Mi'kmaq Puoinaq Two Spirit Medicine
Sexuality and Gender Variance, Spirituality and Culture
Powerful medicine. A rare glimpse into sacred sexuality, gender, and identity. Honouring an often-hidden beautiful cultural landscape. Instructive, accessible, scholarly, relevant and practical. An insightful contribution to sexuality and gender, gay and lesbian, Native North American, and Indigenous studies. An integral textbook for courses in education, counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, social work, medicine, nursing, and health. Welcoming and empowering for youth, adults, and family. Dr Joseph Randolph Bowers is an Australian-Canadian Counsellor Psychotherapist and author of The Practice of Counselling, Sacred Teachings from the Medicine Lodge, and On the Threshold: Personal Transformation and Spiritual Awakening. Mi'kmaq Elder Dr Daniel N. Paul is a Canadian Historian and celebrated author of We Were Not the Savages: First Nations History. The authors reveal how Two Spirit and Traditional Medicine have always existed and are being rekindled in our times.
Contents
The Authors
Words from the Sacred Fire
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Foreword Elder Dr Daniel N. Paul
Going Deeper in Our Story
About this Book
Preface
Personal Empowerment
Post Colonial Contexts
Culture & Spirituality
Post Colonial Spirituality
Of Books & Medicine Bundles
Mi'kmaq Tli'suti - Mi'kmaq Language
Puoinaq as Space for Vision
Language and Cultural Revival
Language is Culture, Ecology, Spirit
Mi'kmaw Words Associated with Identity, Gender, Sexuality, and Two Spirit
Two Spirit Ethics
Relations of Respect
Relational Norms
Incest Taboo and Child Protection
Childhood and Identity Formation
Internet and Social Media
Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse
Early Adult Initiation
Drawing Firm Lines in the Sand
Learning Our Ways, Unlearning Colonial Ways
Gender Identity, Gender Variance
Analysis of Western Cultures
Mi'kmaq History and Early Colonial Contexts
Colonial Gender and Sexuality
Colonial Gendered Relations
19th Century Mi'kmaq and the Victorian Gender Paradox
Two Spirit Contexts
Stigma as Waning Moon
Youth Suicide
Two Spirit Ways of Knowing
Indigenous Standpoint
Cultural Traditions
The Kluskap Cycles
The Switch Dance
From Confusion to Sacred Ecology
Two Spirit Ceremony as Life
Trauma and Healing Methods
Death as Passage and Growth
Medicine Sacred Circle as Science and Life
Mi'kmaq Wholistic Ecological Model
Puoinaq Cultural Reawakening
Visions of Mi'kmaw Research-as-Ceremony
Challenges Ahead
Mi'kmaq Oral Tradition
Body-based Memory
Decolonising the Sacred Sexual
Mi'kmaq Cosmology
Two Spirit Medicine Teachings
Initiation Ceremonies
Men's and Women's Medicine
Two Spirit Service and Skill
Two Spirit Purpose and Vocation
Depression - This Too Will Pass
True Nature, True Identity
Two Spirit Oral Tradition
The Wigwam of Family
The Sacred Pipe of Family
The Meaning of Traditional
Ambassadors of Memory
Looking Back, Looking Forward
From Plausible to Instructive
Ancestral Memory and Recovery
A Tale of Two Spirits
Ta'pu Miijaqamijjk Puoinaq Paq'tism
Wanderer
Waking Up
Rising Up on Wings
Raven's Two Eyed Seeing
Paq'ism Arising
Paq'tism Awakening
Surrender... Please...
Shadow as Passage to Life
Embracing Shadows
Two Spirits Becoming Whole
Sa'qawei Paq'tism Speaks
Two Spirit Narrative of Origins
Kepmitelsi Two Spirit Pride
Ancient Old Ones- Two Spirit Beings
Conference of the Four Winds
The Two Spirit Vision
Ancient Grandmother Turtle Pipe
Two Spirit Healing of Nations
Teaching the First Mi'kmaq
Prophesies of Great Suffering
The First Two Spirit Mi'kmaq
The Great Suffering
A Vision For our Children
Visions of Hope