Urban First Nations 12

One of the consistent findings in education is that Aboriginal kids frequent alternate programs; in fact, across B.C. over half (52%) of the students in these programs have First Nations ancestry (Dec 2010). In Coquitlam district that figure is currently 21%. There is much hypothesizing as to the reasons why, but I’ll leave that to the experts. What I’d like to talk about is what we tried to do at our alternate secondary school to bring First Nations culture to the kids.

Most of the students at CABE need credits to complete their Dogwood, so early on we decided to make whatever we did something they could receive credit for.  Also, we wanted to provide a grade 12 course, as it is more difficult to offer senior electives in an alternate environment where the student population is in flux. This led us to locally-developed curriculum. Being situated within the tri-cities and close to Vancouver, our students are a diverse group. Many do not know their ancestry or their stories are lacking. As adolescents they are bombarded with urban culture and lack traditional role models. Given all of this, we decided to create a course for urban Aboriginal youth.

Myself and Kirk Gummow, another Aboriginal resource teacher, created the course with the help of our district staff development coordinator. Weaving traditional teachings with urban experiences, we based our learning outcomes on the Medicine Wheel and called it Urban First Nations 12: Expressing Your Truth. Our objective was for the student to explore/reflect and gain knowledge of self through intellectual engagement with text (mind), physical expression (body), spiritual understanding and expression (spirit), and emotional reflection and expression (emotion). We simplified the learning outcomes to these few:

Students will be able to…

·        Read, evaluate, and discuss a contemporary novel written by a First Nations author

·        Discuss the concept of identity and difference as it relates to the text and to self

·        Personally respond to the text; articulate ways in which they do or do not relate to characters, themes, or experiences in the story

·        Share personal thoughts and experiences through discussion and journaling that go beyond the text with respect to the conflict between identity and culture

·        Engage in traditional Aboriginal and/or urban contemporary forms of physical pursuits

·        Learn and practice relaxation and stress management through physical activity

·        Create or perform a work of art, inspired by an Aboriginal experience, that expresses the student’s own ideas, thoughts, or feelings through a personal contemporary urban lens

·        Explain how art reflects identity

·        Create and deliver an oral presentation that reveals knowledge of contemporary First Nations issues and modes of artistic expression such as music videos, film, text, or spoken word

·        Understand how understanding and practice of Medicine Wheel teachings can lead to a healthy lifestyle

We offered experiences such as mask-making, writing hip-hop, cedar paddle-making, carving, painting, and canoeing, kept the assignments to a minimum, and provided lots of choice and adaptations. Using the current model of project-based learning, the student became the object of their project.

These were the assignments:

·        Learning Log: mode of choice (reveals personal engagement with learning outcomes)

·        Visual Art (show and tell about the process)

·        Representation of Personal Journey Through Movement (show and tell about the process)

·        Oral Presentation (based on a film or music video of choice. Students must have engaged with this work during the course)

On reflection, we would, of course, change many things as teachers do. We had hoped to make the course self-paced, but realized that the students needed weekly meetings with us--connections are so important--as is the oral component. The one thing we would not change is to offer Sherman Alexie’s True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—everyone loves that book and can find something in it to relate to.  Then back it up with Smoke Signals and Reel Injun if you can.

We started with about 12 interested students and ended four months later by passing 3 of them. The great thing here was that two of those three students used our course to graduate. Here are their comments:

This course makes the week more bearable. I love the hands on activities and the art of the course. I love that we get to read and write in journals and when we’re all together I feel like (on a good day) we’re connected like a family.

This course taught me appreciation of my culture. It’s about taking pride in who I am—what we stand for. We get into new things you might have a talent for…like Curtis Clearsky. I learned a new way of writing—to write as fast as my thoughts can think. And, carving gave me something to be proud of at the end of the day.

Pride, self-esteem, honouring our self and where we come from … isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Grasping a sense of indigenous cultures is something anthropologists have tried to do--for the most part egocentrically--since one culture decided they were civilized and others were not. 

What The Fast Runner provides is a three-hour glimpse into a culture, so real, so “authentic” one need look no farther. If I taught secondary social studies, though it’s restricted, I would show this film to my students. This is most definitely a film worth watching.

Filmed entirely in the Inuktitut language, in the far north of Canada, The Fast Runner tells the story of two men, whose rivalry for the beautiful Atuat, unleashes rape and murder on the small nomadic community. But there is more behind this than just jealousy: an evil shaman cursed the men’s parents and that evil is still resounding across the frozen lands in the actions of their children.

In this film, we see what it takes to survive in this land. Wisdom is apparent in the face of the grandmother who pours the last of her oil from a very real looking animal bladder—she knows her granddaughter will have to give herself to a murderer in order for them all to survive. What strikes me most is not the climactic running scene, but the quiet scene--of family and community huddled silently in a roomy ice block house, or walking miles and miles across the snowy barren land. We learn much about this culture. We learn that having two wives is allowable, but a wife sleeping with her brother-in-law is definitely taboo. And we learned why banishment works.

I leave you with a quote from Rick Groen of the Globe and Mail. "There are really only three things you need to know about Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner: (1) It is a superb film; (2) It is both intriguingly exotic and uniquely Canadian; (3) Although based on an ancient Inuit myth, and set on a frozen shore a thousand years ago, it speaks eloquent volumes about the way we live now."

Grandmothers Praying for Peace

For the Next Seven Generations is a story of hope that began with a vision as all great stories do. Actually this story has thirteen+ visions. Thirteen grandmothers, all spiritual leaders and healers in their communities, saw a similar vision: the creation of a council of Elder women to pray for peace and healing on the planet, to educate, and to draw attention to the continuing degradation of our Mother Earth and the Indigenous People of this planet. Award-winning filmmakers, Carole & Bruce Hart documented their story in a film.

A council of grandmothers is nothing new. In the matrilineal Iroquois tradition, women are the owners of the land, and are respected, as is the Mother Earth. The Iroquois, who call themselves Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse, are a Six Nation League who have been living on the land around the Great Lakes for thousands of years. Each longhouse belonged to a Clan Mother and her female kin, their husbands, and children. Clan Mothers were respected lifegivers who appointed the tribal chief and Faithkeeper, and kept watch over him, making sure that he did his work in a good way.

Today, the Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers are still a powerful voice in their communities, and when the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers come together for the first time, it is on Haudenosaunee Territory. This is their mission statement:

We represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come.

We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life. We believe the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.

We look to further our vision through the realization of projects that protect our diverse cultures: lands, medicines, language and ceremonial ways of prayer and through projects that educate and nurture our children.

The Grandmothers travel to each others' homes, host gatherings,  and teach and learn about life on the four corners of the earth.  Some of what they do involves working to save healing plants in danger of extinction, and cleaning contaminated water. Through creative consciousness they inspire action. Like the Navajo Spider Woman, they are weaving a web to save our planet and our people, for without our planet, there are no people. 

The film can be purchased at this website:  For the Next Seven Generations

If you teach in our district you can borrow the film from our library. It is suitable for middle and secondary classes and is a great way to stimulate discussion with our students. It is, after all, a film for our children, and the next seven generations.

Ravensong

Beginning at chapter one, Lee Maracle's poetic gift is evident: From the depths of the sound Raven sang a deep wind song, melancholy green. Forever the trickster teacher, Raven plays an integral role in this text.


Published in 1993, Ravensong is a radical book both for its content and the racist viewpoint of its protagonist. Stacey, a complex, yet innocent, seventeen-year old Aboriginal girl has been accepted into the UBC teaching program. This is huge--it is 1954 in British Columbia. How often did that happen? She wants to go, but is naturally afraid to leave the safety of her family and community. This unravelling of her relationships and, at times, her mind underlies the story.


We, in this decade, are so influenced by political correctness that anything that suggests stereotyping implies racism. Written in Stacey's point-of-view, this is what comes across as she attempts to reconcile her world. Of course, her take on the white world has been formed by what she has seen in her local community and bordering "white town" and her family's attitudes.

The white women toss weeds from their perfect flower gardens that the Native women need for medicine; they can't even get mint to grow. Then the white families toss their kids as soon as they finish high school; they don't even like their kids. They do not have the safety of family and community so much a part of the village.

Stacey is obsessed with the suicide of a white school mate named Polly, who kills herself because she had sex and others found out. This shame destroyed her. Pitted against what happens in the Salish community, Stacey is naturally curious. Some reviewers find this obsession odd because Stacey barely knows the girl, while her own people are dying in droves due to the flu epidemic. I think this point is made to contrast the startling discovery that Stacey's Momma had sex with her husband's twin brother Ned, enough times to create their family because her husband was sterile. This appears culturally acceptable, and when Stacey's father dies, his brother naturally assumes the role of husband and father, which he is. Stacey cannot reconcile Polly's response to that of Momma's. This is not to say that the Native community accepts premarital sex; in fact, when Stacey goes for a walk in the woods with a lesbian couple, Momma is furious, and equates it to her going off unchaperoned with two men.

But it is the blatant racial stereotyping that is unnerving. It is a point-of-view missing from most texts...this view of the other. And what makes it uniquely radical.

Even German Judy, who partners with Rena on the reserve and helps save people during the flu epidemic, is not accepted in the community. Phrases like they aren't human and she's white so she don't count illustrate their hatred of the whites. 

I am obsessed with living like these people but I can't stand them anymore.

As much as the flu epidemic is integral to the novel, and in the epilogue a mature Stacey recounts the tragic statistics of those who died, only a couple of pages are dedicated to the actual crisis. It seems overshadowed by Polly's suicide and the contrasts between white town and the village. The other thing I find problematic is that Stacey's Momma escaped residential school because she acted up so much they sent her home. This is not the impression I get from survivors who come to speak of their experiences. If it had only been that easy...

Perhaps this novel really is all about Raven, who haunts the forests and the hearts of the characters. It is, after all, Raven's Song.  I leave you with a final teaching from the trickster:

Words are sacred, once spoken they cannot be retrieved. Sometimes they fall out of the mouth in moments of thoughtlessness when the speaker focuses on images which don't include the one spoken to, and burn holes in the lives of the listener (167).

 

A Very Cool Interview with Lee Maracle

REEL INJUN

Any discussion of Indigenous image and identity requires a viewing of Cree filmmaker, Neil Diamond's film,  Reel Injun Diamond travels from his home in northern Canada all the way to Adam Beach's home in the Hollywood hills, documenting the history of Aboriginal people in films along the way. Interweaving movie clips with expert dialogue, he reveals power and image shifts through decades of change. Simply brilliant.

Some districts, like ours, (Coquitlam) have it in their library.

The Way of Thorn & Thunder

The Way of Thorn & Thunder has been called Indigenous Mythology, but at its heart, much like we saw in Avatar, beats the conflict between beings who respect and value the Earth, and those who seek to harvest her power for personal gain.

In this three-part epic,  Daniel Heath Justice unleashes the apocalypse that threatens to reach its terrible peak in our time. Set in the mythical Everland, echoes of the European subjugation of the Land and Nations of Turtle Island haunt this text.

Justice is Cherokee, a professor of Indigenous Literature at the University of Toronto. He is donating all royalities from his historical work, Our Fire Survives the Storm  to the Cherokee Nation Education Corporation, “a not-for-profit corporation chartered under tribal code of the Cherokee Nation (CN). Its mission is to offer educational assistance for tribal citizens and revitalize the language, culture, and history of Cherokee people.” 

I do not know the history of the Cherokee people well--this book is on my list to read--but I do know that my own ancestors, the Tuscaroras from the Carolinas, were subjected to atrocities described in the Thorn & Thunder Trilogy. The Cherokee and Tuscarora were among the first Indigenous Nations to conflict with the conquerors from across the sea, and both were forcibly removed from their territories after considerable strife. But this book is not just an allegory for that injustice. There is more at stake in the Everland.

