Last month, during the Season of Creation, Concerned Lay Catholics of Canada organized an online forum on “Indigenous and Catholic Ecosystems: A Path to Reconciliation.” The whole event was full of moments to appreciate, absorb, and consider—but one stuck out for me in particular. In the Q&A, there was a question raised about synodality. And the response of Jon Hansen CSsR, Bishop of Mackenzie-Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, was this:

From my White-man perspective, I can say that I’ve learned synodality long before it was a buzzword in the Church, from working with Indigenous people—because they do it far better than I’ve ever seen anywhere else. And up here [in Inuit and Inuvialuit territory], we don’t call it synodality, we just call it talking: sharing circles, talking circles. You gotta have patience. It goes on and on and on. But everyone gets to share. Everyone gets heard. And everyone listens. So, in southern Canada, I think synodality can offer a great perspective, but from my experience working with Indigenous people, they’ve got that process nailed already. They’re doing a great job with it—and they’re teaching us.

This really should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Indigenous governance (not the governance that comes through the colonial enterprise, but that which has deeper historical and cultural roots). When Nunavut was separated off from the Northwest Territories and given its own territorial government, the Inuit model of consensus politics was adapted to it—or rather, the parliamentary system was modified so that it could only ever function as a form of active consensus-building, rather than confrontation and winner-takes-all (active-winner, passive-loser). The same historical and cultural forces are in play next door in the bishop’s diocese.

Bishop Hansen says twice that he learned synodality, not from Western Christians and not in the past few years, but from Indigenous Christians long before the Synod on Synodality was initiated: “they’re teaching us.” This is a very real manifestation of what Pope Francis recently said to Jesuits in Belgium: “Synodality… needs to be built not from the top to the bottom, but from the bottom to the top.” And I think there’s also a hint of where this from the bottom up comes from, practically speaking—not just in Mackenzie-Fort Smith, but in the universal Church. It was, after all, at the Synod on Amazonia, at which significant numbers of Indigenous people were present, that a vote was taken and proposed synodality as the theme for the next Synod. Coincidence? Well, maybe. But for those who have learned something of and from Indigenous governance, it seems less like happenstance and more like a (contributing) line of causality.

So, why don’t we learn like Bishop Hansen—and perhaps the Synod Bishops and Pope Francis—about synodality, or at least historical and cultural models of governance, from Indigenous Peoples?

I propose to quote passages from some Indigenous people across southern Canada and the northeastern U.S. (Nuu-chah-nulth, Secwépemc, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Peskotomuhkati, Wampanoag) about governance in their communities, according to historical and cultural models. That there is a deeply meditated-upon sense of “walking together”—that there is something fundamentally “synodal” present—should emerge as obvious, even though few of these authors are practising Christians. That’s not to say that synodality just means appropriating Indigenous ideas. It doesn’t. Adaptations of synodal thinking are culture-dependent. But I do want to suggest that salient underlying values, however they may manifest in synodality in other culture groups, are on display in these quotes, clearly, forcefully, insightfully. And we should acknowledge that. And listen. And learn. Because God knows the rest of us need to learn—and acknowledge our debts.

A model based in consensus-building

If you start to listen to Indigenous voices on Turtle Island (North America), you’ll quickly find out that the traditional model of governance is, in broad strokes, pretty universal. Indigenous communities operate so as “to cooperatively generate consensus.”[1] Those are the words of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, an Anishinaabe scholar. But move a bit further east, and you’ll find Mohawk teacher Taiaiake Alfred telling readers that

the common will is determined through patient listening to all points of view. Leadership takes the form of guidance and persuasion…. [Individual] needs should be balanced with those of the community, and the entire debate must be carried out on the firm ground of agreed-upon values and principles.[2]

Moving a bit further east again and going a teeny bit south of the colonial border, Wayne A. Newell, a Passamaquoddy elder, is very clear, as so many Indigenous voices are, that this consensus-building model of governance is the traditional one, and that we need to bear in mind that whatever other governance we may be familiar with from tribal councils or band councils, that is either wholly or partly the product of Euro-American imports. He says:

The Native way of conducting traditional meetings is very well organized and very deliberate. There’s no chaos. I was familiar with it because of how I was brought up. When left alone, that’s what we used to decide things for ourselves. We would always use the consensus model and only secondary to that would we use the model that was imposed upon us, the so-called majority vote.[3]

All the way back on the west coast, Nuu-chah-nulth philosopher and elder Umeek (E. Richard Atleo) articulates the following:

