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Paleo Catalogue Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre

June 25, 2007

By pwrdf

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STORIES from PWRDF PARTNERS in the Canadian Development Program January 2005

A Paleo Catalogue sounds like a straightforward, bookish sort of thing for paleontologists, but the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq (CCM) understands it as a tool for transformation.  As they develop a museum/cultural centre at Mi’kmawey Debert, a place of special significance for all Nova Scotian Mi’kmaq and a National Historic Site, their objective is to find a context for scientific learning and research that integrates their traditional practices with the practice of Western science.  Since its excavation between 1963 and 1965, the Debert site has attracted national and international attention for its ground breaking work in interdisciplinary Paleo studies.

Facilitator Judi Richardson noted the challenge that lay ahead of CCM and Mi’kmaq elders in her report of a planning conference for Mi’kmawey Debert in 2001:

A rich exchange happened when the anthropologist spoke of some details they were still researching. An Elder smiled and related the oral history of the time that filled in some of those details.  Ancestors passed down knowledge about the migration, equinox, and community knowledge about the caribou, deboning, preserving and processing.  Everything seemed to pause as we watched two people standing with knowledge gained by their respective traditions. Knowing that they now had to find a way to reach each other. To have oral history cited and treated as evidence — the challenge to put traditional knowledge at the center.  The reality of historical privilege.

The Elders are meeting the challenge.  Brought together into an Elders’ Advisory Council, nine Elders from throughout Nova Scotia have worked consistently to bring together Mi’kmaw perspectives on the past with the scientific work of geologists and archaeologists working on the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods.  With enthusiasm and insight they have distilled what they want protected, shared and communicated for future generations at the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre.  The development of the Paleo Catalog is one way to work towards and share a Mi’kmaw science model that incorporates Mi’kmaw stories, metaphors and patterns.

Elders have traditionally played a pivotal role in the shaping of Aboriginal societies.  At Mi’kawaey Debert, their next task is to work with consultants and architects to give shape and function to the Cultural Centre itself. In doing so they will be preparing their young people to walk comfortably and with pride between and within two worlds:  the Aboriginal and that of their larger contemporary society.  

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