Nimkii fromThis Place: 150 Years Retold

Nimkii touches on multiple childhood traumas endured by Indigenous children through the generations. The title page of the comic is illustrative of this idea, with generations upon generations of women standing in a line.

Nimkii's mother and father attended residential schools and continued suffering from the mental effects of their abuse into adulthood—"What the school didn't steal from them," Nimkii narrates, "The war did" (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 145). Her mother tried to keep her home and away from schools, but Nimkii was taken from her mother and placed into foster care during the Sixties Scoop, which the timeline at the beginning of the chapter tells us was a move by the government to take thousands of "of Indigenous children...from their families" and place them "in non-Indigenous foster or adoption homes. Many children are placed outside of Canada" (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 138).

The illustration of Nimkii being taken from her mother is done in a sketch-style and shows her being grabbed by "The Great Lynx," mishi-bizhiw (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 145), a "fantastic dragon-like animal [resembling] a feline with horns" that is "essentially considered harmful," though they are also necessary creatures, often bringing misfortune (Lemaître, 2007, n.p.). They countered the power of the Thunderbird, which serve as protectors (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 145). In the illustration of Nimkii being taken from her mother, we don't see who is taking her (aside from their form as mishi-bizhiw). Later, the mishi-bizhiw appears again when she and her foster brother, Teddy, are caught running away from their family (due to some terrible abuse her foster brother is suffering). This time we see Nimkii's drawing of the event as well as the "real" story with their foster father clutching Teddy's leg.

Teddy was taken from his family as a baby and doesn't know anything about his family or heritage, so Nimkii tells him, "You have me now. I'm your people" (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 151) and shares stories about her mother with him, in addition to teaching him about traditional stories and beliefs, including about the balance of power between the Thunderbird and the mishi-bizhiw. The "mishi-bizhiw can pull you deep into the water," where "you'll disappear," but "thunderbirds protect us" (Akiwenzie-Damm, 2019, p. 155). We see both Nimkii's version of the Thunderbird and the "real" thing juxtaposed across a spread on page 154 and 155.

In the final frame, we see Nimkii standing with her community, ensuring that the Children's Aid Society remains outside their reserve borders. In the sky are multiple Thunderbirds, offering their protection against the agent (who we can assume to be a mishi-bizhiw in disguise).

The content presented in Nimkii (and other sections in This Place: 150 Years Retold) is a lot more mature and explicit than what is covered in the picturebooks, so I definitely recommend this for middle school or high school. The many aspects of various Indigenous cultures presented in this volume, including the creatures mishi-bizhiw and Thunderbird depicted in Nimkii, show how this project is helping to "revitalize, use, develop, and transmit to future generations [Indigenous] histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies writings systems, and literatures" (United Nations, 2007, p. 12–13).

Because the text, storyline, and illustrations all had input from Indigenous people, I feel confident that the "symbolic attribute[s]" of the mishi-bizhiw and Thunderbird accurately communicate the cultural importance of these creatures, as opposed to being mere "artifacts of traditional ways" (Peterson & Robinson, 2020, p. 8) seen in the symbolism in Stolen Words, for example.

Works Cited:

Lemaître, S. (2007). Mishipeshu. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mishipeshu

United Nations. (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United Nations General Assembly. https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf