-Salmon War normative order. However, its value, contents and definitions also became an issue of power and control. An in-group re-ordering through bureaucratisation and the establishment of panoplies of institutional devices and modes of domination, all coupled with ideologies and representations, are reported in the stories as core results of the war.

The collective experience of war is commonly presented as the genesis of later community developments and actions, and as the moral foundation of an indigenous-communitarian regime. Stories often explicitly suggested a collective subject generated by the experience and an associated governing mechanism. This section explores extracts which refer to that ‘subject’, the local post-Salmon War regime, the normative order, and related modes of control that emerged as enduring outcomes of the event.

The production of this ‘subject’ appears, in a Foucauldian sense, as an object historically constituted on basic determinations that remain fundamentally exterior to it; it has a genesis, a formation and a history; it is not conceived as inherent. The analysis of this subject thus requires access to its genealogy through historical contextualisation and a form of history that reflects ‘the constitution of its knowledge at the risk of being empty in its identity, all over history’ (Foucault, 1997, quoted in Revel, 2009).

Changes in collective self-representations or group self-identity generally signify correlated modifications in terms of epistemic mutations, but also in normative ordering and modes of social control and their legitimisation (Kappeler, 1986). Effectively, the self-representations generated by the experience of the Salmon War are directly coupled with subsequent developments and the establishment of new social institutions. These social designs materialised in a communitarian system that claimed indigeneity as its moral foundation but also referred with some constancy, as will be shown later, to aspects of a socialist vision – socialist but with an authoritarian tone.

Nevertheless, interviewees also voiced perceived incompatibilities and contradictions between ‘ideologies’ and their interactions with the subject. For example, people frequently mentioned an inner racism as a core component of the group condition, and it is essential to reflect on what happened to these evaluations and their foundations in post-Salmon War Essipit. More dramatically, some discreetly set out – for fear of reprisals, expulsion from the reserve, job losses or psychological harassment – evidence of a despotic drift in the small community.

The inadequate consideration given in research to essentialisation in micro-group self-representations and ideologies, particularly among the most racially oppressed of these entities, is well known. As Bhatt (1999) argues, subjectivities emerging in resistance to racial oppression risk containing forms of ‘absolutisms of the powerless’ that would contradict the radical claim to equality of dignity among humans and groups that nourish their actions. Such inner antinomies would contribute, in the long run, to collective exhaustion. To break free from ‘epistemic generalities’ and access the ‘material of identity’, which is substantially contained in ‘historical and social processes, institutions, networks, and associations’ would, ultimately, be a promising way of discovering ‘how progressive sensibilities can disavow the possibility of their appropriation by authoritarianism’.¹² Such criticism of the intimate links between the essentialisation of identity and authoritarianism, as lived by people, is more than ever necessary in order to comprehend the deeper effects of the reserve system.

The question is particularly relevant in a context where Indian status, based on a ‘blood quantum’ fiction and raciality as defined by the Crown, remains the only official valid definition of identity for Indians in Canada. In addition to the reserve, the band council, as a device of the Crown specifically designed for complete domination and assimilation, has absolute power over the Indians – one that can only be restrained by the Crown itself, which has the legal power to dismiss it at any time. Therefore, the constitutional regime of 91(24), materialized in the Indian Act, founded on an essentialist definition of Indian identity, and which takes its source of power from the authority of the Crown itself, is a system that favours authoritarian practices. It is also inseparable, and in a sense a continuity of, the residential schools’ regime of power. Symptoms of internal tyranny on the reserve must be studied in accordance with the wider political environment; they can be traced back through the state’s definitions and practices, which must be examined if we are to understand the magnitude of contemporary internal conflict and in-group discontinuities they generate.

As an outcome of the war, three main elements, pertaining to the post-Salmon War social order and modes of control, surfaced in the stories. The first concerns the concentration of power in the hands of a few. The second is about the emergence of a new and unique ideology, or communitarian-indigenist scheme, deeply related to the Salmon War as the foundation of a new interpretation for the group. A third element concerns manifestations of authoritarianism as perceived and articulated in stories.

Condensing of command

In the intervening years, it became apparent that the Salmon War was a founding event for the group and its subsequent reordering; a myth that looms large in the post-Salmon War Essipiunnuat imaginary and which has specific functions. It is often presented as a new beginning for the group, as a turning point in its history, and even as a successful rescue from nothingness. Allegedly, it is entirely to that period that the origin of the collective socioeconomic developments and actions of reterritorialisation, subsequent to the war, should be traced. Yet, if the Salmon War is linked to a collective decision to revitalise the reserve, to develop it and to work together for the group, paradoxically only four central actors relate that fact, one of whom reportedly openly expressed his wish to establish his full domination over the group (Mestenapeo, chapter 3, ref. 3; Pishimnapeo, chapter 3, ref. 8).

