PLANTING STORIES, FEEDING COMMUNITIES:

Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples, and Film

by

Paul Joseph André Chaput

A thesis submitted to the Department of Geography

In conformity with the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

(September 2015)

Copyright © Paul Joseph André Chaput, 2015

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Abstract

This dissertation, a companion to the documentary film Planting Stories, Feeding Communities,

explores how film can be used to transmit information generated by an Indigenous community

during research and return it in a manner that most closely approximates the multi-sensorial

scope of the oral tradition. Of all modern forms of communication, I argue that film is the

medium that lies closest to the mode of Indigenous storytelling. My dissertation explores film as

a means of reporting findings back to the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, whose

members played key roles in the history of Native Studies in Ontario – hitherto the focus of my

MA research. Throughout, the most pertinent question has remained: What are the “best

practices” – under the current circumstances – that can be put in place to ensure that colonial

approaches, imposition of harmful outside authority foremost of all, are not perpetuated?

Bridging the gulf between my Indigenous and European ancestry requires a leap of faith

from both sides. Lee Maracle, a writer of the Stó:lō Nation, describes the dilemma as “a basket in

the middle of the bridge into which each side can contribute their accumulated light and

teachings” (SAGE Writing Retreat, February 22, 2014). My contribution to the basket, I trust, is

acceptance of a number of best practices revealed through collaborative research, which might

contribute to increased transmission of academic findings to Indigenous communities.

Procedures rooted in community-based participatory research (CBPR) offer an array of

best practices that proved pivotal to maintaining a balanced relationship between the researcher

and those who are researched, ensuring that (as much as possible) control of the process rests

with the community. Members of Six Nations expressed their opinions on camera in (i) a

Community Circle and (ii) interviews with the key subjects. Subsequently, we collaborated to

create a film to tell their story. “Best practices,” therefore, highlight ways in which film as a

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means of pedagogy can be used to transmit information to Indigenous communities in a manner

that resembles and echoes the oral tradition.

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Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge and thank the Creator and those energies and forces that we call Spirit.

They are part of the Great Mystery – that collaboration between the seen and the unseen, which

we call Life. I give thanks for the privilege of this life and the ever-widening circle of family,

friends, and teachers with whom I have walked the path, which we call the Good Red Road. To

all those invisible ones who strive to make visible our hopes and dreams – thank you! To all the

ancestors who have devotedly encoded the ancient storied knowledge and transmitted it across

endless generations, Migwetch! From these cyclical plantings, the seeds of knowledge continue

to bloom. Ho!

I have been blessed by a great deal of guidance, help, and friendship during my time at

Queen’s. For that I am deeply grateful. There are so many to thank. I will start with my academic

advisor, W. George Lovell. I am honoured to have the opportunity and great good fortune to

work with you. Our shared love of film and its pedagogical potential has been a steady light on

the path. Your constancy, and devoted attention to detail, your leadership, and great sense of

humour place you at the forefront. Thanks for believing in me and making my presence in

Geography possible. To you, Maureen Garvie, I send special thanks for your valued support,

encouragement, and editorial assistance.

To the members of my committee, Laura Cameron, Celia Haig Brown, George Lovell,

Clarke Mackey, Brian Osborne, and chairman, Peter Goheen, I send you my sincere thanks for

your precious time and analysis. Writing, and editing what is written, is a labour of love. I thank

you for your dedication.

I wish to express my gratitude to my Indigenous friends and collaborators who stood by

me and who gifted me with good words. First and foremost Niawen'kó:wa to Gloria Thomas for

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your steadfastness as a friend, ally, and teacher and for your reminder that one’s spirit is lifted by

love and respect. Your insightful commentary and devotion to education are a blessing to all.

Gloria, you are a great voice for our peoples. Nia:wen to Keith Lickers, Peter Hill, Andrea

Curley, Kevin Reed, and many others for your invaluable input and support in telling and

planting these stories in the soil from which they emanated. A special thanks goes to you,

Marlene Brant Castellano and Lee Maracle, whose kindness, courage, and example as

Indigenous scholars continue to inspire me.

A big thank you goes to you, Jon Aarssen, for your immeasurable contribution as a scout

in the field, a videographer, soundman, editor, and all-round wonderful human being; it has been

such a pleasure working with you. I value your friendship and your immense presence in my

work. We did it! What a team!

Thanks to all the staff and faculty of the Queen’s Geography Department. Thanks to my

office friends: Kathy Hoover, Joan Knox, Sheila MacDonald, Sharon Mohammed, and John

Bond. Your welcoming smiles and loving support have meant so much. Bless you all.

Thanks to all the special friends and peers I have met along the way: Hannah, Tyler,

Susan, Sophie, Emily, Nel, Kim, Christine, Andrea, Erin, Becky, Grace, Jie, and Katie. Thanks

to professors Laura Cameron, Joyce Davidson, Anne Godlewska, Audrey Kobayashi, W. George

Lovell, Clarke Mackey, and Mark Rosenberg, with whom I shared many unforgettable moments

on the path to the mysteries that await each of us. Your support is so important to me.

Annie Palone, thanks for your brilliance, irreverent humour, and support in your many

capacities as a film editor, graphic artist, and spiritual ally.

Four Directions – Janice, Vanessa, Laura, and Ashleigh – thank you for providing a safe

haven for young Aboriginal people, those who wish to understand the culture, and all who hold

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our children dear and help them learn the mysteries of life in a comforting milieu. Thank you for

your delicious Wednesday evening feasts.

For your unhesitating support in my educational process, thank you dear friend, Paolo

Greco, for your inspiration and spiritual mentorship. Thanks to you, Robert Gardner, a giant

amongst men – you taught me that no barrier is too high, no task too difficult. To all my

wonderful guides and friends who have not been mentioned, I honour and love you all.

Finally, I want to thank my family. Thank you, my dear father, André Chaput. Your

kindness and generosity have inspired me to persevere through times when I might have

otherwise abandoned this daunting undertaking. Thanks to my mother, Elmire Delorme Chaput. I

have missed her deeply since her untimely departure in January 2012 – as I sped into the final lap

of my MA. I send a big thank you to my children, Nile, Charlotte, Amelia, and Faith; my

stepchildren, Eloi, Ram, Annie, Mickey, and Leah; my grandchildren, Sierra, Michaela, and

Julian – all of whom inspire me with their love and trust. Running Hawk, Vaughan, my brother,

your dedicated support through the end of my MA made this step possible. You are always my

inspiration.

Dedication Above all, I dedicate Planting Stories, Feeding Communities to you, my beloved Maggie.

Without you I would not have endured these six years of academic trials. You have taught me

that perseverance and rigour are not just tools, occasionally applied to a task, but a way of life.

Your light has guided me through benighted moments on the path to higher self-knowledge.

Your steadfastness, kindness, generosity, love, and unwavering vision have helped me stay the

course when my wandering Spirit sought to slip off into the infinite wonders of the Great

Mystery. This document is a testament to our blessed partnership. Love always.

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Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….…………….... ii

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………...... iv

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………………….vii

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………... x

List of Tables………………………………………………………………………………………………xi

Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1  1.1 The Dilemma ....................................................................................................................................... 1  1.2 Métis Positionality ............................................................................................................................... 2  1.3 The Métis Buffalo Hunt ...................................................................................................................... 5  

Chapter 2 Getting One’s Bearings: Literature Review and Theoretical Orientation .................................... 7  2.1 Thesis Statement .................................................................................................................................. 7  2.2 Literature Review ................................................................................................................................ 9  2.3 Theoretical Inspiration: Phenomenology and Place .......................................................................... 10  2.4 Communicating Academic Findings to Indigenous Audiences ........................................................ 17  2.5 The Unknown Geographies of Native Studies in Ontario High Schools .......................................... 19  2.6 Film as a Proxy for Orality ................................................................................................................ 20  2.7 In Praise of Film: Indigenous Scholarly Critiques ............................................................................ 23  

Chapter 3 Figuring Things Out: Methodological, Ethical, and Logistical Procedures ............................... 28  3.1 Norman Denzin: Methodological Use of Film .................................................................................. 28  3.2 Participatory Visual Research (PVR) ................................................................................................ 28  3.3 Public Ethnographer: Dwayne Beaver .............................................................................................. 29  3.4 Community-Based Participatory Research Methods (CBPR) ........................................................... 29  

Chapter 4 Into the Field ............................................................................................................................... 34  4.1 The Six Nations Context ................................................................................................................... 34  4.2 A Story Ready for Planting: The Work and Legacy of Keith Lickers .............................................. 35  

Chapter 5 Writing the Script ....................................................................................................................... 40  5.1 The Script .......................................................................................................................................... 42  5.2 Planting Stories, Feeding Communities ............................................................................................ 42  

Chapter 6 Creating the Film ........................................................................................................................ 79  6.1 Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and Performance Pedagogy ............................. 79  6.2 Implementing Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) .................................................. 85  

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6.2.1 Community Circle Participants .................................................................................................. 94  6.3 Introductions ...................................................................................................................................... 96  

Chapter 7 Showing the Film ...................................................................................................................... 101  7.1 The Quality of the Film ................................................................................................................... 101  

7.1.1 Editing, Logistics, and Preparation .......................................................................................... 102  7.2 The Questionnaire and Screening Times ......................................................................................... 103  

Chapter 8 Responses to the Film ............................................................................................................... 106  8.1 Questions 1 and 2 ............................................................................................................................ 106  

8.1.1 Results of Questions 1 and 2 .................................................................................................... 108  8.2 Question 3 ........................................................................................................................................ 110  

8.2.1 Results of Question 3 ............................................................................................................... 111  8.3 Question 4 ........................................................................................................................................ 113  

8.3.1 Results of Question 4 ............................................................................................................... 113  8.4 Question 5 ........................................................................................................................................ 120  

8.4.1 Results of Question 5 ............................................................................................................... 123  8.5 Question 6 ........................................................................................................................................ 124  

8.5.1 Results of Question 6 ............................................................................................................... 125  8.5.2 Question 7 ................................................................................................................................. 126  8.5.3 Results of Question 7 ............................................................................................................... 126  

8.6 Question 8 ........................................................................................................................................ 127  8.6.1 Results of Question 8 ............................................................................................................... 128  

8.7 Question 9 ........................................................................................................................................ 128  8.7.1 Results of Question 9 ............................................................................................................... 129  

8.8 Question 10 ...................................................................................................................................... 130  8.8.1 Results of Question 10 ............................................................................................................. 131  

8.9 Question 11 ...................................................................................................................................... 132  8.9.1 Results of Question 11 ............................................................................................................. 133  

8.10 Additional Comments or Recommendations ................................................................................ 135  8.10.1 Six Nations Comments ........................................................................................................... 135  8.10.2 Tyendinaga Comments ........................................................................................................... 139  8.10.3 Kingston Comments – non-Indigenous Voices ...................................................................... 139  8.10.4 Question 0 ............................................................................................................................... 141  8.10.4 Results of Question 0 ............................................................................................................. 141  8.10.5 Question 5.a ............................................................................................................................ 141  

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8.10.6 Results of Question 5.a ........................................................................................................... 142  8.11 Post Screening Responses – Indigenous Voices ........................................................................... 142  8.12 Word Clouds .................................................................................................................................. 145  

8.12.1 Aggregated Responses Questions 3, 4, and Comments ......................................................... 148  8.12.2 Question 3: How did Viewing the Film Make You Feel? ...................................................... 150  8.12.3 Question 4 What in the Film Stood Out for You? .................................................................. 151  8.12.4 Comments ............................................................................................................................... 152  8.12.5 Summary of Word Clouds ...................................................................................................... 153  

8.13 Writ Large ..................................................................................................................................... 153  Chapter 9 Conclusions: In Search of Best Practices ................................................................................. 157  

9.1 Establishing Best Practices .............................................................................................................. 159  9.2 The Director .................................................................................................................................... 161  9.3 Considerations and Recommendations ........................................................................................... 162  9.4 Next Step: A Gift Ceremony ........................................................................................................... 165

References……………………………………………………………………………………………......166

Appendix A – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Definition of Cultural Genocide ................ 170  Appendix B – GREB Approval ................................................................................................................. 172  Appendix C – Six Nations Ethics Approval .............................................................................................. 173  Appendix D – Letter of Information ......................................................................................................... 174  Appendix E – Consent and Release Forms ............................................................................................... 176  Appendix F – Inventory ............................................................................................................................ 178  Appendix G – Videographer’s Notes ........................................................................................................ 180  Appendix H – Questionnaire ..................................................................................................................... 182  Appendix I – Poster ................................................................................................................................... 184  Appendix J – UN Convention on Genocide .............................................................................................. 185  

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List of Figures

Figure 1 Question 3, Combined: How did viewing the film make you feel? ........................................... 148  Figure 2 Question 4, Combined: What in the film stood out for you? ...................................................... 148  Figure 3 Comments, Combined. ................................................................................................................ 148  Figure 4 Question 3, Six Nations: How did viewing the film make you feel? ......................................... 150  Figure 5 Question 3, Tyendinaga: How did viewing the film make you feel? ......................................... 150  Figure 6 Question 3, Kingston: How did viewing the film make you feel? .............................................. 150  Figure 7 Question 4, Six Nations: What in the film stood out for you? .................................................... 151  Figure 8 Question 4, Tyendinaga: What in the film stood out for you? .................................................... 151  Figure 9 Question 4, Kingston: What in the film stood out for you? ........................................................ 151  Figure 10 Comments, Six Nations ............................................................................................................ 152  Figure 11 Comments, Tyendinaga ............................................................................................................ 152  Figure 12 Comments, Kingston ................................................................................................................. 152  

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List of Tables

Table 1: How Many Knew Keith Lickers, Peter Hill, and Gloria Thomas?…………………………..… 96

Table 2: Community Circle Participants’ Use of Clan, Language, and Nation…..………………...…... 100

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Chapter 1

Introduction

My decision to pursue a doctorate in geography was predicated on the understanding that

a documentary film and script would be the centrepiece of my dissertation,

complemented by a substantive critical text. Such was the understanding reached in July

2011 with Dr. Audrey Kobayashi in her role as Graduate Coordinator, when I was in year

one of my doctoral program. The opportunity to diverge somewhat from doctoral

convention is one that I have relished, but one that has not been without considerable

challenge.

1.1 The Dilemma

We live in times of famine. Barren are the rich landscapes, where gnarled Elders once

told delicious stories sprouted from the land. Now, the living stories plucked from the

speaker’s moist tongue languish in dry silent tomes. Uprooted stories abandoned in the

wake of manufactured migrations turn to dust. The trudging convoys of dispossessed

raise the dust of these stories; from the liminal margins withering orators desperately

gesture songs once sung and stories once told.

Academic findings do not flow naturally to Indigenous communities. Until this

challenge is faced and surmounted, much crucial information about the culture of

Indigenous peoples will remain sequestered in the inner sanctum of academia. The

findings of my MA thesis offer a perfect example. The research, which addresses the

history and present status of Native Studies in Ontario high schools, is presently available

online at QSpace in the form of a PDF in the English language (Chaput 2012).

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Unfortunately, the combination of the current format and the language of my MA thesis

constitutes an inadequate, and culturally inappropriate, vehicle for conveying pertinent

data to the majority of Ontario’s Indigenous population. In order for my Master’s work to

be more accessible to Indigenous peoples and to resonate among the Native community, I

felt all along that it must be “translated” into a more accessible and engaging format.

Can landless peoples’ burning thirst for rootedness invoke the rains, sprout the

seeds, and replenish the lands? Can the very tools (books, images, and films) that have

often served to divorce narrative from place serve to reunite them? Can the

comparatively bland simulacra of film and books serve to resurrect the original artefact?

Can research methodologies be designed to measure meaningfully the effectiveness of

film and image-based approaches in reviving the awareness of the forgotten relationship

between narrative and place, discussed so incisively by Marlene Brant Castellano in her

Updating Aboriginal Traditions of Knowledge (2000)? “My people will sleep for one

hundred years,” Métis leader Louis Riel declared on July 4, 1885, “but when they awake,

it will be the artists who give them their spirit back” (Wyman 2004, 85).

1.2 Métis Positionality

My Métis essence is best rendered as a poem, one I call “Rivière Rouge”: From the wound flow Red encoded drops of identity. From which mountain did they originate, Aboriginate? As they pass through this valley of open flesh The eyes, transfixed by the colour of the loss, Forget the Source.

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My blood flows from many mountains To this fountain in my chest. Métis poly-cultural Français, bi-lingual No voice, multi-faction Can't get no status-faction.

So many wounds So many streams Too few bridges. The colour of the river says it all.

I am Métis. My mother, Elmire Delorme, gave birth to me at the St. Boniface

Hospital, situated on the east bank of the Red River across from The Forks where the

Assiniboine and Red Rivers converge in Manitoba, Canada. I am the son of a brown-

eyed sauvagesse mother and a blue-eyed French Canadian father, André Joseph Chaput,

both with deep Métis ancestry. Thirty-three kilometres south of the hospital in the tiny

Métis village of St. Adolphe, my feet first touched the earth. Nestled on a curve of the

serpentine Red River, this village was to be my home for my first eight years. My

maternal grandfather, Edouard Delorme, transformed the black clay of countless floods

into fertile fruit and vegetable gardens.

The land has always woven itself into our stories. Like The Forks of my

birthplace in St. Boniface, I embody the convergence of separate streams. My body is the

blending of two multifaceted ancestral streams – the confluence of my Cree, Ojibway,

Chippewa, and Métis Indigenous ancestries, and those of my Irish, French, and German

European ancestries. Over the years, when grappling with the challenge of conveying the

complexities of my Métis perspective within Canadian society, I have often resorted to

the metaphor of “having a foot in each canoe.” The metaphor is not only awkward but

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also conveys the riskiness of an untenable undertaking: inevitably the paddlers are bound

to go their separate ways, forcing a straddling Métis to choose one craft or to swim for

shore. In an attempt to create a more promising scenario, I have turned to the metaphor of

a bridge whose structure invites the integration of the Western and Indigenous

worldviews in a mutually beneficial fashion.

The opportunity and challenge of attending Queen’s University over the past six

years has gifted me with the time and support to acquire and hone academic tools that aid

in contextualizing and theorizing issues common to the Métis, as well to our First

Nations and Inuit kin. An issue unique to the Métis is that our ancestors were neither

European nor First Nations but a mix of both. In Cree we are the Otipemisiwak – the

people who govern themselves. The Métis are also referred to as the first or original

Canadians. Our culture evolved distinct from its two ancestral streams, yet embodies

both. To return to my canoe metaphor, even if I choose one of the canoes – and I have

tried each at different times – there is no guarantee of acceptance. I seem to be invisible

to both “Red” and “White” – they appear to be unable to reconcile the possibility of the

merging that I represent – and thus I often feel that I do not belong.

In spite of that, however, the burden of being an “outsider” has been transformed

into the blessing of accessing a unique perspective. Being an “outsider” becomes an

advantage in undertaking the challenge of communicating information to a broad

spectrum of far-flung Indigenous communities with diverse backgrounds, languages, and

varying levels of literacy. I find myself in the privileged position of understanding

enough of each culture to be able to relate to and communicate with both. This duality

enables me to embark more safely as a hunter on a quest for information. Having

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discovered that data, I am then able to plant the stories that will feed communities. To

contextualize my positionality, the Buffalo Hunt serves as yet another metaphor, this one

more concerned with methodological procedure.

1.3 The Métis Buffalo Hunt

Traditionally, the Métis Buffalo Hunt was a community-based participatory event. The

community identified the tasks called for and selected those individuals best suited to

accomplish them. The Buffalo Hunt was a quasi-military undertaking. Lives depended on

strict adherence to procedure: in the short term, the lives of the hunters, and in the long

term, those of the entire community. Any action jeopardizing the success of the hunt

could result in starvation and other hardships linked to the many functions the buffalo

served after it was killed, its body a source, for instance, for the means of making tents

and clothing. For this reason the community meted out stiff penalties to those who

deviated from prescribed protocol. It was a performative undertaking. Actors knew their

parts in a well-defined script – the “theatre of life” converging with the “theatre of war.”

Once the Captain of the Hunt was agreed upon, the leaders of each family

reported to him; all hunters were expected to follow his orders. Women and the older

children were skilled at butchering and skinning the fallen buffalo. Each had a specific

task. Medicine men or shamans were present. The scouts in the field were also part of the

hunt. Those who were chosen for tasks that prevented their family from killing buffalo

were compensated appropriately by the hunters.

Although the buffalo herds are no longer with us, the need to organize Indigenous

life in a way that ensures its ongoing-ness is still required. The protocols used to manage

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academic research are no less complex. The buffalo hunt can be likened to searching for

knowledge. But who does this hunt feed, and how is it organized to ensure that results

reach all who have some stake in it?

The principles of collaborating and sharing the bounty of the buffalo hunt I

believe apply to the harvest of the research process. In my case the Academy coached

and supported me to develop the necessary skills to scout the research territory and create

a plan. I choose to render the myriad challenges I grappled with in a poem I call “Deadly

Harvest:”

Gone are the sacred herds of four-legged ones Whose thunderous passing shook three days Freely roaming Grazing fields Buffaloed over cliffs Pulverized bones to fertilize monoculture deserts Tended by tethered tenants

Niagara falls beneath the gaze of newly wedded workers Who will never feel the freedom Of riding bareback chasing herds. Two-legged legends astride four-legged Gods Harvesting the four-legged Goddess Hooves pounding the earth Now prairie memories, newly minted Jingle in beggar pockets Buffalo nickel dynasty descendants Shoes pounding the pavement Gone are the sightless seers Eyes well up Purity gives up the wealth of the heart The body forgoes the banquet of the senses Avails itself of the very nutrients Rendered inaccessible while thrilling the senses

Let the journey begin.

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Chapter 2

Getting One’s Bearings: Literature Review and Theoretical Orientation

2.1 Thesis Statement

This dissertation evaluates “best practices” concerning how film, as a technology that

engages the senses in multiple ways, may be applied to transmit academic findings to

Indigenous communities in a manner that most closely approximates the multi-sensorial

scope of the oral tradition. My use of the term “best practices” draws on the work of

Chandler and Lalonde (2004, 113). Their article, “Transferring Whose Knowledge?

Exchanging Whose Best Practices?: On Knowing About Indigenous Knowledge and

Aboriginal Suicide,” introduces a unique vision of “knowledge transfer” and the

“exchange of best practices.” Instead of the pervasive top-down model, their vision

allows for the “flow of relevant knowledge and practices as also moving ‘laterally’ from

community to community, rather than only from Ottawa or some provincial capital down

to the level of Aboriginal communities” (2004, 113). Chandler and Lalonde’s approach

runs counter to the inconceivable “prospect that useful knowledge might flow ‘uphill,’ or

even laterally from community to community” (2004, 117). For me, film constitutes a

“best practice” that allows the transfer of knowledge from my MA to participating

members of the Six Nations community.

Film is a medium that has many parallels to Indigenous storytelling. I have

therefore chosen to explore the use of film as a means of reporting findings back to one

community in particular, the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford,

Ontario, which was the focus of my MA research. Throughout the research process the

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most pertinent question has remained: what best practices may be deployed to ensure that

the process does not perpetuate colonial approaches, the imposition of harmful outside

authority foremost of all?

The construction of a bridge spanning the gulf between my Indigenous and

European ancestors requires a leap of faith from both sides. Lee Maracle, one of our

finest Indigenous scholars, describes it thus: “a basket in the middle of the bridge into

which each side can contribute their accumulated light and teachings” (SAGE Writing

Retreat, February 22, 2014). My contribution to the “basket” will be “best practices,”

revealed through this collaborative research effort, which I believe will lead to the

increased success of future communication of academic findings to participating

Indigenous communities. In this case, Six Nations is the target community and my

communication to the audience has been, and will continue to be, through the use of film.

Ensuring that the power relationship between the filmmaker and the Indigenous

community was kept in balance was a critical goal of my approach. In the past,

anthropologists and ethnographers researching Indigenous cultures have assumed control

of all the data extracted in the field. What was noted, what was written, and what and

how it was disseminated, in peer-reviewed articles and monographs, academic treatises,

books and publications, have too often remained in the researcher’s hands. Through

community-based participatory research (CBPR), defined by Castleden, Mulrennan, and

Godlewska (2012, 156) as “research undertaken in partnership with Indigenous peoples,

communities, and organizations,” I uncovered a number of best practices that proved

pivotal in maintaining a balanced relationship and ensuring that control remained in the

hands of the community.

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Equally critical to my approach was the use of CBPR to determine what findings

the Six Nations community would choose to prioritize and translate into film. What is

unique to this research is that my analysis of information from the Ontario Ministry of

Education (OME) regarding Native Studies in Ontario high schools was presented to the

wider community in a culturally appropriate fashion. I used CBPR methods to create a

documentary film that tells the story of Native Studies in Ontario, based on information

that was first compiled in my MA thesis. I collaborated with members of the Six Nations

community in order to translate selected findings into a film. Up until now, this

information was only available to the public or to researchers as a PDF of my MA thesis

in the Queen’s QSpace database.

Best practices, therefore, at least as I engage them, highlight ways in which film,

as a means of pedagogy, may be marshalled to transmit information to Indigenous

communities in a manner that resembles and echoes the oral tradition.

2.2 Literature Review

In coming to terms with pertinent literature, I focused on four themes of discussion: (i) a

theoretical framework based on considerations of phenomenology; (ii) the role of literacy

in the disconnect between narrative and place as well as between the human and the

other-than-human; (iii) the unknown geographies of Native Studies in Ontario high

schools; and (iv) the role of film in transmitting knowledge to an audience.

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2.3 Theoretical Inspiration: Phenomenology and Place

For theoretical inspiration, I draw on David Abram, whose work is grounded in the

phenomenology1 of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and his

French counterpart Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). Phenomenology as originally

conceived by Husserl “was a plea that science, for its own integrity and meaningfulness,

must acknowledge that it is rooted in the same world that we all engage in our everyday

lives and with our unaided senses” (Abram 1997, 43). Through phenomenology, Husserl

sought to demonstrate how “every theoretical and scientific practice grows out of and

remains supported by the forgotten ground of our directly felt and lived experience”

(1997, 43). Although the moment of birth requires the severance of the sanguine link to

our human mothers, the link to the matrix of the Earth cannot be severed, save at the

moment we shed our earthly robes.

Merleau-Ponty sought to expand Husserl’s theory of phenomenology by

employing a “style of language which, by virtue of its fluidity, its carnal resonance, and

its careful avoidance of abstract terms, might itself draw us into sensuous depths of the

life-world” (Abram 1997, 44). In so doing, Merleau-Ponty provides us with a style of

1 Within geography, discussion of phenomenology dates back to the seminal essay by Carl Sauer (1889 – 1975) on the morphology of landscape (Sauer 1963, 315-16), first published in 1925. In terms of the interaction between humans and the natural environment, Sauer’s concept of the "cultural landscape" expresses the essence of phenomenological thought. Building on Sauer’s concept of the cultural landscape, the Canadian geographer Edward (‘‘Ted”) Relph explored a more nuanced methodological approach to human interaction with place in Place and Placelessness (Relph 1976). Relph’s book enhanced the standing of the field of human geography with his incisive focus on the meaningful interaction between humans and place. Perhaps an even earlier influence leading to developments in the field of human geography was that of the anthropologist Clarke Wissler (1870 – 1947). Drawing on Wissler’s article, “The Relation of Nature to Man as Illustrated by the North American Indian” (Wissler 1924, 312), Sauer extrapolates that “a gradual coalescence of social anthropology and of geography may represent the first of a series of fusions into a larger science of man” (Sauer [1925] 1963, 350).

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language that presents a world that allows for a fluid and unceasing connection with the

environment, people, other sentient beings, and the force of nature. Abram (1997, 46-47)

presents Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intersubjectivity by initially outlining the “body-

subject” in the following way:

The breathing, sensing body draws its sustenance and its very substance from the soils, plants and elements that surround it; it continually contributes itself, in turn, to the air, to the composting earth, to the nourishment of insects and oak trees and squirrels, ceaselessly spreading out of itself as well as breathing the world into itself, so that it is very difficult to discern, at any moment, precisely where this living body begins and where it ends.

The embodied sensory exchange that takes place, as Merleau-Ponty explains it, between

the body-subject and its environment is an act of “perceiving,” a “reciprocity,” perhaps,

as Abram (1997, 52) puts it, an ongoing “interchange between my body and the entities

that surround it.” He elaborates:

Our most immediate experience of things, according to Merleau-Ponty, is necessarily an experience of a reciprocal encounter – of tension, communication, and co-mingling. From within the depths of this encounter, we know the thing or phenomenon only as our interlocutor – as a dynamic presence that confronts us and draws us into relation (Abram 1997, 56).

This relation in Indigenous philosophy is the interplay between the animate and the

inanimate in nature.2 The idea that there is a separation between nature and humanity is

foreign. The earth and all its manifestations – humans included – is a seamless, sentient

continuum.

2 According to Julie Cruickshank, author of Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination (2005), the experiences and oral history of Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples reinforce “a vision that humans and nature mutually make and maintain the habitable world, a view now echoed by environmental historians…Glaciers appear as actors in this book. Glaciers take action and respond to their surroundings” (Cruikshank 2005, 3).

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In phenomenology, the body is not self-enclosed, as evidenced by its multiple

ways of experiencing the world through the senses of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting,

and smelling. Abram (1997, 125) puts it thus:

[M]y divergent senses meet up with each other and the surrounding world, converging and comingling in the things I perceive. We may think of the sensing body as a kind of open circuit that completes itself only in things, and in the world. The differentiation of my senses, as well as their spontaneous convergence in the world at large, ensures that I am a being destined for relationship: it is primarily through my engagement with what is not me that I affect the integration of my senses and thereby experience my own unity and coherence.

Indigenous ways of being are relational. They are compatible with the

phenomenological aspect of experience, in relation to nature as an extension of, and

continuous with, being human. The intertwining or overlapping of multiple sensory

experiences, according to Abram (1977, 124), results in the “vividness and intensity with

which surrounding nature spontaneously presents itself to the members of an indigenous

oral community.” The ways of being and knowing in an Indigenous community are

rooted in the animistic discourse historically produced through oral tradition as an

“inevitable counterpart of their immediate, synaesthetic engagement with the land that

they inhabit” (Abram 1997, 130). For instance, the recognition in the landscape of signs,

portents, and messages from animate nature, such as rock formations, streams, and trees,

as well as in the diversity of animal life that provides information, sustenance, and the

material to make up shelter in the Indigenous way of life, becomes a “way of linking

ourselves to those things and letting the things weave themselves into our experience”

(Abram 1997, 130).

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Marshall McLuhan, in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of

Typographic Man (1964), borrows from J. C. Carothers, who contrasts non-literate

Natives, in the context of Africa, with literate peoples, in the context of North America.

He notes a marked difference between the visual ordering of daily life and the oral

tradition. McLuhan (1964, 22) elucidates on Carother’s observations:

That is, a child in any Western milieu is surrounded by an abstract explicit visual technology of uniform time and uniform continuous space in which “cause” is efficient and sequential, and things move and happen on single planes and successive order. But the African child lives in the implicit, magical world of the resonant oral world.

Both Abram and McLuhan conjecture that the synaesthetic experience – union of the

senses – of non-literate Indigenous communities, whose ways of knowing were

transmitted through oral traditions, had a direct implication on thought and behaviour that

depended “upon the magical resonance in words and their power to impose their

assumptions relentlessly” (McLuhan 1964, 22). Carothers, as McLuhan quotes him,

presents the idea that “sounds are in a sense dynamic things – of movements, events,

activities for which man, when largely unprotected from the hazards of life in the bush or

the belt, must be ever on the alert” (Carothers, in McLuhan 1964, 23).

The originally sounded word, once written, loses its power as an imperative

directed at another or at oneself, effectively losing “those emotional overtones and

emphases” and by “becoming visible” – and, I might add, fixed on the page – “joins the

world of relative indifference to the viewer” (Carothers, in McLuhan 1964, 20). In a

literate society where verbal thought can be separated from action, “visual and

behavioural conformity frees the individual from inner deviation” (McLuhan 1964, 24).

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On the other hand, in oral societies where the spoken word is directly linked to thought,

Carothers (in McLuhan 1964, 20) argues, “behavioural constraints must include

constraint of thought” since the ability to dissemble is not even a possibility due to the

interweaving and intermeshing relations between nature and humans, and between one

human and other humans.

According to Abram, the inability of the ruling Aztecs to dissemble is at the heart

of the “lightning-swift conquest of Mexico” by Hernań Cortės, whose few hundred

Spanish conquistadors would have accomplished nothing without the deployment of

legions of Indigenous allies in taking over Montezuma’s Aztec tribute state. The

Spaniards who arrived in Mexico, books in hand, were already quite advanced in the art

of disconnecting from the sensuous world. Whereas the Aztecs had to answer to the

sensuous earth for their thoughts and actions, Abram (1997, 134) contends that the

Spaniards had to answer only to themselves. The Aztecs were disoriented by their

interactions with beings who magically operated within their own “self-generated signs,”

men well-versed in the art of deceit as well as the politics of divide and rule.

The weapons and the diseases that the Spaniards brought with them, Abram

argues, were nothing compared to a “potent new magic” that was mendacity. It enabled

them to be “duplicitous and lie even in the presence of the sun, the moon, and the forest”

(Abram 1997, 134). Accordingly, the Aztecs lost their dominion as their gods fell silent:

their own magic, their relationship with the earth began to “wither and become useless,

unable to protect them” (1997, 135). Honesty – the inability to dissemble – became in

Abram’s view, the Achilles’ heel of all Mesoamerican peoples.

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How can insights from Spanish and Aztec experiences help us better understand

the long history of failed communications between settlers and Indigenous peoples in

Ontario? Can two such different worldviews find enough common ground to bridge the

divisive rapids of sentient/non-sentient turbulence? Will the chorus of Nature’s muted

voices break through the din of “development” to strike a chord of peace among those

disconnected from the Earth?

Abram’s premise is to reconnect the human with nature: “We are human only in

contact, and conviviality with what is not human,” he writes (1997, ix). More

importantly, the concepts in his book The Spell of the Sensuous are meant to explore and

“make sense of, and to alleviate, our current estrangement from the animate earth” (1997,

x). McLuhan (1964, xii) states that “technological environments are not merely passive

containers of people but are active processes that reshape people and other technologies

alike.” Although written in 1962, the book is still relevant given his statement that in the

electronic age, “we encounter new shapes and structures of human interdependence and

of expression which are ‘oral’ in form even when the components of the situation may be

nonverbal” (1964, 3). This new age of orality has arisen from the electronic age where

the “instantaneous nature of co-existence among our technological instruments …

demand an interplay and ratio that makes rational co-existence possible” (1964, 5).

McLuhan’s words help in formulating the possibility of relevant parallels between film

and place-based narrative in the oral tradition in support of the goal of planting stories

and feeding communities.

As McLuhan asserts, the multiple technological advances in cinematography,

including surround sound and 3-D, provide an experience close to the synaesthetic

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(multi-sensorial) experience of traditional oral narratives. How can such technologies be

used to transmit information to members of a community whose ways of knowing and

being are embedded in multigenerational oral traditions? My belief is that film embodies

the synaesthetic experience of traditional Indigenous knowledge transference and is thus

a particularly effective way of disseminating information to Indigenous communities that

in the form of my MA thesis would be largely inaccessible.

I also incorporate in my work Jacques Derrida’s (2010) insightful commentary on

photography, and extend it as a framework for exploring the relationship between

photographic technology and its effect on the audience. Photography is understood to be

the original grounding from which film can be theorized. As noted earlier, the multi-

sensorial capacity of film can potentially enhance the transmission, learning, and

understanding of particular knowledge and information in communities with long-

standing oral traditions. As such, photography, as Derrida (2010, xxiii) claims, “once its

idiomatic logic is elaborated and generalized, can be seen as an operational network and

a metalanguage [sic] through which larger philosophical, historical, aesthetic, and

political questions can be brought into focus.” The point is not to obscure the function of

the photograph as a singular representation of an instance in time but to look at the

implication of having captured this moment within the context of the subject and the

surrounding events embedded in the picture. Gerhard Richter, who edits and provides the

background for the dialogue with Derrida in Copy, Archive, Signature: A Conversation

on Photography, urges us to consider “the photographic image as a technically mediated

moment of witnessing” (2010, xxiv). This witnessing encompasses the many aspects of

photography and, by extension, film, as to how a recording is stored and finally

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disseminated as a collection for private or public consumption. According to Richter, “a

photograph … also bears witness in that it activates the circulation of a certain cultural

memory and exchange through its medium-specific modes of writing, inspection, and

interpretation” (2010, xxv). Film, with the added dimensions of movement, sound, and

music, has perhaps the potential of being a more evocative witness.

2.4 Communicating Academic Findings to Indigenous Audiences

How do we go about more effectively communicating scholarly findings to Indigenous

communities? I preface an answer to that question with an example of research that has

not met the challenge of being disseminated appropriately to either Indigenous

populations or the general public. The challenge of successfully delivering relevant

findings to a community greatly depends on the health of that community, as reflected in

the vibrancy of its cultural continuity and whether or not the findings are perceived as

being imposed from without versus being generated from within. According to Michael

Chandler and Christopher Lalonde, professors of psychology at UBC and UVIC,

respectively, cultural continuity is engagement in activities that link individuals or a

community to a past, the present, and an imaginable future (Chandler and Lalonde 1998).

Their findings in Cultural Continuity as a Hedge against Suicide in Canada's First

Nations (1998) demonstrate a correlation between the presence of cultural continuity

factors and the number of youth suicides in each of 200 Indigenous communities in

British Columbia. They identify and test nine cultural continuity markers, four of which

are (1) Native language retention; (2) some measure of self-government; (3) completion

of, or involvement in, land claims processes; and (4) control over education. Each marker

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plays a role in diminishing the likelihood of self-injurious behaviours such as drug abuse,

early school dropout rates, and suicide. Chandler and Lalonde’s findings show that as the

number of cultural continuity factors increases, the number of suicides decreases. When

all of the nine factors are present, the suicide rate is invariably zero. An important

corollary of their findings is that Indigeneity is not a causal factor in youth suicide.

Although, at the aggregate level, this may appear to be the case, on a community-by-

community basis over half of British Columbia’s Indigenous communities had zero

suicides during three sets of data accumulated over fifteen years; this rate is lower than

that for Canada as a whole. Chandler and Lalonde (2004, 6) conclude that “There is no

monolithic indigene … and no such thing as the suicidal Aboriginal.” Yet, despite the

importance of these findings, first published almost twenty years ago, they are relatively

unknown in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous academic circles, and even less so in

non-academic circles.

The reporting, by mainstream media, of the data concerning Indigenous teen

suicide rates in British Columbia (Chandler and Lalonde 1998) is a clear example of how

stereotypes are propagated. The findings of Chandler and Lalonde stand in sharp contrast

to the media-fostered stereotype that each Indigenous community is plagued with a high

youth suicide rate when, in fact, well over half of British Columbia’s Indigenous

communities were found to have a zero suicide rate. Film can be marshalled to contest

such distortions and counter the authority of sensationalist mass media. It can serve as a

counter-narrative to existing stereotypes about Indigenous peoples.

