Red Dresses on Bare Trees

Publisher Description (J.Charlton Publishing): This book deals with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, an extremely painful topic—one that we struggled at times to write or think about, and it raises some painful memories and feelings, not only for us but particularly those whose stories and reflections are within it. The book includes essays and reflections by both men and women, because it seeks to help bring balance to our collective, equally important and unique, roles and responsibilities. It hopes to incorporate Indigenous knowledge principles about relationships and love in the hope that we can begin to emulate and live our lives in balance. In this circle, we begin in the eastern direction with respect—seeing someone from all sides, and having ‘1,000 cups of tea’ with them; moving into time in the south where we must physically, mentally and spiritually sit and spend time with someone; then to empathy or feeling in the west where our connection to a person is strong enough so we hurt when they are hurting; then finally, into the gift of movement, where caring behaviour in the northern direction drives us to actually do something about it.

Author Biographies (Strong Nations):
Joyce Dillen is an Elder of the Serpent River First Nation in northeastern Ontario. For the past 30 years she has been conducting cedar baths, training apprentices and holding workshops and seminars on wellness and traditional healing methods. She has served as a traditional resource person for many wellness programs over the years including the Naandwe Noojmowin program that is offered through Mamaweswen, the North Shore Tribal Council’s N’Mninoeyaa Aboriginal Health Access Centre, based on the Serpent River First Nation. She is a frequent invited guest speaker for Indigenous programs at Laurentian University and the University of Sudbury.

Michael Hankard, PhD is Abenaki/Métis, and Assistant Professor within the Indigenous Studies Department at the University of Sudbury, and author of Access, Clocks, Blocks and Stocks: Resisting Health Canada's Management of Traditional Medicine, and We STILL LIVE HERE: First Nations, Alberta Oil Sands, and Surviving Globalism.

Resource type: Other non-fiction

Age recommendation: Post-secondary

Keywords: Missing and murdered Indigenous women, MMIW, police, community, edited volume, feminism, Indigenous studies, women, girls, men, perspectives

Year of publication: 2021

Publisher information: J.Charlton Publishing