b'NARRATIVE SOVEREIGNTYLEGAL FOUNDATIONWente says that cultural appropriation was the law in Canada for 70 years due to the Potlatch ban amendment to the Indian Act, THE WRITING PROCESS which de facto forbade First Nations communities from doing ceremony or storytelling. Theres an image that exists of writers: talentedInstead, the act empowered museums and folks from outside our people who put pen to paperor today, finger tocommunities to take those storytelling histories, practices, even keyboardand who can quickly churn out pagesthe sacred items we would have used, and put them in museums, and pages of text. The reality, as it turns out, can beWente says. far different: it took writer Jesse Wente four years to complete his work Unreconciled: Family, Truth, andWe were forbidden from using them, continues Wente, yet they Indigenous Resistance. could put them in the museum, and they could tell the stories around them. That was literally the law here, and yet in 2017 or The extended writing process, says Wente, helpedeven in 2022, it can somehow be confounding why Indigenous him formulate and articulate the stories he wantedpeople might want to write our own stories!to share in his award-winning book. When the story youre telling is about you and your ownWente emphasizes that Indigenous people know what happens experiences, well, it helps to have more of them,when stories about them are told by people outside of their he notes.community and they understand all the associated implications. He reminds us that this is literally the dynamic Indigenous people have So theres some stuff in the book that just wouldntbeen living under for hundreds of years.have been possible to have there that I think isHow has that benefited us? Has storytelling from outside our really important. Things happened really late incommunities really helped us in terms of our material place in the the process and they were things that I was able toworld? Wente asks. insert or do, so yeah, the idea that things take the time they need to takeIm a big believer in that. The question is rhetorical, because, as Wente notes, Given all the outcomes in terms of health and [quality of life] in places On top of that, Wente was a busy man. I didlike Canada and the U.S., it hasnt helped us. I would say it has some other things in between the signing to write aactually harmed us.book and the actual completion of the book, which I would not recommendyou shouldnt start a national not-for-profit organization when youre trying to write a book! he laughs. And I was named Chair of the Canada Council for the Artsall that happened while I was writing the book, adds Wente. Next time around I would try to be a bit more dedicated to the writing as opposed to doing a bunch of other things and trying to fit the writing in where I could.Most importantly, Indigenous people need to actively speak their own truth, and as an Anishinaabe writer, Wente has long been engaged in public discourse around the sensitive topic of cultural appropriation. He wrote about cultural appropriation in an editorial in the spring 2017 issue of Write, a publication put out by the Writers Union of Canada. In his article, Wente aimed to recognize Indigenous writers in Canada and to look at the topic of appropriation from his own unique perspective. I spoke to the idea of cultural appropriation from my perspective as an Anishinaabe person who would say that colonialism writ large is entirely based in the appropriation of pretty much every-thing First Nationsour lands, our culture, our lives, our bodies, Wente explains. Its sort of what these places are quite literally built upon.Ontario Native Womens Association53'