When Jacques Cartier and his men arrived in Gaspé in 1534, the Iroquois who were there welcomed them and cared for them. “We discovered sick people on board a ship, lost and starving. We rescued them because that’s who we are. We are not savages,” says Micmac Quentin Codo, changing the point of view on this major event in the history of Quebec.
This quote sets the tone for the new series Let us tell, directed by Kim O’Bomsawin and produced by Terre innue in collaboration with Radio-Canada, which plays on ICI Télé this week. Through four episodes, we give voice to a hundred Aboriginal people from the 11 First Peoples of Quebec.
Together, they tell us their stories, America as they perceive it, based on their cultures and their traditions. These are deeply rooted in the territory, in this nature with which the indigenous peoples have evolved in symbiosis, for millennia.
sacred nature
Nature is omnipresent and sacred here. “Every valley, every hill, every bend in the river has a name,” says Cree Matthew Mukash. These words are there to remind us how our ancestors survived. And this relationship with the territory, it could very well be taught again today. There are sport-study programs, “why shouldn’t there be territory-study programs? suggests Eruoma Awawish, Atikamekw from Opticiwan.
To produce this series, Kim O’Bomsawin’s team called on teams of young Aboriginal researchers, who went to collect testimonies in their own community.
“Our communities have reached a fairly advanced stage of healing, says the director, to whom we owe the magnificent film my name is human. People are focused on the future, we have artists in all fields. There is a pride in being aboriginal, in being a member of the First Peoples. »
Memory, millennial, autochthonous, it is in the territory that it is buried. “I am the territory and the territory is me,” says surgeon Stanley Vollant. To live with the territory is to be a representative of nature, it is “to try to speak in the name of the animals and in the name of the forest, it is to be the guardian of the sacred, the guardian of the territory”.
It is the Innu poet Marie-Andrée Gill who provides the narration of the series, over the course of the four episodes.
“For 500 years, the story has been told from one point of view,” she says. That time is over. »
education at heart
There is necessarily a lot to say, and the series casts a wide net. One of the major findings is the failure of the education system in terms of the transmission of indigenous knowledge.
For Kim O’Bomsawin, one of the solutions, particularly in terms of language transmission, would be to “give us the reins of our education system”, she said in an interview. It is true that the extracts about Aboriginal people from books that used to be read to children make your hair stand on end.
“War, fighting, blood, all these brought joy to the Indians, weren’t they cruel? reads Alexandre Bacon in the series, quoting an old history book by Guy Laviolette, once prescribed for elementary school children. By exploring the story, as told by the winners, “we understand better why we lost sight of each other along the way,” he says.
Over the interviews and episodes, a whole system of values emerges. It addresses in particular the role of women, which is considered sacred, and the balance sought in traditional societies, with that of men. We know that contemporary aboriginal communities are extremely affected by violence against women, violence that led to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls.
This series, Kim O’Bomsawin wanted it “anything but miserable and victimizing. It is a testament to the rebirth of Indigenous peoples,” she says. This does not prevent the series from addressing the painful issues of racism, feminicides, suicides or lack of access to drinking water.
The series offers “a very intimate foray into our communities, a celebration of our cultures and the richness of our languages”, and a “reappropriation of history”, explains the Abenaki director. Some parts of the native culture that the series reveals are fascinating. Thus, we learn that an ancient indigenous myth, Mesh, which recalls Darwin’s theory, tells the story of two fish, male and female, which come out of the sea. On land, they grow legs, and they become lizards. They then climb trees to come down, hairy, standing. Similarly, there is an interview with astrophysicist Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, an Innu originally from Mashteuiatsh, who was “interested in reading traditional stories”. These allow “to validate scientific discoveries that were made later”. For example, she cites the story of the Innu constellation of the canoe. “There is a link with the celestial movements, which occurred in the ice age, which arrived 10,000 years ago. Right after, the Innu people were able to populate this territory that we know today as Canada,” she says.
To reconstruct these identities, Kim O’Bomsawin’s team traveled 25,000 kilometers and visited 30 communities.
“Our lives, our nations, our cultures are not appreciated at their fair value, continues Quentin Codo. We have to change that. The series adds a milestone to this long and patient process.