Mixed Blessings Mixed Blessings Indigenous Encounters with Christianity in Canada Edited by Tolly Bradford and Chelsea Horton © UBC Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Mixed blessings : indigenous encounters with Christianity in Canada / edited by Tolly Bradford and Chelsea Horton. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7748-2939-7 (hardback). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2941-0 (pdf). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2942-7 (epub). –ISBN 978-0-7748-3083-6 (mobi) 1. Native peoples – Missions – Canada – History. 2. Missions – Canada – History. 3. Canada – Church history. I. Bradford, Justin Tolly, editor. II. Horton, Chelsea, editor E78.C2M59 2016 266.0089’97071 C2016-900148-2 C2016-900149-0 UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca Contents Acknowledgments / vii Introduction: The Mixed Blessings of Encounter / 1 Tolly Bradford and Chelsea Horton Part 1: Communities in Encounter 1 Reading Rituals: Performance and Religious Encounter in Early Colonial Northeastern North America / 21 Timothy Pearson 2 Managing Alliance, Negotiating Christianity: Haudenosaunee Uses of Anglicanism in Northeastern North America, 1760s–1830s / 38 Elizabeth Elbourne 3 A Subversive Sincerity: The I:yem Memorial, Catholicism, and Political Opportunity in S’olh Téméxw / 61 Amanda Fehr Part 2: Individuals in Encounter 4 “The Joy My Heart Has Experienced”: Eliza Field Jones and the Transatlantic Missionary World, 1830s–40s / 83 Cecilia Morgan 5 Between García Moreno and Chan Santa Cruz: Riel and the Métis Rebellions / 102 Jean-François Bélisle and Nicole St-Onge vi Contents 6 Rethinking Edward Ahenakew’s Intellectual Legacy: Expressions of nêhiyawi-mâmitonêyihcikan (Cree Consciousness or Thinking) / 119 Tasha Beeds Part 3: Contemporary Encounters 7 Aporia, Atrocity, and Religion in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada / 145 Siphiwe Dube 8 Decolonizing Religious Encounter? Teaching “Indigenous Traditions, Women, and Colonialism” / 164 Denise Nadeau 9 Autoethnography That Breaks Your Heart: Or What Does an Interdisciplinarian Do When What She Was Hoping for Simply Isn’t There? / 183 Carmen Lansdowne Conclusion: Reflections on Encounter / 205 Tolly Bradford and Chelsea Horton Contributors / 209 Index / 213 Acknowledgments This collection is the outgrowth of a workshop, “Religious Encounter and Exchange in Aboriginal Canada,” held at the University of Saskatchewan in May 2011. For facilitating this initial workshop, we gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of History and the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan. We likewise extend our warm gratitude to Uni versity of Saskatchewan Elder Walter Linklater (Anishinaabe) and historians Jim Miller and Susan Neylan for their valuable contributions to that gathering. Thank you, further, to all the participants, who made the workshop truly mean- ingful. We appreciate your work and (to the contributors here) your patience as we pulled all the pieces together. It has been an honour working with all of you, and we look forward to continued conversation. Thank you also to Taiaiake Alfred, Emma Anderson, Darcy Cullen at UBC Press, and the anonym- ous reviewers of the manuscript for their helpful input on the project. Finally, the editors express their appreciation to their families and to each other. We are two historians of somewhat different training and approach and have both learned much through the shared process of producing this collection together. Mixed Blessings