Blackfoot Ways of Knowing

Betty Bastien is an instructor in indigenous studies at the University of Calgary. Her experience includes teaching and curriculum design at Red Crow Community College, in the Native studies department at the University of Lethbridge, and at the University of Calgary. Jurgen W. Kremer, who contributes an afterword to the book, is an executive editor of ReVision - Journal of Consciousness and Transformation. He has written about ethnoautobiography, dissociation, healing and cosmology, and violence against indigenous peoples. Duane Mistaken Chief provides language consultation and is a senior instructor and lecturer in Blackfoot language and Blackfoot ways of life at Red Crow Community College on the Blood Reserve.

Bastien has produced an important work that lays the foundation for making the Blackfoot way of knowing more accessible. Her discussions of Siksikaitsitapi ontology and pedagogy offer culturally appropriate ways of transferring this knowledge through a Siksikaitsitapi-controlled education system. Russel Wright, the late Siksika teacher and elder often said, "We have been studied to death. It is time we start studying ourselves back to life." He would have been proud of Betty Bastienâs study. Geralt T Contay, Histoire social/Social History

• Foreword by Pete Standing Alone (Nii'ta'kaiksa'maikoan)Preface by Betty Bastien (Sikapinaki)Blackfoot (Siksikaitsipowahsin) Pronunciation Key by Duane Mistaken Chief, Sr.I. Context1.Introduction2. Innahkootaitsinnika'topi - History of the Blackfoot-Speaking Tribes2.1 Introductory Remarks2.2. Iitotasimahpi Iimitaikes - The Era of the Dog or the Time of the Ancestors (Pre-Eighteenth Century)2.3. Ao'ta'sao'si Ponokaomita - The Era of the Horse (Eighteenth Century to 1880)2.4 Ao'maopao'si - From when we settled in one place (1880)3. Cultural Destruction - Policies of Ordinary Genocide II. Tribal Protocol and Affirmative Inquiry4. Niinohkanistssksinipi - Speaking Personally5. Traditional Knowledge in Academe6. Cultural Affirmation7. Protocol of Affirmative InquiryIII. Affirmation of Indigenous Knowledge8. Kakyosin - Traditional Knowledge 9. Kiiomohpiipotoko - Ontological Responsibilities10. Siksikaitsitapi Ways of Knowing - Epistemology11. Knowledge is Coming to Know Ihtsipaitapiiyo'pa12. Kakyosin/Mokaksin - Indigenous Learning13. Niitsi'powahsinni - Language14. Aipommotsspistsi - Transfers15. Kaaahsinnooniksi - GrandparentsIV. Conclusion: Renewal of Ancestral Responsibilities as Antidote to Genocide16. Deconstructing to Colonized Mind17. Eurocentred and Niitsiapi Identity18. Reflections and ImplicationsAfterword: Remembering Ancestral Conversations by JÜrgen W. KremerGlossaries by Duane Mistaken Cheif with JÜrgen W. KremerSiksikaitsipowahsin-EnglishEnglish-SiksikaitsipowahsinBiblography