Indigenous pedagogy includes the interplay between physical, visual, spiritual, and intellectual components of an experience to develop knowledge, spirituality, wisdom, and ontology. Ceremony is central to this method. As many Indigenous ceremonies are tied to sites in Indigenous territories, the land thus creates human life (Wildcat, 2016). In this theoretical application, Grandfather Rock (mostos-awasis asiniy) a 400-tonne rock sacred to several Indigenous nations on the Great Plains of Turtle Island (an area of what is now known as c/a/n/a/d/a [Stewart, 2015: xiv](1)), is imbued with power beyond that of any state-sponsored monument. Therefore, its 1966 destruction demonstrates an unexamined component of Canadian iconoclasm. While contemporary Canadians wring their hands over the supposed violence towards and loss of colonial monuments, they overlook the historical and ongoing destruction of sacred Indigenous places and spaces. Indigenous monuments such as mostos-awasis asiniy shape Indigenous belief, relationships, and societies. The physical and written treatment of mostos-awasis asiniy over the past several decades, is indicative of its ongoing centrality in Indigenous life and pedagogies, and a settler imagination that denies Indigenous history, presence, and futurity.
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