A friend sent along this sad note today:

With a sense of loss I am passing along the news that Trish Monture died earlier this week of cancer. Most of you know Trish’s work. Her Mohawk name means “the one who starts things with words.” She started much and inspired and challenged many. In the coming days, I know that many of us will be thinking and connecting about ways that we can honour Trish’s many contributions.

I don’t have the details yet but I understand that she will be taken home to Six Nations for ceremonies.Feeling this loss today, I am listening to Trish’s voice that has been captured here: click for video.

Her words

Here you can hear her from 2007, on police/Aboriginal relations in Saskatoon.  It’s categorized by Rabble.ca this way: Artist: Patricia Monture Genre: Blues – very accurately.

Here are some articles:  Thinking about Aboriginal Justice: Myths and Revolutions

(These next three links are to Hein online, which requires a subscription).

Ka-Nin-Geh-Heh-Gah-E-Sa-Nonh-Yah-Gah 2 Can. J. Women & L. 159 (1986-1988); Aboriginal Peoples and Canadian Criminal Law: Rethinking Justice (with Turpel, M. E.)  26 U. Brit. Colum. L. Rev. 239 (1992); Standing against Canadian Law: Naming Omissions of Race, Culture and Gender 2 Y.B. N.Z. Juris. 7 (1998)

Her books are Thunder in my Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks (1995) and Journeying Forward: Dreaming First Nations Independence (2000).  She’s contributed to so many organizations, ideas, initiatives – I will not try to capture those things – I will add links to any piece which presents a complete picture of this remarkable woman.   For now, here is a very brief bio from the National Centre for First Nations Governance website:

Patricia Monture is a citizen of the Mohawk Nation, Grand River Territory (near Brantford, Ontario).  She is mother, sister, auntie.  Trisha was educated as a lawyer in Ontario and has graduated from the University of Western Ontario, Queen’s University and Osgoode Hall Law School.  From 1989 to 1994, she taught in Canadian law schools.  In 1994, Trisha joined the Department of Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan as an associate professor.  She was granted tenure in 1998 and promoted to full professor in 1999.  From 2001 to 2004 in addition to her teaching responsibilities, she was Special Advisor to the Dean of the College of Arts and Science on Indigenous Initiatives.

When I was in law school, she came to give a talk – it was after Thunder in my Soul was published.  I remember it quite vividly, such a pivotal kind of moment in law school for me, a first year student feeling more than slightly lost and in some ways, alone.  It was in the Solarium at U of T law school, and I was sitting in the nook of the glass doors on the east side, squashed into a chair with my bag on my lap and looking out over the parking lot.  Maybe it was in the fall, since my mind’s eye fills the parking lot with bright sunlight and a brisk wind.   Here was this brown woman talking to students of colour as though we were the only ones in the room. I can only imagine that for the First Nations students it was that much more meaningful.  She said, “Doing well is the best revenge.”  I think she meant, “at their game”.  It was like being given a very encouraging (but very firm) shove forward.  And then, each time I’m in the Solarium at U of T law, I think of Patricia Monture saying that to us, and let me tell you, that has been quite helpful over the years.