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History Native American

Old Man Told Us (new edition)

by (author) Ruth Holmes Whitehead

Publisher
Nimbus Publishing
Initial publish date
Jul 2015
Category
Native American
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781771083362
    Publish Date
    Jul 2015
    List Price
    $26.95

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Description

The Mi'kmaq people have been living in what is now Atlantic Canada for two thousand years or more, yet written history has largely ignored them, presenting them merely as a homogeneous mass or as statistics. Renowned Micmac specialist Ruth Holmes Whitehead, formerly staff ethnologist and assistant curator in history at the Nova Scotia Museum, tries to redress that omission by restoring to the collective memory a true sense of the Mi'kmaq. In this rich collection, oral and written, Mi'kmaq accounts juxtapose contemporary European perceptions of native peoples, as documented in letters, journals, court cases, and much more. Above all, The Old Man Told Us is a historical jigsaw puzzle, a display of fragments of broken mirror in which one can capture moments in the lives of particular people. It is a book of excerpts from whatever scattered documentation has survived over the centuries.

About the author

Ruth Holmes Whitehead has worked since 1972 for the Nova Scotia Museum, since 2003 as a Curator Emerita and Research Associate. She has authored or co-authored twenty books, including Stories from the Six Worlds, The Old Man Told Us, Black Loyalists, and Ancestral Images. In 1995, she was awarded a Doctorate of Laws, honoris causa, by St. Francis Xavier University. In 2014, Dr. Whitehead was inducted into the Order of Nova Scotia. She lives in Halifax.

Ruth Holmes Whitehead's profile page

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