Responding to <i>wetiko</i> Crime: Understanding Harold Johnson's <i>Backtrack</i> through the Indigenous Literary Analysis Model (ILAM)

Cree author Harold Johnson's crime novel Backtrack draws on Cree oral traditions and Cree legal traditions to create a contemporary story about the wetiko, a human transformed into a cannibal monster who murders people, and the Cree laws and legal processes that are used to respond to wetiko crimes. The Indigenous Literary Analysis Model (ILAM) is a method developed for critically analysing Indigenous literatures. Through ILAM, analysis of Backtrack identifies that while this novel demonstrates some continuity with Canadian crime fiction genre conventions, it also challenges and rewrites those conventions. Ultimately, Backtrack can be understood as a cultural knowledge text that incorporates elements of Western literary conventions while remaining firmly within the Indigenous literary canon.