Time

Is slipping down the wall

Gripping imperfections

With a hold like cold molasses

-- It tears at the paint

Pulls our eyes to the floor

Where the weight of

Lost expectations

Settle

Turns

Where your shoulder meets the wall,

Writhes in the folds of your clothing

Switching back and forth

Pulling at your sleeves

Confusing me --

Finally weary of the encumbrance

You rest your hands in your pockets

Shuffle your feet,

And look away

Jumping between us

It finally thieves our words

Senses victory,

Splashes on the floor

And disappears-

Seeing it leave I look up

Just as you tell me

You don’t have time

I nod and turn to the door

While above our heads

Another moment forms

-- Anxious to steal

Could I touch you?

If I was just a shoulder, could I touch you with the rounded part? Could I slide my entire being down your back and ask you to notice?

Or should I turn myself around and float away

So that even this small part of me becomes unknown to you?

Should I wait until you touch me? What would happen then?

Will small bumps ascend on my skin?

Will shivers outline the small of my back?

Will tremors sculpt the length of my thighs?

Will the Frigid air sear my inner places

As my chest fills with remembering

-- The body I once had?

An interview with Buffy Ste Marie

Below is an unedited interview with Buffy Ste Marie via email. It was completed between September 15th and September 20th, 2010. This is the basis of an article published in the next issue of FNH Magazine. The article is about aboriginal recipients of honorary doctorates.  All rights reserved. Enjoy ...

1.    (People get really excited when they know you're coming to town, especially around here.) A musical career that spans forty years is ... not easy. In the sixties, did you imagine -back then- that you'd be creating and having an audience for this long?

Thanks for the good words. No I didn't think I'd last in show biz more than a week, but I expected the songs might, and I deliberately tried to make certain songs that would cross languages and generations. The songs were about classic human themes, including the ones about specific Aboriginal issues. You can see lyrics and hear some of them (like Universal Soldier, Until It's Time for You to Go, Up Where We Belong, and No No Keshagesh) at my website: http://www.buffysainte-marie.com

2.    You produced 15 albums from 1964 - 1976, 2 in the 1990s and a collection this year. Of course, you released 'running for the drum' in 2009.  At any time, did you wonder if that was it - that you weren't going to get any new music out there?

I create songs for "in here" more than for "out there". I record all the time at home. But creating a collection of songs is not the same as releasing them, marketing them as if they were tomatoes or tires or any other product in the marketplace. There would have been no sense in releasing “Running for the Drum” while George Bush was in office and record companies stood between artists and audiences, supporting some and shelving others. Anybody can release an album now on the internet. 

3.    You've received and honorary doctorate from the University of Regina in 1996.  What did you think when you'd received the news? 

I thought it was really nice, especially since it was a Doctor of Laws degree, which is their highest honour; and for them to give me this particular degree represented sort of a wonderful milestone in Regina, which has so many times been associated with systemic racism. Also because they are a sister university to the (then) brand new First Nations University in Regina it meant a lot to me, as I too support FNU. The acceptance speech I gave focused on ‘Whose heritage is it anyway?’ I love interacting with universities. In a way they are the most conservative but also the most liberating of institutions, and I do like to offer a unique approach to whatever they're already doing, whether I'm working with them on the arts, Aboriginal issues, multimedia, education, Native science curriculum, whatever. I hated high school but loved university. It saved my life and I recommend university to anybody who can possibly get there. 

4.    You said in your acceptance (broadcast on channel seven) speech that "the teachers who taught me best were people who never had the ghost of a chance to go to university. So I take great delight in sharing this honour you give me with them." You then named them. Have people come forward to speak to you, or thank you for this? 

Oh gosh, people come up to me after every concert, every speech, and I know so many people in Regina. And people in Regina particularly are used to me being grateful to family and community people, and yes they express their thanks to me for the little things I do too. In the last few months I've done the Aboriginal Achievement Awards, the Regina Folk Festival, and a couple of weeks ago the commemoration and symphony concert for Chief Paipot, so there's been a lot of thanks and pride going around. We all acknowledge each other, express thanks and gratitude a lot, not just me, everybody. It's kind of a family tradition.

5.    Indigenous knowledge has been making inroads into universities and high school for a while now. But Indigenous Canadians still have trouble getting through standard schooling. If you could imagine a Native child's school experience, what would it include?

