Chelsea Vowel 
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo [EPUB ebook] 

“Education is the new buffalo” is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, “Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?”



Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction,
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Métis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nêhiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Métis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism.



Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of “Métis futurism” explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Métis. Expansive and eye-opening,
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.

Daftar Isi

Buffalo Bird

Dirty Wings

Michif Man

âniskôhocikan

A Lodge Within Her Mind

Buffalo is the New Buffalo

I, Bison

Maggie Sue

Unsettled

Tentang Penulis

Chelsea Vowel is Métis from manitow-sâkahikan (Lac Ste. Anne), Alberta, and currently residing in amiskwacîwâskihikan (Edmonton). Mother to six girls, she is a writer and educator, co-host of Indigenous feminist sci-fi podcast
Métis in Space, co-founder of the Métis in Space Land Trust, and author of
Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada.