[Music]
I'm fascinated with the way language
is central to our world view as indigenous people.
I'm a Naheo artist and curator living on Lekwungen territory in Victoria, BC.
My personal research centers around language revitalization
and how it connects us to our cultures and lands.
Over the past few years I've been on a journey to learn
the Cree language.
It's been a challenging and incredibly rewarding experience.
Now I want to travel to Alberta, where my ancestors are from
to discover the ways that different communities
are revitalizing their languages.
My mother and I both grew up not knowing anything
about our Cree family because she was adopted out at birth
as part of the '60s scoop.
Twelve years ago, we met our Cree family,
and since then I have been
in a process of connecting with the community
in Wabasca, Alberta, the place where my kokum,
my grandmother Florence, was born.
I recently met Nora Yellowmee, an administrator
at the local school, Oski Pskiknowew Kamik.
After realizing that we were second cousins
she offered to help me learn about my family tree.
(Nora) You have your grandmother, Florence.
and her mother is Isabelle, and then,
I'm here. And your grandmother. And your mom.
(Narrator) Um, Fancine.
(Nora) Your first cousins or
second cousins. (Narrator) Ok.
(Nora) And you're down here. (Narrator) I'm down there.
Yeah, this is more than,
a lot more than I knew before I met you, before I came up.
(Nora) Yea, that's Isabelle.
Nohkom Isabelle.
(Narrator) This means a lot to me to see this.
Again, um, because the more that I see it the more that I
hear about this, and talk about it
it's going to stick and I know
I'll understand more and know more through that process
(Nora) My dream for the language here,
starting with the school, is to have
our people who speak the language, speak it
everyday, because we are not getting that.
There are many Cree speakers working here,
but they are not speaking it.
For people, the young families now the young mothers
speak Cree to their children
and all the rest of it all follow.
Seeing a photo of my kukom Florence
as a young woman created a sense of healing and re-connection
after feeling disconnected for most of my life
Knowing more about my family's history
has allowed me to connect deeper with my ancestors
There is so much more to discover
but, like learning the language,
this will take time.
The Kapaskwatinak Cultural Education Center
is a place for the Children of Wabaska
to connect to the land and their culture.
Knowledge Keeper Lorraine Cardinal
helps guide the children through land based education
including coming of age ceremonies.
I'm excited to learn about these teachings
since I didn't have the opportunities to experience them
Growing up disconnected from community and family.
The reason that I do these things,
like the coming of age because
it's also my responsibility as a Naheo School
to protect the children,
creator's children. And when I'm protecting creator's children
we need to teach them those protocols.
We need to teach those values.
They need to know them so that they don't
end up getting hurt in the future.
And that shame of our language
and who we are, and our ceremonial ways.
Losing those has caused big destruction
in our communities
Because our children, as they're growing up,
they know who they are,
they came with the gift of knowing who they are.
I have a responsibility to pass those teachings
on to other children too,
because they will experiment, they will explore
and we want to prevent them
from hurting each other or hurting themselves, right?
(Singing and drums)
(Lorraine) They call that oskeskwew (?) oskinîkiskwew (?)
young manhood and young womanhood.
I want to thank you and honor you for
coming into this world.
You are a blessing to us.
We are so very honored to have you
as part of us, Naheo school.
Always remember to hold your head up, don't be ashamed
and always accept yourself for who you are
and honor those gifts you brought with you
And welcome into womanhood
Welcome.
It truly is a blessing and an honor to have you
as a young Naheo iskwew (?),
A young Naheo woman. Welcome.
(children talking)
(Lorraine) Somehow, someway
fear got instilled in us as indigenous people.
Shame got instilled in us as indigenous people.
Our children, what they experienced here today
taught them how sacred they are,
how important they are,
how beautiful they are and that
they're not just beautiful in physical form.
that they're beautiful in spiritual form too.
All we need to do is believe in them,
to love them, and to tell them that
they're important and they'll start feeling
good about themselves.
I'm proud of them. Their spirit is still alive and well.
