Mi Kmaq Quotes

“This final chapter is neither a criticism nor an attempt to be negative and it is nothing more than a vision for the future. One of my many valued mentors and longtime friends once said to me, “Nation building is the greatest challenge to all mankind, for if you don’t salvage as much as possible from the past there will never be enough material to make it legitimate.” Through a collective perspective woven in Mi’kmaw communities in Newfoundland, I believe that the Mi’kmaw Nation in Newfoundland can continue to reclaim its roots in the land that it has called home for generations. We need to continue to challenge officials, leaders and governments to ensure Indigenous ways of knowing are included in conversation, and to ensure our people are not further assimilated. Always be truthful. Understand your past, family history and connections to the Mi’kmaw community, and represent nothing about us without us. We will be judged not by what we say, but by what we do.”
― Calvin White, One Man's Journey: The Mi’kmaw Revival in Ktaqmkuk

“My best friend was Annie Mae Aquash, a young, stronghearted woman from the Micmac Tribe with beautiful children. It is not always wise for an Indian woman to come on too strong. Annie Mae was found dead in the snow at the bottom of a ravine on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The police said that she had died of exposure, but there was a .38 caliber slug in her head. The FBI cut off her hands and sent them to Washington for fingerprint identification, hands that had helped my baby come into the world.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“They won't let Indians like me live. That's alright. I don't want to grow up to be an old woman. -Annie Mae Aquash”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Annie Mae was a Micmac Indian, born and raised on a tiny reservation in Nova Scotia, not far from Halifax. Though she lived in Canada, two thousand miles from Rosebud, her life was almost a copy of mine, or of that of thousands of other young Indian girls and women. Instead of on a reservation, she lived on a reserve. Instead of a Bureau of Indian Affairs regulating and interfering with her existence, it was a department. The white boss lording it over the Micmacs was an agent, not a superintendent. The men who harassed her were mounties, not state troopers. Otherwise everything was the same north of the border. She lived in the same kind of tar paper shack that I did. She too had to do without electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, running water, and paved roads. She too was often hungry, down to one meal a day, eating anything she could find. Her mother had the same name as I-Mary Ellen.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman