Through an Indigenous Lens: Revitalizing Matriarchal Memory

When I sat down to write about the Inuk Ancestral Line Revitalization Project for She Is Wise, I didn’t expect to be so moved by the stories of Cora Kavyaktok and Tenille K. Campbell. But as I listened, I realized I wasn’t just hearing a project recap, I was witnessing the act of carrying forward a matriarchal memory that colonization tried to erase.

I learned the Inuit were the last colonized in Canada. They were not covered by the Indian Act and, as such, they were the last to regain any type of cultural practice.

Through Cora’s eyes, we see what it means to return to names, kinship, and community-based identity. We see what it means to hold ceremony and data in the same breath. And most of all, we see a future shaped by women, language, and relational knowledge.

Featured Quote:

“Our own Elder was with us on that trip...she let me take a photo of her wearing only a scarf while she displayed her lines, and she's giggling with her toothless smile - she's just so happy.”

- Inuk photographer Cora Kavyaktok

Read the Full Article

She Is Wise – Spring/Summer 2024, pg. 44
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Download the full article as a PDF

OCInsight

There is power in remembering. And even more in reviving. Projects like this aren’t just administrative or archival, they are acts of reclamation that reconnect us to ourselves, our mothers, our languages, and our belonging.

Recommended Reading:

Reawakening Our Ancestors’ Lines
By Angela Hovak Johnston
A powerful collection of stories, photographs, and reflections documenting the revitalization of Inuit traditional tattooing.
Buy it on Amazon.ca

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About Bryan Hansen

Bryan Hansen is a Métis educator, speaker, and writer. He’s the founder of OCI, where he helps organizations move beyond land acknowledgments into meaningful, nation-based reconciliation.

As a proud Two-Spirit person, Bryan brings a lens shaped by lived experience, cultural knowledge, and deep relational accountability. His work blends humour, truth-telling, and clarity — inviting audiences to go beyond optics and into transformation.