Several races of beings belong to the Seven-Fold Council of the Everland.

Heroine, Tarsa 'deshae, is Kyn. They honour Zhaia, the Tree Mother, follow the way of Deep Green and take their power from the Wyr, the elements in wood, sky, and stream, through their sensory stalks. The Kyn live in long houses, are vegetarians, and do not kill, unnecessarily--Tarsa is a warrior,  a Wielder of great power.

Hero, Tobhi is Tetawi. They take their power from beasts, are connected through clans, live in huts, and grow corn, beans, and squash. They kinship is through clans and they are travellers and sometimes shifters.

The five remaining folk are Gvaergs, Ubbetuk (goblin masters of machines), Wyrnach Spider People, Beastfolk, and Harpies who are half-animal.

Among the folk are some who have joined the Celestials, who like the Jesuits, are celibate and hierarchical. They worship Luran the Moonmaiden, and have renounced the power of the Wyr.

But the real evil in this story manifests through the Dreydcaste: Binders bind the spirits of those folk with magical powers in their snaring tomes, and deliver them to Reavers who bend their spirits to the will of the Dreydmaster who seeks to rule all using their power. His minions are Humans, men who soldier against the Unhumans; but as in every conflict, there are those who follow their heart and side with the folk rather than the oppressor.

Brilliantly complex, The Way of Thorn & Thunder, speaks to the power of survival, to the love between land and culture and people--and most of all to Freedom. Beautifully written, Justice's prose transports the reader to a world of real possibility.

"They were all looking at her, waiting. Her friends, who had already sacrificed so much. These new friends and allies, who were willing to give up their comfort, security, and possibly even their lives to help in this quest. Great deeds required great sacrifice, and not just from one, but from many. They were willing to give more. Could she do any less?"

The Way of Thorn and Thunder will soon be released in one volume. It includes Daniel Heath Justice's maps and sketches. Brilliant.

A Sto:lo Murder Mystery

Like all good murder mystery sleuths, Sto:lo Tribal Police Inspector, Eddie Julian, has problems. One of his biggest problems is, of course, to find the killer(s) who chucked Fisheries Department Enforcement Officer Pete Johnston into the Fraser River tied down with fishing weights.

Like all good heroes, Eddie Julian is an orphan--a Native kid who was adopted by a well-intentioned white couple in Merritt, but who longs for his real family, history, and culture.

And like all good heroes, Eddie Julian has at least three beautiful women hitting on him, yet can't make a decision. He's terribly shy around women.

But politics writhe at the heart of this novel. Devil's Run is Gordon Mohs' first murder mystery, and this book is intended as the first in a trilogy featuring Eddie Julian. Mohs is of Xwelitem ancestry and spent years working with the Sto:lo people as an archaeologist and anthropologist in the 90's, so we want to believe he knows what he's talking about when he describes the complex political wrangling that underlies this story. I personally find it as hard to follow as Eddie Julian does at times.

But the main problem I see with this novel isn't with the plotting or the writing--it's the price.

Self-published by Longhouse Publishing in Mission, Mohs released this as a Special Collectors Edition, and believe me, it's special--hardcover, embossed logo, gold lettering, the works. And if the following article is correct, it's being sold at a special price--$89+
Devil's Run by Gordon Mohs

People love to read books set in their home territory and Mohs goes into lengthy detailed descriptions of the Fraser Valley, so why not offer something affordable? Something that we all can buy and enjoy. There is much beauty in this book; the beauty of the sturgeon myth, and of salmon culture, for example. Hopefully, when Eddie Julian returns in part two of the trilogy, it will be in a more accessible format--perhaps an e-book?

I'd love to hear from some Sto:lo folks who've read this book. What do you think of Gordon Mohs' take on politics, spirituality, and culture in the Fraser Valley?