It varies with grade level, but generally sciences, government, social studies, their own language, their own band/tribal history, indigenous culture studies, Canadian and world history, English/French, math, geography, art, music, sports. Certain books like “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” “Indian Givers,” “Native Roots,” “Morning Girl,” and books by Aboriginal authors like Louise Erdrich, Tom Highway; long list, short answer.

6.    You've received more since then, from Waterloo, OCAD, Emily Carr Institute, and Carleton (I'm hoping I didn't miss any...). I've only been to one Convocation so far - but I know that the honoured person speaks to the crowd.  Do you ever feel a little overwhelmed at the number of awards?

Eight honorary doctorates

University of Regina - 1996

Lakehead University - 2000

University of Saskatchewan 2003

Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design - 2007

Carleton University – 2008

University of Western Ontario – 2009

Ontario College of Art and Design – Toronto 2010

Wilfred Laurier University, Ontario – 2010

Yeah, that is a little overwhelming. Most people don't actually know what an honorary degree is. A university gives an honorary degree to someone who, in the considered opinion of a judging panel, has done their Ph.D work off-campus that would usually have been done on campus. A Master's degree means that you have mastered the material. A Ph.D (doctorate) means that you have added something new to the field, like published new information or discoveries. There are stiff rules that universities use or their accreditation would be questioned. 

7.    Did you think back then that you'd receive honorary doctorates from so many universities?

No. I never expected to receive any award for anything! I thought I was going to India to study Music and the Sacred at Shantiniketan University. Instead I wound up in show business, with a philosophy degree and a teaching certification nobody knew about.

8/9.    You also have worked in education and for communities. Can you say a little about the Nihewan foundation and the cradleboard teaching project for our readers?

In the 1960s I was a young singer with lots of airplane tickets and lots of money. I used my concert airplane tickets to spend my down time in indigenous communities, often where I already knew people but sometimes not. I saw lots of people who had no idea how to go to college. I used concert monies and founded/sustained my Nihewan Foundation to help Native people go to college, and later expanded it also to support non-Indian students in Aboriginal studies. I see that exchange of knowledge as a two-way door. 

In the mid-1970s I initiated the Cradleboard Teaching Project, an extension of the same philosophy, but designed to serve kids in grades 3-12 and teacher’s college. I designed it both to provide accurate, engaging curriculum in science and other subjects through Aboriginal cultural perspectives; and also to connect Aboriginal classes with non-Indian classes as they study our curriculum together as study partners. While I'm on the road, we do not operate the partnering program, but the curriculum is online and free at www.cradleboard.org for elementary, middle and high school students. Go to: http://www.cradleboard.org

10. Our magazine is sent out to Indigenous students, faculty, their families, community members, and friends. But this magazine also goes out to potential students - straight from high school and also through access programs.  (I fall into the last category) Is there something you'd like to say to those people that would help them on their future journey?

I hated high school (really needed to get out of town), but I loved university. It changed my life big time. My advice: if there's any way, give it a try. Try it semester by semester. If you hate it, you can discontinue. But every semester you get more great subjects to choose from. Interesting things you choose yourself from a very delicious catalog, subjects that high school never mentioned. You don't have to choose a career, just go get educated. You'll have a roof over your head for four great growing up years and come out the other side with a degree and a head full of experiences. 

11. Finally, is there anything else you'd like me to mention or anything else you'd like to say?

Only that it sure feels good to travel all over the world knowing that if I can't sing for awhile I have that degree in my pocket and won't starve. I travel with my band, three hot Aboriginal guys from Winnipeg, and we all value our post-high school education in filmmaking, music, philosophy and art. Riding around in a van with a rock n roll band can be very, very smart: some great conversations. Hear our music and see our Tour Photo Gallery at my website:  http://www.buffysainte-marie.com

Fear, Control, and the creation of Cannibal Hearts

This article is about Wiihtikos, more commonly represented as Wendigo. Over time, I think that perhaps the concept of wiihtigos has been misinterpreted. While it is true that many tell of a time when we were cannibals, the concept itself has become much more involved than a giant beast lurking in the woods. What a cannibal heart is far more real, and commonplace as a result. Read on ...

