The power of medicine : "healing" and "tradition" among Dene women in Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories

• Main Author: Fajber, Elizabeth
• Other Authors: Lock, Margaret (advisor)
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: McGill University 1996
• Subjects: Tinne women > Northwest Territories > Fort Good Hope; Tinne Indians > Medicine; Fort Good Hope; Northwest Territories
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=23718

Dene women are leading and directing efforts toward "healing" themselves, their families, and their communities. Employing a modality of montage and storytelling, this thesis explores this enigmatic concept of "healing" among Dene, and its gendered dimensions, in the community of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. This account challenges the limitations of a resistance-hegemony paradigm often used to describe Aboriginal actions as embedded within colonial relations, and endeavours toward a more nuanced analysis which explores Dene "healing" beyond the colonial space. "Healing" is emerging as a vehicle for the assertion and celebration of Dene identity, Dene tradition and "Dene ways". This thesis further explores how many Dene women in Fort Good Hope are mobilizing the power of tradition, such as -aet'sechi/ (practices associated with "becoming woman"), as a means of "healing" social/health concerns, and influencing gender and power relations in the community.