identity takes precedence in the mother’s perspective. She refuses to recognize nation-state jurisdiction as superior to, or other than, Indigenous nation, or “tribal,” identification. For her, Blackfoot group membership does not simply span national borders but eliminates them. She does not recognize the nation-state’s right to divide her family and all their people.

In Margaret Laurence’s “The Loons,” white European heritage is contrasted to First Nation heritage primarily through relationships between two women who are members of families with those respective backgrounds. Vanessa is a white, Euro-Canadian girl with a romantic image of Indigenous worldview. Her father is a physician. She thinks of herself as broad-minded, however, in comparison to her father’s racist mother, a white woman who refuses to interact with multiracial (“metis”) people. When another local girl, Piquette, who is metis, becomes ill, Doctor MacLeod invites her to stay with the family at their summer camp. Vanessa imagines that all people of Native heritage love nature and assumes that Piquette will join her in appreciating the outdoors. Suffering from tuberculosis, the sick girl wants to stay indoors and recuperate. Vanessa’s stereotypical way of thinking blocks her ability to understand or communicate with Piquette as an individual person.