World Views in Collision
Air Date: March 29, 204
Summary
Podcast host Darla Ponace discusses world views in collision.
SERIES
nitanihšināpēwinān
HOST & PRODUCER
Darla Ponace
Episode Guest
Verna Cachene is an Anishinabe knowledge and language keeper from Yellow Quill First Nation in Saskatchewan. Verna lived a traditional life in Kinistin Reserve with her maternal grandparents until she was six, at which time she went to Muskowekwan Indian Residential school. Up to this point Verna only spoke Nakawewin and she learned English as a second language. Her daily life with her grandmother included chores, such as fetching water, setting snares, chopping wood, tending the fire, making meals, gathering medicines, picking berries, drying meat, fleshing, drying and tanning hides and tending to the garden. She shadowed her grandmother and learned everything through her. Verna recalls a time when she only knew people by her relationship to them and not by their names. Verna also remembers a way of life which included feasts, traditional practices and ceremonies. Verna graduated high school in 1973 and had a son in December of that year. She attended the University of Regina in 1974. She quit her studies after securing employment and returned to University as a part time student. Verna became a mother for the second time to a daughter in 1980. She continued her career in federal public service until 2012 when she retired. She also worked for Kinistin as a Director of Operations and for Yellow Quill First Nations as a Lands Manager and Managing Trustee. She was a band councillor for Yellow Quill for a three year term. Verna assisted her mother who worked as an elder and healer until her mothers death in 2019. Verna continues to actively promote language through teaching and mentoring language students, as well as sharing her cultural, spiritual and traditional knowledge.
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Podcast host Darla Ponace discusses world views in collision.