Indigenous storytelling is connected to our homelands and is crucial to the cultural and political resurgence of Indigenous nations. According to Maori scholar Linda Smith, ""The talk' about the colonial past is embedded in our political discourses, our humour, poetry, music, storytelling, and other common sense ways of passing on both a narrative of history and an attitude about history" (19). For example, when conveying community narratives of history to future generations, Nuu-chah-nulth peoples have relied on haa-huu-pah as teaching stories or sacred living histories that solidify ancestral and contemporary connections to place. (1) As Nuu-chah-nulth Elder Cha-chin-sun-up states, haa-huu-pah are "What we do when we get up every day to make the world good." Haa-huu-pah are not fairy tales or entertaining stories for children--they are lived values that form the basis for Indigenous governance and regeneration. The experiential knowledge and living histories of haa-huu-pah comprise part of the core teachings that Indigenous families transmit to future generations. The nation-state of Canada offers a very different version of history than those of Indigenous nations--one that glosses over the colonial legacies of removing Indigenous peoples from their families and homelands when enforcing assimilationist policies, all of which were intended to eradicate Indigenous nations. The residential school era, which can be said to begin in 1874, is one example of the racist policies that were imposed on Indigenous people. (2) Designed to strip Indigenous people of their languages and cultures, the residential schools were administered by the government of Canada and run by four well-known denominations or churches. By the time the last residential school closed in 1996, over one-hundred-thousand Indigenous children had been forcibly removed from their homes. (3)