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2.5 The Unknown Geographies of Native Studies in Ontario High Schools

Accounts of how Native Studies came to be a curricular offering in Ontario high schools

are not readily available online. A search of the Queen’s University website for the

Aboriginal Teacher Education Program’s (ATEP) curriculum does not indicate the

inclusion of this crucial and complex page in the story of Indigenous education in

Ontario’s public schools. Yet the ongoing story spans over four decades of committed

and consistent effort by a small but dedicated number of Indigenous educators to ensure

that Indigenous geographies and histories are reflected in the curricula of publicly funded

schools. More important than the accomplishments of a few Indigenous educators is the

potential impact of their stories on current and future generations of Indigenous students

in need of positive role models.

Indigenous students in Ontario’s public school system continue to suffer the daily

effects of racism, negative stereotypes, and language barriers. They might arguably draw

inspiration from the story of how Native Studies curricula came to be offered in public

schools. Although registration in Native Studies courses totals less than four per cent of

Ontario’s high school student population, enrolments in Native Studies have been

steadily increasing since the launching of the suite of nine curricular offerings in 1999

(Chaput 2012). This finding was applauded; few believed just how much positive growth

had been achieved. It was a cause for celebration, yet the information that was uncovered

remained locked away.

The complex rural and urban geographies of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit

communities create an additional barrier to informing Indigenous students, parents, and

school boards. My thesis findings did not reach, let alone have an impact on, the

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Indigenous community whose members facilitated my research. If written formulations

do not communicate effectively enough, I pondered, might film be productively deployed

to sow the seeds of a more accurate representation of the accomplishments of Indigenous

peoples in the field of education in Ontario? I believe so.

My responsibility to the individuals who so generously contributed to my MA

thesis is to enhance community access to, and control over, the transmission of the

relevant stories contained within that thesis. Using the tenets of community-based

participatory research (CBPR) – see Castleden, Morgan, and Lamb (2012) and Castleden,

Mulrennan, and Godlewska (2012) for methodological discussion – a primary goal of my

doctoral research has been to create a film in order to disseminate pertinent information

to as wide an audience as possible, to evoke the sentiments of Indigenous viewers in a

manner that enhances the integration of these stories into the oral histories transmitted

from one generation to another.

2.6 Film as a Proxy for Orality

Straining to hear the silence Leaning like a sapling In the hands of an Elder. Bent to a sacred purpose Arching now and touching the Earth In two places. “Sweat Lodge” (Chaput 1978)

 In Indigenous epistemology, stories and storytelling encompass education, history,

religion, geography, sense of self, and sense of place. To silence a people’s stories is to

“disappear” them, to forget them. Conversely, when people are able to remember and

pass on their stories, their cultures continue to exist. In the context of providing education

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about Indigenous peoples, I argue, film is the most suitable medium to utilize because it

incorporates significant multi-sensorial experiences of orality that are central to

Indigenous storytelling. Of all the media that I have engaged, I have found film the most

effective in communicating with an audience, whether in a village hall, a university

lecture theatre, an international conference, or an online venue.

The Canadian literary critic Terry Goldie (1989) defines orality through an

investigation of the Aboriginal heroine of Domett’s Ranolf and Amohia, someone who

“seeks a charmed form of writing, the mystery deep/ Of letters,” which she believes will

be an extension of orality, “seeing talk,” or “unspoken speech unheard” (1989, 121).

Goldie (1989, 108) reiterates: “Orality … is the belief that speaking has more subjective

presence than writing.” An experience that is “multi-sensorial” is one that draws to its

embrace all human senses: in a sweat lodge one sees the glow of the stones, feels the heat

from above, and the cedar branches from below, smells sweet grass and sage, tastes

sweat and hears rattles, drums, wailing, and crying. An experience that stimulates the

senses is an experience more deeply felt, more memorable. It is an extension of

Amohia’s “seeing talk.” Berger (2001, 19) concurs: the great Swedish director Ingmar

Bergman, he writes, saw film “as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in

the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of

the soul.”

Film also provides, Cartwright (2009, 24) asserts, “a deeper representation of

geography.” Its increasing use in educational settings points to its efficiency in

transmitting complex information in a striking and retainable fashion. A film such as

When the Mountains Tremble, with the experiences of Nobel Peace Prize winner

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Rigoberta Menchú serving as its centrepiece, is even more powerful a document, as we

watch the images unfold on screen, than her acclaimed if controversial text transcribed

and edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray (1983). The universality that can be achieved in

film is parallel to what a gripping tale in a novel can achieve: it creates a space for us to

recognize ourselves. Berger (2001, 24) reiterates by asserting: “What is saved in the

cinema when it achieves art is a spontaneous continuity with all of mankind.” Like

orality, film captures our emotions because of its multi-sensorial content: our senses are

invoked, our imaginations fired. Film’s embrace of music, dance, emotion, and place

must evoke more effectively a story’s live telling – the oral experience – than can an

ethnographer’s written records.

Film, in the service of Indigenous storytelling and ritual, is all about

communication: one begins with a thought, translates it into language, and finally uses

accompanying technologies to express what has been imagined. To make words

memorable, to have them remembered, we struggle with conveying our thoughts

effectively. By adding visual aspects, we add a seductive quality. Film can effect this

seduction better than the written page, by incorporating a sudden movement, music, and

the visceral experience of watching something unfold rather than being told.

Human memory is tied to images: we create them in our minds as we listen to a

voice or read from the page – or, as in film, see images projected before us on a screen. A

good storyteller conjures up pictures in our minds. But film does not leave image-making

or memory-making to chance: it creates images for its audience. “The oral storyteller

suspends time,” Brian Dunnigan (2005) asserts, “in the immediacy of his presence and

the improvised interplay of teller and audience, the story is alive, immediate, and

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eternal.” While film may be less alive, less adaptive than a storyteller’s first-person

narrative, film records many of the dramatic multi-sensorial aspects that constitute an

oral presentation but are absent from written accounts. “First Nations’ oral traditions are

a powerful cultural force and part of their toolbox of survival,” McNab (1999, 3) has

argued. Filmmakers are bringing these oral traditions into the twenty-first century.

2.7 In Praise of Film: Indigenous Scholarly Critiques

Jo-Ann Archibald, of the Stó:lō Nation, is a strong proponent of the visual image

accompanying the spoken word. Archibald, Associate Dean for Indigenous Education in

the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the

Native Indian Teachers’ Education Program, is a pioneer in the advancement of First

Nations’ education. Leaning on over three decades of personal and professional

experience, Archibald (2008, 111) emphasizes film’s value in “working with stories:”

Often when I read stories by Indigenous storytellers, I long to hear their voices and see them telling their stories. Seeing and hearing a storyteller in action begins a process of interrelating that happens among listener, storyteller and story. The video thus serves as a secondary source for this interpersonal dimension and context for working with stories.

A new generation of storytellers is responding to Archibald’s desire to hear, see,

and tell with films. Film can be geographically ubiquitous: it can be in many places at

once whereas a storyteller cannot. Film’s ability to engage is often enhanced by its ability

to reach large audiences, the consistency of its presentation, and its emotional potency

over that of the written word. Film has a capacity to bring communities together, to

participate in the viewing of the story.

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Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiché Maya woman from Guatemala, survived the genocidal

atrocities of her country’s armed forces to become a storyteller. “To survive,” Grate

(2002) has argued, "the people of Menchu's community incorporate their variable skills

against armed antagonists who are set on the complete eradication of a culture that resists

them.” Menchu’s powerful narrative, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú (Burgos-Debray

1983), was made into the documentary film When the Mountains Tremble (1983) that

same year with directors Tom Siegel and Pamela Yates. In 1992, Menchú was awarded

the Nobel Peace Prize. She commands a savvy grasp of the potential of available

communication technologies foreign to her culture; by taking advantage of multimedia

technologies, she was able to reach an international audience and dramatically influence

the fate of her country (Lovell 2010, 17-25).

Historian Fred Wiseman, Professor of American Studies at Johnson State

College, runs the Abenaki Tribal Museum at Swanton, Vermont. Abenaki himself, he is

the artefact expert and uses unique treasures as a link to substantiating the language and

cultural history of his Native Abenaki community. Wiseman, formerly Principal

Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and

Ethnology, draws on his considerable skill as an academic writer, in one memorable

campaign challenging the adversarial position taken by the State of Vermont regarding

the Abenaki’s claim that they have been present in that area for over 10,000 years. When

the publication of academic books on his findings produced no significant impact on the

State of Vermont’s position, Wiseman then turned his hand to the medium of film and

produced Against the Darkness, a DVD designed to convince legislators of the

legitimacy of Abenaki claims. Wiseman (2002, interview) refers to filmmaking as

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a careful use of European “dominant culture” weapons (e.g. trade guns in the past, research today) in defense of native sovereignty. That is the crux of the worldview of the modern Indigenous “data warrior” – to respect tradition, but also to use one’s best tools to defeat seemingly reasoned attacks on native continuity and identity.

As Wiseman learned, with “careful use” the “weapon” of film is a powerful tool.

The results of his film were dramatic: recognition by the State of Vermont, albeit short-

lived, and more significantly, the adoption of the Abenaki film into State school

curricula, thus ensuring the transmission of the Abenaki peoples’ story to the next

generation. Wiseman’s conclusion is that he stands a better chance of reaching people’s

hearts as a filmmaker than as a writer: “You can’t convince anybody through their

minds,” he writes. “Film has a unique characteristic of being able to talk to people’s

emotions” (Wiseman 2008, interview).

Carol Geddes, an Aboriginal filmmaker, concurs. A native of the inland Tlingit

community of Teslin, she left the Yukon to study at Carleton University in Ottawa. She

created a twelve-minute documentary film about the Montreal Native Friendship Centre.

After the flooding in James Bay, many Cree people arrived at that centre and they, along

with Cree and Inuit in the maximum security prison in Kingston, Ontario, were the basis

of her short but popular film. It was “not a particularly good film,” Geddes (2003, 66)

herself concedes, admitting to making many mistakes:

Yet this really encouraged me very much to understand film as something more important than entertainment…They were going because this was a document that spoke about their lives, and helped them understand... they gained insight from that film… people were coming up to me and telling me that this film helped them, and this was so important to me because it helped especially the younger people understand their history.

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Similar to my experience with Six Nations, Geddes found that her documentary film

could crystallize the issues of the community around her, and help native people to

understand better their own experiences.

I believe that if Indigenous peoples are to regain a meaningful sense of

representation, their stories must be told. On the surface this appears to be a simple task:

the inherent difficulties in this “simple task” arise from the oral nature of its traditional

transmission. Mackey, in his Random Acts of Culture (2010, 85) acknowledges that

“When someone is steeped in a tradition that has no recourse to written texts, that

person’s memory is acute; patterns and details are discerned with what literate people

consider to be superhuman accuracy.” However, traditional storytellers who can speak

the language and who have been trained to remember “by heart” are quickly

disappearing. Circa 400 BC Socrates foresaw that the advent of writing would mean the

loss of storytellers trained in the ancient art. Mackey (2010, 141) renders the great

philosopher’s words thus:

[He] tells Phaedrus that rather than improving the memory, writing will actually make people’s memories worse. “They will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember on the inside, completely on their own.” The loss of traditional storytellers has created a void that film and filmmakers are

filling. Cartwright (2009, 24) puts it most emphatically:

The power of the narrative can be used to paint ‘word pictures’ of the world and give the user/viewer a sense of geographical place… [that] takes us beyond time and space into another realm. Storytelling can provide a rich, simulated environment. In addition, when used via ‘other’ media, including film, which complements traditional map-delivered information, storytelling allows the expressivity of cultures to be recaptured. Maps alone cannot do this.

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Aboriginal scholars and filmmakers, Geddes, Menchú, Wiseman, and Archibald

among them, agree on the efficacy of film as a medium for Indigenous storytellers to

touch and move audiences. The geographic and multi-sensorial aspects of Indigenous

peoples’ stories are enhanced by film because of its ability to mimic the experience of

orality. “Only movies pull us into the present and the visible,” Berger (2001, 480) argues,

“the visible which surrounds us all.” He (2001, 475-6) concludes:

The cinema…transports its audience individually, singly out of the theatre towards the unknown…the screen, as soon as the lights go out, is no longer a surface but a space…A sky filled with events and people…a film is a shuttle service between different places and times…

Berger’s description of the power of film parallels that of Cartwright. How, then, best to

proceed?

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Chapter 3

Figuring Things Out: Methodological, Ethical, and Logistical Procedures

3.1 Norman Denzin: Methodological Use of Film

Norman Denzin, a research methodologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign, argues in The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological

Methods (1989, vii) for increased use of film technologies in the humanities. Film, he

maintains, can “reveal something about society;” it can “enhance ethnographic or field

studies” and record “social action produced in a laboratory context.” Furthermore, I

argue that these technologies might well be used to transmit findings back to

communities participating in research studies, as well as to the public at large.

3.2 Participatory Visual Research (PVR)

“Film,” Denzin (1989, 232) asserts, “is simultaneously a means of communication and a

method of inquiry.” My conviction concerning the use of film is shared by a growing

number of social scientists, including human geographers, as reflected in the emerging

field of Participatory Visual Research (PVR), of which Rose (2003) and Ryan (2003) are

ardent proponents. This critical research methodology encourages those who are typically

passive subjects to become proactive, collaborative, and involved. The multi-disciplinary

nature of PVR is compatible with community-based participatory research (CBPR),

intimated previously but discussed in greater length in Chapter 6. Both practices lend

themselves to the exploration of peer-based community research in a variety of settings

and cultures. PVR, moreover, is capable of generating quality data through rigorous

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social research. Collaborating, as I did, with Six Nations participants, involving them as

valued members of a team, ensured that they had their say concerning the data that was

gathered, above all how it was subsequently processed and relayed to others.

3.3 Public Ethnographer: Dwayne Beaver

In June 2012, the ethnography.media.arts.culture network held a conference in Victoria,

British Columbia, in order to explore the challenges of public ethnography. Participants

in the conference looked at possible ways of disseminating their research to make their

work more accessible to the public sphere. Dwayne Beaver, an Indigenous filmmaker,

currently teaching at Capilano University in the Motion Picture Arts Program, directed a

documentary of the conference. In the film, conference participants raise the point that

academic writing has little or no value to many of the subjects or collaborators with

whom they engage as ethnographic researchers. Based on their research findings,

Goodson and Phillmore (2012) conclude that participant communities are more receptive

to findings communicated in forms other than academic writing.

Interviewees in Beaver’s documentary concur that the future success of public

ethnography depends on the ability of researchers to use technologies such as film to

reach a wider audience. First World academic researchers studying Third World subjects

often report their findings in languages that are foreign to their subjects. Ideally,

participant communities would have access to the research findings they have been

instrumental in creating, in a format that is culturally appropriate. Film is a viable format.

3.4 Community-Based Participatory Research Methods (CBPR)

My documentary film Planting Stories, Feeding Communities seeks to answer the

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question: What, by recourse to film, are the most effective strategies to pursue in order to

return academic findings to the Indigenous communities from which the data was

originally extracted? By combining the performativity of film (Beaver 2012) with the

inter-subjectivity and inclusivity of CBPR, my goal was to engage members of the Six

Nations community in co-exploring the feasibility of replanting knowledge, via stories

drawn from extracted data, back into the narrative of the source community (Denzin

1989). The inclusion of Indigenous voices in every phase of the research helped me craft

a film that, in CBPR parlance, “decolonized” academic field work and researcher/subject

relationships (see Castleden, Morgan, and Lamb 2012, Coombes 2012, Koster, Baccar,

and Lemelin 2012). Film, as a proxy for orality, parallels long-standing, multi-sensorial,

Indigenous approaches to the transmission of knowledge. Accordingly, with CBPR

sensitivities in mind, the content and emphasis of the finished product rested for the most

part in the hands of the Indigenous storytellers/participants; my voice, as a collaborator

and storyteller, was most notably reflected in shooting the film and editing footage with

issues of style as well as substance in mind.

Through CBPR protocol and procedure, a community can take ownership of its

stories and, ultimately, integrate them into the landscape of its historical narrative.

Ideally, the story line, jointly selected by the community and the filmmaker, will appeal

to a broad spectrum of Six Nations people. This, of course, is important, insofar as the

matter at the heart of this particular story concerns Six Nations’ control over education,

and the constitutional right to self-government. That right, Cruikshank (2005, 50) points

out, includes the right to decide on exactly what kind of research can be done on

Indigenous territory, as well as who owns that data, and how that particular data is

31

extracted from the community.

The representation of native voice is a crucial concern during the conversion of a

story from one medium or language to another. “Converting spoken words to written

texts,” Cruikshank (2005, 78) articulates adroitly, “also raises questions about the

‘texture’ of oral narrative.” I raise a similar concern regarding the conversion of oral

storytelling to film, particularly during the editing process, when the editor is selecting

visuals, layering in music, contemplating cutaways, and mulling over myriad other

enhancements. The director must creatively and strategically blend the voices of the

storytellers, along with those of the cinematographer, the musical director, and the editor.

Great complexity is involved. How are priorities decided upon? Which aspects of story

matter the most, and why? These questions remain at the forefront of the creative

process.

CBPR is regarded by Castleden, Mulrennan, and Godlewska (2012, 156) as “both

a philosophy and a research methodology.” It features a reciprocal approach in which

decision-making is shared between the Indigenous community and the external, non-

community research interests, allowing a focus to develop on a “bi-directional capacity

through an iterative process of dialogue, action and reflection.” De Leeuw, Cameron, and

Greenwood (2012, 182) concur, advocating the use of CBPR to “make research socially

embedded and socially accountable, to … engage those who are so often distant

‘subjects’ of research, and to build meaningful, long-term commitments with Indigenous

communities.”

Based on their experiences, De Leeuw, Cameron, and Greenwood (2012, 182),

caution practitioners of CBPR methodologies on four primary concerns: (i) that “dissent

32

may be stifled by non-Indigenous researchers’ investments in being good;” (ii) that

“claims to overcome difference and distance may actually retrench colonial research

relations;” (iii) that “the framing of particular methods as ‘best practices’ risks closing

down necessary and ongoing critique;” and (iv) that “institutional pressures work against

the development and maintenance of meaningful, accountable, and non-extractive

relations with Indigenous communities.” Bearing the above concerns in mind, I sought to

identify best practices (at least as they pertain to current circumstances) as a contribution

to the ongoing and fluid process of necessary critique, not as the laying down of

immutable codes and protocols.

My film work for the Iroquois Confederacy in 2005, past negotiations with the

Confederacy and the Band Council on behalf of a corporate client, and acquaintance with

several members of Six Nations have placed me in good stead with the community. De

Leeuw, Cameron, and Greenwood (2012, 191) consider friendships outside the research

paradigm, such as those that I enjoy with Gloria Thomas and Andrea Curley, as ideal for

CBPR researchers in Indigenous contexts. My intention at the outset was to collaborate

with the community as a co-creator of this research. The community made decisions with

me and we created together. I attempted to place my support and abilities at their

disposal. I wanted, perhaps too idealistically, to eliminate the categories of “researcher”

and “research subject.” My goal was to create a pertinent document that draws the

community together in a mutually beneficial process.

My intended use of film as a performative research act into Indigenous issues is

not ground breaking. At Queen’s University, recent examples of using performance to

explore and communicate findings include the theatrical productions of Meaghan

33

Robinson and Tracey Guptil, both of which I attended; I initially participated in the latter

in my capacity as an Indigenous actor, director, and writer. Robinson’s play Footprints

was performed on campus in the Rotunda Theatre in Theological Hall: there she created

an educational space designed to inform those who are new to Indigenous issues to come

to an appreciation of the collective nature of Aboriginal ways of being. The play involved

spiritual, emotional, physical, and cognitive aspects of being. After the play was over,

participants were invited to share their insights while seated around a massive dream

catcher drawn in chalk on the theatre floor. It was a powerful, active learning scenario.

Tracey Guptil’s theatrical piece When I Get There is a tour de force of

environmental issues set in the racialized space of a First Nations’ territory. Through

strategic use of newspaper and other media, Guptil’s event raises awareness of the core

issues of her research. Over 40 people of varying ages and experiences participated in the

writing, production, and performance of this one-act play. Both the co-creators and

audiences who attended the sell-out performances were profoundly touched by their

exposure to the central issues.

At this stage in the research proceedings, I could no longer delay. The field

beckoned, urgently.

 

 

34

Chapter 4

Into the Field

4.1 The Six Nations Context

In the end, with myriad options to choose from, filming for research purposes

concentrated on the territory of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Southwestern

Ontario and in the village of Ohsweken, at the heart of the reserve. Filming also included

disputed traditional lands in the Haldimand Tract, adjacent to the territory, as well as the

Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford. Filmed interviews were conducted in situ, on Six

Nations’ territory, thereby re-connecting the history of the creation of the Native Studies

courses to place.  

My ability to use film to communicate with the Six Nations Community

benefitted from the experiences I gained working in, and with, Indigenous communities

as a filmmaker and consultant. From 2003 to 2005, I facilitated meetings with the

Condoled Chiefs and Clan Mothers of the Iroquois Confederacy in their Longhouse on

behalf of corporate clients seeking permission to build wind turbines on the Haldimand

Tract. Simultaneously, I was retained by the Iroquois Confederacy as the director of two

film crews covering the week-long 2004 International Indigenous Elders’ Summit in

Ohsweken. With the first crew I interviewed elders, shamans, clan mothers, and other

participants who hailed from all over South, Central, and North America. As I conducted

interviews, a second crew filmed presentations and other relevant activities, including the

completion of the Unity Ride led by Orville Looking Horse. The footage, which was left

35

in the hands of Dawn Hill of the Confederacy, was then used to produce Jidwá:doh –

Let’s Become Again – Indigenous Elders’ Summit – 2004. This experience availed me

with useful insights into the political dynamics unique to Six Nations. Given this working

relationship and understanding, I am also aware of recent protocols enacted by the Band

Council with regard to conducting research on Six Nations territory and with their on-

reserve and off-reserve constituents. As a Métis filmmaker embedded in a First Nation

community, therefore, I have a strong foundation built on more than 25 years of

experience working in Indigenous communities. This investment has earned me good

will and trust, which in turn has helped create a film that truly involved community writ

large in the research endeavour.

4.2 A Story Ready for Planting: The Work and Legacy of Keith Lickers

Drawing on information provided by the three most significant interviewees in my MA

thesis – Keith Lickers, Gloria Thomas, and Peter Hill – I created a film that features, with

strategic prominence, the career of Lickers. It is my hope that the film will “plant a story”

that will take root and “feed” the Six Nations community.

In 1964, Keith Lickers, a member of Six Nations near Brantford, started teaching

at the senior elementary school on Six Nations. His successful, culturally proactive

approaches quickly drew the attention and respect of his community, colleagues, and

students. When the Mohawk Institute (Six Nations’ Residential School) closed down in

1970, and ownership of the property was transferred to the Six Nations, Lickers was

invited to step down from his teaching position to conduct a feasibility study as to what

to do with the Mohawk Institute. His recommendations led to the creation of the

36

Woodland Cultural Centre, which now serves to promote Indigenous culture and heritage

in the area. Lickers was its first director. In 1974, he was approached by the Ministry of

Education (MOE) to join its Curriculum Branch. This he did, thereafter working for the

MOE in Toronto for the next 33 years (1974–2006).

Lickers arrived at the MOE in time to oversee the creation of the People of Native

Ancestry (PONA) texts, which subsequently served for 25 years as resource guides for

teaching Native Studies in Ontario public schools. Throughout his career, Lickers

championed stand-alone Native Studies courses and vernacular language of instruction.

In 1997, he oversaw revisions to the PONA texts and the creation of the suite of ten

Native Studies curricula.

During his final years in the Curriculum Branch he played a pivotal role in the

establishment of a vibrant, well-staffed Aboriginal Education Office (AEO) that opened

its doors in January 2006. He acted as interim manager of the AEO until the appointment

of Alayne Bigwin in August of that year. Lickers continued on to author and usher in two

historic OME policy papers: (i) Aboriginal Student Self-Identification Policy, which is

incorporated in the Building Bridges to Success for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit

Students (Ontario Ministry of Education 2007); and (ii) the Ontario First Nations, Métis,

and Inuit Education Policy Framework (Ontario Ministry of Education 2007b). Both

policies focus on Indigenous control of Indigenous education.

Upon Lickers’s formal retirement, Dominic Giroux (2006), Assistant Deputy

Minister, was most laudatory: “We cannot say enough about the extent of Keith’s

influence over these decades on all Aboriginal education matters within government. His

37

wisdom, unique skill set, personal commitment, and corporate memory will be greatly

missed.”

The history of Lickers’s achievements is not yet part of a curricular offering in

Ontario schools. Arguably, “planting” Lickers’s story in the Six Nations community by

the use of film will eventually lead to its fuller integration into Ontario Native Studies

curricula. Successful transmission of knowledge requires teamwork. Collaboration

between filmmakers and Six Nations’ participants in this case favoured a popular

outcome that appears to have nourished the community.

The film, which combines the personal story of Lickers with that of Hill, Thomas,

and Hailey Thomas, Gloria Thomas’s granddaughter, brings the significance of the

collective stories to the awareness of the Six Nations community. The multi-generational

aspect of their stories lends itself to several storylines: (i) how Hailey Thomas chose to

attend Western University in order to pursue a career as a Native Studies teacher – a

choice that was not available to preceding generations; (ii) how her grandmother, Gloria,

along with her colleagues, Keith and Peter, contributed to making that particular career

choice possible; (iii) how the diverse roles played by Gloria Thomas, as a representative

of Six Nations on Ontario School Boards, as a leader who was instrumental in the

development of content for Native Studies curricula, and as a voice of authority (Clan

Mother) in her community contributed to increasing Six Nations’ control over education;

and (iv) how Lickers’s 33-year career at the Curriculum Branch of the Ontario Ministry

of Education (OME) contributed to the current Native Studies and Native Language

curricula.

Lickers’s story contrasts the outer success of his policy and curricular

38

contributions with the inner struggles and frustrations precipitated by the agenda of the

federal and provincial governments. Soon after its own birth as a nation, Canada’s

assimilation strategy focused on controlling the education of Native children. It sought to

assert state authority by separating children from their families and forcing them to

attend, in the name of education, residential schools that were run by Christian churches.

There, far from home and parental care, children were subjected to physical, emotional,

mental, spiritual, and sexual abuse (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

2015, 106). In a misguided and now discredited state project, over 150,000 First Nations,

Métis, and Inuit children were cut off from their families, communities, languages, and

cultures, a policy that amounted, in the parlance of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission (2015), to “cultural genocide” (see Appendix A). Despite the eventual

closing of residential schools – the last such institution closed its doors in 1986 – the

Canadian government enacted policies that unilaterally imposed provincial curricula on

Six Nations students, demonstrating a total disregard for Six Nations’ constitutional right

to self-government (Constitution Act 1982).

Gloria Thomas’s fight for the right of Six Nations to control their education does

not contradict her advocacy for mainstream education: “I want all students to become

Ontario Scholars,” she declares, her feet decidedly placed in two canoes. Because of its

binary complexity, Thomas’s position of championing mainstream education becomes,

by definition, a divisive issue in the Six Nations community, which has a long history of

suffering at the hands of residential school teachers and administrators, the community,

bluntly put, is not willing to acknowledge the value of a system that was hitherto so

detrimental to the spiritual and physical health of its people. Thomas, however, is far-

39

sighted, looking long-term at the best scenario not only for helping to educate her people

in the customs and languages of Native Peoples but also to prepare them to take their

place as leaders in Canadian society. Her hope is to create a Nation of educated citizenry,

made up of people who understand their place and assume authority in both worlds.

It was now time to put pen to paper.

40

Chapter 5

Writing the Script

Writing the script was a long and arduous process. My indecision around who was to

constitute the target audience resulted in several false starts. At times, I was torn between

my examination committee as audience and the Six Nations community as audience; at

other times an imagined global Indigenous audience took precedence. Throughout the

process of selecting material from my MA thesis, I often found myself imagining how

other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities might react, despite my repeatedly

realigning myself with the Six Nations community as audience.

I struggled over potential concerns regarding the inclusion of certain findings,

especially those dealing with residential schools, and the underlying causes of suicide.

Would treatment of these issues re-stimulate and distract some viewers from the story of

my three protagonists? In that case, the “planted” story might not take root. Yet I also

had to situate the protagonists in the tumultuous context of the post-residential school

era. That context is essential to developing contrast between over a century of multi-

generational traumatization of First Nations populations and the beginning of the healing

process. As presenters at the 2004 International Indigenous Elders Summit held at Six

Nations put it: “As we come to the end of 500 years of suffering, we must heal ourselves

so that we don’t go limping into the next 500 years.” This statement captures the idea that

I nurtured all along, the notion of wanting to “plant” ideas in the minds of viewers as a

means of contextualizing the contributions of the three main protagonists to Native

Studies in Ontario schools.

41

In the end I decided to begin with a standard sequence establishing the location of

the Six Nations territory where the story takes place. That, I reckoned, would be

appealing to a Six Nations audience. Following that, I deemed it important to look at

controversial findings that were not well-known across either Indigenous or non-

Indigenous communities. Despite my early concerns about engaging painful feelings

around residential schools, I used that issue of native history to establish the scope and

controlling dimension of Canada’s assimilation strategy.

By dictating how Indigenous children should be educated, Canada effectively

institutionalized them. Generation after generation, this external control produced

children who, as adults, found making long-term decisions a daunting challenge. They

were deprived of an “imaginable future” and had the ability to think for themselves taken

away. That deprivation results in a despondency that leads to self-destructive behaviours,

the most extreme being suicide.

Throughout the opening of the film I wanted to establish temporally how the

closing of residential schools signalled the beginning of a new era, for Indigenous

educators and students alike. Essentially, the crucial moment when the residential schools

were closed was to represent the emergence of the possibility of increased control for

Indigenous educators and a more balanced education for students. Since the Six Nations

Community Plan (2014) includes a suicide prevention strategy, I included key insights

from the work of Chandler and Lalonde. Based on twenty years of research on

Aboriginal Youth Suicide in British Columbia, they provide ground-breaking insights

into the underlying causes of self-injurious behaviours. I was fortunate to receive

42

permission to use video excerpts from a 2013 conference in Alberta at which Chandler

and Lalonde presented their findings to an Indigenous audience.

5.1 The Script

The following 30 pages are a transcript of Planting Stories, Feeding Communities, a film

with a running time of 45 minutes, 38 seconds. In the left column, elements of audio

(including voiceover narration) are represented. In the right column appear descriptions

of visual images and sequential timings. The transcript ends with a list of image and

video credits, acknowledged in their order of appearance.

5.2 Planting Stories, Feeding Communities

Audio Visual

Drum Music comes up slowly. Black

Drum Music gets louder. (Reversed out of black)

Jon Aarssen, Margaret Bentley, and Annie

Palone present

Music 00-00-00-19 A Paul Chaput film

Music 00-00-00-30 (Slow zoom) Title: Planting

Stories, Feeding Communities:

Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples, and Film

Music intensifies Zoom into:

Subtitle: Canada Lands Map

showing Indigenous Territories

Subtitle: “Indian Reserves”

Music continues building. 00-00-00-58 Zoom into map of

Haldimand Tract.

Subtitle: Haldimand Tract – Land

Granted by Haldimand Proclamation to

43

Six Nations

00-00-01-03 Subtitle: Ohsweken

00-00-01-05 Subtitle: The heart of what

remains of the Six Nations Territory

00-00-01-08 Dissolve to sign of Six

Nations Grand River Territory.

00-00-01-14 Dissolve to wind-blown

flowered fields.

00-00-01-19 Dissolve to sign of

Ohsweken.

00-00-01-22 Dissolve to shot of two-lane

paved road on Six Nations.

00-00-01-23 Dissolve to drive-by shot of

homes in Ohsweken.

00-00-01-27 Dissolve to drive-by shot of

commercial buildings in Ohsweken.

00-00-01-29 Cut to front of GREAT

building.

Subtitle: Grand River Employment and

Training Centre (GREAT)

Ohsweken, Six Nations, Ontario

We hear voices from the Circle and

music changes.

00-00-01-32

Cut to GoPro shot of Community Circle.

Add in sequence.

Subtitle: GREAT Theatre

Subtitle: Community Circle,

Subtitle: September, 2014

Paul: Well, first of all, my name is Paul

Chaput. I’m Métis from the Red River in

00-00-01-35

Dissolve to Medium Shot of Paul

44

Manitoba.

introducing himself to the Community

Circle.

Subtitle: Paul Chaput 4th Year PhD

Candidate, Queen’s University

Subtitle: Community Circle, Ohsweken,

Six Nations Territory, September 2015,

Ninety minutes from Toronto

Paul: I’m hoping to transform how research

is reported back to Indigenous communities.

00-00-01-41

Dissolve to GoPro wide shot of the circle

as Paul continues his introduction.

Paul: In my case, I took from this

community certain information

00-00-01-49 Cut to medium shot of Paul

continuing his introduction.

Paul: and I put it into my Master’s and I

graduated.

00-00-01-53 Cut to GoPro overhead.

Paul: The metaphor is like somebody

coming in and taking gold from your land

and going off

00-00-01-59 Cut to medium shot of Paul

continuing his introduction.

Paul: and enriching their lives with it but

not giving back.

00-00-01-59 Cut to GoPro overhead.

Narrator: So I decided that for my PhD I

would use film to explore the best practices

of bringing that data, that “gold,” back to

the community.

00-00-02-09 Dissolve to shot of Paul on

the train.

00-00-02-16 Cut to shot of books on

library shelves.

Narrator: After getting permission from

the Six Nations Council Research Ethics

Committee, I set about organizing the

filming of interviews and a Community

Circle in Ohsweken.

00-00-02-19 Shot of letter of confirmation

from Six Nations Ethics Committee

45

00-00-02-29 Dissolve to sign of

Ohsweken.

Narrator: Accompanied by videographer,

Jon Aarssen, we engaged members of the

community in a collaborative filmmaking

process. We were fortunate to have the help

and support of dedicated community

members like Andrea Curley and Gloria

Thomas. They invited Six Nations’ contacts

interested in learning about the roles played

by Keith Lickers, Peter Hill, and Gloria

Thomas in the development of Native

Studies and Native Language courses

offered by the Ministry of Education, an

ongoing process initiated after the closing

of residential schools.

00-00-02-35 Dissolve to sign of Six

Nations.

00-00-02-38 Dissolve to shot of angler

fishing in the Grand River.

00-00-02-43 Cut to close-up of Andrea

Curley.

Subtitle: Andrea Curley

00-00-02-47 Cut to close-up of Gloria

Thomas.

Subtitle: Dr. Gloria Thomas

00-00-02-50 Dissolve to Keith.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

00-00-02-55 Dissolve to Peter.

Subtitle: Peter Hill

00-00-03-02 Dissolve to shot of library

with white students.

00-00-03-06 Fade to black.

Music fades

New music for quote

00-00-03-13 Reversed out of black:

Canada would be a very different place if

the stories of Aboriginal people were

generally known and were a part of the

shared culture of the nation. Dr. Gloria

Thomas, Six Nations.

Music builds

Narrator 4: Not long ago and not far away,

Fire licked at the last splinters of the ancient

forest. Full from its feast, Fire slept. The

00-00-03-26 Rendered scenes of a forest

devastated by fire – finishing with green

pushing up through the earth

46

first drops of rain embraced the few

remaining embers glowing in the tired

breeze. Lightning struck awakening the

seeds sleeping in the dark womb of the

scorched earth. Soon, Green pushed up

through the charred soil.

Chandler: Imagine you’re part of a culture,

an Indigenous culture, a First Nations

culture. Imagine that several hundred years

ago some people came and turned your

paradise into a parking lot, made your songs

and stories appear to be ludicrous,

essentially subjected you to laws and

regulations that made no sense in terms of

your own values.

00-00-04-05 Subtitle: Dr. Michael

Chandler, Professor Emeritus, UBC,

Department of Psychology

Shots of pre and post-contact Canada

render Chandler’s words.

Residential school shots

Fathers of Confederation

Narrator: That’s exactly what the newly

formed Canadian government did in 1876.

Without consultation with First Peoples, it

passed the Indian Act giving itself control

over every aspect of First People’s lives.

One hundred and thirty-nine years later it is

still vigorously pursuing its assimilative

agenda.

Shots of Canadian Flag

The spine of the Statutes of Canada -1876

Chapter 18 – The Indian Act

Native workers

Peace Tower,

Indian Act Amendments

Indigenous demonstrators

Chandler: “The whole policy of the

Canadian government –and it’s the policy

essentially of every colonizing government

that I know of – is to, in fact, kill the Indian

in the Indian, right, to assimilate their

identity out of existence.”

Michael Chandler at the podium

Subtitle: Dr. Michael Chandler,

Professor Emeritus, UBC, Department of

Psychology

00-00-05-33 before and after shot

Indigenous youth in traditional clothing

and then in “settler” garb

47

00-00-05:50 Dramatic shift in music Fade to black.

Narrator: Canada’s assimilation strategy

focused on controlling the education of

Native children. It hoped to achieve this by

separating the children from their families

and incarcerating them in residential

schools. There, they were subjected to

physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and

sexual abuse. In their all-out effort to

eradicate First Nations, Métis, and Inuit

cultures, over 150,000 children were cut off

from their families, communities,

languages, and cultures.

00-00-05-45: Shot of TV in a ravaged

house. On-screen, (old black and white

footage) of a white teacher at the head of a

classroom of young Indigenous students.

Shots of children looking unhappy

00-00-06-00: Dissolve to hovel-like

interior of abandoned house.

00-00-06-01: Gated residential school

with tipis outside the walls

00-00-06-07: Back to ravaged house

00-00-06-12: Back to black and white TV

images of kids in school

Same music as Chandler’s

Add birdcalls.

00-00-06-29: Title reversed out of black:

Cultural Continuity

is engagement in activities that link

individuals or a community to a past, the

present, and an imaginable future.

Chandler and Lalonde 1998.

Green shoots rise from the bottom of the

screen.

Lalonde: I need to stop myself and say: I’m

pleased to be a visitor in Treaty 6. For

communities in BC and elsewhere in

Canada, it’s really important that their

culture is expressed in the curriculum that

their young people are enduring in the local

schools.

00-00-06-37 Subtitle: Dr. Christopher

Lalonde,

Department of Psychology,

University of Victoria,

Presenting at the Youth Suicide

Conference

May 13, 2013

Edmonton, Alberta

00-00-06-43: Dissolve to white students in

48

a classroom.

00-00-06-56: Dissolve to suicide note.

00-00-06700: Dissolve to Mohawks

protesting on Parliament Hill.

00-00-06-00: Cultural Continuity Chart

Narrator: Control over curricular content

and other cultural continuity factors is so

important that it can be a matter of life or

death.

00-00-06-57: Chart

Lalonde: Communities that control

education, and health, and have cultural

facilities, and control police, and fire, they

all have lower suicide rates. So when

communities have control over those things,

the suicide rates are lower.

00-00-07-04: Graph of Suicide rates by Band

Subtitle: Dr. Christopher Lalonde,

University of Victoria, Faculty of

Psychology

Narrator: In fact, during twenty years of

research, Chandler and Lalonde found that

117 out of 203 communities had zero

suicides. Each of the 117 communities had

three things in common: self-government,

successful land claims, and control over

education.

00-00-07-16: Dissolve to graph of Suicide

Graph of Impact of Cultural Continuity

Graph of Suicide rates by Band located at

the bottom of this document.

Chandler: If you want to prevent suicide,

go ask the people in these over-one-

hundred-communities who have never had

one.

00-00-07-31: Dissolve to stills of Michael

Chandler at the podium.

Narrator: This revelation contradicts the

media-driven stereotype that all Indigenous

youth are at risk of suicide. They are not at

00-00-07-41: Dissolve to Suicide

headlines.

