Synopsis
Emma Minde’s portraits of the family into which she was given in marriage are touching and instructive. They show us a young woman leaving her home in Saddle Lake, Alberta, to join a household of strangers in Hobbema. In addition to the husband she has yet to meet, Emma comes to know four strong-willed people who will shape her life: her husband’s parents, Mary-Jane and Dan Minde, Dan’s younger brother, Sam, and his wife, Mary. These reminiscences, told to Freda Ahenakew, offer rare insights into a life guided by two powerful forces: the traditional world of the Plains Cree and the Catholic missions and boarding-schools of the day, designed to re-make their charges entirely. Rarely has the interplay of these two worlds€”often in conflict, yet oddly in harmony€”been sketched so eloquently as in this moving autobiography. Emma Minde’s stories are presented here as she told them in Cree, with a translation into English on the facing pages. With its Cre
About the Author
Emma Minde, a Cree woman, was born in 1907 and raised in Saddle Lake, Alberta. Upon her marriage, she moved to Hobbema (now Maskwacis). She recorded her autobiography in 1988.
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