In the novel Manikanetishby NaomiFontaine, the French teacher of a Secondary V Innu class from Uashat, on the North Shore, invites them to put on the play The Cid, by Cornelius. “Why didn’t you take a piece that talks about the Innu? asks a student then.
Well here it is done. Manikanetishthe story of this teacher and her Innu students, has just been adapted for the theater and is showing at the Jean-Duceppe theatre, with Naomi Fontaine in the role of the teacher, and ten actors from the Innu and Mi’kmaq.
“It was close to my heart that it was Innu playing Innu. They are mostly actors who have little experience, ”she notes, except for Charles Buckell-Robertson, who we saw in For you Flora, Another story And The territory child, and Sharon Fontaine-Ishpatao, who starred in Kuessipan And All the life. “I found that the Innu had what it took to dig inside and find the emotions to interpret young Innu. »
The team of actors is young. ” It’s the fun to see that. They are almost the age to be in my class. They have a nice energy. »
Teaching experience
Without being entirely autobiographical, Manikanetish — which means “little daisy” in Innu — is very inspired by Naomi Fontaine’s experience as a teacher. Manikanetish is the name of the school on the reserve, which pays homage to a woman named Marguerite who spent a lot of time caring for other people’s children, explains Naomi Fontaine in an interview.
It was there that she returned to teach, fifteen years after leaving the reserve where she was born with her family to live in Quebec. “Exile is eight hours away by car and he is pale-skinned,” she writes about it.
The teaching experience at Uashat, near Sept-Îles, lasted three years. She condensed it into her novel in a year. By writing this text, she wanted to pay tribute to her Innu students.
“I wrote this book to pay tribute to my students,” she says. So that we see them in a different way, far from “statistics that say: ‘we: we’re pocket in French because it’s not our language’. I told myself that people would have a different perspective, that they would see the strength of the young Innu, their courage, the hardships they had to overcome”.
Among these ordeals, there is the bereavement of a mother, which Marc has to go through, the suicide of a sister, for Myriam, or a pregnancy, for Julie. “They are strong there. They raise their heads,” says the author. Moreover, the arrival of a child, even during secondary school, is not necessarily seen as a disaster.
“It’s a reality, says Naomi Fontaine. Here, pregnancy is seen less as something terrible that will ruin your life. You can finish high school. There is a greater openness to pregnancy. I find it positive. In addition, she notes that among the Innu, a secondary diploma has the same value if it is obtained at 17 as at 25.
After her years of teaching at Uashat, Naomi Fontaine returned to do her master’s degree in Quebec, before returning to settle on the reserve. On the day of our interview, she was in the middle of a move.
But the notion of “reserve”, with the enclosures it implies, upsets him. “I live off the reserve, but I’m close to the community,” she says.
“I want to be close to my community. It’s my family that helps me build my Innu identity, as a woman and a mother. But I will never be for the reserve, she said. The reserve is a place that was not chosen by the Innu, but imposed by the government, in which we were all born. It’s quite difficult to get out of this kind of compartmentalization. »
Turn the tables
With her students, she also learned to tame the territory, Nutshimit, as it is called in Innu-aimun, this “sacred place and this place of intimacy”.
“I went there with my students. This is where you really get to know each other, she says. My pupils were more knowledgeable than me in the forest. For an Innu, she says, Nutshimit “joins their history, their heritage, what their grandparents went through and where their sense of belonging comes from.”
Upon her arrival as a teacher, Naomi Fontaine admits that she was “not very different” from a non-Aboriginal teacher. “I wanted to change the world and save the world. »
Along the way, she understood that the important thing to support her students was not to have a diploma or to speak French well, but rather to gain their trust. “Once you’ve earned their trust, you can ask them anything. »
Before writing her book, Naomi Fontaine had consulted her students to find out if they were in agreement with its publication. “They really enjoyed the book,” she says.