1.

In Kwekwekipiness’s roundhouse long ago, Ndede had explained that there are four layers of meaning to these words. They are from the perspective of the Creator, as though God himself were singing to you. The first meaning of ‘I am the reason you walk’ is ‘I have created you and therefore you walk.’ The second meaning is ‘I am your motivation’. The third meaning is ‘I am that spark inside you called love, which animates you and allows you to live by the Anishinaabe values of kiizhewaatiziwin.

The end of Chapter 12

Explains the relationship between the title of the book and indigenous cultures. Interpreting the title in Anishinaabe leads to several themes in the book, including motivation to fight for truth and reconciliation, passing down the culture to the next generation, the cycle of life – give birth to the new members, old members return to nature.

2.

There he was, sitting atop the home base of the religion that had sought to “kill the Indian” in him, and in hundreds of thousands of children like him. It had failed. The Vatican, the global Catholic Church, with billions of dollars at its disposal, its religious doctrine and ideology, couldn’t destroy him or his culture. Four other Canadian churches had tried, as had the government of Canada, a nation then bent on erasing Indigenous identity.

Chapter 18

This quotation is one of the many paragraphs in the book where the author mentions his belief in “Truth and Reconciliation”. To be more specific, Reconciliation. It is probably not about blaming someone or a certain community, then putting the persevered indigenous culture into the museum. It is a hope to make indigenous accepted as a part of modern Canadian society. Wab highlights it more than once. Seeing an old Anishinaabe man in a Catholic church is one part; teaching students science and technology is another part, creating the database is the third part. Etc.

3.

(After the argument) That night, while I drove Ndede home, we talked for a time before he mentioned the incident. “Listen, don’t worry about the ‘culture police.’ They didn’t teach the kids the language. You did that. This is the only time these kids have ever heard their language. And you gave it to them.

Chapter 17

The resistance encountered in communicating culture sometimes comes from within. Problems with culture are never gonna be simple.