00-00-07-55: Dissolve to Indigenous Idle

49

risk in communities where internal control

is intact. They are at risk in communities

where external controls undermine their

freedom and their resolve to endure. Loss of

control leads to loss of lives. According to

the United Nations, “Deliberately inflicting

on a group conditions of life calculated to

bring about its physical destruction in whole

or in part, is an act of Genocide.”

Control is a life-saving essential.

The stories that follow, taken from my MA

thesis, are about Indigenous educators

regaining control of Indigenous education

in Ontario’s public school system over the

past 40 years.

No More demonstration in mall.

Excerpt of UN definition of Genocide

00-00-08-07: Dissolve to burning flower.

00-00-08-13: Dissolve to handcuffed man.

00-00-08-19: Dissolve to countryside

rolling by – filmed from train.

00-00-08-24: Dissolve to Paul on train.

00-00-08-26: Dissolve to Paul working on

laptop on train.

Birds singing 00-00-08-27: Fade to black.

Title: Six Nations’ Educators

00-00-08-07: Green shoots pushing up

from bottom of the screen

Narrator: In 1969, Indian Affairs began

closing down “Indian residential schools.”

The first to close in Ontario was the

Mohawk Institute, also known as the “Mush

Hole.” Control over it reverted back to the

Six Nations Band Council.

The tide was turning. From the extreme

external control of Native Education

throughout the residential school era, to

00-00-08-35: Dissolve to Mush Hole

Residential School front porch full of

students and faculty.

Subtitle: Located in Brantford, Ontario

00-00-08-07: Dissolve to photo.

Subtitle: Jean Chretien, Minister of

Indian Affairs -1968-1974

00-00-08-48: Another black and white

50

increasing opportunities for First Peoples to

control parts of the education received by

their children in provincial public schools.

In 1964, leading up to the closure of the

Mush Hole, Keith Lickers had started

teaching Grade Seven History at the on-

reserve Six Nations school.

shot of Mush Hole with empty front porch

00-00-08-53: Back to first shot – slow

zoom

00-00-09-03: Cut to Keith in the

Community Circle.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

00-00-09-09: Cut to Go Pro shot of

Community Circle.

00-00-09-13: Keith in the Community

Circle

Keith: … young people that I’m teaching

need to know their local history. So I went

to Mr. Hill and said I’d like to change the

Grade Seven History course.

00-20-29-29 Subtitle: Keith Lickers

00-00-09-22: GoPro shot

00-00-09-28: Keith in the Circle

Narrator: And he did.

When the “Mush Hole” reverted to local

control, the Band Council approached Keith

Lickers about transforming it into the

Woodland Cultural Centre including a

museum, archive and a resource library – all

administered by Six Nations.

00-00-09-42: Shot of cultural centre

00-00-09-47: Sign of Woodland Cultural

Centre

00-00-09-53: Dissolve to interior of

Woodland Cultural Centre.

00-00-09-56: Dissolve to second interior

shot.

00-00-09-59: Dissolve to third interior

shot.

Narrator: But Native control over Native

education remained elusive. By funding the

compulsory attendance of Indigenous

students in provincial public schools, the

Federal Government assured that Native

high school students still left behind their

communities, languages, and cultures.

00-00-10-03: Exterior shot of school

00-00-10-06: Bus doors open and kids get

on.

00-00-10-19: Fade to black.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers – Executive

Director of Woodland Cultural Centre

(1972-74)

51

Audio: Raven calls Title: Regaining “Indian Control of Indian

Education” Native Studies

00-00-10-21: Green shoots pushing up

from the bottom of the screen

Narrator: Education is a powerful factor in

cultural continuity. Depending on who

holds the power, educational institutions

can destroy communities, or they can heal

them. In 1972, Ontario’s Deputy Minister of

Education, George Waldrum saw that

Native Studies courses in schools could be

used to heal the rift in Native cultures and

languages created by the aggressive

assimilation policies of the residential

school era. From the 1850s until the 1970s,

education had been used to destroy

Indigenous cultures and languages across

Canada. From the 1970s forward, Waldrum

saw education as a tool for their restoration.

He invited Native educator Alton Bigwin to

join the staff of the Curriculum Branch

situated in the Mowat Block, at Bay and

Wellesley, in the heart of Toronto. Bigwin

was assigned the task of assembling a

committee of educators to create a series of

Native Studies resource guides as a support

for Ontario teachers interested in teaching

Native Studies.

In October 1974, Keith Lickers, in his

00-00-10-21: Dissolve to teacher and

classroom.

00-00-10-36: Cut to teacher from left side.

00-00-10-40: Dissolve to photo of George

Waldrum.

00-00-10-44: Background of teacher scene

fades to black.

00-00-10-46: Native Studies’ book covers

appear behind Waldrum’s photo.

00-00-10-56: Waldrum’s photo fades

away leaving the Native Studies curricula.

00-00-11-00: Dissolve to photo of a

People of Native Ancestry (PONA)

document.

00-00-11-13: Dissolve to Alton Bigwin.

00-00-11-20: Cut to shot of Mowat Block.

Subtitle: Ministry of Education, Mowat

Block, 900 Bay St. Toronto

00-00-11-23: Dissolve to Paul walking by

the Mowat Block sign.

00-00-11-28: Cut to shot of Paul walking

towards Mowat doors.

00-00-11-34: Paul walks through doors.

00-00-11-37: Paul walks into elevator.

00-00-11-42: Dissolve to picture of Keith.

00-00-11-45: Picture fades to dark

52

second year as Executive director of the

Woodland Cultural Centre, gave George

Waldrum a tour of the newly opened

facilities, after which, Waldrum asked:

background.

Keith: “Would you be willing to come and

work in Toronto with the Ministry of

Education to develop curriculum in Native

Studies?”

00-00-11-48: Dissolve to Keith in the

Community Circle.

Narrator: Lickers appreciated that

Waldrum’s vision of Native Studies courses

would give Native educators some control

over curricular content and provide Native

students with much-needed recognition of

Aboriginal cultures and histories in

provincial schools.

00-00-12-01: Cut to classroom scene.

Keith: …I thought, Here is a chance to

really do something in this area.…I called

him and I said, “I’m willing to give up my

job here and go and work for you and

develop a curriculum.”

00-00-12:19: Cut to Keith in Community

Circle.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers, Director of

Woodland Cultural Centre -1972-1974

Narrator: For the next 32 years Lickers

made the daily commute from his home on

Six Nations territory to the Mowat Block in

downtown Toronto.

The first assignment given Keith Lickers by

Alton Bigwin was that of leading the Native

Studies Curriculum Committee. It was just

about to start working on the first of three

People of Native Ancestry resource guides

or PONA documents.

00-00-12:19: Dissolve to interior of train.

Subtitle: We traced his daily footsteps.

00-00-12:43: Paul gets a subway ticket.

00-00-12:45: Train arriving in Toronto

00-00-12:47: Skyscraper shot

00-00-12:50: Paul gets on the subway.

00-00-12:57: Paul exits Wellesley

subway.

00-00-13-02: Paul heads south on Bay

Street.

53

00-00-13-04: Dissolve to PONA

documents.

00-00-13-09: Dissolve to other shot of

PONA documents.

00-00-13-02:

Cutaways to PONA materials

Shots of Bigwin

Subtitle: People of Native Ancestry

resource guides (PONA documents)

Keith: It was interesting. It was a

committee of 32. All of them were non-

Native. All of them were quite supportive –

quite interested in Native Studies but didn’t

have any real experience.

00-00-13-09: 00-00-13-14: Keith in

Community Circle

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

00-00-13-29: Dissolve to students at

residential school desk.

Keith: So one of the first things that I

suggested we do, as a committee, was go to

a residential school.

00-00-13-41: Dissolve to St. Anne’s

Residential School.

Narrator: They chose St. Anne’s in James

Bay where the 32 non-Indigenous

committee members were exposed to the

deplorable residential school conditions

endured by the Cree children from

Moosenee and Moose Factory.

00-00-13-49: Dissolve to shot of priests,

nuns, and boys.

Shots of St Anne’s in the James Bay area

Keith: Of course these people had never

been in that kind of a situation before. And,

they all broke down and cried. I felt badly

but I thought, this is an education. …it

really struck home with these people that

were on this committee.

00-00-13-56: Dissolve to Keith in Circle.

Narrator: The Committee’s first project 00-00-14-20: Paul flips through PONA

54

was to create the PONA series – the first

resource guides ever published by the

Ministry.

guides.

00-00-14-23: Second shot of PONA

guides

Keith: … the PONA documents broke the

standard for Ministry documents.

00-00-14-28: Keith in Community Circle

Peter: One of the things Keith did was, he

got a cover to a–usually a boring white

Ministry document – a guideline – and he

made this look, in itself, interesting, and

obviously Native. So at least somebody

would open it. Ha ha.

00-00-14-37: Peter in Community Circle

Subtitle: Peter Hill

Narrator: This level of influence over

curricular content and publication style by

Indigenous educators was unprecedented.

Keith gained the confidence of senior

management.

00-00-15-03: PONA documents – image

00-00-15-08: PONA image 2

00-00-15-11: PONA image 3

Keith: I certainly felt that I was given a lot

more freedom by the establishment within

the Curriculum Branches to be able to go

ahead and do what we did.

00-00-15-16: Keith in Boardroom

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

Narrator: In 1975, one year before

Waldrum left the Ministry, PONA1 for the

Primary-Junior level was launched and the

committee for PONA 2 was formed.

00-00-15-28: People applaud in

Parliament.

00-00-15-34: Shot of PONA document

Keith: We selected a whole new group of

people as the development committee. This

time most of them were Native people,

Native educators.

00-00-15-45: Keith in Community Circle

55

Narrator: PONA 3, launched in 1981 in

downtown Toronto, was marked by an

increase in Indigenous participation on all

levels, featuring entertainment provided by

Buffy St. Marie. Lickers recognized that

you have to have good marketing and

publicity in order to make implementation

possible – the three-day PONA launch

celebration brought together Indigenous

educators from across Ontario for seminars

and workshops.

00-00-15-57: Street shot of Toronto

00-00-16-03: Photo: Buffy St. Marie 1

00-00-16-09: Photo: Buffy St. Marie 2

00-00-16-11: Photo: Buffy and Keith

00-00-16-16: Shot of Toronto street scene

00-00-16-24: Photo: Alton Bigwin and

Keith Lickers

Keith: That was 1981. (00-46-55-13) Those

were good years.

(00-46-55-13)

Narrator: In 1983, Alton Bigwin and Keith

Lickers adopted the National Indian

Brotherhood’s paper “Indian Control of

Indian Education” as a blueprint for the

development of Ministry policies for Native

Studies courses, Native Language courses,

Native Language Teachers, and Native

Guidance Counsellors. The paper was a

response to the Trudeau Government’s 1969

White Paper – a proposal to nullify all

treaties.

00-00-16-36: Dissolve to picture of

“Indian Control of Indian Education”

document.

00-00-16-50: Dissolve to PONA image.

00-00-16-53: Dissolve to Native

counsellor.

00-00-16-58: Picture of White Paper

00-00-16-03:

Audio: Eagle cry 00-00-17-04: Fade to black.

Title: Native Languages

Green shoot comes up from bottom of the

screen.

Narrator:

Satisfied with the progress on the PONA

00-00-17-14: Picture of happy children

looking up

56

resource guides, as early as 1978, Lickers

had started turning his attention to Native

Languages. He knew that Native Languages

were the key to cultural resurgence. He also

knew that Indian Affairs was still pursuing

its agenda to assimilate First Peoples by

forcing Indigenous students to attend

provincial schools where the languages of

instruction were either English or French.

Lickers took a risk. With the Ontario

Ministry of Education as a strong ally and

with some trepidation, he proposed the

introduction of Native Languages as

subjects of instruction to then Minister of

Education, Dr. Bette Stephenson.

00-00-17-27: Dissolve to PONA shot.

00-00-17-43: Bette Stephenson picture 1

00-00-17-44: Bette picture 2

00-00-17-48: Bette picture 3

00-00-17-49: Bette picture 4

00-00-17-51: Bette picture 5

00-00-17-54: Bette picture 6

Keith: I had a meeting with Bette Stephenson –a

one one-on-one and she was gung ho. I couldn’t

believe that she was willing to take

this on.

00-00-17-57: Keith in boardroom

Narrator: Not only was she willing to

support Native Languages as subjects of

instruction but she proposed the

unprecedented idea of Native Languages as

languages of instruction.

00-00-18-11: Bette picture 7

00-00-18-16: Bette picture 8

Narrator: They were two weeks away from

taking the paper to the provincial Cabinet, when

Stephenson told Keith to run it by Gerry Kerr,

the Regional Director for Indian Affairs.

00-00-18-20: Child with text

00-00-18-28: Cut to Gerry Kerr – image 1

00-00-18-29: Super Gerry – image 2

Keith: He sat back and he said, “I can’t

believe what you’re doing. There’s no way

00-00-18-35: Keith in boardroom

57

we’re going to support you. We’ll support

you if you want to establish a program as a

subject of instruction but not as a language

of instruction.”

Keith: But the fact that Bette Stephenson, a

Conservative Minister of Education, was

willing to go that far was… really

something. I could have kissed her. Ha ha

ha!

Fade to next section.

Audio: Bird songs Fade to black.

Title: Collaborators

Narrator: As the PONA resource guides

evolved towards the later Native Studies

and Native Languages curricula, Lickers

called on many Indigenous Educators to

help. Two of his collaborators, Gloria

Thomas and Peter Hill were also from Six

Nations.

00-00-19-26: Dissolve to Peter and Gloria

in Grand River Employment and Training

(GREAT) centre hallway.

00-00-19-32: Peter and Gloria walk

towards camera.

00-00-19-38: Close-up of Peter and Gloria

Narrator: Dr. Gloria Thomas, an Onondaga

Clan Mother, Deer Clan: as Faithkeeper for

the longhouse ceremonies she is deeply

involved with traditional language and

culture. As an educator she has especially

focused on curriculum development. Her

lifelong love of learning culminated in her

2013 Doctorate in Policy and Cultural

Studies, from Queen’s University. She is

interested in global collaboration with like-

minded people and envisions a Nation of

educated people who take leadership

00-00-19-50: Gloria in Boardroom

Subtitle: Dr. Gloria Thomas

00-00-19-54: Photo of Gloria and family

Subtitle: Gloria Thomas and family

00-00-19-57: Gloria and Hailey

Subtitle: Gloria Thomas and

Granddaughter, Hailey Thomas – Grade 8

Graduation

00-00-20-02: Gloria and flower – photo

00-00-20-07: Gloria graduates with PhD

from Queen’s University – photo.

00-00-20-12: Gloria receives her degree –

58

positions in both worlds – just as she has. photo.

Narrator: Peter Hill, a lifelong friend of

Keith Lickers, taught History and English at

off-reserve schools beginning in 1967. His

humour, passion, and frankness won him

the admiration of both colleagues and

students.

Shots for Peter’s introduction

00-00-19-36: Peter and Gloria shot 1

00-00-19-38: Peter and Gloria shot 2

00-00-19-44: Peter and Gloria shot 3

Peter Hill: Thanks to Keith I ended up at the

Ministry. I was an ordinary school teacher

teaching English like, when in doubt, tell a story,

ahh ha ha. (People laugh.) …I can’t imagine that

first committee he struck – 32 –to me, that’s a

class too big and a riot. And not a Native person

in the room.

00-00-20-23: Peter in the Community

Circle

Gloria 01-01-41: Peter was the first teacher

in Ontario that was a Native person –and he

was teaching English. Ha ha. How unusual

is that? Ha ha. Right.? He was the best

English teacher ever. Everyone loved him! I

mean if you were Native or non-Native.

00-00-20-54: Gloria talks in the

Community Circle.

Peter: In those days Grade Nine was totally

and exclusively British History, Grade

Eleven, Ancient History. Grade Ten there

was a compulsory History course. Grade

Eleven absolutely nothing Native – Native

Persians I guess. By the time you got to

Grade Twelve you could turn it into an

Issues course and you could bring in

Natives in terms of who was in control …

00-00-21-14: Peter in the boardroom

59

it’s interesting, you can define history by

the very question: Who is in control?

Because it always was an issue of equality.

Narrator: After retiring in the late 90s,

Peter Hill was invited by Keith Lickers to

chair the Committee for the Development of

the Ontario Native Studies History

Curriculum.

00-00-22-03: Keith in the boardroom

Peter: The hardest thing I found was

deciding: Were there “Native” values? Was

there a core Native value? The whole

system of values …You got to get through

that without that becoming the whole

picture, which to Natives, values tends to be

the whole picture.

00-00-22-16: Peter in the boardroom

Gloria: …the first thing I ever did was I

worked with Peter and we did curriculum

for immersion school. It was the first year

that Gaweni:yo started. They asked me if I

would come and write our values into the

Ontario curriculum. That was one of the

first times that I ever did that. It was

great…wherever we go it doesn’t matter,

where we go we will always be ourselves.

We are always going to love our culture,

love our language. It doesn’t matter the

context, it’s always about First Nations

control. It’s about our heart. It’s about our

culture so we make it happen wherever we

go.

00-00-22-40: Gloria in the Community

Circle

60

Audio: Bird song Fade to black.

Title: Keith Retires: It Takes a Whole

Department to Replace Him.

Green pushes up.

Narrator: In 2005, it fell to Assistant

Deputy Minister of Education, Judith

Wright, to inform Keith of a critical point in

his career.

00-00-23-33: Photo of Judith

Subtitle: Judith Wright, Assistant Deputy

Minister of Education

Keith: She called me to her office and said,

“You realize you’re coming up to your

retirement age. You’re the only person

working in this area. We’ve got to do

something about it.”

00-00-23-41: Dissolve to Keith in

boardroom.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

Keith: I liked my job. And of course in

those days you had to retire when you were

65. But, I had been doing all this work

myself after 1985 when Al Bigwin retired.

Narrator: She gave him the task of creating

a blue print for what is now the Aboriginal

Education Office situated at the Mowat

Block. His job description included:

Helping School Boards implement Native

Studies and Native Language programs;

integrating Native Trustees on Boards;

mentoring the creation of Indigenous

Education Authorities; and dealing with

racist principals who refused to accept

Native counsellors even though they had the

same qualifications as non-Native

counsellors.

00-00-24-14: Aerial picture of Bay and

Wellesley in Toronto

Subtitle: Mowat Block, Toronto, Ontario

00-00-24-26: Graphic of Keith’s job

description

61

Keith: So, all of these things were going on.

So it had to be divided between what could

the Regional Office do and what should the

central office of the Ministry in Native

Education do. All of that then became the

Aboriginal Education Office. It therefore

required hiring a Native Educator in each of

the six regional offices plus finding and

hiring a person who was willing to take my

place in the Mowat Block.

00-00-24-50: Keith in the boardroom

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

Narrator: In those last two years several

other critical policies were created:

• The Aboriginal Self-Identification Policy

which improved the amount and quality of

data relating to Native peoples in Ontario

schools, and

• Ontario’s Response to the Kelowna

Accord, a federal initiative to equalize

Native and non-Native high school

graduation rates.

00-00-25-50: Keith in the boardroom

00-00-25-51: Superimposition of cover of

Policy Framework

Subtitle: Ontario First Nations, Métis,

and Inuit Education Policy Framework

Reed: The Framework is a very powerful

document. It really continues to guide

everything that we at the Aboriginal

Education Office and the Ministry are trying

to do. It’s a very powerful document.

00-00-26-02: Kevin Reed at desk shot 1

00-00-26-02: Reed at desk shot 2

00-00-26-07: Reed at desk shot 1

Subtitle: Kevin Reed, Aboriginal

Education Consultant, Limestone District

School Board, Kingston, Ontario

Narrator: After 34 years at the Ministry of

Education, Keith Lickers retired in 2007.

