obituary<\/a>\u00a0published this week.\u00a0<\/p>\nHe was 87 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mississauga First Nation Chief Brent Niganobe remembers his uncle as someone who was deeply invested in both his culture and his community.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s one of our last speakers of our dialect in the community that we’re losing, and he definitely carried a lot of stories and history,\u201d Niganobe told SooToday.<\/p>\n
Pine was also described in his obituary as a \u201cvery spiritual man and a pipe carrier who conducted ceremonies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a known medicine carrier and a caretaker of the land who knew the sacred traditional ceremonial sites,\u201d his obituary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Highly regarded for his political activism, Pine was involved with both the Anishnaabek Nation and the TEK (Traditional Ecological\u00a0Knowledge) Elders group.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a strong political activist, a known medicine carrier, a fluent speaker of our beautiful language and a caretaker of the land,\u201d the Anishinabek Nation said in a social media post. \u201cHe was a humble, trusted advisor who provided political guidance to the younger generations and his peers who sought his counsel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis knowledge will live through all those who learned from him and live through those teachings. We send our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and community. Baa maa pii.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niganobe said it \u201cfeels like we’re losing some of that knowledge\u201d following his uncle\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we’re losing more of those people in our community \u2014 that connection, especially to our traditional territory, where we’ve had such a presence since time immemorial,\u201d Niganobe said.<\/p>\n
Pine leaves behind a large family, including siblings, children and numerous grandchildren.<\/p>\n
A private ceremony for Pine will be held at a later date.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regarded as a ‘strong political activist,’ Willard Pine was known as one of the last fluent speakers of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194297],"tags":[49,48,284704,55405],"class_list":["post-811125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mississauga","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-first-nationschiefdeathindigenousmississauga-first-nationanishinaabemowinknowledge-keeperpolitical-activistwillard-pine","tag-mississauga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}