Treaty Promise and Treaty Reality Personified

 

 

When Sue and her daughter, Marina, pull up the lane at Philip and Michelle's on Peepeekisis First Nation, Sue calls through the trees. "Sheena, come here." Sue is rummaging in her back seat, and I can't really see, but she seems to be pulling out a box. I skip down the steps, off the deck, thinking, "Puppy. I'll bet she has a new puppy."

 

Sue has a broken shovel, signs, garden-themed gift wrap, and overalls. Marina puts a cowboy hat on me. "You can be 'Treaty Promises'," Sue says. "I'll be 'Treaty Realities'."

 

This is the opening act to our Idle No More Community Circle potluck and meeting. The only better entrance is when Marina's boyfriend shows up on horseback as the sun is setting.

 

Later, Angela posts this quote on our Fort Qu'Appelle Idle No More facebook page.

 

"...the older students wore radio parts on their lapels like jewellery- and so I explained about 'resistors', and that the first subversion is a joke, because humor is always a big signal to the authorities, who never understand this, that the people are dangerously serious and that the second most important subversive act is to demonstrate affection, because it is something no one can regulate or make illegal." Anne Michael's Winter Vault, p.316.