Introduction

This chapter argues that Indigenous elders ‘in’ so- called ‘Canada’ have much to teach us about sexuality (and by extension relationality and kinship ethics) through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice. ‘Elder’ as a term in Indigenous communities refers to someone with immense knowledge and trusted insight; someone with a plethora of lived experiences and valuable understandings. As a trusted source of knowledge, elders are often who we (as Indigenous peoples) turn to for our (hi)stories (Adese, 2014), which can include multi- species, ‘dirty’ and erotic (hi)stories.

As a result of the positionality of elders in our communities, I argue that elders are critical to sexuality as keepers of our intimate (hi)stories and as active agents of sexuality and/ or intimacy themselves. To accomplish this, I demonstrate the ways storytelling and eco- erotic Indigenous (hi)stories (wherein folks engage in intimate/ sexual relations with more- than- human beings) trouble settler colonial and heteronormative imposed ideas of intimacy, time, age and ‘acceptable’ relationalities.

‘More- than- human- beings’ refer to lands, waters, elements, spiritual beings, tricksters, plant and animal nations. More- than- human- beings are animate beings with personality, sovereignty, relationships, joys and responsibilities. The term ‘trickster’ refers to beings that exist across many Indigenous communities and (hi)stories. They are ambiguous and fluid beings, constant and fleeting disruptors, who are constantly breaking boundaries (Nelson, 2017). Are tricksters neither good nor evil, or maybe, they are both good and evil? That is tricksters’ power and beauty. They are fluid beings who work outside of, and operate as disruptors to, ‘Judeo- Christian’ constructions/ binaries such as ‘good and evil’, while offering us teachings about the world (King, 1993, cited in Nelson, 2017, p 240).

For those who are first interacting with the term ‘more- than- human- beings’ as a lens through which to view the world and our environment, this will be a crucial underpinning to the chapter ahead, and the worldview of sexuality, relationality and kinship ethics it will speak to. These multi-species relations, wherein one engages in intimate and sexual relations with more- than- human- beings is represented within ‘eco- erotics’.