Nuu-chah-nulth teachings translated into a most remarkable decision-making behaviour, one that required none of the modern demands for a majority vote based on logical argument. Instead, what took place can be broken down into three simple rules: (1) each person has the right to a say; (2) each person has the right to be heard, and; (3) each person has the right to be understood.[4]

And I think we could go on. The point I want to make is this. If we listen to Indigenous voices, although a plurality of viewpoints and experiences exists, there is a very clear theme of a different kind of governance—different from the Western, colonial, Euro-American thought paradigms—and the commonalities among Indigenous voices point to something worth considering on its own terms and with its own logic and implicit, underlying spiritual values. The more we look into this, I think, the more food for thought we’ll find on the topic of synodality.

Underlying logic based in concrete social realities

If this consensus-based governance mechanism, culture, and system are not completely nonsensical, they must be grounded in the social reality they seek to manage. Were there a mismatch between governance style and social reality, there’d be extreme dysfunction, especially in the long term.

So, what is it that makes consensus-style political culture so desirable, so necessary? For my part, I have been most struck by the articulation of an answer to this question that comes from George Manuel, Secwépemc leader and founder of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. In the 1970s, he wrote the following:

In a society where all are related, where everybody is someone else’s mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, or cousin, and where you cannot leave without eventually coming home, simple decisions require the approval of nearly everyone in that society. It is the society as a whole, not merely a part of it, that must survive.

A society like European North America, which avoids stability at all costs and keeps all its social factors in a perpetual state of change, demands only that a majority of people consent to proposed actions. At any one time there are those who are “in” and those who are “out.” If the outs cannot gain the majority to make more changes, they always have the option of getting out of the society altogether.[5]

In this brief snippet, the social realities underpinning the different political conceptions come to the fore, and the connection between social reality and political style becomes straightforward and logical. Manuel hits to the heart of what Indigenous and Euro-American political processes actually do to and with and because of deeper social realities.

I don’t want to argue whether Manuel’s diagnoses are right or not. I tend to think they are, at least in broad strokes. But what I think even more important is that he poses the question: What social reality, in terms of stability and the integration of the whole of society, is presupposed and cultivated by different models of governance?

This question is important. It cuts to the heart of debates over synodality. And whatever we think of a society-wide political culture that is Euro-American, it should be abundantly clear that the Church needs to maintain stability and simultaneously continue to integrate everyone. And Manuel, I think extremely plausibly, points out that consensus-building governance, rather than majority-consent or constituent-consent governance, is deliberately designed to meet these dual needs.

Accordingly, I think we as the People of God really, really should be listening to Indigenous voices at the same time as we reconsider the synodal tradition.

Underlying spiritual values to be cultivated

Of course, governance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We have to have a certain set of moral, intellectual, and spiritual attitudes that will support the governance strategy. These must be sufficiently widespread for the governance strategy to work. And they must be both implicitly and explicitly known so as to admit of development to meet new historical challenges.

To explain what these spiritual values consist in, many Indigenous people would return to their languages. Indigenous languages rarely have a one-to-one equivalence with European ones, since the way of thinking embedded in the languages is far more relational, and each word is thus more integrated with its linguistic, grammatical, and cultural-geographical surroundings. Thus the usefulness of a return to the language.

One such response is offered by Wayne Newell. He draws up two terms that are greatly useful: one means to sit together, the other to walk or venture together. These, like the Greek-language roots of synodality, give a metaphorical landscape in which to think. First, Newell explains sitting together:

Mawopiyane, in Passamaquoddy, literally means “let us sit together,” but the deeper meaning is of a group coming together, as in the longhouse, to struggle with a sensitive or divisive issue. The word indicates an urgency to meet because the outcome is something very desirable, such as resolving a conflict or bringing about peace. It’s a healing word… Mawopiyane is a word that is recognizable in all Wabanaki languages, and it reflects the collaborative nature of our effort.[6]

And later, venturing or walking together:

There is a Passamaquoddy word, mawiyane – let us venture together. I kind of like that one. And a word that I used to hear from the Elders when I was a kid was mawogekapuwiyane – let us stand together. We have a lot of different words for “gathering,” but they all have this sense of inclusiveness: let us, together. When we gather we become vulnerable, and to me the lessons that we have yet to learn are hidden in that process.[7]

That’s the core: let us, together. There’s a particular word family for this. And that tells us a lot. Much thought has been put into these matters. Considerable rumination lands here. Let us—let us sit, walk, venture, stand—together.