Four figures are in effect portrayed as the main if not the only decision-makers in post-Salmon War Essipit. Their discourse was said to be along the lines of ‘Stop! This is what people want. This is what people will get. We will take things into our own hands. We will develop our community as we see it, with our own rules’ (Napeo, chapter 3, ref. 4). Representations of their post-Salmon War actions tend to be polarised as legitimate and entirely based on the will of the people on the one hand, and illegitimate and increasingly forced on the people on the other. This paradox is inseparable from the contemporary state of affairs in the community, which was characterised for four decades until 2016 by the overwhelming control exercised by a small group and then only one person, its impact on what is perceived as legitimate or not in the public realm, and the space granted to critical and dissident views. The individuals concerned are all now retired from their administrative positions, but the questions over the type of influence some former leaders had on band council decisions, and whether or not some of them still pull the strings, remain open in the community.

These four actors are described as belonging to a new generation. In the beginning, at least, the stories report the merging of the will of this cell of newly positioned leaders with the interests, desires and will of the whole group. These militants are presented, in post-Salmon War Essipit, as the true defenders of the group’s freedoms. Their actions are associated with the beginning of the authentic defence of the community. More specifically, the proper security of collective interest and life can be traced back to the moment when the council decided to be the only source of leadership (Mesnak, chapter 3, ref. 1).

The band council discourse was characterised by a call for direct action aiming at a radical socioeconomic autonomisation of the group. The goal, as presented in people’s accounts, was mainly for the council to create a new economy, articulated around the central priority of job creation for members. Ending economic alienation and getting ‘their people’ working was therefore a priority. The link is widely made, for example, between the current socioeconomic situation of the group, characterised by the absence of unemployment for resident members, and the actions of the four leaders (Riel, chapter 3, ref. 4).

Whether or not presented as legitimate, the escalating concentration of decision-making in the hands of a new generation organised as a cell is commonly recognised. The cell was disseminating the idea, among others, that the ownership of the means of production should be placed in the hands of the members, through designing and operating a communitarian economy. The actions of the predominant cell are, indeed, linked with the emergence of a single party composed of their supporters, together with a unique ideology and a monopoly on public communication and economic development, as well as interpretations of Essipiunnuat history and norms.

This concentration of power is also said to have produced an intensification of in-group conflicts, coupled initially with the exclusion of the preceding generation of decision-makers and other dissidents. As one Elder described at length, those who felt this exclusion from the centre of power continue to denounce this elimination as a great injustice. But in their view, they were not the only ones to be excluded. In fact, all those not part of the ‘gang’, or somehow dissident to the ruling party or not in agreement with the new ‘ pattern’ of the reserve, were cast aside. Exclusion was, and remains for some, the key instrument used against opponents of the council. If you were not part of the political approach of the cell, then you were outside it. Right after the war, people were classified as being either ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the group, and their dignity and individual rights were allegedly dependent on their allegiance to in-group authority. Loyalty was somehow determining individual belonging to the group and being recognised, or not, as a full member (Mestenapeo, chapter 3, ref.1). To what extent these practices are still effective, even after 2016, remains difficult to assess and is not the purpose of this research.

One technique for exerting control over members consisted of lending money. Since it was not possible for Indians to get loans from a bank, money was being loaned at astronomical interest rates, which could reach 35 per cent. As Mestenapeo maintains, it was harder then to get support at the assembly since many in the room were increasingly vulnerable and fearful of their new leaders (chapter 3, ref. 8).

We can therefore see how the stories reflect the concentration of decision-making that followed the war within a small cell. Those who were excluded from this restricted circle felt that they were witness to an abuse of power. The stories suggest that dissidence or opposition to leaders was not much tolerated in post-Salmon War Essipit.

Before us there was nothing: metaphysics of domination

The concentration of power, in parallel with the introduction of a new system, was accompanied by various strategies of legitimisation. The new leaders peddled their own discourse, conceptions, practices and interpretations of the past that were to profoundly mark the group and its relation to the past, and still do today. The more autocratic the regime was to become, the more the interiority of the leaders was to be projected on the whole group and to be a powerful determinant of its mnemonic practices.

We might wonder to what extent a strong desire to forget – among leaders, for example – translated into a drive for collective erasure and a desire to make everyone forget. It is fascinating to study on a micro-scale how the psychological condition of a dominant leader, characterised by a form of mnemophobia, became a determining feature of the group’s relationship with the past and led to one individual having political and economic control and to a gradual unification of interpretation.

Legitimacy and legitimation

The new leaders were allegedly fuelled by a strong sense of self-legitimacy in taking command to benefit the whole group. Legitimacy was rooted in disseminating a discourse, recognised by most members, that these new leaders spoke ‘the truth’ about the group’s shared grievances, having been oppressed and tortured, and would make it a priority to overcome this state of affairs. Presented as a continuation of pre-war ideology and struggles, the legitimacy of their actions would be grounded and reinforced in a common experience of the war. They claimed to have the support of the whole community, with people telling them that their deeds were justified and thus their authoritative attitude was valid (Sam, chapter 3, ref. 8). Indeed, evaluation of their actions was presumably based on their higher knowledge concerning, among other things, the financial aspects of management and investments. The new leadership ‘knew where to put the money’ (Édouard, chapter 3, ref. 2).

