Chapter 1 Terminology Flashcards
Perspective
A particular way of seeing situations or topics, understanding relationships, and evaluating the significance of events; a point of view.
Cultural Group
A number of racially or historically related people with a distinctive common culture.
Aboriginal Peoples
The original inhabitants of a land and their descendants. In 1982, the Canadian consitution recognized three groups of Aboriginal peoples - First Nations, Metis, and Inuit - each with diverse sets of communities with their own histories, languages, cultural practices, and spiritual beliefs.
Indigenous Peoples
The original inhabitants of a land and their descendants.
First Nations
In Canada, the group of Aboriginal peoples formerly or alternately known as Indians. First Nations refers to individuals and to communities and their governments. The term, which arose in 1980s, is politically significant because it implies possesion of rights arising from historical occupation and use of territory. Though no Canadian legal definition of this term exists, the United Nations considers the term synonymous with indigenous peoples.
Nation
A community of people bound together by common traditions, culture, and usually language who have political independence and who occupy a distinct territory.
Indians
Groups of Aboriginal peoples who generally prefer to be called First Nations. The term Indian is still commonly used by Canadian governments, including in the constitution. First Nations people generally disfavour the term because it originated from early European explorers’ mistaken impression that they had landed in India. It also ignores the great diversity of history and cultures among various First Nations.
Inuit
The aboriginal people of northern Canada, who live primarily in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Labrador, and northern Quebec. Inuit peoples also live in Greenland, Russia, and the American state of Alaska.
Metis
A group of Aboriginal peoples with First Nations and European ancestry. Metis people identify with Metis history and culture, which women and European (mostly French or British) men married and had children. Metis people were for many years refused political recognition by the federal government, although they received recognition as Aboriginal people in the Constitution Act of 1982.
Metis Nation
Aboriginal people who identify themselves as Metis, who are distinct from First Nations and Inuit peoples, and who are descendants of Metis people living in the Red River area of Manitoba in the 1800s.
Self-Identity
To regard one’s self as belonging to a particular cultural group. For various economic, administrative, and political reasons, governments and Aboriginal political reasons, governments and Aboriginal political organizations create definitions for different groups of Aboriginal peoples, such as Status Indians, non-Status Indians, and Metis. These definitions include some people, but exclude others. How a person is identified by these governments and organizations can impact the rights and benefits a person has. The concept of self-identity acknowledges that an individual’s identity is personal and cannot always be defined with a rigid set of criteria.
Linguistic Group
A group of nations, racially or historically related, that have the same basic language. Ex. First Nations who speak Cree are a linguistic group
Traditional Territories
Regions historically inhabited and used by a group of Aboriginal peoples. Land claims are often centred on traditional territories.
Kinship
A tie between related individuals, usually through blood, but also through adoption.
Cultural Environment
A geographic region that is home to groups of people sharing similar cultural characteristics. Much diversity can exist, however, even within a single cultural environment.
Institutions
Recurrent, organized patterns of activity that facillitate a society’s religios, legal, family, economic, political, government, social welfare, educational, and health care systems.
Traditional
First Nations and Inuit ways of life that existed before contact with Europeans, as well as contemporary Aboriginal people or ways of life that are connected to the spiritual, social, and cultural teachings of this time period.
Alliances
Working parterships in pursuit of common interests.
Technologies
Tools or other applications of scientific and mechanical knowledge for practical purposes.
Circular seasonal time frame
A calender system based on the cycles of nature through the four seasons and the repetitive changes - the migration of animals and birds and a changing food supply - that occur during those times. Traditionally, the activities, ceremonies, and rituals of First Nations and Inuit peoples centred on this sense of time.
Migration
The movement of a group of people from one region to another. Some traditional Aboriginal lifestyles followed regular patterns of movement based on seasonal cycles.
Cairns
Mounds of rocks built to show direction or mark significant or sacred spots on the landscape.
Clans
Related groups of people or families.
Ceremonies
Formal acts or sets of acts performed according to custom, law, or other authority; many Aboriginal ceremonies have symbolic meaning and a spiritual nature; Ex. the pipe ceremony, the Sundance.
Armed Conflict
Open, often prolonged fighting between groups equipped with weapons; a battle or war.
Natural Resources
Materials existing in nature that are useful or necessary to people, such as forests, minerals, game animals, and water.
Confederacies
Formal alliances of nations, states, organizations, or individuals.
Treaties
Legal agreements or contracts between two or more sovereign nations that set out obligations & responsibilities for both or all parties. Treaties signed between First Nations & the British or Canadian Govt. provide specific rights regarding traditional territories.
Extended Family
A primary living group that includes adult siblings & their children, parents, & grandparents.
Wampum
Shell beads that some First Nations wove into belts or strings as a way of recording information or agreements.
Elder
Individuals recognized by their community as having spiritual & cultural wisdom.
Protocol
A set of formal rules, etiquette, or procedures for interactions between people that communicates respect & tradition.
Metis Settlement
Land set aside by the Alberta gov’t in 1938 for the use & occupancy of Metis people; similar to First Nations reserves.
Reserve
Land set aside, or reserved, by the gov’t during the colonization of Canada for the use of a First Nation. The federal gov’t has jurisdiction over reserves & the people living there.
Non-status Indian
A term created by the Indian Act that refers to First Nations people who are not registered, for whatever reason, according to the act’s requirements & therefore do not qualify for the rights & benefits given to people registered as Status Indians.
Indian Act
The law governing First Nations peoples (& the descendants of those ppl) that signed treaties or who were otherwise registered in the act’s provisions, encompassing the governance of reserves & the rights & benefits of registered individuals. First passed in 1876 & ammended many times since, the act designates federal gov’t obligations towards registered individuals & regulates the management of reserve lands.
Land Claim
A demand for title to certain territories as legitimately owed to & deserved by specific groups of people. In Canada, comprehensive land claims involve land not covered by treaties & are generally based on rights stemming from historic use & occupancy of specific territories. Specific land claims involve areas covered by treaties where the terms of the treaties have not been met or land has been removed over the years without consent.
