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Matriculture Among Circumpolar Peoples: Introduction

Sharon Angnakak
This issue of Matrix centres upon voices that speak about Northern women who are central to negotiating cultural change and who remain for their communities a source of cultural continuity. In drawing out these voices from circumpolar matricultures, this issue’s submissions examine women’s land-based economies on the tundra and taiga and women’s artistic practices, as well as presenting a collection of interviews from circumpolar women recently recorded by the Editorial Collective of Matrix; its collection contributes to a broader body of women’s knowledge that complements the archival record.Throughout the issue, themes of cultural change and continuity are explored, showcasing how circumpolar communities and cultures are sustained through women’s labour, their participation in local economies, and through their community leadership essential in navigating and negotiating the cultural change brought on by intercultural contact, changing geopolitical tensions, and the evolving technological realities that move and shape globalism. Whether through beadwork, narrative, or land-based practices, Indigenous and circumpolar women continue to sustain and transform their cultural knowledge across generations, ensuring its continuity not through strict adherence to a preserved archetype, but through ongoing practices – women’s labour – that constantly renew culture into new expressions while ensuring their community’s survival.

Matriculture chez les peuples circumpolaires : introduction

Reweaving the Tundra: Women, Fire, and Fractured Traditions in Anna Nerkagi’s Prose

Maria Gatti Racah
Anna Nerkagi (b. 1952), a Nenets writer and cultural activist from the Yamal Peninsula, is one of the few female Indigenous voices in Russophone literature of the North. Beyond her literary work, she has promoted tundra education and the preservation of Nenets culture, exemplifying a form of female creative agency linking literature, education, and cultural stewardship.This article examines her prose through the lens of the relationship between women and the hearth, understood as a central site of ethical, cosmological, and ecological mediation in Nenets life. Focusing on Aniko, Ilir, and White Moss, it reads these works as a loose trilogy structured around shifting configurations of female subjectivity: women at the fire, women displaced from it, and women beyond it.Drawing on close textual analysis and ethnographic research, the article argues that the hearth functions as a living relational centre linking humans, animals, and other-than-human beings. At the same time, Nerkagi's narratives register the disruptions brought by Soviet modernity, particularly through boarding schools and the erosion of female genealogies. Rather than opposing tradition and modernity, her works show how Nenets matricultural systems persist through women's labour and ritual authority, allowing the tundra's social and cosmological fabric to be continuously re-woven.

Rematriating the Archipelago: A Gendered Environmental History of Kodiak

Laurel Thorne
This paper draws on Alutiiq oral legends and histories to craft a gendered environmental history of the Kodiak Archipelago from the perspective of Alutiiq women, examining their relationships with the island environment and their roles within it. Alutiiq women were stripped of their autonomy over their reproductive and environmental roles under Russian and American colonization. However, Alutiiq values, including Nunapet, Nunapet Carliarluki, and Unguwacirpet, endured, linking women's physical health to land stewardship. Alutiiq women historically led hunting festivals, prepared fish and skins, and controlled their reproductive lives through breastfeeding and midwifery. Today, Alutiiq women reclaim environmental values through crafts and birthing practices, embodying what Cutcha Risling Baldy calls "(re)righting and (re)riteing Indigenous epistemologies." Their survival and revival demonstrate how Alutiiq women resisted colonialism and sustained reciprocal relationships with the environment.

Matriarchal Beads: The Resistance, Resurgence, and Reclamation of Traditional Indigenous Beadwork

Tammy Wolfe
Beading, weaving, and sewing are Indigenous cultural traditions that have been practiced by many nations across the North American continent since time immemorial; ultimately, these practices carry significant Indigenous knowledges and belief systems. The impact of colonization on Indigenous women throughout the continent limited and reduced the function of their matriarchal roles within their communities. In turn, they have adapted, evolved, and gained a stronger sense of culture and identity through their traditional artistic practices of beadwork; this includes the transmission of knowledge, culture, and identity. Indigenous matriarchs have used the reclamation and resurgence of the traditional practices of beadwork as a form of resistance and decolonization. This article looks to explore, understand, and interpret these issues from the position of a First Nation Ininiw Iskwew (Swampy Cree woman) lens, as the author is a proud matriarch originating from the community of Norway House Cree Nation.

From the Earth

Tia Tidwell
This short lyrical reflection traces the layered meanings carried within my Inupiaq name, Puya—‘from the earth.’ Through memories of my aana and her sister, I explore how names connect us to those who came before. The narrative moves between childhood recollections, the weight of intergenerational survival, and the sacred responsibilities of care at the end of life. In witnessing death and remembering survival, I reflect on how carrying a name is also carrying love, grief, and obligation across time. This piece asks what it means to be known by one’s ‘real name’ and how names continue to release memory, presence, and kinship into the world.

A Meeting at Grandma's Camp (Selections)

Lucie Marie-Mai Dufresne
This excerpt from a longer paper presents a detailed description of a 1998 ‘supper tour’ to Atsua Ku, a First Nations fish camp on the Yukon River. This first-person narrative by the late Dr. Lucie Dufresne explores the negotiated identities and relationships of the inhabitants and owners of the fish camp with herself as the lone tourist to visit that day.

Personal Reflections on Finnish Matriculture: Transcript

Kaarina Kailo
In this recorded interview, Dr. Kaarina Kailo shares her personal reflections about being a woman in Finland and Finnish matriculture. Transcript available (see PDF).LINK TO RECORDED VIDEO: Personal Reflections on Finnish Matriculture

Personal Reflections on Sakha Matriculture: Transcript

Aina Vinokurova
In this recorded interview, Aina Vinokurova shares her personal reflections about being a Sakha woman and Sakha (Yakuts) matriculture. Transcript available (see PDF).LINK TO VIDEO INTERVIEW: Personal Reflections on Sakha (Yakuts) Matriculture

Personal Reflections on Tlingit Matriculture: Transcript

Judith Ramos
In this recorded interview, Judith Ramos shares her personal reflections about being a Tlingit woman and Tlingit matriculture. Transcript available (see PDF).LINK TO VIDEO INTERVIEW: Personal Reflections on Tlingit Matriculture

Personal Reflections on the Matriculture of the Siberian Soviet Union: Transcript

Nadya Shalamova
In this recorded interview, Dr. Nadya Shalamova shares her personal reflections about being a women in Siberia during the Soviet period and about Siberian Soviet matriculture. Transcript available (see PDF).LINK TO VIDEO INTERVIEW: Personal Reflections on the Matriculture of the Siberian Soviet Union.

Kaarina Kailo, Sauna Culture, Sweat and Spirituality: On the architectonics and cosmology of sacred space

Elizabeth Ann Bartlett
Elizabeth Bartlett offers a review of Kaarina Kailo's book Sauna Culture, Sweat and Spirituality: On the architectonics and cosmology of sacred space (Springer, 2025).

Michèle Hayeur Smith and Alexandra Sanmark, eds., The Hidden Lives of Viking Women: Archaeological and historical perspectives

Linnéa Rowlatt
Linnéa Rowlatt reviews the edited volume from Michèle Hayeur Smith and Alexandra Sanmark entitled The Hidden Lives of Viking Women: Archaeological and historical perspectives.

Stephanie Guyer-Stevens and Françoise Pommaret, Divine Messengers: The untold story of Bhutan’s female shamans

Angela Sumegi
Angela Sumegi reviews the monograph from Stephanie Guyer-Stevens and Françoise Pommaret monograph entitled Divine Messengers: The untold story of Bhutan’s female shamans.

Correction Notice 2026.07.01 / Avis de correction 2026.07.01

Linnéa Rowlatt