Umeek, for his part, waxes philosophical about the virtues or personal dispositions towards goodness that are required to make all this work. He lists

an unusual amount of patience, self-control, tolerance, trust, faith, and respect. Patience was required because of the likelihood that there would be a constant repetition of ideas. Every member had the right to speak even if that right meant constant repetition. Hence, whereas a modern meeting might address an issue in ten minutes, [Chief] Ahinchat’s meetings might have expended thirty or more minutes on the same issue. Although an observer of Ahinchat’s meeting might have witnessed a focus on issues during the discussion, there was also an underlying focus that may have been more important. This underlying focus was the practice of respect for all life forms, the significance of which was that humans were given priority over process. It is more important to recognize the existence and value of people than to serve the process of decision making.[8]

Respect (ii?saḱ), we ought to reiterate, is one of the key components here:

Respect… is critical to the decision-making process. In [this] worldview every being is complete from the beginning. [… Accordingly, at] council all members treated each other with mutual respect. In practice this included the necessity not only of listening to diverse and conflicting opinions, but also of understanding these diverse opinions. If a council member of sound reputation suggested a solution that at first appeared ridiculous, too radical, or impossible in some way, he was not dismissed out of hand. Who knew, so the philosophy goes, whether the radical suggestion was not the result of some spiritual insight given to one council member and not to the others? Although common sense and logic played a major role in decision making, the council was also cautiously open to that valuable source of information commonly known in the Western world as intuition but known to the Nuu-chah-nulth as inspiration from a spiritual source.[9]

He further explains the threefold social rule—the right to a say, the right to be heard, the right to be understood—in reference to his growing list of virtues and values:

In the context of a culture that valued respect, not in an ideological but in a spiritual sense, it seemed easy for each person to practise these three simple rules. There was no debate, no argument, no interruptions, no point-counterpoint, but rather a process whereby each person in council exercised these three simple rules. If you think about this process, you realize that it takes much patience, much self-control, and a great deal of effort to listen to and to understand each speaker, especially as today repetition is thought to be a waste of time. In ancient Nuu-chah-nulth decision making, repetition was thought to be necessary to a sense of unity and a sense of harmony. The need for each speaker to be understood also minimized the likelihood of misunderstanding, and when a decision was made in this way it became as strong as the number of people that made it. This process of decision making did not eliminate differences of opinion but it did provide confidence in any decision made. Here the metaphor of a rope is useful: one strand of rope is easily broken, two strands less so, and three or more strands still less so. The strength of these kinds of decisions was virtually unbreakable.[10]

While Umeek is clearly a philosopher, other Indigenous people would point, as we have already seen, to a historical contrast. How, they might ask, are Indigenous and Euro-American ways different? One of the Indigenous people whom I have personally met and been most moved to listen to is gkisedtanamoogk, a Wampanoag man with strong ties to Mi’kma’ki. He has described the treaty processes themselves as expressions of different cultural, moral, and spiritual values:

I recall historic descriptions of the treaty process: the English, or the Canadians, or the French would have a conversation with our Confederacy, and both parties might even map out what they were agreeing to the terms and so on. The North Americans would simply ratify that in their Congress, saying, “This is what we agreed to.” But for us, we would take an agreement all the way back to the communities and have a discussion about it there. And then, that discussion had to go from the communities on to the region, and then to the Nations, and finally back to the Confederacy. So, the Confederacy began the conversation, but then confirmation from the people was required. It’s a much longer process. That’s probably why the feds wanted to shorten the process by having tribal councils do their bidding. But for us, that traditional system worked. It recognized that the voice of the people was really the place where the sovereignty was.

In the traditional system, we can’t go forward if people are opposed to a decision, so we have to invest the time to find out where the “happy mediums” are. Also, we might agree to something but for different reasons, so we need to acknowledge what those reasons are so that the result takes all perspectives into consideration. And maybe we find out there should be caution in moving forward because we have certain parameters to consider. The idea is that we can’t move forward with a decision when there is opposition to it.[11]

Eva Solomon, an Anishinaabe Sister of Saint Joseph, takes a similar approach. Like gkisedtanamoogk, she contrasts two different worldviews or value systems. And whereas he gives a concrete historical example, she highlights emotional resonances and lived reactions:

An Anishinaabe approach to theological reflection requires an understanding of Anishinaabe decision making and conflict resolution. Justice, according to Anishinaabeg, is not established through interfering in the lives of others or acts of confrontation. This same understanding guides all decision making and therefore has implications that go beyond the legal system. Both the civil system and Indigenous justice require consensus building, but the Anishinaabe ethical system considers confrontation, directness, and giving instructions or advice wrong and immoral… Most people who live in Euro-Western societies are often not aware of how many of their normal social functions and interactions are based on the concept of confrontation. Conversation, academic debate, philosophy, and even humour follow the pattern of argument and counterargument. To Westerners, this pattern may seem ordinary, and even benevolent, if the debate is fair and democratic. To a non-Western person, however, this pattern is foreign and unfamiliar and offensive and undesirable in matters that are highly meaningful, personal, and emotional.[12]

I don’t want to delve into all the details of this quote (or the others preceding it), but I suggest mulling it over and taking it, if possible, to prayer. There is contained in this an astonishing degree of clarity in spiritual values. And if spiritual abuse and abuse of conscience are indeed an epidemic in the Church, some of the values that Eva Solomon points us towards may be sorely needed at present. This, again, leaves us with the idea that perhaps, if we really want to take this synodality thing seriously as a response to our time, part of our walking together, sitting together, and standing together should be with Indigenous Peoples—for from whom else are we going to learn such a richly articulated history of incarnating the much-needed values in systems of governance?

The question on everyone’s mind

Of course, you always have to come back to brass tacks. It’s nice, we might say, to aim for consensus. It’s great to develop practical strategies to realize it. More worthwhile still is the personal and collective cultivation of values that will initiate, encourage, sustain, and progressively develop the governance style over time. But let’s be real. Not everyone is always going to agree, no matter how much effort you put into it. What then?

Well, I’m not an Indigenous person, and I’m certainly not involved in implementation of the traditional governance models. But I will point out two things in succession: first, the ways that consensus can be inched towards; second, what happens when consensus does ultimately fail to materialize.

Strategies, tools, and approaches for consensus to emerge

First—how to get towards consensus. Well, off the bat we have to turn some assumptions upside-down. According to Umeek, consensus-building models are “sharply focused on issues and their resolutions, rather than on the sorts of personal agendas that often complicate modern decision making.”[13] In other words, it’s consensus that’s practical. Models that allow greater space to politicking are impractical. Although this seems counterintuitive to Euro-Americans presuppositions, the more one sits with it, the more intuitive sense it makes. I think Umeek is right.

As regards actually getting to consensus, the biggest ingredients are time and iteration. That is to say, the usual strategy for consensus-building governance is the talking circle. An object (of any sort) is passed from one person to the next. Only the person with the “talking object” can speak. Each participant gets a say, without directly addressing, and especially without directly criticizing, what other participants have said. Everyone takes their time. Everyone is heard. Everyone listens. Then we go around the circle again. And again. And again. This continues until people start to imbibe and absorb a consensus, which may or may not need to be explicitly articulated.

Evidently, the virtues and values of consensus-building are in play in reaching a conclusion. Patience is a virtue. Some degree of intuitivity is a must. Once everyone speaks, says Umeek, there is a need for the capacity to know and articulate the (gradually) forming consensus:

It was not necessary for each member to speak on an issue, but it was necessary to ensure that each understood the issue and that each had an opportunity to speak. When an issue was completely addressed and a solution seemed apparent, the process of repetition began again, with all members indicating whether they were in agreement with the proposed solutions. Sometimes an issue would invoke a unanimous and uniform response from each member of the council, whereas other issues would invoke differing and conflicting responses. These latter discussions would carry on in a respectful manner until every ambiguity and misunderstanding had been clarified and a decision could be reached.[14]

But participants are not left adrift. Guiding this whole process are the elders. We’re not thinking of a system where everyone views themselves as supreme and autonomous. Rather, reality is interconnected, and in particular, the elders—men but especially women in many Indigenous cultures—have a role that might be described as summative and deliberately interweaving of separate threads. Elders help solidify and form the consensus, usually not by directly addressing comments made, but by a creative integration or interpenetration of possibilities and points of view. Wayne Newell likens the role to “recapping”:

My mother said that when she was a little girl she would go to council meetings with her grandmother … This lady was one of the respected Elders in the community, and my mother said sometimes the meetings would go all night and into the next day if people could not agree… [T]he Sachems and Clan Mothers respect the will of the people and, in turn, people have a great deal of respect for their perspectives; so, after their recapping, you’re less likely to have someone say something to the contrary.[15]

Similarly, gkisedtanamoogk points to a “recapitulation,” and where that is not possible, living with complexity and open-endedness:

And if a decision needs to be made, it usually comes after a very long process where everyone not only speaks their piece, but there’s a time to reflect. After that time, usually one of the Elders will get up – one of the Sachems or the Clan Mothers – and they will talk. These would be people that we have the greatest confidence in, and respect for. They are the ones who guide the process.