00-00-26-02: Keith in boardroom

Keith: So, when I retired, I kinda chuckled Subtitle: Keith Lickers

62

that all the work that I was doing, it took

seven people to, in fact, replace me.

Peter: Well, not many can say, I left the

Ministry and seven people replaced me. Ha

ha. That should be on your tombstone. Ha

ha.

00-00-26-31: Peter in boardroom

Subtitle of Peter’s narration

Audio: Cardinal bird call

00-00-26-47: Fade to black.

Title: Outcomes: It Just Takes Time

Green shoots at bottom of screen

Narrator: Kevin Reed, whose teaching

career in Kingston, Ontario was crowned

with the prestigious Prime Minister’s

Award for Teaching Excellence in 2008, is

now Aboriginal Education Consultant to the

Limestone District School Board, a position

made possible by the work of Keith and

other Indigenous educators in collaboration

with the Ministry of Education.

00-00-26-54: Dissolve to Reed entering

school.

00-00-26-54: Dissolve to Reed turning

down hallway.

00-00-27-03: Reed enters the room and

sits at his desk.

00-00-27-14: Reed at his desk

Reed: I think the Ministry is very

committed to Native Studies. They keep

making agreements with First Nations,

Métis and Inuit peoples. They keep pushing

Boards and encouraging Boards to follow

through with those commitments and I

know that Boards are working very hard. I

think we’ve reached a tipping point and that

we will have more energy moving forward.

Reed seated at the desk

Narrator: Reed’s claim that Native Studies

courses are here to stay is corroborated by

data released by the Ministry of Education.

00-00-27-34: Dissolve to kids in class.

00-00-27-46: Graph Title: Frequency of

Course Offerings by Grade (2006-2010)

63

Narrator: From 1999 to 2010 the

frequency of course offerings in Ontario

high schools jumped from virtually zero to

478.

The Frequency of Course Offerings by

Grade shows a significant increase in Grade

Eleven.

The Number of Schools Offering Courses

increased to 267.

The Number of School Boards Offering

Native Studies Courses increased from

eleven to 55.

00-00-27-58: Graph Title: Number of

Native Studies Courses Offered by School

Year (1999-2010)

00-00-28-07: Graph Title: Number of

Schools Offering Courses by School Year

(1999-2010)

00-00-28-15: Graph Title: School

Boards Offering Native Studies Courses

By Year (1999-2010)

00-00-28-19: Shot of school bus door

opening

Reed: The Ministry has only recently

started publishing data to reflect how First

Nations, Métis, and Inuit students are doing

in Ontario. Those numbers keep going up

and hence provide us with increasing

amounts of information.

00-00-28-27: Shot of Reed at his desk

Reed: I think that Boards are working very

hard, but it takes time. We’re still, on some

level, building awareness among teachers

and staff.

Gloria: It’s only now that the teachers are

feeling confident about teaching Native

Studies and Native Languages. And that’s

00-00-28-48: Shot of Gloria in the

Community Circle

Subtitle: Gloria Thomas

64

been since 2000. It’s been like fifteen years

so it gives you an idea what Keith and Peter

are talking about – about time and

development and what it takes to educate

our kids, especially in our area. You can’t

just write it and all of a sudden it’s going to

happen – so it does take time. FADE

Narrator: The Ministry numbers tell us

one story. But what about the experiences of

community members back at Six Nations?

00-00-29-23: GoPro shot of Community

Circle

Audio: Birdcalls Fade to black.

Title: Multi-Generational Influence:

Living in Two Worlds

Green shoots rise from the bottom.

Narrator: To find out, we set up a

Community Circle at Ohsweken and invited

Keith, Gloria, and Peter to share some

stories with interested community members.

The small Circle listened and shared, and

their reactions were filmed. I wanted to

learn more about the impact of these three

individuals – and that of the Native Studies

and Native Language curricula that they had

been instrumental in creating.

00-00-28-41: GREAT sign

00-00-29-46: Keith, Gloria, and Peter

enter boardroom.

00-00-29-54: Go Pro shot of

Community Circle

Deneen: Sego. My name is Deneen

Montour. I’m Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan.

I’m a teacher uhm I know all three: Peter,

Gloria, and Keith. They’ve all played pretty

important roles in my life. Peter was my

high school English teacher and also a

00-00-30-06: Medium shot of Deneen in

Community Circle

65

mentor. He was the one that encouraged me

to take my Masters of Education, which I

now have, Peter…ha ha! Gloria has always

been a family friend and always very

encouraging as well in any of the

undertakings that I take. And Keith was

very instrumental for me to get into

Teacher’s College when I was at the

University of Western Ontario. I also

worked with him at the Ministry on a

number of projects. So I know all three of

them

Lester: Sego (speaks in Mohawk) 00-00-31-06: Medium shot of Lester in

Community Circle

Lester Green: My name is Lester Green of

the Oneida Nation, Bear Clan.

Laurie Powless: Speaks Native Language 00-00-31-06: Medium shot of Laurie in

Community Circle

Subtitle: My name is Laurie Powless and

I’m a teacher on Six Nations and I don’t

know Peter or Keith but I’ve seen Gloria

around in the community.

Artie Martin: Speaks Native Language 00-00-31-35: Medium shot of Artie in

Community Circle

Subtitle: My name is Artie Martin. I’m

Mohawk, Turtle Clan and I don’t know

Peter but I know Gloria a little bit.

Sylvia Bero: So I’m very honoured to be

here, to meet you, to be able to tell my

00-00-32-00: Long shot of Sylvia in

Circle

66

children that there are people that have

worked hard to get us to where we are now

today.

Subtitle: Sylvia Bero, Mohawk, Wolf

Clan

Subtitle: all her narrative

Adam Freeman Sego – in the Native

Language

00-00-32-14: Medium shot of Adam in

Community Circle

Subtitle: Hello my name is Adam

Freeman (Rhohadeo), Bear Clan of the

Mohawk Nation.

Jane-Leigh Jamieson: Hi. My Name is

Jane-Leigh and I am thirteen and I’m in

Grade Eight and I go to Gaweni:yo Private

Immersion School. I don’t know who Peter

is or Gloria but I would like to. So when I

go to high school I want to be able to have

the option of learning my language and in

university as well.

00-00-32-34: Medium shot of Jane-Leigh

in Community Circle

Subtitle: Jane-Leigh Jamieson

Narrator: Hailey Thomas, who majored in

First Nations Studies at Western University,

is planning a career as a Native Studies

teacher. Despite being Gloria’s

granddaughter she’s only now become

aware of how Gloria’s, Keith’s, and Peter’s

accomplishments have made her career in

Native Studies possible.

00-00-33-10: Photograph of Hailey 1

00-00-33-17: Hailey in Community Circle

00-00-33-23: Another angle on Hailey in

the Community Circle

Hailey: I’m actually mind blown hearing all

these stories about Keith (Peter – ‘Yeah but

realize we are 104.’) Like I said I’m mind

blown. I had no idea that all this went on

behind the scenes.

Same shot continues as she speaks.

Narrator: In Grade Eleven she had the Same shot continues.

67

opportunity to assist her Native Studies

teacher.

Hailey: But what really struck me was that

she was non-Native; she was a non-Native

teacher teaching Native students. So that’s

always stuck with me.

Same shot continues.

Narrator: Attending Native Studies classes

significantly influenced her decision to

become a Native Studies teacher.

00-00-34-06: Hailey – Graduation

photograph

Hailey: Going to a school even off-reserve

and learning about it when I have it back

home right. To be able to do that – like both

at the same time – walking in two worlds –

like having an education and still going to

the longhouse and knowing who you are

and carrying that with you. For sure, for

sure.

00-00-34-15: Hailey in Community Circle

Gloria: I remember my parents used to

always talk about ahhh experience, their

experience – living in two worlds – their

experience you know in the Great Law

actually, what certain things meant. You

know, you just kind of grew up around that.

I think that’s what happened with Hailey.

00-00-33-10: Gloria in boardroom

Subtitle: Gloria Thomas

Gloria: It was about the culture, the

ceremonies; Native Studies.

Lester Green: And hearing the stories of

Keith and Peter as well and taking those

steps to make sure that that’s going to be

taught within the curriculum is planting that

00-00-35-04: Lester in Community Circle.

Subtitle: Shot of Lester Green

68

seed like you said to make sure. They may

not understand at that time but as they grow

older, that seed is going to grow into a

sapling, or a shrub, or a tree that eventually

over time it’ll be strong, full of

sustenance… these two gentlemen here

helped introduce that back into society

where I can see the effect now with my

daughter. She’s taking the Oneida language

in London. My son is going through law

school. He’s learning the language. He’s

learning the ceremonies. It’s a stepping-

stone and a great push in the right direction

and now I can start to see the residual

effects. Everything that was lost is gonna be

gained back.

Narrator: The findings from my Master’s

thesis were not well known in the Six

Nations Community – or elsewhere for that

matter.

00-00-35-47: Dissolve to pan of

Community Circle.

Keith: It certainly was very much an

education… You know for everybody.

Because it was a story that hasn’t been

told… hadn’t been told. Hasn’t been told…

just that whole lack of awareness.

00-00-35-55: Keith in the boardroom

Bring in Six Nations music.

Narrator: Although Ministry data tells a

story of increased community control over

education during the last 40 years, a

community’s resurgence can’t be measured

Various shots of community

69

at the provincial level – it has to be

discovered by actually going into the

community and asking people how they

feel.

Artie Martin: This is how I feel (shakes

hands with Keith then crosses over to shake

hands with Peter – Big laughter) Niawen.

(Thank you.)

Shot of Artie shaking hands with Keith

then crossing the Circle to Peter.

Subtitle: This is how I feel… Nia:wen.

Peter: “You may use one knee only.”

(More big laughter)

Shot of Peter

Lester Green: I think I’m going to have to

follow suit with ahh what Marty was saying

in thanking you two because you guys are

pioneers of leading the way; you know, the

trail blazers leading the way for that sort of

education in the school systems today.

Stay on Artie after he sits down and cut to

Lester without going to Peter. Lester’s

voice is heard over the shot of Artie.

Lester refers to Artie at the top of his

comment.

Narrator: The careers of Keith Lickers,

Peter Hill, and Gloria Thomas have

contributed to putting control over

Indigenous education back into Indigenous

hands.

The generations following in their footsteps

are thriving in the rich soil of their

accomplishments -a vibrant cultural

continuity where youth can develop strong

identities with roots tapping into an

imaginable future.

00-00-37-05: Woman walking towards a

school

00-00-37-13: Boy and girl walking in

field

00-00-37-18: Roots, rich soil

00-00-37-24: Plant sprouting and growing

00-00-37-31: Tree roots

00-00-37-42: Go Pro of Community

Circle

00-00-37-51: GREAT exterior and sign

00-00-37-54: Grand River riverbank and

river

Stories are seeds.

Will the stories planted in the Community

00-00-38-02: Gloria and Peter arrive at

GREAT.

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Circle be part of that future?

Through a community-based approach I

have used film to explore planting these

seed stories.

The desolation has made room for new

seeds to grow. Stories must be told because

it is in the telling that they are watered and

in the watering that they grow deep roots.

Seeds, sweet rain, and salty tears replenish

the barren places within and without. Tell

your stories.

00-00-38-14: Heron in the river

00-00-38-18: Boy running with kite

Narrator:

To Keith, Gloria and Peter:

Three generations later

Three Sisters harvest

Fertile fields

Children bearing fruit to (Hailey graduating)

Smiling Elders (Peter, Keith and Gloria)

Whose eyes have seen

Flowering pastures

Once black, now green

Elder hearts that know (Heart beat starts)

Seven generations later

Stories that will feed

Reconnected hearts to

Rhythm of the Mother (Heart beat peaks)

Sister Sun, Moon, Squash

Sister Water, Sky, Beans

Sister Silky Standing Corn

00-00-38-26: Windblown flowers in field

00-00-38-30: Green crop

00-00-38-38: Charred smoky land

00-00-38-40: Lush forest

00-00-38-51: Dramatic cloudy sky and

sun breaking through

00-00-39-03: Fade to black.

71

May the Creator bless you with a bountiful

harvest.

Nia:wen

Six Nations Music Though many First Nations pay the

provinces to provide elementary and

secondary education to their students, Six

Nations remains federal, pending local

control of education for their 1200

elementary students.

They have never abandoned the vision of

having their own high school.

Subtitle: Alton (Al) Bigwin

Picture of Bigwin

Subtitle: Alton Bigwin received the

honorary degree, Doctor of Education,

from Nipissing University, on June 8,

2011.

He worked at the Curriculum Branch with

Keith Lickers from 1974 to 1984 but was

established there prior to Keith's arrival.

Elayne Bigwin, his daughter, successfully

competed for the position as the first

Director of Aboriginal Education Office

(AEO) in August 2006. Elizabeth Bigwin,

her sister, is Education Officer at the

Aboriginal Education Office, in the Barrie

72

Regional office.

Subtitle: Peter Hill

Photo of Peter and his wife Marg

Subtitle: Much of Peter's career from

1970 to 2005 was spent teaching History

and English in secondary schools of the

Grand Erie District School Board where

Six Nations students attend. For three

years in the late ’90s, Peter was employed

by the Ministry of Education in order to

contribute to Native Studies courses. He is

now happily retired with his wife, Marg,

on Six Nations.

Subtitle: Keith Lickers

Images of his degree and of him as a boy

Subtile: Keith Lickers received the

honorary degree, Doctor of Education, on

June 8, 2011 from Nipissing University,

for his long service as senior administrator

in the Ministry of Education. His father,

an early Native lawyer, one of the few in

Ontario at that time, would have been

very proud. Keith and his wife, Phyllis,

are happily retired on Six Nations where

73

Keith loves to ride his big mower.

Subtitle: Dr. Gloria Thomas

Picture of Gloria and Hailey.

Subtitle: Gloria is learning Onondaga and

Cayuga, is committed to her roles as Clan

Mother, Onondaga Deer Clan, and as

Faithkeeper for Longhouse Ceremonies.

She recently established Indigenous

Education Research, a private company,

and is working to publish her dissertation

research as a book entitled: Finding

Tadodaho: An Autoethnology of Healing

Historical Trauma.

Producer, Director, Writer

Paul Chaput

Editor Jon Aarssen

Second Editor Annie Palone

Director of Photography Jon Aarssen

Co-producer Margaret Bentley

Co-producer Jon Aarssen

74

Continuity Margaret Bentley

Archival Photos Margaret Bentley

Thanks to the following members of Six

Nations of the Grand River First

Nation who were part of the

Community Circle:

Sylvia Bero

Andrea Curley

Adam Freeman

Lester Green

Peter Hill

Jane-Leigh Jamieson

Keith Lickers

Artie Martin

Susan Miller

Deneen Montour

Laurie Powless

Gloria Thomas

Hailey Thomas

Thanks to:

The Six Nations of the Grand River

First Nation Research Ethics

Committee

Grand River Employment and

Training

75

The Bear’s Inn, Ohsweken

Special thanks to Andrea Curley

Thanks to the following for their

generosity:

The Social Sciences and Humanities

Research Council

Queen’s University Department of

Geography

Indspire

Queen’s University General Bursary

André Chaput

Thanks and gratitude to all the

members of my Committee from

Queen’s:

Dr. George Lovell, my Academic

Advisor, Dr. Laura Cameron, Dr.

Clarke Mackey, Dr. Brian Osborne,

Professor Emeritus, Dr. Peter Goheen,

Professor Emeritus, and from York

University, Dr. Celia Haig-Brown,

Associated Dean of Research and

Professional Learning at York's

Faculty of Education

Special thanks to my partner in life,

Margaret Bentley, for her unwavering

love and support.

76

© Copyright Paul J. A. Chaput 2015

Video sources

Image and Video Credits (in order of

appearance):

• “Canada Lands Map,” Source:

Government of Canada, Department of Natural Resources Canada, Geomatics Canada, Geo Access Division, 1992.

• “Haldimand Tract,” Source: Published March 29, 2011 in “Active History on the Grand: We Are All Treaty People, Retrieved from: www.activehistory.ca.

• “John Guy and the Beothuk People,” Source: Government of Canada, Collections Canada, Engraving by Theodore de Bry or Matthaus Merian, circa 1627-28.

• “Fort Albany Indigenous Class and Nun,” Source: the Edmund Metatawabin collection at the University of Algoma. Fort Albany, St. Anne’s Indian Residential School, 1945.

• “Residential School Students Exterior,” Source: available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number: PA-182250. St. Paul’s Indian Industrial School, Middlechurch, Manitoba, 1901.

• “Tom Tolino, Navajo, Before and After,” Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. By John N.

77

Choate, 1882. • “Fathers of Confederation,”

Source: available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number: C-000733. By George P. Roberts, 1864.

• “Residential School Video inside T.V.,” Sources: “Sunday,” a video compiled by Shawn Murenbeeld of Touchwood Designs, 2011. And “Education Week Salute” by CBC Television, Moose Factory, Ontario, 1955.

• “School and Indigenous Dwellings,” Source: available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number: PA-182246. Qu’Appelle Indian Industrial School, Saskatchewan, 1885.

• “Six Nations Flag in Front of Parliament,” Source: David Langer, provided under Creative Commons Attribution Licence, published in 2012.

• “Modern Shots of Community Mob,” Source: David Langer, provided under Creative Commons Attribution Licence, originally published Dec 24, 2012.

• “Footage of Alton Bigwin,” Source: “HDR Alton Bigwin,” by Nipissing University, 2011.

• “Fort Albany Class and Nuns + Priest,” Source: the Edmund Metatawabin collection at the University of Algoma. Fort Albany, St. Anne’s Indian

78

Residential School, 1945. • “Buffy St. Marie Standing with

Guitar,” Source: Nationaal Archeif, Den Haag. Rehearsals for the Grand Gala du Disque, 1968.

• “Buffy St. Marie Sitting with Guitar,” Source: guest appearance on the NBC television program Then Came Bronson, 1970.

• “Footage of Bette Stephenson,” Source: CNW Group. EQAO Launches the Dr. Bette M. Stephenson Recognition of Achievement Program: Celebrates Exceptional School Communities Throughout Ontario.

All other stock video was purchased

from www.VideoBlocks./com.

Subtitle: Nia:wen

79

Chapter 6

Creating the Film

6.1 Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and Performance Pedagogy

In July 2009, I enrolled in a course on Indigenous research methodologies. The designer

and teacher was Gloria Thomas, a Six Nations educator in the last phase of her doctoral

work. Our interactions have since established her as a mentor, teacher, and friend.

Thomas introduced me to Indigenous approaches to research and acquainted me with the

Six Nations narrative that opposes provincial involvement in the education of Six

Nations students. These insights influenced my decision to shift the focus of my MA

research from one in which the province and the federal government held the power to

one in which a resilient, determined Nation tenaciously held to the vision of regaining

control over every aspect of their children’s education. Thomas’s support was critical in

my decision to proceed with a community-based participatory research (CBPR)3

approach in my work with Six Nations.

In anticipation of a summer filming session, on the morning of March 14, 2014,

I decided to contact Keith Lickers and Peter Hill. Before doing so I sent an email to

Gloria Thomas asking her permission to mention to Lickers and Hill that she supported

my doctoral research project. She responded that afternoon “Of course, Paul, let Peter

and Keith know I support your work!” Thomas proposed the theories of Norman Denzin

(2008) as a reference for the film project that I was planning. As earlier stated, Denzin

3 As stated earlier, CBPR is defined, by Castleden, Mulrennan, and Godlewska (2012, 156), as “research undertaken in partnership with Indigenous peoples, communities, and organizations.”

80

(1989, 232) asserts, “Film is simultaneously a means of communication and a method of

inquiry.” Denzin has been a major influence in Thomas’s research. Applying his

approach, she created a short video of the draft of a story she had recently presented at a

doctoral seminar. She attached a copy of her twelve-minute video, Talking Back (Thomas

2014), to her March 14, 2014 response.

As I watched Talking Back, I learned about academic auto-ethnographical

analysis in an audiovisual format, which conveyed more to me in twelve minutes than

any written text could ever have in the same space and time. The combination of

Thomas’s narration, archival photographs, and distant soundtrack of Six Nations

traditional music were riveting. For me, Talking Back is haute cuisine: totally,

delightfully, digestible. The references are woven into the story and their authors take

root as characters in the inner landscapes of the listener’s imagination. Like credits at the

end of a film, authors populate the reference page at the end of the document.

After viewing Talking Back, I responded, “I dream that one day references for the

reporting of Indigenous research findings will include ‘experts’ like the Creator, Coyote,

Raven, and a host of other anonymous sources. Might any of the ‘experts’ that you cite in

your work, Gloria, actually wear a robe or mask? As I see it, anonymity engenders the

multigenerational circularity of 'our' Indigenous storytelling arts and honours the myth-

making prowess of ‘our’ unknown ancestors.”

Thomas found the comment interesting, but had never considered the idea of a

masked anonymous storyteller prior to our discussion. I consider Thomas’s work

Rich seeds for Equatorial fecundity Nestled beneath the

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Generous solar heat of The heart.

The storyteller, by donning the cloak and mask of the performer, becomes

anonymous. Throughout the performance, the storyteller, while peering through the

mask, unseen by the audience, has the option of adapting his or her material in response

to what is happening in the audience – resembling a form of interactivity. As in previous

generations of Indigenous storytelling, while being entertained the audience actually

takes in knowledge – sometimes multi-generational information – and then analyzes it,

just as previous generations have done, in a community context. The storyteller is a

“seeing screen” that responds and adapts to the audience.

In the spring of 2014, Thomas was contemplating conducting post-doctoral

research with Denzin to continue her studies in performance theory rooted in Indigenous

pedagogy. Looking back, my email to Thomas concerning Denzin on April 9, 2014,

proved to have more than a touch of prescience. “I love Denzin!” I wrote. “It is so

wonderful to find people [like him],” I wrote, “[scholars] who have ploughed the field,

planted the seeds, tended the crops, and left the harvest to those lucky enough to follow

in their footsteps.” The email celebrates the dedication of educators like Denzin,

Lickers, Hill, and Thomas to the Indigenous cause.

In the same message I cited an apt extract from Denzin (2003, 14), the first part

of which he attributes to Henry A. Giroux:

As pedagogical practices, performances make sites of oppression visible. In the process, they reaffirm an oppositional politics that reasserts the value of self-determination and mutual solidarity. This pedagogy of hope rescues radical democracy from the conservative politics of neoliberalism (Giroux 2001, 115). A militant Utopianism offers a new language of

82

resistance in the public and private spheres. Thus, performance pedagogy energizes a radical participatory democratic vision for this new century. Denzin’s combining of performance pedagogy and participatory democracy goes

to the heart of CBPR. Because performance pedagogy also contributes to the reassertion

of the value of self-determination, it serves to deepen the match with CBPR. The

appealing blend of performance pedagogy and the democracy of CBPR intrigued us both.

Visions of “mutual solidarity” between researcher and community were evoked as we

discussed using film to report my MA findings back to her Six Nations community.

According to Thomas, as iterated to me in a communication dated March 14,

2014, there is “no better scholar than Denzin to dismantle, deconstruct, and decolonize

Western epistemologies.” Denzin (2008, 11), referring to his methods as “indigenist,”

posits “underlying each indigenist formation is a commitment to moral praxis, to issues

of self-determination, empowerment, healing, love, community solidarity, respect for the

earth and respect for elders.” For Denzin (2008, 12), drawing on the foreword by L.M.

Findlay in Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, his commitment extends to support

for a “critical indigenist pedagogy [that] contests the complicity of the modern university

with neocolonial forces.”

Inspired by my discussions with Thomas, I redoubled my efforts on all fronts in

order to commence my fieldwork in a timely fashion. I passed my qualifying exam in

May 2014; negotiated a working agreement with Jon Aarssen to be my videographer;

renewed my Queen’s University General Research Ethics Board (GREB) application (see

Appendix B); and submitted my application to the Six Nations Ethics Committee. The

Six Nations’ inquiry is even more rigorous than Queen’s University’s GREB scrutiny but

83

the administration of it proved quite efficient. On July 4, 2014, I emailed a PDF of my

completed application to Marilyn Mt. Pleasant, Education Administrative Assistant and

Insurance Representative at Ohsweken, Six Nations. Mt. Pleasant submitted the

application to the Six Nations Ethics Committee on July 15, 2014. The Six Nations

Ethics Committee meets once each month. Within a week I received a letter of

confirmation (see Appendix C – Six Nations Ethics Approval).

At the heart of the Six Nations Ethics Committee’s research policy is the

protection of Indigenous knowledge. Much like the operative principles of CBPR, the

fundamental position of the Six Nations Ethics Committee is that research is to be carried

out with consideration of mutual respect, understanding, and trust foremost in mind.

With the research proposal approved, and the ethics approvals in place, filming and

interviewing could now begin on Six Nations territory. I moved into action quickly.

For the filming of the Community Circle, conducted in September 2014, and the

undertaking of interviews, participants were required to read a Letter of Information

(LOI) outlining my research objectives (see Appendix D – Letter of Information). Those

who wished to be part of the film then were required to sign the Consent and Release

forms (see Appendix E – Consent and Release Forms). These gave me permission to

create a film using their images and voices.

On July 28, 2014, I emailed Gloria Thomas. I attached a Letter of Intent, a

Questionnaire, a Consent Form, and a Documentary Release Form. I asked her to contact

me after reviewing and signing the documents so that we could begin coordinating the

logistics of personal interviews with herself, Peter Hill, and Keith Lickers, along with a

public session with the community.

84

On August 5, 2014, I followed up with a more detailed proposal for Thomas’s and

Lickers’s consideration. All communication with Hill was conducted over the telephone

or through Canada Post. I proposed the two-week period beginning August 18, 2014, for

filming interviews and collecting archival materials. If we were to start on Monday,

August 18, 2014, it would give us a tight but manageable window within which to film

interviews and collect archival materials – photos, videos, and other memorabilia – of the

trio’s past involvement with the creation of the Native Studies curricula, and their various

roles as members and representatives of Six Nations.

The schedule delineated four sessions: (i) filming a 30 to 60 minute conversation

amongst Hill, Thomas, Lickers, and myself discussing the goal of the project, as well as

the engagement of other interested members of Six Nations; (ii) filming a conversation

amongst the key players discussing their roles in the creation and implementation of the

Native Studies curricula for high schools in Ontario; (iii) filming three 45-minute

interviews and recording relevant archival material; (iv) filming a public meeting with

Lickers, Thomas, Hill, and other members of the community.

Thomas was available during the week beginning September 15, 2014, and

agreed to cooperate around others’ schedules in that time frame. Lickers confirmed his

availability for the same week. Much to my relief, Hill agreed to an interview scheduled

for August 25, 2014, at 10 AM. We were anxious to embark on the filming. We had

arrived early afternoon at the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve, in time to capture

establishing shots in prime evening light.

After breakfast the next morning, I called Hill to confirm our interview at his

home. To my disappointment, he told me he was no longer interested in being filmed.

85

Serendipitously, Andrea Curley, who I had met and interviewed at the 2004 International

Indigenous Elders’ Summit at Ohsweken, agreed to a face to face interview and became

our first official interviewee.

Our return home was somewhat precipitous – we had imagined a longer stay with

more filming opportunities. We did, however, manage to get good establishing shots, a

first face-to-face interview, and another lesson: when conducting fieldwork, expect the

unexpected.

I learned that a very long “heads-up” time frame, besides careful planning well

ahead of time, is the only way to get participants lined up. Finding a convenient time for

the three subjects to meet together, along with interested community members, had

become a major challenge.

6.2 Implementing Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)

In the spirit of CBPR, rather than beginning by tabling my scenarios as originally

outlined in my PhD proposal, I suggested creating a forum that would encourage input

from participating members of the community. I wanted above all an authentic

community voice, a contribution that was not unduly influenced by my academic

aspirations. What came to mind was the traditional Indigenous learning format, the

Circle. For Six Nations, the Circle is a sacred configuration. It naturally favours a more

egalitarian power relation than does the front-of-the-class teacher configuration. Having

decided to attempt this approach, one of my first concerns was setting up a process for

selecting participants, with my preferential biases entering the process minimally.

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Adhering to the principles of CBPR, I sought to co-create a community-driven

process. Although I was not sure how that might be achieved, in keeping with the

methodological approach outlined in my proposal I wanted to film a meeting at which

members of the Six Nations’ communities could voice their concerns and suggestions.

The more I focused on the desired outcome, the clearer it became that I should film a

small gathering of community members. These members would ideally be involved in

some facet of education and share an interest and involvement in education. This

demographic would probably mean contact with Lickers, Thomas, and Hill; they would

very likely be interested in participating or contributing to the process. Furthermore, they

were the ones I reckoned would be the most conversant with the current Native Studies

curricula and the roles each had played in their creation. However, there was no

guarantee as to how their involvement would work out.

Battiste (2011, ix) contends that when critical thinking is removed from the

equation throughout the planning process, it could work “against the development and

maintenance of meaningful, accountable, and non-extractive relations with Indigenous

communities.” In spite of careful preparation, concerns that have been identified by De

Leeuw, Cameron, and Greenwood (2012) were apparent in the course of my efforts to

organize this project. The first was “wanting to be seen as good” which is a strong trait of

mine. I was hoping to be perceived – as a friend – as “being good.” As the project moved

forward, and it was apparent that relationships with the protagonists were healthy ones, I

overcame that potential problem and moved forward to dealing with the task at hand. The

second concern regarding “extractive motives” on the part of the researcher I found was

not realistic because the entire process is extractive. I resolved that concern in my

87

opening remarks to the Circle. I explained, “I took from this community certain

information … The metaphor is like somebody coming in and taking gold from your land

and going off and enriching theirs lives with it but not giving back” (Chaput, 2014).

The goal of my PhD is to contribute to rectifying such one-sided behaviour by

returning data to the community from which it was taken. Of concern to me is that what

is extracted from communities is rarely returned in an adequate manner. Ideally, the

community would have some control in generating the research and through that process

the findings would be aligned with the long-term vision of the community itself. The

person who chooses the research topic is the one who speaks to the issue and the one, by

definition, who exercises power, or control. If that control lies outside the community,

the research can potentially become an imposition on the community. Research topics

and researchers must go through an approval process led by the community or a

representative of the community. In my case, it was the Ethics Review Board of the Six

Nations. I had no option but to trust that the steps I had undertaken met satisfactorily my

stated goals, CBPR procedures and First Nations’ protocols.

Kirmayer and Valaskakis (2009, 28) contend that “the health of the community

appears to be linked to the sense of local control and cultural continuity.” Chandler and

Lalonde (2004, 7) concur: “Knowledge invented elsewhere and rudely transplanted root

and branch in someone else’s back yard is often and rightly understood to be a weapon

wielded by those who have it, against those who must suffer it.” It is crucial for the

health of Indigenous communities that they exercise control over their knowledge and

their lives. Members of many Indigenous communities who have been institutionalized in

88

residential schools have had the scope of their decision-making greatly diminished along

with their access to community-based knowledge and traditions.

On the other hand, there are unsung heroes in Indigenous communities whose stories

serve to elevate the mythic content of narratives and revitalize community consciousness.

My goal, in this instance, is to generate discussion. Using film, I wanted to raise

the awareness of contributions to education made by Lickers, Thomas, and Hill – to tell

each person’s story and highlight his or her contribution to education in order to enhance

community awareness. With these energizing accounts will come clarification of Six

Nations’ educational goals. Sharing good news and enlightening many who are unaware I

believe serves to invigorate the community and encourage a heightened focus on control

of education.

As indicated before, Chandler and Lalonde’s research (1998) demonstrates that

when cultural continuity factors are present, language being one of them and notably in

communities where over 50 per cent of the members are Native speakers, the suicide rate

was consistently zero. Language proved to be a consistent predictor of community health

along with other factors including self-government, settled land claims or engagement in

meaningful negotiations, and control over education. Particularly important for my

research is curricular content pertaining to issues of Indigenous culture and history.

As it turns out, following the retirement of Alton Bigwin in 1985, Keith Lickers

was the only Native representative in the Ontario Department of Education. Lickers was

creative and innovative throughout his career at the Ministry. He applied himself

assiduously to the task of increasing control by Native peoples over the education of their

children. Given that Indigenous students were forced to attend off-reserve provincial

89

schools, especially high schools, Lickers’s focus on the development and implementation

of Native Studies was strategic. Indigenous control over portions of the curricular content

is a proven cultural continuity factor that supports the health and wellness of the

community and its members (Chandler and Lalonde 2008). Having a choice is at the core

of resilience and resistance. Choices precipitate health and vitality in their wake. They

defy the robotic numbness commonly associated with the controlled environments of

institutions like residential schools.

The ability to influence or make choices at both the personal and community

levels is the essential difference between cultural assimilation and resurgence. In view of

that, and particularly regarding research in Native communities, the question remained:

Who makes the decisions concerning content and style of the “research story” to be

presented to the community? Through collaboration, the research becomes a shared

vision and not just that of the researcher. Thus adequate compliance to the principles of

CBPR requires rigor.

I repeatedly reviewed my positionality. Take, for example, the selection of

establishing shots for the opening of the film: I made the decision regarding those shots,

in consultation with my videographer. Due to time constraints and the availability of the

three main interviewees, we filmed the Six Nations reserve signage, landscape, and

architecture before any interviews were filmed. What was guiding my selection and what

was guiding the videographer’s framing choices? We did not include the community in

those decisions since the already slow progress would have been magnified. I wondered

if that should have been a community decision but then realized that when the airing of

90

the film to the community occurred, each had the right to change or delete any part of the

content. That seemed sufficient in the moment.

What is selected from the unlimited palette of reality later becomes the limited

filmic palette. If well chosen, the colours of the limited palette – in this case establishing

shots – will not pose a problem for the editing phase. However, if the video of the

establishing shots is inadequate for the demands of the introductory sequence or the

interviews, we would have to go back and reshoot. In our case, the “talking heads” rough

cut had too much emphasis on protagonists on screen holding forth. Professor Clarke

Mackey suggested that we should aim at more showing and less telling: his rule of

thumb, he indicated, was 85 per cent showing and 15 per cent telling. My rough cut had

more or less the reverse ratio. We knew more B-roll (filler shots) was required but we

were not anticipating such notable imbalance. We needed to create a lot more film and

visuals and it had to be undertaken in short order. That seemed the best procedure to

follow in order to create the desired final product.

As director, I had to make decisions based on a limited grasp of what the

fieldwork would eventually provide me. This immediately raised a red flag. The

imagined audience that I sought to address influenced my reporting style, as well as

content, music, pace, and language. Although it seemed initially like a very simple

concept and style of research, CBPR, largely due to definition and required parameters,

in actual practice proved rather complex. Nevertheless, I was determined to move

forward and work through the process to create a product that would be acceptable to the

Six Nations community, one with which my videographer and I would be satisfied. We

proceeded cautiously but optimistically.

91

I wanted to contrast the open lush riversides at the heart of the reserve with the

intense modernity of downtown Toronto. Lickers made this transition twice daily for

more than three decades. It was important to me to point out some of the historical

context that produced the Six Nations Territory. In compensation for fighting alongside

the British in the American War of Independence (1776), Governor General Haldimand

purchased 950,000 acres from the Mississaugas of the New Credit and deeded it in

perpetuity to the Six Nations. The Six Nations reserve today is a mere four per cent of the

original tract that once included all the land six miles on either side of the Grand River

from source to mouth. Hence the presence of the river and the bridges that cross it lie at

the heart of Six Nations life.

In part, I invoke the adaptive right of the storyteller. There may be others in the

community more skilled at storytelling than I. While it would be a pleasure to collaborate

with them, it is not likely to take place given that the editing suite is a four-hour drive

from the reserve. In any case, no one ever offered storytelling skills to help bring the

stories in my MA thesis back to the community. I proceeded with the mission of planting

the story in hopes of feeding the community.

Of the dozen community participants in the introductory Circle, half used the

Mohawk language to introduce themselves. That, to me, was most heartening, especially

so in view of Chandler and Lalonde’s (1998) research on retention of language. In

addition, five participants mentioned their clan name – two Bear Clan members, two

Turtle Clan members, and one Wolf Clan member. This is a meaningful cultural element

of the story as explained in the following text from a Haudenosaunee Confederacy

website (2014):

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Among the Haudenosaunee are groups of people who come together as families called clans. As a matrilineal society, each clan is linked by a common female ancestor, with women possessing a leadership role within the clan. The number of clans varies among the nations with the Mohawk only having three to the Oneida having eight. The clans are represented by birds and animals and are divided into the three elements: water, land and air. The bear, wolf and deer represent the land element, the turtle, eel and beaver represent the water element and the snipe, hawk and heron represent the air element.

Gloria Thomas, a central figure in this film, is a Clan Mother of the Deer Clan of the

Onondaga. Each member of a clan is considered a relative, regardless of which nation

they belong to. A Wolf Clan member of the Mohawk Nation and a Wolf Clan member of

the Seneca Nation are considered relatives. Family names and clans are passed down

from mother to child. For example, if a man belonging to the Turtle Clan were to marry a

woman of the Wolf Clan, their children would be of the Wolf Clan.

In Haudenosaunee society, each person has his or her own family, including

mother, father, brothers, and sisters. But with this comes the extended family including

everyone else belonging to the same clan. This system proved practical as well as

helpful: when traveling from Nation to Nation, people would search out members of the

same clan who would then would provide food and shelter and care for them. Because

people of the same clan are considered family, marriages between members of the same

clan are forbidden. However, within certain clans there may also be different types of one

animal or bird. For example, the Turtle Clan has three different types of turtles, the Wolf

Clan has three different types of wolves, and the Bear Clan includes three different types

of bears, allowing for marriage within the clan as long as each belongs to a different

species of the clan. The clan system still survives among those who follow the traditions.

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Within the Circle of contributors, I consistently witnessed pride in their culture,

language, and way of being. Although not all spoke their Native language, most made a

reference to their language and their deep commitment to its retention. There was a

certain dignity and pride that each felt in using his or her Native language. This

continued as they translated so that all could understand their meaning.

Since the overriding majority of attendees voiced the high priority of language, I

decided to adjust the content of the film to include the Circle introductions where

participants were speaking in their Native language. This became especially important

when I imagined that, in the final analysis, the audience to whom I was reporting through

use of my film would be, by definition, the Six Nations community – the very people in

the Circle. Reflecting on the preponderance of issues around retention and/or

continuation of language, I wondered how much of that information I should use in the

script and ultimately how my final product, the film, would affect future generations.

Allowing others in the community to experience and understand the vast amount of

community effort that had gone into improving their future as a Nation was becoming

more important to me. Although it was somewhat complicated, it demonstrated just how

important the Circle was for collecting and receiving relevant data.

The job at hand was to explain or demonstrate how film can raise awareness of

the importance of local control with regard to the retention of culture and language.

What Chandler and Lalonde revealed in their research, namely that with control comes

health, was precisely what I was witnessing at Six Nations. I felt that the film was

beginning to gel and we were moving in the right direction. Above all, I was firmly

convinced that adopting CBPR procedures was going to reap rewards.

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Shooting film is a process that requires a great deal of equipment and know-how.

We went to Six Nations on two separate occasions to film location photos and interview

protagonists. Since technologies for filming and editing constantly evolve, the list of

equipment used by videographer Aarssen is “state of the art” only in relation to the

summer and fall of 2014. Aarssen provided a full inventory of all equipment that he

assembled for trips to Six Nations and Toronto (see Appendix F – Inventory) as well as

furnishing further insights and notes (see Appendix G – Videographer’s Notes) – into the

collaborative experience.

