Review of <i>Cree Narrative Memory: From Treaties to ContemporaryTimes.</i> By Neal McLeod
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Within contemporary Aboriginal discourse, there is a growing tendency to ignore the multilayered histories of various Aboriginal communities in favor of a more simplified discourse based on tribal specific nationalism. Cree Narrative Memory, an important new book, ignores this movement towards essentialism and tackles the multilayered histories of the nehiyawak (Cree People) of western Canada. The author contributes a detailed, visionary study of Cree discourse, exploring the little considered ambiguous genealogy and narrative irony of Plains Cree identity, a central factor in the book's fresh perspectives, analysis, and conclusions. Though many books draw upon oral history and storytelling, few have drawn so heavily upon the oral history and genealogies that permeate one family tree in order to highlight the narrative ironies that emerge when attempting to create a national discourse of the Plains Cree Nation. By drawing upon the narrative memory of his family from the James Smith and Sandy Lake reserves in Saskatchewan, Neal McLeod gives firsthand examples of the determination and adaptability of Plains Cree experience. The author shows how stories are vital to the understanding of Cree history and the recent attempts to revive religious ceremonies, language, political structures, and artistic or literary practices. McLeod also contends, however, that "Cree narrative memory is more than simply storytelling." It involves the collective, intergenerational memories of many skilled storytellers. Through the examinations of family, spirituality, identity, and connections through time and space of the Plains Cree people, the author has constructed an original interpretative framework that draws upon original research showcasing the power and importance of language.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.010 | 0.019 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".