(Narrator) What do you see being the way forward
so that these young ones in the community
can not only understand the language
and its relationship to their spirit
and their relationship, to the land
and each other and themselves,
but be speaking it? How do you feel about
the future of the language in these
next generations to come?
We have to believe in ourselves to be able to do it
and we need to set our goal
and if it's revitalizing the language, then let's do that.
How did we learn Cree?
We learnt it sitting around with the old people,
visiting each other and
our parents speaking to us, you know?
So we can get it back. We just need to do it.
John Bigstone is a Wabiskaw elder
who carries vast spiritual and ceremonial knowledge
He invited me to the land where he holds sweat lodge ceremonies
to share teachings about the spirit within our languages.
[Music]
[inhales deeply]
It clears your mind when you breathe in this smudge
English language is inadequate
if you're going to describe spirit.
Anything of spirit.
Its inadequate.
They named it according to their connection to that plant.
because they spoke to the plant
They had a connection.
They had a connection to all of life.
They understood their environment.
They understood that everything was alive,
and your spirtit has a connection with that spirit
of mother earth, and everything that grows on her body.
Prior to contact, everything was described in a more spiritual way.
Mitos (?) you know, has a spiritual meaning.
Sifta (?) as in spiritual meaning that's the poplar and the spruce.
(...?) coming back to the language where our families have had these interruptions
of residential school, the 60s' scoop
I'm curious what your thoughts are about those of us with this blood in us
and whose ancestors have spoken the language
and whether you think that we have it inside of us
just waiting to come out,
this bone memory or blood memory of the language.
Yeah, it's in yur DNA.
It's programmed in there already.
You just have to wake up that programming.
That's why you're here. See?
It's that programming, and your spirit guide -
you've got to remember there's a spiritual aspect to this
You're never alone. You never walk alone,
your ancestors, your Cree ancestors, walk with you,
they're assigned to you to guide you where you need to be
That's the beauty if this understanding of spirit
It happens in spirit
We are the result of spirit in action. We become material.
That's a deeper teaching.
But the reality is (that) everyone of us have spirit guides around us.
I was on kind of a lost path before I found my way to my first lodge.
And it's interesting to think of these
European modalities or academic ways of describing
how things are working.
And the way that I explain it to people is
I don't know how it's working, I just know it is working for me.
And it's not something I'm trying to figure out up here ,
I just know it's working down here.
And I think it has connected my heart and my spirit
in ways that weren't happening before.
When I say a prayer in the social gathering,
I say it in Cree
because it's an insult to my ancestors if I pray in English.
It's the very thing that oppressed me as a child.
I can't do that.
I have to speak and pray in Cree.
That's what I do and I explain, you know, why.
Because I'm not praying to the people.
I'm praying to the spirits that are guiding me.
They don't have to understand what I'm saying.
Because as long as a spirit hears, the Spirit will come.
And they understand my language, the Cree language.
Once I identify myself, they say,
"Huh, our grandson is playing. Let's go support him."
That's the beauty of our language.
What happened to our language --
came from the time of the residence in school,
the first time it was introduced, --
not only the Cree but the many tribes themselves.
When they took away the children, --
they took the children away from the land, --
the language, their ancestors,
their grandfathers, their grandmothers,
their teachers, their parents, their aunts and uncles.
That's when the separation happened.
They broke that connection.
So when he took us away, --
they severed that connection to all of those things.
We were taught a foreign way of thinking.
I was programmed as a child.
Now, I have to deprogram myself, sometimes referred to as decolonization,
as they gave us that colonized mentality.
And it just did not fit with our paradigm, how we saw our place in creation.
At some point, somebody's got to wake up.
One day, you've got to say, "Hey, there's something wrong here."
This is the time.
That's why we're here.
To wake the people up.
To wake ourselves up.
Still be the guiding light, you know.
There is a different way.
So, it's about connection.
That's what was severed --
in the time of the residential school.
We lost connection to our spirit.
It replaced the creator outside of us instead of in here.
We're trying to mend that rift.