Another discourse emanating from the leading cell is the sociohistorical context of everything they did in terms of the repeated dogma, ‘before us, there was nothing’. Everything that took place prior to their intervention tended to be portrayed negatively, and this dominant mantra was disseminated and steadily absorbed by Essipiunnuat.

The psychological reserve: mental barbells

This discourse evidences the establishment of a post-war in-group governmentality, characterised by a specific and unidimensional representation of the group’s past. This new leitmotif echoes a well-known dynamic of the production of ignorance intrinsic to bureaucratic and institutional formations, which is a favoured tool of legitimisation (McGoey, 2007; 2012a; 2012b).¹³ As McGoey has demonstrated, ignorance is a powerful resource that can serve, ‘as a productive asset … to command resources, deny liability in the aftermath of crises and to assert expertise in the face of unpredictable outcomes’; it can be ‘harnessed as a resource, enabling knowledge to be deflected, obscured, concealed or magnified in a way that increases the scope of what remains unintelligible’ (2011a; 2011b). The new post-Salmon War ‘Indian’ would therefore be born from nothing if it did not come from its powerful leaders, and was at risk of steadily returning to nothingness, if opposition to the new plan and its operators was expressed. Obviously, such a new and far-reaching statement regarding the Essipiunnuat past, reminiscent of the assertion that ‘before the creation of the reserve, there was nothing’,¹⁴ reaches the core of the matter regarding cultural oblivion and its production. Whether qualified as directed forgetting, erasure with a goal of dissimulating traumas, monocratic rewriting or the predominance of a certain revolutionary ideology that does not valorise references to the past, this posture would have consequences for the group.

In the stories, emphasis is often given to the communitarian system set up after the war. This was central to the internal reordering put in place by the cell, and was allegedly the main tool for the economic, cultural, social and political autonomisation of the group. The origins of this system, which is still in place but which has been governed by a new general manager since 2016 – as well as its philosophy and legitimacy – are related to the experience of the group during the Salmon War. The system remained rooted in and dependent on this story, which could explain a gradual and observable rewriting of the unfolding of events, characterised by the centrality of its contemporary leaders in the stories. The Salmon War became a founding event in collective memory, but it also became a useful myth, allowing for its reactivation in accordance with specific purposes, such as mobilisation, but also repression. This is illustrated by the assertions interviewees now make that they are ready to defend the whole system just as they were ready to die for the communitarian net 30 years earlier (Raoul, chapter 3, ref. 2). As subsequent events would illustrate, it only takes a mention of war for mobilisation and norms of commitment to be triggered among the Essipiunnuat, and leaders have used this at times to their advantage.

That said, if a growing mythologisation of memory seems to favour the maintenance of in-group unity, the stability of the system and the commitment of members, the hypothesis can be made that it serves, above all, to legitimate the central command unit, its authority and heritage. This would help to explain how the ownership of the memory of the Salmon War is so crucial, as well as controversial, for the community.

Perceptions of authoritarianism: unearthing tyrannies

The self-reflective activity of an autonomous society depends essentially upon the self-reflective activity of the humans who form that society. A politics of autonomy, if one doesn’t want to be naive, can exist only by taking into account the human being’s psychical dimension; it therefore presupposes a high degree of understanding of this being.

Cornelius Castoriadis (2007, p. 151)

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Edmund Burke

A close study of the testimonies evidences significant disagreements over established authority following the war. If interviewees frequently mention post-Salmon War technologies of governance, interestingly they are correlated with a reading of despotic attitudes that was to increase over time.

First, the results of the negotiation with the government left some individuals perplexed. The manner in which the negotiations were conducted is deplored as well as the attitude of those who finally settled the deal. In fact it was during these negotiations that the major generational switch of power – or, according to others, the takeover of the group by a small cell – was put into operation (Mestenapeo, chapter 3, ref. 8).

This point leads to internal arguments and a polarisation between the new power and its opponents (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 6). Ideological intolerance was noted, then a lack of respect for different points of view. Any freedom of expression was noticeably devalorised, and some people felt they were pushed into an ‘opponent of the regime’ category (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 5). These conflicts, associated with a power struggle during the Salmon War, have already been mentioned as the source of subsequent conflict within the group, including the unemployment crisis¹⁵ that arose when segments of the group were systematically stigmatised for seditious actions against the council’s authority (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 6). Those identified as traitors by the administration were subsequently given a job, on the condition that they ask for forgiveness in public – a ritual humiliation remembered bitterly by those subjected to it. There was also increased exclusion of community members because of their ideological orientations and beliefs. This exclusion was not only perceived as related to ideological issues, but also critically to indigeneity. The schism in perception of the legitimacy of power, and about what is sacred, was to be enduring and would affect how the whole system was viewed in the years that followed.