The desire for complete control over an event, and the preference of one person’s need over any other is at best, unnatural. Another word for this kind of control is agency, the ability for a person or group to influence the outcome of certain circumstances or events. Some people or groups are said to have agency, often at the expense of others. One example of this is in the world of trade, often where goods that normally are used to support one community are rendered ineffectual by the apparent economy of similar goods offered by another trade bloc, or nation. Canada, having a long history of mass-producing wheat, is often providing cheap or free grain to people that could otherwise grow their own. Canada, in this case, is dictating the terms of their survival, as well as the type of industry the recipient community is allowed to engage in.

There is something insipid about this, especially considering that it is so pervasive in today’s culture. In the culture of international trade, concern for the production of large quantities of food comes from the desire to keep domestic farmers employed. This, in part, is an example of the fear that drives protectionist and free trade policies alike. Trade blocs want to keep their own people from unemployment. Yet, one wonders whether there is something deeper to this, perhaps a culture of fear and control that is pervasive enough to occupy some smaller part of trade culture. One wonders whether this fulfills a paradigm of sorts, in a way that fear, and the need to control outcomes are supplanted within every human mind, irrespective of their place in society. Is such a thing articulated, and if so, how is it managed? What stories exist to limit a group or individual’s desire to control? How are people supposed to manage in the face of fear?

It might be necessary to begin with a point of apprehension for many early European agents. These would be Mitews, or to use the misnomer, Shamans. Even as late as the twentieth century, one could imagine Mitews as the agents – rather a central, or “major part of Omushkeego culture.” [1] For Europeans, having just arrived, and more importantly knowing only Christian or Aristotelian perspectives, Mitews represent action to the ideas behind Mushkeego culture – a focal point for the beliefs of those they encountered. Indeed, as Christianity continued its advance, the number if Mitews (and presumably their abilities) “dwindled down” over time. [2] But why target them specifically? In being focal points for the Mushkeego understanding and ability, the Mitews then represent a sort of apex of the unknown for interlopers. In terms of the unknown, the average Mushkeego or Anishinaape might represent a dark room, while a Mitew would represent a starless night! Removal of the largest obstacle to your own comfort (namely the introduction of your own beliefs) might seem to be an expeditious way to ‘turn on the lights’, as it were.

One of the problems with this, is that no matter how much one might attempt to control any given situation, there are times when such attempts create greater problems than intended. The gambit taken by the Canadian government to remove Indigenous culture did not have the intended effect; rather it destroyed communities. If heed were given to Indigenous peoples’ experience and knowledge (such as Mitewiwin) than disasters could have been avoided. Another way to think of it might be to look at attempts at control, particularly in instances when one intends to control the response, or reaction of another:

“There were times in the past where shamans came together on friendly terms and showed off their power – what they could do. But they never used it aggressively in these friendly gatherings. There was a rule that said: you do not intimidate your fellow man, you just entertain.” [3]

The example above shows a possible dichotomy of appreciation, in whether the audience enjoys and is entertained by a Mitew, or whether they fear that person. If entertained, people still have control over their own actions or thoughts afterward. They can devote time to their own pursuits, and appreciate the contest in their own way as they leave. When intimidated however, the Mitew controls their appreciation, infusing possible delight with fear or awe. Time is lost, where normal thoughts and actions are consumed by the desire to please, or perhaps the unwillingness to displease that Mitew. Intimidation has the potential to slowly immobilize someone with considerations they otherwise wouldn’t have. Whether or not they are consumed by it depends on the how successful the intimidation really was.

When taken within the context of the full range of emotions, fear has no greater or lesser power over a person than any other emotion. But when you provide fear with a manifest form, such as the fear of spiders, or a fear of heights, something more sinister is created. Part of this is in providing a focal point for one’s fear. If you were afraid of spiders and one were set beside you, you would fixate on that spider. Moreover, if you were alone with that spider, your fear could grow as you found yourself unable to focus on anything else. Later, your memory and imagination explode that event until it takes a far greater space in your mind than it should.

In this, the fear takes on the form of a tightly wound ball of yarn, which is pulled tighter and tighter in on itself. Irrational phobias work this way, continuously bringing things into them, until a person is rendered immobile – when everything becomes a reminder of that fear. In a sense a phobia is fear feeding on a memory of itself.

There are other things that resemble this, or rather beings which feed on themselves. In the world of electronics and physics, this phenomenon is called positive feedback, whereby the excess energy of something turns back on a circuit, increasing its power. This bears a similarity to another phenomenon in the stories we have studied this year, and those are wiitikos.