That's what you're doing.
That rift that was caught;
you are the stitch that is bringing those two worldviews --
but to where they start respecting our way,
the Cree way.
When you have love, when you feel love --
and somebody tells you something that your spirit is looking to hear
like, "Welcome home."
Where do you feel it?
Right here. You're connecting.
You'll always have that sense of belonging --
because you come home. Yeah.
So once you come home, you know where to come
next time you're out there, wandering, --
you have a connection there.
You've made some connections already here.
You're no longer disconnected.
I left my conversation with John feeling like I belong
in a way that I've never felt before.
It was an incredibly powerful experience
that made me feel more connected to my spirit.
Tell me again, like, your family story with Wabasca.
My mother grew up there, my father grew up in Grouard, --
a couple hours away,
and she didn't want to raise me on the reserve.
So as soon as they found out about me, they moved away.
And when we move to Edmonton, through the teen years,
through my adult years, that's when the reconnection really started to happen,
going home more happen.
Before that, I would only visit, like, holidays, few times a year.
Dusty Legrand is the creator of the clothing label Mobilize Waskawēwin.
Using the ancient writing system of Cree syllabics and his designs,
he's making the language visible to a new generation.
Yeah, so this was the --
- it has the -- - Oh yeah,
the different languages, tribes of the north.
Yeah, it tells the story of --
a bunch of people. And it was really special to hear, like,
the feedback from different people that had never seen
their nation represented on a ....
There were certain people that; this was like their first time.
They're like, "I'm just buying this just because I've never seen my nation represented."
Yeah, then I put revolution down the arm just to let them know what's going on.
[Laughs]
I've been always wanting to create a clothing brand.
So to be able to create something that can empower indigenous youth
and educate them on the indigenous history,
on the future, on values and what it means to be indigenous.
So Mobilize was a way that I could give voice to the voiceless.
I could give a voice to the youth.
To do it in a different way than I had seen being done, --
it was very important to me.
To do it completely different,
to represent the funky people, to represent the different people,
to represent everybody that's ostracized that way
and especially as indigenous people, like, that's been done to us.
Okay.
So this is the first drawing of this shirt.
So, a lot of, like, the pieces will come,
and they'll come at certain times, when I'm driving,
when I'm listening to certain things.
And they'll come and if I don't write it the way it's supposed to be,
the idea won't stay.
I want to try to encompass all of Canada
and I'm gonna try to reach as many as I can.
So for me this was like a lot of studying,
a lot of research to try to see as far east as I could go
and see what nations are there.
And that's what is special about the language I find.
It's that the stories, and the purpose, and everything exists within the language.
That's in kind of a place that it's been locked.
And it remains, and even though --
the assimilation has taken a lot of, like, --
our connection to community, our ceremonies, our practices.
The language has kept all of that.
How did you get the Cree word?
Yes, well, the Cree word is on the back of this one here.
Okay.
So I just keep it as like Mobilize is the English version
and then Waskawēwin,
which is the Cree word for movement, is the Cree element that comes in.
Mobilize didn't have a translation.
But I also didn't want to just translate mobilize,
I wanted to use movement as the word.
So one thing that I really liked about the word was Kui when was was the the presence of the triangular symbols and for me he's represented like two teepees and represented the tribe that way.
Being apart of Reubens class was really special to understand the fundamentals of and to learn the history of the star chart and to learn the history of syllabics.
And yeah I was like learning indigenous history through the through the spirit mechanism that's a it was really special.
He kind of just takes you back and he tells you the stories and he takes you through a journey through story of the significance of the numbers of the grandfather directions the grandmother directions.
yeah he knew.
and what what does that mean you.
it's a collapsed word you know actually is the way I'd say it you know see.
from what I understand talk a little bit about colonization and taking over lands the lands of original people
what I understand first thing you got to do is you got to get rid of those peoples deity that name and replace it with yours when you're colonizing people.
so our name for nihilo people was ie and we have a different paradigm as far as a dogma is concerned.
you are is I am is so a diminutive of ie so is II know so that's it yeah so that's it's a
but it this is a collapse version of that you know II knew ya
o3d is until this Goodell
fantastic so we have a relationship with the earth and that relationship is that we relate to her as mother.
so she when she brings forth those different people that plant the plant people the different once that's soggy bug all coming order the trees out of the grass.