The central critique did not pertain so much to the results of the leaders’ actions but to their authoritarianism in decision-making, an approach unrespecting of ancient consensual modes of governance. Some of the interviewees assert that not all of the leaders believed in their struggles during the war and that if the people of the reserve had known this from the beginning, they would not have so readily accepted exclusion from that circle of decision-makers. This is perceived as a crucial and unacceptable determinant of disempowerment and weakening of the group, particularly since this duplicity was also witnessed by the Euroquébécois out-group.

When those who fished as their ancestors had always done, and lived in accordance with Innu-aitun, ceremonies and ancient modes of government, saw others ignorant of such traditional practices rising to dominance, they interpreted this as dishonourable, embarrassing and tantamount to treason (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 5). After the war, they could not recognise the legitimacy of those who were presuming to speak for the group, but who were in fact camouflaging their real motivations which were mainly directed by personal interest (Ernest, chapter 2, ref. 6).

The sense of being used

There was a sense among the group that the leaders were unifying and dividing at will in their own interest, and that other members were being used rather than being authentically defended. For community members to be defended and supported by the band council was not dependent on principles, but on the willingness and discretionary power of some of the leaders (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 1). Interviewees felt their deeds in the war were not recognised for their intrinsic heroic and sacrificial value, but only as a tool for leaders to gain power and legitimate it (Ernest, chapter 3, ref. 1). Mestenapeo confirms this view about manipulation:

‘They used to call him God’: micro-scale autocracy

Another phenomenon that was observed concerns the gradual concentration of power in the hands of only one individual. This was to culminate in this particular individual gaining complete control over the group. Georges was, until May 2016, the director general of the band council and the only decision-maker for the group, with a veto on everything. He began his career as an employee of the band council before the 1979 Salmon War.

Apart from some of the older interviewees, few of those taking part dared to address the issue of Georges’ power and practices, and even less to articulate any criticism. The statements that follow are based on personal communications and interviews with those who experienced abuses of power, and on testimonies given confidentially, as well as more than a decade of field observations. These statements do not aim to break reputations or put anyone on trial, but only to uncover the regime of power that has been at the core of Essipiunnuat politics for decades and the central role exercised by this one public figure. The shadows cast by his own relationship with the past on the whole group’s mnemonic practices became increasingly central to the investigation, although it was not the initial intended focus.

Since such monocratic pathologies are experienced in numerous communities plagued by psychological colonialism and the effects of intergenerational trauma, the experiences of Essipit in this area deserve to be exposed and shared widely. Truth and being courageously honest about toxic masculinities and abuse, whether sexual or power-related, are a core remedy for healing our wounded groups, especially since silence tends to benefit any abusers. The importance of shedding light on the power relations within the community, for the sake of truth, was mentioned in conversations, especially with the Elders. Truth-telling is particularly important for healing relationships, restoring intergenerational trust and for a healthy local political culture.

It is still too soon to access all the components of Georges’ legacy, positive or negative, as he has only recently left office. His collaborators should in fairness not face such future investigations since they also felt the impact, to a certain extent, of his control and quest for power. These circumstances are well known in this small community; the past exclusion of dissidents, a local culture of secrecy, the fear of retaliation and members’ almost complete financial dependence on the administration are factors that help to explain the silence surrounding his reign.

‘One day, I will be the only one in charge’: the elation of power

According to Mestenapeo, the current internal regime can only be understood if we shed light on the psychology of Georges, and the role he played. Early in his career, he explicitly stated that one day he would be the only one in charge of the whole group. His studies of authoritarian models, including Stalinist Russia, and the application of his methods of domination to assert total control over the small reserve were mentioned by several different people, including Elders. Generally the comments were made off the record, but some interviewees were ready to talk about it publicly. They were interviewees who were profoundly angry and who, when not traumatised by his deeds, had been deeply wounded by harassment and humiliation. The end result of Georges’ reign would be the slide of the regime towards a very particular form of ethno-bureaucratic authoritarianism and the operationalisation of sophisticated modes of psychological control.

Hated, feared or showered with adulation, Georges exercised his authority through a small cell of devoted followers that he called his ‘dogs’. He was keen to play the father figure, in particular towards vulnerable individuals, whose complete loyalty he felt was his. According to a female Elder, ‘he is a very intelligent and charismatic man, there is no doubt of that. The problem is that he uses his power for bad purposes’ (Adèle, personal conversation, 2011). As he once told me in conversation, pointing to one of my fatherless, very young cousins: ‘Become his father figure and he will do whatever you want him to do’ (personal communication with Georges, 2008). All the events experienced by the community, from the Salmon War to the unemployment crisis, were an opportunity for him to get a better grip on the destiny of the small group.

Facets of micro-totalitarianism: from monopoly of interpretation to the praxis of psychological domination

Georges’ system of political, economic and cultural domination was based, among other things, on the weakness of the members’ general assembly, the seat of democracy in the community, which he controlled entirely. The climate at the assembly was characterised by an atmosphere that discouraged attendance, and meant that people were afraid to speak in opposition to the line taken by the administration. There was a shared feeling among the residents that they would not succeed in changing the course set by the administration once it had been decided.

Georges made sure that he controlled the band council, the chief and the councillors, and made them his pawns. He was a master of the ‘divide and rule’ precept, but at a micro-level. If the debility of the general assembly gave more power to the chief and councillors, the weakness of this very council ensured that decision-making powers remained entirely in the hands of the general manager, Georges himself. He appointed directors who were loyal to him and obeyed his every order so that he retained complete power over the group.

Another feature of his system was economic control. The small band administration hired more than 500 people through various community-owned enterprises. Despite the interesting features of this local economic system, the fact remains that the band administration is more or less the only employer of band members, who are therefore entirely under its economic control. There was a general perception that whether or not workers received their salary was down to Georges’ whim.

Such situations favour submissiveness and compliance with power. Also, as the majority of the employees of the band administration and community-owned businesses were Euroquébécois, and not band members, they had no political power and tended to be completely submissive in order to keep their jobs, thus reinforcing the leader’s political domination. Band members who criticised the administration would experience pressure from Euroquébécois employees who felt they were in unstable work. Assertion by band members, for example, that the epistemological approach and cultural practices of the leaders were more Euroquébécois than Innu would be met with disapproval and taken as a threat, if not an accusation of racism, towards the Euroquébécois. It was therefore difficult to produce any internal cultural critique.

One of Georges’ techniques was to play the Indian–white racial divide to his advantage, between Essipit and Les Escoumins in particular, by speaking to ‘Indians’ against the ‘whites’, and vice versa. This resulted in a constant division that could be reactivated at any time in order to change public attention, create a diversion or galvanise the group when needed.

On the one hand, he presented himself as an Innu wise man, but on the other, he would not hesitate to criticise other Innu communities and present Essipit as superior to other groups. I myself witnessed him on various occasions making disrespectful comments about others, including close collaborators, using misogynist and humiliating terminology. This is common knowledge within the group.

Indeed, Georges would exploit the anomie and cultural amnesia experienced by the group to increase his dominion and institute his word as the only valuable source of indigenous knowledge. Conveying the myth of the group absence of history, and favouring an interpretation of the group history through the eyes of the Euroquébécois colonial discourse would make even more space for rewriting. Significantly, he restricted Essipiunnuat history to a chronology of his own actions, which he meticulously upgraded year by year.¹⁶

Georges did not hesitate to use his charisma to seduce vulnerable individuals and use them for his own ends. The less the group considered itself as Innu, the more his own authoritative words could mystify his interlocutors.

Personal communications with community members reveal his brutishness if he experienced any dissent. Other people, as previewed in the testimonies, confirmed the grave accusations that had been made about his exploitation of people’s weaknesses and generosity. Public insults and degrading comments to his collaborators during meetings, including his own family members – such as ‘get your finger out of your arse’, for example – were heard. And he publicly humiliated the former chief (a candid and caring man), whom he regularly called ‘chicken feather’. He was particularly keen on questioning the intelligence of others in order to be perceived as possessing superior intelligence himself, and to take credit for positive developments emanating from Essipit.

The doctrine of ‘divide and conquer’ was deliberately employed with in this small community. In particular he diminished others during conversations and was astute at making interlocutors feel more intelligent through being close to him. This was especially effective with the younger generation who were more likely to question his authority and overshadow his reign. Potentially subversive, all younger members who could exercise power in the small community and question his intellectual superiority were progressively put aside by different stratagems in favour of a tiny ‘gang’ of people who were under his control. For example, the most recent chief, Martin Dufour, was ‘chosen’ precisely because he was entirely under Georges’ control and he would do ‘what we want him to do’ (anon., 2011).¹⁷

He would sow the seeds of discord, leading some band members to believe that other band members were against them; he would cause the breakdown in relations between individuals in the group, create paranoia and ensure a climate of distrust. A technique used against dissidents, or those who did not share his views, was to circulate false information in order to damage their reputations and psychologically put pressure on them. Such circumstances of pressure, denigration, harassment and treason generally meant that the people concerned had no choice but to leave the reserve. Over time, he succeeded in distancing people with political power, either through expelling them from the group or through giving jobs to partners who did not have ‘Indian status’. The mass hiring of Euroquébécois, who did not have any political voice in Essipit enterprises, ensured that he had complete control over them, as he was their provider. He surrounded himself with family members or people who were submissive and obedient to his orders; he exercised total control over incomes, political life and the interpretation of the group, in a typically autocratic style.

As he mentioned in conversations, he meticulously analysed the psychology of his surroundings. Since he knew everyone in the community, of any generation, he was relaxed about controlling parent as well as child, bending them to his will or finding their weaknesses. His speech was often characterised by an imposing aggression and arrogance that created a climate of fear.

