Nationhood Interrupted by Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum

She is a recipient of the Carol Geller Human Rights Award, Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers Award, Social Justice Award, 2014 Global Citizen Award, and has received several eagle feathers from Indigenous communities. Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) is a citizen of the nêhiyaw Nation, who holds a Juris Doctorate (LL.B) from the University of Saskatchewan and a Bachelor’s of Human Justice (B.H.J) from the University of Regina. The loss of the languages, customs, and traditions of Indigenous peoples as a direct result of colonization has necessitated this departure from the oral tradition to record the physical laws of the nêhiyaw, for the spiritual laws can never be written down. Traditionally and through custom, nêhiyaw (Cree) laws are shared and passed down through the generations in the oral tradition, utilizing stories, songs, ceremonies, lands, waters, animals, land markings and other sacred rites. Written by Idle No More co-founder, Sylvia McAdam, this book is the first of its kind. “It’s a life-long thing – from the time I was born until I go to my final resting place I will continue this work because it’s important that all women understand the role that we have and continue to have.” Sylvia McAdam. If someone broke into your home and you were defending yourself and your property, you wouldn’t be an activist,” she explains.

“I am defending and protecting the lands but I’m not an environmentalist – these are my homes. In this process, First Nations will also find their way forward in restoration rather than continued colonization, for everyone’s mutual benefit: and women will regain their natural place in home, nation, governance, and negotiation table. Sylvia’s book, a lifetime of her own in the writing, but many countless lifetimes’ worth of knowledge and repository of wisdom and experience in the teachings, in part addresses how everyone in the territory called “Canada” needs to understand the treaties through the laws of the land which pre-date colonial law and co-occupation. More than that, she has an extensive knowledge of traditional teachings, language and protocol via her own family, and many Elders. Sylvia, raised on the lands in the north, and Big River First Nation, is an educator with degrees in law and human justice. The relationship goes even deeper than colonial treatment, as nêhiyaw author Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) explores in her book, “Nationhood Interrupted: Revitalizing nêhiyaw Legal Systems.” There is said to be a tie between how the land, and Indigenous women, are treated in this country right now. Written by Andréa Ledding, dated March 16, 2015 Nationhood Interrupted: Revitalizing nêhiyaw LegalĪ book that explores relationship between land, violence against Indigenous women

Nationhood Interrupted by Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum