The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the by Kent Monkman & Gisle Gordon

For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman have featured a recurring characteran alter ego of sorts, a shape-shifting, time-travelling elemental being named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Though we have glimpsed her across the years in films and on countless canvases, it is finally time to hear her story, in her own words. And, in doing so, to hear the whole history of Turtle Island anew. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island is a genre-demolishing work of genius, the imagined history of a legendary figure through which profound truths emergea deeply Cree and gloriously queer understanding of our shared world, its past, its present, and its possibilities.

Volume One, which covers the period from the creation of the universe to the confederation of Canada, follows Miss Chief as she moves through time, from a complex lived experience of Cree cosmology to the arrival of European settlers, many of whom will be familiar to students of history. An open-hearted being, she tries to live among those settlers, and guide them to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings and the world itself. As their numbers grow, though, so does conflict, and Miss Chief begins to understand that the challenges posed by the hordes of newly arrived Europeans will mean ever greater danger for her, her people, and, by extension, all of the world she cherishes.

Volume Two, which takes us from the moment of confederation to the present day, is a heartbreaking and intimate examination of the tragedies of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Zeroing in on the story of one family told across generations, Miss Chief bears witness to the genocidal forces and structures that dispossessed and attempted to erase Indigenous peoples. Featuring many figures pulled from history as well as new individuals created for this story, Volume Two explores the legacy of colonial violence in the children's work camps (called residential schools by some), the Sixties Scoop, and the urban disconnection of contemporary life. Ultimately, it is a story of resilience and reconnection, and charts the beginnings of an Indigenous future that is deeply rooted in an experience of Indigenous historya perspective Miss Chief, a millennia-old legendary being, can offer like none other.

Blending history, fiction, and memoir in bold new ways, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle are unlike anything published before. And in their power to reshape our shared understanding, they promise to change the way we see everything that lies ahead.

(Random House Canada)

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Kent Monkman is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist and a member of the Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory. He is known for his work that challenges colonial perceptions of Indigenous people and history. His painting and installation works are held in the public collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum; National Gallery of Canada; Muse des beaux-arts de Montral; Art Gallery of Ontario; and La maison rouge, Paris.

Gisle Gordon is a media artist and writer, whose projects include the feature-length documentary The Tunguska Project, the video installations Crosscurrent, and the projection/performance piece The Land that Dreams.

Monkman and Gordon have collaborated on projects together for the past three decades, including over a dozen short films that have screened at TIFF, Sundance, and Berlin.

An empowered alter ego

"Creating Miss Chief was a strategy to, again, challenge the subjectivity of the artists in the 19th century, like George Catlin, John Mix Stanley, various others who were painting themselves in their own work. And it was a way of challenging the subjectivity of the work by saying, okay, 'This is an artist with his own creative license who's painting himself in his work,'" said Monkman.

And because she's a diva alter ego, she kind of demands to be at centre stage.-Kent Monkman

"I wanted my alter ego to be front-and-centre in a very aggressive way to reverse the gaze as a First Nations artist that could appear to live in that time period and be the observer of European settler cultures. So she has proven to be an effective way of disrupting this historical narrative the dominant narrative that we've received through art history and through the telling of history."

"And because she's a diva alter ego, she kind of demands to be at centre stage."

Read more in his interview with Writers & Company.