Stories report a slip of the ‘indigenous-communitarian’ system into bureaucratic absolutism and authoritarianism. This was justified by its orchestrators as being due to external racial threats or internal attempts to ‘destabilise’ power, something quite surprising given the small size of the community. This was to have serious repercussions for the small group and its already critical cultural condition. Is it reasonable to hypothesise, in light of the stories, that the desire for control and policies of oblivion imposed on the group was nourished by a deeper personal desire to forget which could be related, among other things, to the leaders’ own family circumstances and traumas going back to childhood? The biographies of long-standing leaders remain of primary importance, and deserve closer attention.

This kind of personage, and their success, can also be observed in other reserves as a symptom of psychological colonialism, perhaps best evidenced by the tyrant archetype, incarnated by the chief Tooktoo, in the novel Chronicles of Kitchike, by the wendat writer Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui. Such an authoritarian spirit and ethnic absolutism is clearly favoured by the colonial regime of the 1867 Constitution Act 91(24) and the Indian Act itself, which is founded on essentialist definitions and a racial fiction. The unhealthy valorisation of the ‘good Indian’ as being dominant over the ‘bad Indian’, yet obedient to colonial state and church institutions, is directly related to the irruption of sadistic practices and the scourge of humiliation in reserves. This is why a contemporary critique of these internal, and often invisible oppressions, should not overshadow the root cause of its emergence, which is the Canadian constitutional regime and the history of its implementation, as well as the intergenerational effects of residential school which a generation of leaders attended.

The colonial rule of the Indian Act gives overwhelming power to the imposed band council system, while not valorising in-group power sharing, consensual democracy and the responsibility of the leaders towards band members. The power concentrated in the hands of the director general appears, therefore, as a continuation of the Indian Agent’s domination and facilitates the reproduction of the ‘ Indian-object’ for the purpose of the Crown’s prevalence over First Peoples and their ancestral territories and the weakening of internal resistance.

Commitment in the light of experience

Retrospectively, and as in many revolutionary experiences, some people wonder if they would participate again in the Salmon War knowing the demagogic manoeuvrings that were to follow and the use of its memory for the erection of an authoritarian regime. Whether or not interpreted as legitimate, whether good or bad for the group, it is commonly recognised that a new paradigm was established in the community that gave priority to the recent past and tended to silence and present as non-existent what had preceded the war. As time passed, the interpretation of the war itself became increasingly articulated in a way that valorised the role of those exerting authority within the group. As autocratic rule was gradually instituted, the community’s relationship with its past was overshadowed by the interiority and interests of a ruler who projected his own internal politics of forgetting and propensity for narcissism onto the whole group. The major effects of this are still difficult to grasp. What is evident though, is a tendency to perpetuate colonial features which represent the Essipiunnuat as having no past before the Salmon War (in the same pattern as no history having existed before the creation of the reserve), and which commodify Innu principles while allowing a simulacrum of indigeneity (such as playing the good Indian, discourse about Essipit as role-model and the innubliable marketing campaign). The complex process of metamorphosis by which the Indian-object, at the heart of Canadian colonial rule, became a simulated-Indian, remains a central contemporary topic; the case of Essipit raises the question of how a new subject, coming out of collective resistance, can be transformed again into an object, but according to local modalities. With the Punchinello character, An Antan Kapesh seized, perhaps before everyone else, the fact that the simulation of indigeneity would take centre stage for local managers as colonialism advanced among Innu, and the psychological effects it would have.

The scholar Bruno Cornellier (2013) has shown how what he calls the ‘Indian thing’ remains central to the comprehension of the dynamics of control over representations in terms of First Peoples and domination in general. This ‘thing’ corresponds to ‘that constantly deferred presence of the self, which emerges from the interstices of a racial−colonial relation of power each time Natives and non-Natives attempt to designate that which is truly Indian and that which is not.’ Brought back to power relations within First Peoples’ communities, his perspective offers a tool towards a better comprehension of the phenomena of reification and internal domination, as a result of psychological colonisation, but also encompasses how,

As this research unfolded, it gave rise to a strong awareness of the powerful determinant of oblivion that this autocratic rule represented. Georges once asked about the research: ‘Are you sure you want to dig into our past? Abusers won’t like it!’ (Georges, 2009). If some understanding of the colonial system, and the individual traumatic experiences it generated, helps to contextualise the tyrannies experienced by Essipiunnuat, amnesty cannot be given to its dominant actors in spite of their age, traumas and wounds. Yet it would be healthy for the next generation to thoroughly investigate their deeds, which were exercised in the public realm, and to evaluate all dimensions of their heritage in order to avoid the reproduction of colonial patterns of domination among themselves; a return to the teachings, repeatedly evoked by Elders, to the effect that only the truth can help heal a person or family group.

