Their Example Showed Me the Way / kwayask e-ki-pe-kiskinowapahtihicik A Cree Woman's Life Shaped by Two Cultures

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 at Saddle Lake, Alberta, to join a household of strangers in Hobbema―with not only a husband she has yet to meet, but also four strong-willed adults who will shape her life: her husband’s parents, Mary-Jane and Dan Minde, and Dan Minde’s younger brother Sam and his wife Mary.

Emma Minde’s autobiography focusses on her relationship with these two women, Mary-Jane Minde and Mary Minde. The education that the newly arrived wife received in their households was built on obedience, hard work and a firmly held set of beliefs, seen as essential preparation for a life of uncertainty and rapid change, hardship and constant struggle.

These reminiscences, told to Freda Ahenakew, offer rare insights into a life history guided by two powerful forces: the traditional world of the Plains Cree and the Catholic missions with their boarding-schools, designed to re-make their charges entirely. Rarely has the interplay of these two worlds―often in conflict, but often also, it seems, very much in harmony with one another―been sketched so eloquently as in Emma Minde’s autobiography.

Emma Minde’s stories are presented as she told them in Cree, with a translation into English on facing pages. With its Cree-English Glossary and an English Index to the Glossary, this work is an important Cree language resource.