Manitou Asinîy and the Strategies of Systemic Colonial Injustice

Abstract

Manitou Asinîy, known to the Nêhiyawak (Four Spirit/Plains Cree) as the Man from the Sky, is a living Sacred Being that can heal all who come to him. To the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) he is a 320 lb (145 kg) Group IIIAB medium octahedrite iron meteorite ( Scott et al., 1973 ). Through the autoethnography of myself, Dr. Paulina Johnson, who attended to Manitou Asinîy at the RAM, I address two strategies of systemic colonial injustice: (1) Classifying and (2) Fatiguing by Delay used by the RAM, the Government of Alberta (GoA), and the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to maintain possession and control. This case study examines how whiteness and settler colonialism are deeply rooted in colonial institutions and systems to ensure that Indigenous voices and representations are silenced or forced to compliance. This case study is aimed to address how the politics of refusal to be silenced allows for Indigenous resurgence and a recentering of self as an Indigenous woman.