Sometimes their message is a recapitulation of what they’ve heard us say. They might say something like, “It seems that we’ve arrived at a direction.” In some instances they might say, “Maybe we need to think about this some more,” and that could engage us in the whole process again. But usually by the time the Sachem speaks – and they usually speak last – the direction is pretty clear.[16]

The same voice is sure to clarify: “What the Sachems or the Clan Mothers do is confirm what they hear; they are directed by the community…”[17] An elder’s ideas are not authoritarian. What they say is not imposed. Rather, elders have learned with experience the ability to intuit where consensus can emerge from what has been said. Thus, they have a crucial role in gkisedtanamoogk’s community’s consensus-building. This is a common pattern.

What happens when consensus truly can’t be reached?

Let’s get to even brassier brass tacks, though. We have to be serious about the real world. After all the time, patience, iterations, and elder-led summarizing and integrative intuition—after all that—it can still be that a decision must be made. Sometimes we can’t defer indefinitely. It’s not possible to wait all the way until consensus emerges. We have something that needs either to be done or not be done in the near future. What then?

Umeek is quick to point out at this juncture that, you know, “consensus” isn’t always consensus. The world is a real place. In fact, traditional Indigenous governance

has been misleadingly termed “consensus decision making.” My grandfather’s council meetings might sometimes have reached a general agreement on an issue, but just as often there would be differences of opinion.[18]

The author continues to tell the story of how, in the 1950s, it was suggested to build a play space for the community’s children. After going ’round the circle, there still remained one dissenter—one of the leaders in the community, who thought that the natural environment of times past was sufficient and best as the only play environment for children. Well, as the only dissenter, he was eventually overruled. Once the play space was constructed and he saw how happy the children were, “the sceptical again openly declared that he had disagreed with the idea, but he then added that he now saw that he had been mistaken.” This was “a fine example of leadership.”[19] It was not a failure. It was a laudable real-life version of the ideal.

I think that, if we reflect on the process and the cultural values that undergird instances of non-consensus, we’ll find that the “isolated” dissenter isn’t so isolated after all. Values and practices assure that he, individually, was heard. And not just abstractly and at a stage far removed from decision-making—but during the decision-making stage itself. He was heard from multiple times. 

Simultaneously, the dissenter has listened carefully to know where his viewpoints couldn’t be integrated into a consensus that he witnessed building. And he is respected so much that he remains an open dissenter until new experience convinces him otherwise. And that’s okay. And if he changes his mind, he respects the process, values, and culture so as to admit it—if he does. He is never forced to do so.

While a decision has to be made that on the surface resembles autocratic rule or democratic majority vote, the priority lies elsewhere. It lies in the integration of everyone and the interweaving of all viewpoints. This alters the lived experience of politics considerably, as Umeek attests. Perhaps part of the change is psychological. Other differences in experience are very spiritual; I’d suggest considering how relational interweaving is often experienced as beautiful. So the dissenter retains the experience of beauty that he is a part of. That might count for a lot. But here I speculate.

Of course, as the People of God, we should be asking ourselves whether the lived experience Umeek describes would be healthier for ecclesial reality than other options on the table. And by this point, I think my own answer would be pretty clear to ascertain.

Talking circles and the “Conversation in the Spirit” model of synodality

Pope Francis has repeatedly said that the Synod is not to be treated as “a parliament.” It’s apparent, though, that what he has in mind is Western models. If the Synod were to function like Nunavut’s elected house, or the other consensus-building models that I’ve been discussing, I doubt its functioning would be so contrary to the Holy Father’s intentions. It might not be exactly right. After all, the Nunavut government (for example) is an adaptation of the parliamentary process. But it certainly would be a lot closer to the papal intent behind the Synod on Synodality. There’d be no need to harp on so much about a synod not being parliamentary. There is nothing, I think, inherently wrong with learning from existing governance systems in order to apply our learning to synodality.

Practical experience confirms this for me. Where I live in Wabanaki’k, I’ve participated (usually quite quietly) in both talking circles and the Jesuit model of “Conversation in the Spirit,” which has been used at the latest stages of the Synod on Synodality in Rome.

