Re-imagining Aboriginality: An Indigenous Peoples’ Response to Social Suffering NAOMI ADELSON York University, Ontario Abstract In this ethnographic study of the Cree, a Canadian indigenous people, I explore the ‘pain of being Aboriginal’ as a particular form of social suffering. I then describe a particular event, a Native Gathering, which serves, in part, as a form of response to social suffering. For the people of Whapmagoostui, Quebec (Canada), the annual summer Gathering has become a time and a place to examine what it means to be Cree, a conscious and imaginative process that is constituted and enacted within the broader social and political reality. Key words aboriginality • Cree • indigenous people • medical anthropology • response • social suffering The pain is about being Aboriginal. (Gilbert, 1995: 147) The issue of (Native) identity continues to be contentious. It has its own very interesting and troubling history(ies), changing by the decade to match the times. (McMaster, 1995: 87) Introduction The aboriginal peoples of Canada are diverse and live in urban, rural and remote areas of the country. 1 Despite linguistic, cultural and administra- tive distinctions among the groups, 2 and despite differences between Vol 37(1): 11–34[1363–4615(200003)37:1;11–34;011653] Copyright © 2000 McGill University transcultural psychiatry ARTICLE March 2000