Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age | 
“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins.
Save us from the fires of hell…”
The words cut me to the core—there it was again, hell. Why was the Church so obsessed with hell—why did it need to instill terror into people‘s hearts?
pickDarrel McLeod is a queer Nêhiyaw from northern Alberta, writing about his loving & painful relationship with his mother, Bertha. She was severely punished at residential school for speaking her language—by nuns who spoke in a garbled mix of English & French—so she didn‘t want her own children to learn Nêhiyawêtân. Racism, queer identity, cultural & family connections are poignantly crafted in spirals & with avian messengers. #Indigenous #LGBT
My interpretation of what I was learning was different from the usual student‘s. For example, Ernst Haeckel‘s theory that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” simply confirmed what my great-grandfather had used to say—that we were all related, the two-legged, the four-legged, those that fly and those that swim.
Initially the principles of existentialism disturbed me, but with time they provided relief. What if there really was no heaven or hell, and I only had to live in the present and make the most of it—accept responsibility for my own happiness and well-being? I loved the notion that I could choose whether or not to believe in Christianity without living in constant angst of going to hell.
The markers for *I* and *you* are attached as extra syllables to the verb forms. The 2nd-person pronoun is always more important, so it comes first, whether it‘s the subject or the object. Unlike in English, *I love you* and *you love me* both start with the marker ki, for *you.* The gendered pronouns *he* and *she* don‘t exist in Cree. Mother has told me this more than once, laughing at herself for getting the two mixed up.
Also reading. So far it‘s infuriating and good. Out in June.
bailedNot really a review since I just did a quick skim. I wasn't finding it terribly well written and it wasn't speaking to me overall. So I returned it to the library. 😔 So it will show here as a bail.
First book for Nonfiction November. Winner of the GG Books award for NF.
