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Arts & Crafts

Mi’kmaq ingenuity and creativity has been a well-documented aspect of Mi’kmaq life in Atlantic museums and beyond. Whether it is how they built their canoes, or wigwams, or beaded the coats they received from the Crown, or how they used porcupine quills on their birchbark boxes or chair seats and backing and made baskets from black ash or maple—all these are well-known arts and crafts that belong to the eastern First Nations.

While Mi’kmaq are among the Algonkian family of people who have traveled as far west as Alberta and as far south as Wisconsin, the people have shared the skills, such as basket making and birchbark work,  among themselves,but in each area there are  unique designs that have remained among each region. Today’s Mi’kmaq have kept many of these traditions alive and the teachings that come from them are important to the Mi’kmaq peoples’ humanity. 

 
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The Mi’kmaq resided in, and for a considerable time after the onset of the Europeans, a civilization where respect for the good works of the Great Spirit was its...

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Mi’kmaq ingenuity and creativity has been a well-documented aspect of Mi’kmaq life in Atlantic museums and beyond. Whether it is how they built their canoes, or wigwams, or beaded the coats they...

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The Mi’kmaw language is an important and integral part of the culture and world view of the Mi’kmaq.  Through our language, our way of seeing our life is...

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Mi’kmaq peoples have had a long relationship with the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Father Christian LeClerq found in his journeys among Mi’kmaq in the mid to late 1600’s a people...

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From the early 1900’s to the 1950’s, the Mi’kmaq were largely absent from authorized programs of study and prescribed textbooks. When they were mentioned, images were those of “vanishing Canadians...

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Every institution of higher learning has developed a course of studies called the humanities that has been core to education. Contextually, philosophy, religion, history, languages, literatures...

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Mi’kmaw storytelling has been an integral part of Mi’kmaw way of life. Mi’kmaw elders and leaders and parents have provided each generation with the required prerequisite knowledge, know-how,...

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Law

Mi’kmaw law is based on the understanding that things in life are interconnected, known to many Mi’kmaq as “Netukulimk”. This law describes the rights and responsibilities of the Mi’kmaq with...

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Mi’kmaq people have lived in multiple places throughout the Atlantic region of Canada and along the coastal regions of the United States. Their Mi’kmaq knowledge is understood as the collective...

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