There are said to be many forms of wiitikos, said to be nearly infinite. [4] There are two types that are sometimes discussed, those created “by starvation,” as well as those “driven to become a wiitiko by human abuse.” [5] In the former, wiitikos effect a form of positive feedback. This is represented by the taste for human flesh, but also by the fact that they are quite powerful. In essence, a wiitiko eating flesh is like a current or energy form turning back on itself. The wiitiko is turning back on itself, is gaining sustenance by eating human flesh (of which it is also comprised). It then gets stronger, and the strength enables them further. In this, their claim to being human is diminished, until they lose “their human consciousness” entirely. [6]

Those created by abuse follows the same pattern, in that an abused person’s “mind cannot tolerate any more and … turns chaotic.” [7] Abuse, like wiitiko, follows different forms. While it may appear to be violence which changes the relationship, that violence flows outward into other aspects of that relationship. Over time, the behaviour of the victim changes, such that after a few years, they would never show emotions speak about things which trigger more violence. In some abusive relationships, expressions of happiness are quelled because the abuser’s jealousy might flare up!

Yet one wonders how this could happen. The final push to insanity for cannibal hearts comes at the end of a line of constant starvation. [8] Perhaps the final push to insanity for abusers comes at the end of a similar line. Is it possible that inadequate or even inaccurate emotional well-being is what causes a wiitiko? Louis Bird speaks of wiitikos born of orphans. He mentions that if mistreated, they could “could just take off, become inhuman, and come back to haunt them or even kill [their family]” [9] The greater responsibility (and thence the greater failure) for orphans in this example speaks of their special status. It seems a greater care is to be taken with them, in part because of the danger, but also because of what orphans can provide for the community in which they are raised. [10] It is almost as if being orphaned were like standing on a thin ridge. On one side, you have the capacity to provide a great many things to your host community. ON the other side is the possibility is that you could destroy that community. Either direction depends on the care you are shown. Whether positive or negative, an orphan’s potential is equally powerful in either case.

This is something that directly contradicts certain ideals held by the dominant culture in this country. Responsibility for an orphan ultimately rests with the biological parent. People in this culture often want to ask why a child was orphaned or adopted – as though the answer might shed light on their approbation of that child. Indeed, there is a sense of martyrdom when taking care of an orphaned child, wherein the adoptive family or community is seen as doing some kind of service to the child. Viewed as a personal tragedy (or circumstance), few adoptive parents in this culture manage to shake the idea that they are good Samaritans – and little else. This becomes problematic, particularly when the child grows up and is caught in the wave of gratitude for their parents’ service. In Anishinaape and Mushkeego cultures, it almost seems as though gratitude is shown toward the child. While the responsibility for showing that child love and care rests with their adoptive family, the ultimate choice, and freedom to act rests within that child. Free from gratitude, rather they are no longer beholden to that family for their sacrifice.

I find wiitikos borne from abuse to suffer a similar problem. Perhaps unable to garner need emotional responses, abusers always seem to hold their victims in a perpetual state of intimidation. This is related to the fact that perhaps they are always seeking to control the emotional responses of their victims. It is almost as if they have blinders on, and that the only way abusers can sense emotion from their victims is by creating the most intense emotional experiences possible. Beatings, emotional and food deprivation, intensely romantic and sweet gestures, all of these in part contribute to keeping the other person in some kind of distress. Years of this would condition someone to be unable to understand any other kindness, except the most intense variety. They can re-create the situations they are accustomed to. They are already inhuman, and have the capacity to re-create inhumanity in others. In that sense, victims can create Wiitikos. [11]

Which brings the question as to why someone would want to control so much. Why would any person re-create situations they are comfortable with, sometimes at the expense of others? For this, I believe there is no answer. While it is certain that emotional and physical deprivation can cause some Wiitikos, the justification in that person’s mind seems irrelevant. Now, as I am involved in a community, as well as in relationships of all kinds, I see that there is a great deal of information that I can access to prevent the creation of a Wiitiko. One example possibly exists in Melvin Eagle’s recount of a hunting trip he’d had, after encountering a deer, and not being able to kill it. What he told of was another’s response to his story:

“‘No. It wasn’t meant for you to kill this one,’ he told me. ‘Don’t ever try to kill this one again,’ he told me. ‘You love that animal,’ he said. ‘And they’ll love you too. The spirits will bless your children,’ he said. ‘Never intentionally kill one again,’ he told me.” [12]

