Book report

Honors Bachelor of Child Development

Seneca college

Indigenous Awareness: Towards Truth and Reconciliation

LSO 510

Tabinda Raja

Camille Di lulio
The book “The kiss of a fur” helped me learn and understand and enhance my knowledge about

Aboriginal community. I have learned many unique and special aspects of aboriginal people

lives from food, traditions, rituals, songs, clothing etc. Something that I did not know about the

aboriginal community is their worldview. They view the world and everything in it using a

circle, showing inclusiveness. Whereas we would view the world in the shape of a pyramid. Man

being at the top followed by a woman, and then things ranked below in a hierarchical system.

Although the Aboriginal community has never done harm to anyone ever, they have faced many

injustice behaviors throughout their generations. This unjust behavior is not only by fellow

citizens, but also many times done by the government itself. The Aboriginal peoples have been

facing many injustices ever since the era of Residential schools, and even before that. Aboriginal

peoples have been targeted for their uniqueness and have been deprived of what we call basic

human rights in many parts of the worlds. They were subjected to mass killings, being displaced

from their traditional lands onto missions and reserves in the name of protection.  They were

forced to not practice their culture and to become “civilized young men.” They faced emotional,

physical, mental, and sexual abuse from priests and nuns. It is only now that we started

acknowledging Aboriginal peoples for all that they have done and provided us with. Majority of

the lands we have built our monuments, houses, schools, offices etc. on, are the Aboriginal

peoples lands. The story, ‘The Kiss of The Fur Queen’ by Thomson Highway retells the story of

the tragedy that took pace with himself and his late brother Rene, through the eyes of Abraham,

Champion, and Oooneemeetoo. It is a novel which centers itself on the relationship between the Cree

tribal identity and the modern colonial western institutions such as the residential schools. In the dark

year of 1951, Champion and Oooneemeetoo are sent to residential schools where they had to endure

sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. They were forced to cut their hair short, speak only English, and

much more; all in the purpose of “killing the Indian” in them. Their names were also changed, so they
would appear ‘whiter’, to Jeremiah and Gabriel. Abraham, their father knows what a dark and cold place

residential school are, so he puts in his best effort to educate his boys on their Cree culture before they

go. This is evident in the way that Abraham often took the boys with him while hunting Caribou, using

their traditional Aboriginal sounds to herd them: “Ateek, Ateek, Astum, Astum, Yoah, ho- ho” (40, 41)

Throughout the whole story we are met continuously by the Fur Queen; a wendigo / shapeshifter /

trickster, who plays witness to their lives. She sometimes appears as the stern tall statue in the church,

or a talking lady fox, but always a symbol of change, good or bad. Something new that I got to learn

about the Indigenous culture is that the fur queen/trickster is a very common theme in indigenous

storytelling. In indigenous mythology, there are no genders unlike European mythology. ‘Weesageechak’

is a shapeshifter in Cree. The fur queen can morph into any gender/object it wills because it has no

gender. This shapeshifter figure acts as the boy’s guardian angle throughout their lives, giving them

strength, power etc. Gabriel and Jeremiah parted ways after residential school. Gabriel pursued his

passion of music and Jeremiah pursued his passion of dancing. However, Gabriel comes out as a gay

man in a time when being gay was looked upon badly, and contracted AIDS. When he comes home to

die, it is ultimately the fur queen who helps Gabriel die the way he wanted. Throughout the novel, we

can clearly see moments of Biases, Tensions, and discomfort.  Abraham scrambling to teach his children

their roots before they are sent off to residential schools show significant tension from his side. He Is

tense and is worried for what they will have to endure. He also went to the schools. He knew of what a

dark, cold and brutal place those schools were. He tried his best to save the Indian in them while the

residential schools forced the Indian out of them through brutality. He always took them with him while

he went to hunt caribou, or to do things part of their Cree tradition. A moment of Bias in the novel is at

the end when Gabriel comes home to die. His mother, a white priest, and his brother Jeremiah is

present with him at that time. Gabriel, Jeremiah and the fur Queen are in the room, whilst the priest

and their mother are waiting outside. A moment of bias in this situation would be for when the priest
assumed that Gabriel wanted to die a ‘white’ death. Gabriel lived his whole life traumatized and scared

from the residential school’s experience. He always had the struggle of finding his identity. When he was

dying, it was one of few times that he realized his roots, that the Cree culture was his identity. He chose

to die with Cree roots rather than the white ones. He instructs his brother to celebrate his death as in

Indigenous culture. The fur queen then comes down and takes his soul from his body, taking him into

the next life, helping him once again. A clear moment of discomfort in the novel was when Abraham

would be hesitant of telling his two boys about his residential school experiences. Residential schools

were a house of brutality, abuse; sexual, physical, emotional. It was a house where the children would

be stripped of the Indian in them, and forcefully be blended with the white society. No one spoke of

their residential schools’ experiences because of the discomfort the experience had with them. They

feared for their children. They did not want them to live a fearful life even before they had to experience

that tragedy. In conclusion, The Aboriginal community has been facing a lot of unjust behaviors from all

of society from decades now. We reside on their lands, yet we still do not acknowledge them of

everything they do for us. They had to face colonization, residential schools, mass murders, biases and

much more. My respect and understanding regarding the Indigenous community have gone so much

higher up after reading this book and understanding the course material. I have honestly never seen a

community of people whose beliefs are so pure and inclusive. I got to learn so much about the Cree

traditions, and struggles after reading this book. Thomson effectively was able to create a picture in the

readers mind of the brutality and unjust behaviors the Indigenous community had to face based off

himself and his brothers tragic residential school experiences. Identity is something unique to every

individual. Aboriginal peoples were being forced to blend in. Change is only starting to happen, and we

hope to see much more fair treatment towards every community, especially the Indigenous

communities. 
 References

https://canadianaboriginal.weebly.com/rituals-worship-and-festivals.html

Highway, T. (2021). Kiss of the fur queen. Toronto, ON: Anchor Canada.