There is evidence that the leaders, and then the leader, were inclined to use the group identity, and control of its memory, in order to legitimate personal power and authority. Testimonies, personal communications and direct observations illustrate, despite widespread insecurity at making such claims, intense in-group polarities over the legitimacy of the current internal regime, a schism that increased until it became unbridgeable under an autocratic rule that did not tolerate any interpretation beyond its own reach. It is one of the roles of oral history, and the sociology of mnemonic practices, to break those unified dimensions and to re-establish silenced voices as a critical evaluation of the group’s condition and its internal order. There is also a confluence here with Innu aitun and philosophy, which tends to affirm that memory is in a sense integral, that the truth will out, that it flows inevitably to the present.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the multilateral and complex transformative experience of the Salmon War for the Essipiunnuat. Collective self-experience of uprising took the form of remodelling the Essipiunnuat relational system through the breakdown of some relationships and the forging of new associations, which culminated in a dynamic of reidentification. Essipit was then reinstated as a prime and valuable group of reference for the great majority of those who took part, mainly in opposition to out-group racist and integrationist definitions.

A second theme concerns alterations of individual and collective self-identity and conceptions, mainly the narration of a passage from a state of collective non-existence, inherent in the pre-war period, to the perception of a collective self during and after the war which allowed increased identification with it, with associated impacts on norms, attitudes and behaviours.

Thirdly, the phenomenon of collective self-empowerment was identified as an outcome of the uprising. People’s commitment to acts of asserting their indigenous social identity allegedly culminated in self-representations of an empowered self. Yet inversely, advancements of the out-groups’ definitions of legitimate practices resulted in disempowerment, institutional illegitimacy, contestations and auto-critics, in the wake of actions some carried out in the name of the collective.

Fundamentally, stories on empowerment and disempowerment reveal a schism best illustrated by polarities in the reception of state recognition and in the interpretation of Essipiunnuat ‘self ’ and the possibility of its commodification for the purpose of domination. Such divergence in conceptions of recognition reveals a deeper fracture concerning the identity of the group itself and its sources, and the power over their interpretations.

A final transformation concerns in-group reordering and the establishment of new modes of control, but also specific self-representations related to it. Significantly, this internal reorganisation includes the condensation of the decision-making process into the hands of a small cell of people, and the exclusion of older leaders who somehow became dissidents of the new regime, often in spite of themselves. It also reports the appropriation of power devices by a small group, and then by one individual. This person’s supremacy appears to have been reinforced by the reproduction of pre-war sui nullius, culminating in a metaphysic of self-control ensuring total legitimacy for all subsequent actions.

Autocrats naturally project their own relationship with the past onto the group; a strong desire to forget can then become a ‘command to forget’, with its subsequent result of controlling access to the past, and then the modalities of collective identity for total control. Was the new Essipiunnuat ‘subject’, born out of people’s response to sociohistorical perils, threatened, then, with becoming an object or sinking into nothingness in the future in not respecting the new normative order and its sole guardian?

There is clear evidence in the stories that the group has experienced a gradual shift towards an advanced form of authoritarianism, in transgressions with ancestral conceptions. The post-Salmon War dominant discourse is contested on the basis that it is a mere reproduction of essential colonial images of the ‘ Indian’ aiming at its continuous control and annihilation, mainly manufactured through the Indian Act and its definitions of legitimate ‘Indianness’, translated in bureaucratic terms. The question of how much the Essipiunnuat freed themselves, or not, from the colonial representation of indigeneity as ‘disease’ and ‘something to heal’ remains open.

Inevitably, the promises of a post-Salmon War collective self were to confront the requirements of a developing new order, in particular the attractions of essentialisation for the very purpose of legitimation. Its shape was evidently influenced, if not mostly determined, by the designers who took over the responsibility of collective development and management. Pre-war Essipiunnuat self-representations were imbued with Crown representations of the ‘Indian’, as well as the Euroquébécois social imaginary and complexes. In the light of people’s stories, it appears that these representations, deeply related to a system of power and colonial domination, were not extirpated by decolonisation efforts, especially along psychological lines; they were, on the contrary, reproduced and refined for purposes of political domination and internal control. The Indian-as-object, at the core of the Crown imagery, was to be re-framed as simulated-Indian as a tool of social control.

The idea that these images were widely and explicitly reproduced in the new system, is validated by older people who have a better view of the whole process, from before the war to the present day. The cohabitation of indigenist and essentialist representations was to generate significant cultural antinomies and a crisis of auto-referentiality. Essipiunnuat self-representation, post-Salmon War, appeared widely modelled in accordance with the requirements of the new normative order, including its legitimisation, but dependent on their ‘controllers’ and their highly personal conception and interpretation of being Essipiunnuat. The concentration of power inevitably resulted in increased dependence on leaders’ representations of the group, including their version of the war, but also on their interiorities and inner knowledge, and their respect or denial of indigenous epistemologies. A deep desire to forget can become a drive to erase, a command to forget, and an act of rewriting in accordance with a self-centred chronology.

If cultural crisis is an attribute of the pre-war Essipiunnuat condition, it remains central to their experience of the Salmon War and presumably as important to their current condition and actuality. It echoes forms of nostalgia and regret, but above all a suspicion regarding the past and an obvious propensity to forget it in the present that deserves close attention.