Is it possible that what that man told him was of the need not to control, or rather the need not to act? If Melvin had continued hunting, after all that success, if he had just continued to hunt more and more deer, how likely would he have been to create a wiitiko. Something that has arisen in recent years has been the absolute control humans have taken when hunting. Seasons are created to ‘manage’ the game populations, and often culling efforts are organized because of the assumption that we have let certain animal populations ‘get out of control.’ What a gross assumption is made when we assume that it is our responsibility to control that much of the world’s interactions. If however, human intervention is required to maintain a certain ecological balance, then where have we gone wrong? At what point in our past has the world’s interactions become our sole responsibility?

I wonder whether it occurred when someone decided to kill more than s/he needed, or killed for the sake of killing. In the example provided by Melvin Eagle, there is an acknowledgement of a relationship. I have always know this, because we are often told this in aboriginal studies. But there is an aspect of that relationship between the hunter and the animal that I have never quite explored. In doing nothing, Melvin is acknowledging the responsibility and power that the deer also brings to that relationship. In respecting that relationship, the hunter acknowledges that the animals are free to manage their own interactions, and live according to a world in which they are able to move freely. The hunter should never assume nor desire absolute control of that relationship.

This follows through to other relationships as well. A person should never assume control of any relationship, no matter how strong the urge to do so may be. Fear, discomfort, and the need for security in this world, or in our relationships, are always present. But in terms of our interactions with others, there is always a reminder that we must and should give freedom to the other being to manage their own way through those interactions as well. As mentioned in class, we should want “that person to do what they want, or what makes them a better person.” [13] The same is true of every interaction. Assuming we know what is better for another person, or any relationship, is inviting wiitikos into our lives.

This is not to say that wiitikos are always detrimental, or bad for our relationships per se. But the power available to a wiitiko is far stronger than some people realize. From what I have learned in class about this, I can only postulate on the dangers of wiitikos, though I question what benefits might exist. What must be said, and what I have learned from the readings is that Wiitikos are potentially dangerous things. They are like black holes in space. We know they exist, we are fascinated by them, but our fascination and our need to be certain must always be tempered by the knowledge that Black Holes have the power to crush stars. Too much involvement with them, as with Wiitikos, is always a dangerous thing.

Bird, Louis. The Spirit Lives in the Mind. Trans. Susan Elaine Gray. McGill Queen’s University Press: Montreal, 2007.

Mckay, Alex, lecturer, Native Language and Culture. University of Toronto, Aboriginal Studies Program. 2008-2009.

Treuer, Anton. Ed. Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales and Oral Histories. University of Minnesota Press: St Paul’s 2001.

[1] Louis Bird, The Spirit Lives in the Mind. p82

[2] ibid.

[3] Louis Bird, p82

[4] Alex Mckay, Language and Culture, lecture. January 13, 2009

[5] Louis Bird, p113

[6] Louis Bird, p112

[7] ibid.

[8] Bird, p113, Mckay, ibid.

[9] Bird, p113

[10] Alex Mckay n.d.

[11] This is in response to a question posed by Alex Mckay on January 13^th, 2009.

[12] Melvin Eagle. The Sacred Art of Hunting. In Living Our Language. Ed. A. Treuer. p109 para. 26.

[13] Alex Mckay, n.d.

A new Blog - a new Perspective

A very long time ago, I began my online life by signing up for a hotmail account. When it was time to pick a name, I chose the first song off of a Tori Amos album, 'from the choirgirl hotel.' That song's title is Spark. Now you know half the name.
Recently, I decided to sign up for a twitter account, and the ubiquitous question returned, "what will your name be?" I thought to make it more 'original' than spark.  So I decided to include a main character from one of my favorite books (Imajica), Gentle. Thus, the name Gentlespark was born.
It's funny, now that I turn it over in my head, it seems such an appropriate name for this endeavour. I have much to share, and a few articles already to publish. I don't intend to be famous, and realize the folly of attempting to change the world. But maybe someone might read a word or two I've written - and add their own thoughts and ideas to what's occurring in their heads - eventually changing the world in their own way.

Maybe I can be the gentle spark that gets them thinking.

Or talking.

Or maybe not.  The thing about sparks is they are out just as quickly as their florescence begins. And perhaps the gentle ones are barely remembered at all.

A thought that I quite like.