ELDER PROFILE

I hope all Mi’kmaq people will unite and receive, in our generation, a rightful place in Canada, that our youth will be strong, gentle and kind so they may be recognized as people who are proud and noble, and people of the light. For we are the first people of this land that we call Canada.

I hope that we remain to be wise in order to maintain our Indian identity.


Since I’ve been a young man everyone called me Jimmy two feathers. Now I stand in society wearing two eagle feathers as a recognized Spiritual Leader.


My identity was given to me by my name James (in Mi’kmaq, Sage).

From the elders I heard a lot of stories, not how they came to Newfoundland, but how they were
born and lived for the land and off the land. I heard from a ninety two year old Mi’kmaq elder who
did not want to be recognized because he was afraid.

My grandfather had a fox ranch and while I visited him he would tell me stories of a great white moose and his trapping life. These stories were very exciting.
An elder by the name of Joe Paul gave me a pipe and told me how sacred the smoke and pipe meant to him. He would speak a language that is almost forgotten. Now I’m somewhat ashamed that I don’t know my language.


Many of the elders told me that many changes in the world are coming. It is only now I can see
what the elder people meant. The elder people told me the Indian people received hard times from
the government when they first came in contact with the Europeans.




From the exhibition, “The Mi’kmaw People of Newfoundland: A Celebration