And so she's showing us what love is.
It's a it's practical.
So she'll give us all of this.
We will be nurtured by it the dandelion somewhere and different grasses.
The four-legged people will eat from it from that.
We will in turn get our sustenance from the four-legged people but she's giving us all of that showing us that love.
now soggy is the morpheme of that word.
And if I were to say to you I love you I would say it soggyt didn't.
Some people say key soggy it didn't and and I say kissaki it didn't.
that's how I've been taught Kisaragi it then I love you or you are loved by me.
so that's a good word to learn to say to your to your loved ones.
That's one of the only if.
that's one of the only words that I know to say to my partner.
yes and see how that it's coming into bloom it's gonna start blossoming it'll continue to grow and then it'll go through its cycle just like we will come into a relationship with others.
yeah cuz I know just this really sticks out to me when I got to when I came here last summer as a special place not only Amy's piece but the other artwork and it's kind of perch over the river.
when did you begin learning about Slovaks and the spirit marker system.
when we were liberated from residential school probably 1970 or 71 I don't remember.
I was just young and the late Rosana whole and late Caroline hunter would come in and teach us about them me and my peers.
so that's when I started learning the system that I was that I know about.
And into a soul mate so simply for me to learn it that I pass it on the weight I was taught to me and I guarantee that people will master that writing system.
So always tell us tell the ones that are coming in to learn like this
take your page and go to the center I tell them that's where we're gonna start off
because we're used to writing from the top to the right left to right left to right
but in this one it's you go from the center and you start from inside.
So there's the center there I'll go to left the center and right the first one and that's this one here.
This one is a phonetic language.
So that one says ah.
And it's all sort of sound the first sound that people will make when they're when they're praying and worshiping.
they'll say something like ah you say I'm on earth or
they'll describe that Supreme Being and the supreme beings name this part of this as well ah
i'm summonin will say ah ma ma da oui ma describing again.
they'll endear themselves to that Supreme Being by calling that Supreme Being father of all
ah mom won't bow mo
So I say ah hi and recognition nurse you me and the Supreme Being.
I love people say hi hi that's why that's probably how you've heard it quite a bit.
So it I don't near says ah this one says baa there's that poppet.
So who's ah ba la and there's fordham like I said going off into the east Miki nice ET wreath
and there's seven of them like I said there's seven tectonic plates going off into the South is the same vowel sound and then into the southwest
this what I like to call the anomaly
it's a a balsamic yeah man yeah say yeah yeah
a vowel sound ooh
and thank you dr. James McCool cos for correcting me on that
I used to go all borrowing from English
he said it oh isn't it ooh and I said yeah that's right boo boo - Lulla.
and then they're smaller smaller and these are way smaller than the big ones big spirit marker
small spirit markers here to complete the what dr. Marilyn shirt has called the star chart.
So the one I talked told you
kissaki hittin that's how you are loved by me or I love you
you suck yeah then yeah okay I guess I did it then
so that's the writing system there.
my hope is that it will help to instill pride and those for those young people Missy not like
because this is a racist country and it was born out of racism
and of course racism disconnects people this one connects us from exes
And all all have access to whatever whatever ethnicity or from yeah we all have that it all makes sense to everybody it can make sense to everyone and we can start connecting.
what they taught us in the residential schools is that we were worth worth less then than Europeans
and this one teaches us that Papa went deeper on measured will have the same measurements as far as humanity our DNA says that we're all the same.
I want to thank you so much for sharing about this because I can see the the brilliance and sophistication lifts within this the way you've you know shown and explained
and it piques my interest and makes me want to learn more it makes me want to move out here so I could take one of your classes.
yeah
thank you so much for sharing this.
honor and a privilege.