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1 According to Turner and Killian, normative orders include ‘learned guidelines for socially approved ways of attaining these values, as well as rules for coordinating their everyday behaviour with that of other people’. These norms also include ‘formal law and regulations, and informal customs, some with moral implications and others which might be called rules of convenience’.

2 This phenomenon is explained in Scheff (1988), p. 97.

3 See ‘Entrevue avec Pierre Lepage’ (2010).

4 This was, in fact, remembered by only a few, such as, for example, Pishimnapeo. Similar to the awakening provoked among the previous generation by Jules Sioui’s radical stance in the mid 1940s, the Salmon War awakened a consciousness among the current generation and an awareness of the power of unity among First Peoples. Governments and their officials, for their part, were forced to surrender to the evidence that they could not negate and extinguish indigenous rights without encountering a strong and extended resistance. (Pishimnapeo, ch. 3, ref. 1)

5 Sam, ch.3, ref. 2 and 3.

6 Raoul, ch.3, ref. 9.

7 Drury et al. propose four main conceptual features of CSO: 1. Context change as self-change: in their view, identity derives from, and varies with, social relational context. An empowered self-concept is a function of participation in social relations defined in terms of power transformation – from the out-group to the in-group. 2. Novelty: empowering and inspiring acts are those which turn the existing world upside-down, the initiation of changes in ongoing unequal power relations. CSO refers to the actions of groups in resistance who challenge the status quo. 3. Action as realisation of legitimate practice: the experience of empowerment resulting from actions expressing the collective definition of legitimacy over and against that of dominant forces. To collectively self-objectify means to be a subject – and being a subject rather than an object of others’ actions is a definition of empowerment or agency. 4. Provisionality: a) Since CSO is a cause of empowerment as an outcome of collective action, it should feature in people’s accounts of empowered experiences, as unity and mutual aid; b) CSO is associated with increased participation in collective action; c) CSO is predictive of positive emotions and life-enhancing, joyful and positive feelings.

8 The term ‘commodification’ is used here in the sense of ‘treated as mere commodities’, which is to say the tendency to instrumentalise Innu heritage and symbols for the purposes of marketing and commerce, and using this as a stratagem for political ends.

9 State recognition of aspects of Essipiunnuat ancestral rights, especially relating to practices such as fishing and hunting, also had side effects. It produced some ongoing jealousy in a Euroquébécois fringe. At times this took the form of ‘white revenge’. It allegedly led some Euroquébécois poachers to go shooting moose in winter and ensure that the Indians would be publicly blamed. Some went as far as collecting moose foetuses and putting them on the steps of the church. They called the media and publicly accused the Indians of inhumanity and savage practices (Pierre, ch. 2, ref. 3 and 4). Another sad story concerns an Essipiunnuat woman. After the war, Essipit agreed to participate in the Québec national day. This consisted mainly of including some Essipiunnuat in a parade that went around the village and up to the tip of Pointe-à-la-Croix, by the big cross. For the occasion, an Essipiunnuat woman agreed to craft a traditional dress that she would wear in the parade. When the parade reached the cross, where a fire had been prepared as usual for the Québec national day, two men arrived and completely covered her with blue paint (the colour of the Québec flag) (Karen, personal communication, summer 2010).

10 Jus cogens comes from the Latin for ‘compelling law’ and refers, in contemporary international public law, to certain fundamental, overriding principles, from which no derogation, in domestic law or international law, is ever permitted. See Brownlie (1998).

11 This expression comes from Europeans’ fraudulent practice in the past of exchanging pieces of mirror for higher-value items. Another story describes the attempt to exchange a whole territory for a piece of mirror, an act that caused the First Peoples to laugh because territory cannot be exchanged.

12 Based on an analysis of Hindu ultra-nationalism, Bhatt (1999) asserts that essentialist self-conceptions would be easily reproduced in the contemporary world since ‘one can actively choose to ignore the face of the other, and celebrate only the poetics of the self. In modernity, one need not be a member of an already described chosen people; one can choose oneself, and can manufacture mythical stories, folk genealogies, political symbols and histories; cultivation and nurturing of a metaphysical self that identifies both the archaic and futuristic with itself ’. (pp. 2 and 82)

13 On the study of ignorance or agnotology, see Gross and McGoey (2015); Proctor and Schiebinger (2008).

14 This quote comes from the interview with late Elder Elise Ross and the archives used for the Attikamekw-Montagnais Council’s report. See Laforest (1983).

15 This episode from the early 1990s is described at length in chapter 5, in its first section, ‘The weaving of forgetfulness’. It began with a band member denouncing to the federal police a system of fraud that had been developed over time by the band administration. The event resulted in the court condemning the band administrator but also to great division within the community.

16 This chronology is accessible at http://innu-essipit.com/essipit/rappelez-vous.php (consulted Jan. 2019).

17 Personal communication with one of his advisors who prefers to remain anonymous.