"Wahkohtowin," a Cree word meaning kinship or the state of being related, is a fundamental concept for understanding Indigenous culture and traditional beliefs (Ermine 2001). This article describes how three researchers in western Canada incorporated this concept into a research project that compared Indigenous and non-Indigenous students' memories of learning to read and write. It is argued that this concept can be used as one way of incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing within cross-cultural academic discourses and methodologies. (Contains 2 notes.)