Solomon Ratt - More Than Children’s Stories: Transmitting Culture Through Traditional Stories

Solomon Ratt was born to parents who were hunters and fishers. At the age of six Solomon was abducted from his home and taken to the residential school where he began his schooling. After the residential school he attended Riverside Collegiate High School. He attended the University of Regina earning two BAs and an MA. He is a recipient of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit (2021) and The Queens’s Platinum Medallion (2022). 

He taught Cree at the First Nations University since 1984 (as a sessional) and full time since 1986, retiring in 2022. Solomon’s publications include nīhithaw ācimowina - Woods Cree Stories (2014) and māci-nēhiyawēwin - Beginning Cree (2016), āhkami-nēhiyawētān - Let’s Keep Speaking Cree (2022), published by the University of Regina Press. Another book through the UR Press, published in January 2023, kā-pē-isi-kiskisiyān, ᑳᐯᐃᓯᑭᐢᑭᓯᔮᐣ, The Way I Remember won two Saskatchewan Book Awards 2024.

Abstract:

I remember when I was a child my parents told my brothers and I traditional Cree stories of the Cree cultural hero wîsahkîcâhk. The stories amused and entertained us as we were going to sleep. Many people think that these stories were simply children’s stories. However, wîsahkîcâhk exists betwixt the sacred and the profane and thus is revered by the Cree people. Stories of wîsahkîcâhk were more than children’s stories. They provided education on how to survive in a world always in flux. Once we were taken away to go to a residential school we no longer had access to this education as our schooling interrupted our education because stories were told only in the winter months when we were away from home. This presentation provides a background to the upheaval we faced when we were kidnapped to go to residential school and a brief look at my rediscovery of traditional stories in libraries followed by sharing a story. After the story there will be a discussion with questions and a sample of the type of activities that can be done in classrooms as a way of extending the experience.