ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how nêhiyaw or Cree processes of naming and being named come with conventions and ceremony and are culturally specific to the lands lived upon since the nêhiyaw Creation story. It also considers how a lifelong participation in naming ceremonies bring with them renewed gifts of naming which—when spoken in nêhiyawêwin—offer a deeper connection to land. The authors also address how early European and continental ideological imperialism continues to this day, gravely disrupting Indigenous naming ceremonies and protocols, and the language spoken by those communities and people, arguing that, where Indigenous naming protocols have been disrupted, there is a need for Indigenous resurgence in cultural and ceremonial naming protocol and the rejection of colonial namesakes.
