Each family lived on and protected its ancestral territories; they knew the names of the rivers, the mountains, and the age-old secrets whispered by the trees. We are all children of Mother Earth, whose hair represents the trees and whose veins represent the rivers. We belong to her and we each have a definite place with her. She is both our mother and our home; she holds a place at the centre of our culture and her balance is the balance of us all. Travelling through the territory, we understand the meaning of things and learn to manage the important and essential moments. We are the dispossessed children of this maternal womb, chained to a small piece of the landscape that we once roamed in its entirety. From the Cree territory to the north, the Atikamekw territory to the east and the Ojibwe territory to the west, the Anicinabe Aki extended as far south as the St. Lawrence River. It was and will always be our home, our temple, our heritage.
