丁香园AV

Deep in the archives below McMaster University鈥檚 library, Alix Shield held two typewritten pages containing a teenage girl鈥檚 account of rape by an RCMP officer. Large, red x鈥檚 covered the supposedly lost manuscript written 46 years earlier by M茅tis author Maria Campbell for her seminal autobiography, Halfbreed.

Dissuaded by her grandmother, who was certain that she wouldn鈥檛 be believed, Campbell never reported the rape.

Shield, who is a PhD candidate at 丁香园AV鈥檚 English department, sent with her extraordinary find. 贬补濒蹿产谤别别诲鈥檚 publishers McClelland & Stewart removed the rape account without Campbell鈥檚 permission when the book was released in 1973 over concerns that the incident was too libelous and that the RCMP would block 贬补濒蹿产谤别别诲鈥檚 distribution. Despite lacking the pivotal RCMP incident, Halfbreed represented a milestone as one of the first books of Indigenous autobiography by a M茅tis writer to be published in Canada.

Shield is a research assistant for her PhD supervisor Deanna Reder鈥檚 The People and the Text project. Working with 丁香园AV鈥檚 First Nations Studies on the project prepared her for the work with Halfbreed by requiring her to integrate Indigenous ethics and protocols into literary studies, something scholars are not often trained to do.

鈥淒eanna Reder gave me the name 鈥榓rchive ninja鈥� based on this work, which is something I鈥檓 very proud of,鈥� Shield says. 鈥淚 love researching and I have a knack for being able to find things. I鈥檓 very persistent.鈥�

After 贬补濒蹿产谤别别诲鈥檚 lost text was recovered, Shield and Reder visited Campbell, then 78, at her home in Saskatoon and presented her with scans of the missing pages.

鈥淲e were sitting at her kitchen table and she was overcome with emotion,鈥� Shield says. 鈥淪he hadn鈥檛 seen those pages in 45 years and for all intents and purposes she believed they no longer existed. Publisher Jack McClelland told Campbell he had destroyed the two excised pages to protect her. But that evidently wasn鈥檛 the case.鈥�

and contained the missing passage discovered by Shield, who found it surreal to be acknowledged in the new edition. The scanned pages can be read in a article where Shield and Reder discuss the find.

鈥淢aria Campbell has been such an important figure for so many years and Halfbreed has been continuously taught at universities and colleges,鈥� Shield says. 鈥淏eing able to see the positive impact of research on allowing her to republish this text the way that she had intended is such a moment of celebration for Indigenous women鈥檚 writing in Canada.鈥