From everything I’ve been told, talking circles are not inherently an act of cultural appropriation, provided the simple rules are followed without the use of, for example, cultural objects that one probably shouldn’t use ceremonially—and provided, of course, that the source of the knowledge of the technique is openly avowed and that we ourselves are able to acknowledge in some way an ongoing relationship with real Indigenous people in which to ground our acknowledgement.

But still—talking circles and Conversation in the Spirit aren’t the same thing.

The Conversation in the Spirit method shares a lot of similarities with talking circles and consensus-based governance. Both contain a circular framework. Both revolve around the idea that everyone has the right to speak, to be heard, and to be understood. Neither has to end without consensus. I’m sure there are many other similarities to note.

There are also, however, significant differences. One is about time. Western meetings have a very different conception of time. Patience is less necessary. To get back to Bishop Hansen’s quip: “You gotta have patience.” Well, however much you’d need in the Paul VI Hall this month, you need more for talking circles and consensus-building governance. The Conversation in the Spirit model still has a schedule. It doesn’t “go on and on and on.” Other differences, of course, arise from the prevalence of prayers, the elaborate cultural background of the circle (as opposed to linear thinking) in Indigenous societies, and the fact that Conversation in the Spirit takes place among groups that may have no long-term stability among the members and also lacks a clear intuitive role for elders—which, as far as I can tell, makes it less stable as a tool for generating actual consensus. A careful eye would take in still more differences.

I note these similarities and differences to a purpose—to challenge our thinking about synodality. We can ask the questions: What have we learned from Indigenous dialogue partners? And what could we learn still, if not to change but at least to examine the limits of the methods we are employing at present? The Synod may not be a “parliament” in the sense the Holy Father understands, but does that mean there are no existing, long-standing governance practices from which we can derive confirmation and criticism for the synodal journey?

The questioning is rich. God knows if there is anyone on this planet who is a more suitable dialogue partner surrounding contemporary Church efforts on synodality than Indigenous Peoples are.

Conclusion

If I may return now to the Northwest Territories where we started, I’d like to recall, on this feast day of Pope Saint John Paul II, an address he delivered there to Indigenous people. He said that “the Church earnestly desires ever greater respect for your patrimony, your language, and your customs,” and he expressed the renewed hope that “people are learning to appreciate that there is great richness in your culture, and to treat you with greater respect.” Well, in Indigenous cultures, there’s something to learn about synodality. There’s something that the Church has learned and is learning about synodality in the continuing engagement and dialogue with Indigenous Peoples. And if I may say so, there is much that we still need to learn, especially as a constructive criticism of the limitations that our chosen values and methods have placed on our ostensible goal of becoming a more synodal Church.

Drawn out from the earliest days and deepest experiential resources of the life of the Spirit, we’ve brought to consciousness something about sitting and walking together. The discovery is of the ecclesial reality, yes. But I think we need to be clear and unambiguous on another point, too: the process of surfacing this ancient and uncreated truth has not happened without an ongoing engagement and dialogue with Indigenous Peoples. This, I think, is indisputable. So, if we are fair and if we are honest, at this moment of time, we need to listen still more—and acknowledge and respect.

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[1] Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Dancing on our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence (Winnipeg: ARP Books, 2011), 124.

[2] Taiaiake Alfred, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 117.

[3] Shirley N. Hager and Mawopiyane, The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations (Toronto: Aevo UTP, 2021), 132–133.

[4] Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 45.

[5] George Manuel and Michael Posluns, The Fourth World: An Indian Reality, new ed. (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2019), 7.

[6] Hager and Mawopiyane, The Gatherings, xi.

[7] Ibid., 145.

[8] Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 88–89.

[9] Ibid., 89.

[10] Umeek, Principles of Tsawalk, 45–46.

[11] Hager and Mawopiyane, The Gatherings, 134–135.

[12] Eva Solomon, Come Dance with Me: A Medicine Wheel Practice of Anishinaabe Catholic Interculturation of Faith, New Paths for the Churches and Indigenous Peoples 1 (Toronto: Novalis, 2022), 84.

[13] Umeek, Tsawalk, 88.

[14] Ibid., 89.

[15] Hager and Mawopiyane, The Gatherings, 133.

[16] Ibid., 134.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Umeek, Principles of Tsawalk, 44.

[19] Ibid., 45; cf. Umeek, Tsawalk, 89–90.