Life stories of elders preserve oral tradition (fwd)

Sat Nov 6 16:34:49 UTC 2004

Life stories of elders preserve oral tradition

Amy Jo Ehman
Special to The StarPhoenix
Saturday, November 06, 2004
http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/news/story.html?id=dbc35a2b-9573-4e02-8be4-2e57cc876141

[photo insert - CREDIT: Gord Waldner, The StarPhoenix. Ted Whitecalf,
co-author of Kiskisiwin, reads to his five-month-old son Elias Adam
Asiniy.]

Ted Whitecalf is quite sure his son Elias's first word is going to be
"No" but he's also quite sure it will be in Cree, not English.
Whitecalf is trying hard to pass his mother tongue to the next
generation -- and his latest literary collaboration, Kiskisiwin, fits
with that goal.

Kiskisiwin is a collection of life stories as told by a group of elders
from the Beardy's & Okemasis First Nation near Duck Lake. The stories
are sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes regretful but often
insightful, as the elders talk about the hardships and joys of their
long lives.

"The purpose is the preservation of the language, the culture and the
traditions of our people," said Whitecalf, owner of Sweet Grass
Records/Productions in Saskatoon, which produced the book.

"Times are changing, and the youth aren't going out to find these
stories. A lot of the elders are taking that knowledge to the grave.
It's not being passed down because no one is seeking it." In fact, he
said two elders passed away during publication.

Kiskisiwin is a Cree word meaning "I remember" and the act of
remembering is laced throughout the book. The elders were asked to tell
their life stories, especially those aspects they would like to be read
some day by their grandchildren. Most of the stories were told in Cree
and translated into English. Like the story of 79-year-old Marie
Arcand, who attended residential school, and who remembers being so
excited about going home at summer break that she couldn't sleep -- so
she glued her eyelids together with chewing gum.

". . . we got into trouble for that and they had to use butter to
unglue!" she recalls in her story. She left school after Grade 5. Near
the end of her interview she said, "I would tell everybody to pursue
education and to finish their education. I am so happy that my son is a
policeman . . . I tell my grandchildren things but I have to speak in
English and I am not the best with that language."

The stories are accompanied by touching black-and-white photos of the
elders, revealing much through their facial features and those personal
touches that make a home.

The recordings were done earlier this year by Whitecalf and John
Smallchild, translated into English by Helen Tootoosis, and polished by
a team of editors.

"The editing was pretty minimal," said Marilyn Poitras, Elias's mother
and one of the book's editors. "Every once in awhile there was
something that was completely lost in translation and we took that
out."

While there is much about hardship due to poverty, alcoholism, abuse and
racism, the stories are often about the ordinary and humorous aspects
of growing up Cree in a changing world. "They have the most amazing
sense of humour," said Poitras. "Even when they're sad about something,
they can find humour. It's how the culture survived this long."

But she laments the loss of the oral storytelling traditions of the Cree
people. The very fact that these stories must be written down in order
to be passed on reflects the loss of that traditional conversation
between one generation and the next.

"The residential school system, the legacy of criminal law, taking away
aspects of the culture -- this has disintegrated the oral tradition so
that may of the kids today don't know how to access those stories
anymore," she said. "If every reserve in the province took on a project
to educate in a very small way, showing some stepping stones to
reconnecting that fragmented fabric, I think it would go a long way to
putting things back together again and growing healthy communities."

Kiskisiwin is the third collection of stories from elders at Beardy's &
Okemasis, a project funded by the band. It is for sale at McNally
Robinson's bookstore in Saskatoon.

Whitecalf is now undertaking a project to record stories from aboriginal
people across the province for use in an educational DVD for the school
system. Those interviews will be in their original languages with
subtitles, so young people will feel the rhythm of the language and see
the facial expressions of the elders as they speak.

"I'm just excited about this," said Whitecalf. "They're giving their
stories to their grandchildren but they are giving them to the province
as well."