6.2.1 Community Circle Participants

Including Keith Lickers, Peter Hill, and Gloria Thomas, there were twelve participants in

the Community Circle. The twelve members were contacts known to Thomas and Andrea

Curley. My emails to both, leading up to and upon our arrival at Six Nations on Monday,

September 15, 2014, were filled with surprises and last-minute adjustments.

I explained to Thomas and Curley, as co-organizers, that my idea was to film

Lickers, Hill, and Thomas herself in conversation with members of the community in a

Community Circle. The footage would be used to create a film that would be screened to

the community. A few days before the planned community meeting, Thomas and Curley

sent out emails to contacts who they felt would be interested. Curley was confident that

she could count on at least six attendees. Because of Hill’s health concerns, I had not

expected him to be a participant, but at the last moment, Thomas called him and offered

to pick him up and drive him to the Circle. Their long and trusted association was all the

leverage that Hill needed to agree to participate and be filmed. On her own initiative,

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Thomas sent the following email – to which she attached a PDF of my MA thesis – to a

small list of contacts she felt would be interested in attending the Circle.

Sent Sunday, September 14, 2014, at 10:30 P.M., Thomas wrote:

Hi all! So sorry this message is late. Paul Chaput is a PhD student at Queen’s University. His MA thesis concerns Six Nations in Secondary Education Reform, especially development of Native Studies & Native Languages courses. For the MA thesis, Paul interviewed Keith Lickers, Peter Hill and myself concerning our admin & curriculum development roles in Secondary Reform. Paul, an NFB filmmaker, is now setting his MA thesis to film, which is his PhD research topic/project; so the film will be about our community. He is interested in filming your thoughts & contributions concerning education for our students, i.e. Hodinohso:ni: voice & vision in programs, support, student success, and new progress & positions since Secondary Reform. On Paul’s behalf, I am inviting you to be part of a community meeting tmrw evening, Monday, Sept 15 at 6:30. The location is Two Arrows Restaurant, 700 Chiefswood Road. Keith, Peter & I will be at the meeting & I sincerely hope you’ll decide to attend and be a part of this film; a little bit of history about education and us!! Nyaweh, Gloria.

On Monday, September 15, 2014, three hours before the meeting, Thomas sent

another email notifying everyone of the last-minute change of venue from the Two

Arrows Restaurant, just outside of Ohsweken, to the Grand River Employment and

Training (GREAT) theatre in the heart of Ohsweken. This was to prove a fortuitous and

fitting change of venue. Thomas wrote:

Hi again: I’m resending this email without Paul’s thesis. Pls see note below. Some people did not receive this msg… The meeting has moved to the GREAT theatre in Ohsweken at 6:30 pm.

Two doors are open. Straight ahead from 1st parking lot and side

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door around the corner of building. Hope to see you there!!! At 6:30 P.M. participants began arriving. Each of the participants was required to

sign two documents affording me permission to use film footage of them: this procedure

took longer than anticipated. I had hoped to film each one as they came in and have them

answer the question: “Do you know Keith, Gloria or Peter?” Aarssen was so occupied

setting up sound and lighting for a Circle shoot that we decided to pass on the idea.

Instead I decided to ask each participant as they introduced themselves to tell us if they

knew or were acquainted with the three main protagonists (see Table 1).

Table 1: How Many Knew Keith Lickers, Peter Hill and Gloria Thomas?

Participant Knew Keith Lickers

Knew Gloria Thomas

Knew Peter Hill

S. Miller No Yes Yes H. Thomas No Yes No L. Green No No No L. Powless No Yes No A. Martin No Yes No S. Bero No Yes No J-L Jamieson No No No A. Freeman No Yes No D. Montour Yes Yes Yes TOTALS 1 7 2

6.3 Introductions

By 7:30 P.M. the participants had seated themselves in the Circle, which was adjusted as

people arrived. I explained the purpose of the meeting and invited Suzie Miller to start

introductions. She began, “My name is Suzie Miller, Native Studies teacher for First

Nations, Métis, and Inuit with the Grand Erie Board. I know Peter Hill. He taught me in

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secondary school. He was a lot of fun. And Gloria – just from my mother’s

neighbourhood… I don’t know Mr. Lickers.” I include Miller’s introduction as an

example of what was said in the opening round. The audio for her introduction, alas, was

particularly weak and so was not included in the film. It took approximately half an hour

for the opening round of introductions to run its course.

At the conclusion of the participants’ personal introductions, I introduced myself

and spoke to the purpose of the Community Circle. I then invited Lickers to speak about

his experiences with Native Studies. Lickers spoke at length of the first part of his career

in education as a public school teacher and then as the director of the Woodland Cultural

Centre. He also discussed the first decade at the Curriculum Branch of the Ontario

Ministry of Education. It was the turn of Hill and Thomas next, followed by comments

and stories from most other participants. The two-hour session was marked by mutual

respect and eloquent articulation of thoughts.

In keeping with the spirit of CBPR, the capacity of a Circle to moderate the

dynamics of power makes it an ideal tool for meetings and discussions. Jane-Leigh

Jamieson, the youngest participant was heard with the same deference and attention

given to those who spoke before and after her. She informed the Circle that she was

thirteen years of age, voicing with clarity and conviction her desires concerning her

future cultural and educational goals:

I’m in Grade Eight and I go to Kawenní:io Private School. I don’t know who Peter is or Gloria but I would like to. So when I go to high school I want to be able to have the option of learning my language and in university as well.

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The introductory comments reflect a strong commitment to language, culture, and

ceremony, which bodes well for cultural continuity. If the voices of this gathering are

representative of the wider community, there is, indeed, great hope for the future of the

Six Nations culture.

Hailey Thomas, Gloria’s granddaughter, who had introduced herself earlier,

commented as follows: “I’m a student at Western University in First Nations Studies

Program. I don’t know Keith or Peter but Gloria’s my grandmother.” Sylvia Bero

proudly introduced herself as “Katehraien, Mohawk, Wolf Clan.” She did not know

Lickers, but was aware of his work:

I think I’ve read a lot of your stuff. I think I even have some of your work in my home. As you were talking, it brought back a lot of the stuff that…I’ve been trying to teach my children and get them to understand about education… So, I’m very honoured to be here, to meet you, to be able to tell my children that there are people that have worked hard to get us to where we are now today.

The passing on of such stories to coming generations speaks to the very purpose

of Planting Stories, Feeding Communities. Next to being present to experience the

palpable electricity emanating from the participants as they spoke of their language and

culture, film is a viable proxy. The young men in the Community Circle attest to that.

Near the end of the discussion, I asked how the participants felt about what had been

conveyed thus far:

I’d just like to hear your comments about your reactions to learning a bit about what they’ve been involved in, how you see that and where you put that in terms of valuing that as a community story. It is the story I want to tell. I just want to know how people are feeling about that.

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The reaction was immediate. Arty Martin, seated to the right of Lickers, rose from

his seat enthusiastically addressing the whole Circle. “This is how I feel,” he said,

extending his hand to shake Lickers’s. Martin then crossed the circle to shake hands with

Hill, amidst great laughter punctuated by “Nia:wen” (“thank you” in Mohawk).

Martin was not alone in his gratitude. Within moments Lester Green, seated to the

right of Lickers, spoke up: “I think I’m going to have to follow suit with what Marty was

saying in thanking you two, because you guys are pioneers of leading the way. You

know, the trail blazers leading the way for that sort of education in the school systems

today.”

When Green refers to “that sort of education,” he means a Western “sort of

education.” During a passionate outpouring of deeply felt insights, he expressed a

yearning, common to many Indigenous people, to return to traditional Indigenous

pedagogical approaches. Although he is grateful for the accomplishments of Lickers, Hill,

and Thomas, in the realm of Western education it remains that Six Nations students are

still obliged to leave their communities to participate in the Ontario Provincial system.

For Green, the vision of “Indian control over Indian education” would (in his words) “see

none of those programs in the school one day, because our children will already know

that.”

By the end of the Community Circle, I sensed that the sharing had a notable

impact on the twelve participants. Not one person, I believe, left the meeting without

having expressed a sincere commitment to the recovery of their Six Nations language and

culture (see Table 2). The footage from that evening would serve well as a record in their

historical archives, even in raw unedited form. There was now the promise that Lickers’s

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little-known achievements could provide inspiration to current and future generations of

Six Nations’ peoples interested in practicing their language and culture. As Green

commented in the Community Circle: “They may not understand at that time but as they

grow older, that seed is going to grow into a sapling, or a shrub, or a tree that eventually

over time it’ll be strong, full of sustenance.”

Table 2: Community Circle Participants’ Use of Clan, Language, and Nation Participant Stated Clan Used Language Stated Nation S. Miller No No No H. Thomas No No No L. Green Bear Yes Oneida L. Powless No Yes No A. Martin Turtle Yes Mohawk S. Bero Wolf Yes Mohawk J. Lee No No No A. Freeman Bear Yes Mohawk G. Thomas Deer No Onondaga K. Lickers No No No P. Hill No No No D. Montour Turtle Yes Mohawk TOTALS 6 6 6

As the Circle participants spoke, they demonstrated a strong commitment to the

resurgence of their language and culture, and included Clans and Nations in their

introductions (see Table 2). They spoke of renewing their efforts to learn the language

and practice their ceremonies. Lickers’s story had not only been planted, it had taken

root. There was no doubt that a filmic version of the Community Circle could serve to

nourish the Six Nations culture. How, I wondered, could these packed hours be distilled

into pared-down minutes?

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Chapter 7

Showing the Film

7.1 The Quality of the Film

When time constraints and limited resources reached a head in June 2015, a choice had to

be made between my ongoing concerns about production values in creating a

documentary film and the completion of a program of doctoral research in a timely

fashion. Determining the readiness of the film for screening required the consideration of

whether or not the content adequately conveyed the findings of the MA thesis. In keeping

with the principles of the CBPR approach I had pursued, I felt at this point that input

from the community was required to determine the degree to which the film’s form

would be amenable to a Six Nations audience. In spite of the fact that we were far from

having a final version at hand, I opted to screen the film as a preliminary rough cut.

Hierarchically, my research focus was, first, to explore the ability of film to serve

as a means of “planting stories” in the community of origin; and second, to create a

documentary with good production values. I asked myself constantly, “Is what I have

done adequate and sufficient?” To answer this question and complete the film work in a

reasonable time frame, I needed community input in the form of post-screening feedback.

The questionnaires completed by community members who would attend screenings

were critical to understanding the effectiveness of the film.

The quality of the film was also affected by technical and artistic challenges

throughout the filmmaking process. Jon Aarssen, as editor, worked out of his home using

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his personal editing suite. All proceeded well in assembling the draft script but problems

ensued when rendering the project file. Exporting the film to the convenient, portable

format of a USB key proved a real challenge. It was an unexpected glitch that tested

technical acuity and lateral thinking (de Bono 1969, 159). Although we had experienced

technical problems several times before, Aarssen had hitherto managed to resolve them.

With that assurance in hand, the decision was made to go ahead and book a

screening at the GREAT theatre at Ohsweken on July 21, 2015, for a Six Nations

presentation; at Tyendinaga Public Library on July 22, 2015; and at the Screening Room

in Kingston on July 28, 2015. Press releases were sent out and hand-drawn informational

posters were distributed via email and at each venue (see Appendix I – Poster).

7.1.1 Editing, Logistics, and Preparation

Throughout the editing process, initiated in December 2014, I created draft scripts

drawing from time-coded transcripts of the footage from the Community Circle, the

boardroom interviews, and establishing shots of the Six Nations territory. Jon Aarssen

then assembled the video accordingly and provided feedback concerning the technical

suitability of the film clips I had proposed. Considerations of sound, lighting, and

composition at times rendered some footage inadequate. In those cases I would consult

with Aarssen and make appropriate adjustments. The editing process climaxed in June

2015 as pressure mounted to finalize a satisfactory version of the film for community

viewing.

With dates set and information distributed, Aarssen refined his work with co-

editor Annie Palone, who stepped in at the last minute and made valuable contributions

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that enhanced narrative flow. A concerted effort over the final three weeks ensued.

Round table conferences produced decisions in spite of varying opinions. Photographs

were unearthed. Emails, texts, and phone call after phone call resulted in an abundance of

data being relayed. Plans were drawn. Portions of the script were re-written. Voice-overs

were revisited. Clips were deleted, shortened, lengthened, and re-ordered. There was a

flurry of activity at every turn.

7.2 The Questionnaire and Screening Times

Despite all our efforts, much remained to be attended to as the first screening scheduled

for July 21, 2015 fast approached. Working into the wee small hours became routine.

Aarssen pulled several all-nighters. The file grew as many refinements were made: the

original plan for a 22-minute film ended up with a running time of 45 minutes. Finally,

Planting Stories, Feeding Communities was ready to screen.

Audience members at the July 2015 screenings were required to read the Letter of

Information (Appendix D). They were then given the choice of remaining anonymous or

signing a Consent Form (see Appendix E) permitting me to quote their responses to the

Questionnaire (see Appendix H – Questionnaire). The forms were signed by 67 per cent

of the respondents. At Six Nations, fifteen out of 21 signed. At Tyendinaga, four out of

twelve signed, and in Kingston eighteen out of 21 signed.

For the Six Nations screening, two members familiar with community practices,

Gloria Thomas, and Elvera Garlow, director of GREAT, suggested 5:00 P.M. to 6:30

P.M. as an ideal time frame. This would allow attendees the opportunity to go to other

evening functions or return home for family time. GREAT is in the town of Ohsweken,

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three and one-half hours west of Kingston. The venue offered a state of the art theatre

with comfortable graduated seating, large screen, and controlled lighting, along with an

excellent sound system. A technician was on hand to assist with the screening. Our first

showing was well received by the Six Nations audience. There was a feeling of great

anticipation since all of the main players were in attendance. Joyful greetings and a great

deal of discussion were evidenced before and after the screening. The audience was vocal

as familiar faces on the screen were greeted with delighted recognition. That added to the

fun of the event.

The second screening was scheduled for the following evening at the Kanhiote

Tyendinaga Territory Public Library, an hour drive west of Kingston. We followed the

same procedure as we had the previous evening in Ohsweken. We arrived at 4:00 P.M. to

set up and started the film around 5:15 P.M. The screening ended just after 6:00 P.M. A

lively question and answer discussion followed, which concluded after 6:45 P.M. The

library closed at 7:00 P.M., by which time all but our crew and Karen Lewis, the head

librarian, had left. Although there was often a rather quiet atmosphere during the

discussion period, feelings ran deep. Every time Jane-Leigh Jamieson appeared on

screen, there was an audible murmuring through the room. She was apparently the only

person with whom everyone was familiar. Marlene Brant Castellano was particularly

articulate in her post-screening commentary.

At the library, we used a conference room with a SMART Board, which is

approximately four by six feet and a projector into which we plugged a USB. Although

curtains were closed they were relatively transparent. The small screen and undimmed

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room did not detract unduly from viewer pleasure, though my preference is always to

show film in a darkened theatre on a large screen.

At the Screening Room in Kingston, the owner, Wendy Huot, offered a special

afternoon slot from 5:00 P.M. to 6:20 P.M. to allow for her customers to arrive and

establish themselves for the regular 7:00 P.M. feature. The morning of the screening I

met with Huot to test the most recently rendered version of the film that was stored on a

USB drive, which she transferred to her MAC Book Pro. We established colour and

audio levels. Again, watching the film on a big screen with an excellent sound system,

proved an optimum viewing experience. A commercial theatre with comfortable

graduated seating, large screen, controlled lighting, and technical assistance proved

efficacious. Audience members once more expressed satisfaction and delight. An

animated discussion ensued.

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Chapter 8

Responses to the Film

8.1 Questions 1 and 2

Due to their thematic similarities, the first two questions and the responses to them will

be addressed together.

1. Were you aware of the roles played by Keith [Lickers], Gloria [Thomas], and Peter [Hill] in the creation of Native Studies and Native Language curricula before viewing the film?

a. Keith [Lickers] Y � N � b. Gloria [Thomas] Y ☐ N ☐ c. Peter [Hill] Y ☐ N ☐

2. Without seeing the film would you have known about the roles and contributions of Keith [Lickers], Gloria [Thomas], and Peter [Hill]? Y ☐ N ☐

As part of establishing film as a viable alternative to textual documents, primarily

to transmit knowledge back to the community, I wanted to know the degree to which

people were aware of the roles of Lickers, Thomas, and Hill in the creation of the Native

Studies curricula prior to the Community Circle – in the case of the Community Circle

participants – and prior to viewing the film for all other respondents. How many of the

people who were able to attend the screenings were already familiar with any of the three

major characters? Where were the “Yes” respondents from? Were they also educators?

Were they also Six Nations community members? Indigenous? Board members?

Students?

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Based on my previous experiences while conducting MA research, I steeled

myself to be surprised if the responses showed that many people knew of the roles played

by Lickers, Thomas, and Hill in the creation of Native Studies curricula. Through my

doctoral research I wanted to change that reality. Film, I believe, can raise awareness of

their roles and may even promote an interest in reading my MA thesis to find out more.

By answering “No,” viewers would become ideally positioned to gauge the efficacy of

film, much like a storyteller from some distant village regaling the community with tales

of deeds by little-known members of their own village. During interviews I conducted

during my MA research, Lickers made it clear that his story was not common fare in the

Six Nations territory. Looking back on the Community Circle the following morning,

Lickers observed: “It certainly was very much an education… you know for everybody.

Because it was a story that hasn’t been told… hadn’t been told … just that whole lack of

awareness” (Chaput 2014).

I regard film as a kind of minstrel, spreading stories from beyond the edges of the

community, stories about the roles and contributions of Lickers, Thomas, and Hill that,

without them seeing the film, viewers would not have known. If nothing else, a “No”

would confirm the ineffectiveness of a text-based thesis as a medium for the transmission

of stories back to the community.

Question 2, which is closely associated with Question 1, contributes to

establishing the effectiveness of film in conveying story-based knowledge back to the Six

Nations community. As was the case for Question 1, I expected negative responses to

Question 2. I wanted to probe respondents’ opinions as to the likelihood that they would

ever have learned of the roles of Lickers, Thomas, and Hill without the film. An

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overwhelming positive response would signal a need to research other sources, besides

the film, that might have brought these stories to their awareness.

By cross-referencing information from Question 11, I reckoned I would also be

able to factor in the impact of the various categories. For instance, respondents of the

same generation as the protagonists would be more likely to know them and have

knowledge of their careers than those of the younger generations.

8.1.1 Results of Questions 1 and 2

For Question 1, the demographics of the respondents who knew Lickers, Thomas, and

Hill revealed:

Six Nations (n=21): Eight knew Lickers, eleven knew Thomas and nine knew

Hill.

Tyendinaga (n=12): One knew Lickers, none knew Thomas and one knew Hill.

Kingston, The Screening Room (n=21): One non-Indigenous person knew

Lickers; this person had worked at the Mowat Block on curriculum

development. None of the other respondents knew Thomas or Hill.

These initial outcomes were somewhat surprising, and at odds with those of the

Community Circle. As I ruminated on the answers further, certain factors that skewed the

results came to mind.

It is important to note that, as part of the introductory round in the Community

Circle of September 2014, the participants were asked to state their name, occupation,

and whether or not they knew Lickers, Thomas, and Hill. Of the nine participants, only

one knew Keith, six “had seen Gloria around the community,” one knew Gloria, and two

knew Peter (see Table 1 below). Question 1 is slightly different; it does not address

knowledge of the three educators’ roles in the creation of Native Studies curricula.

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Therefore, in the context of the Community Circle, a positive response did not

necessarily mean knowledge of their roles in the creation of Native Studies curricula.

At the Six Nations screening of June 21, 2015, those in attendance were more

informed of Lickers’s, Thomas’s, and Hill’s roles as a result of either participating in the

Community Circle or being an observer. The latter included Elvera Garlow and Andrea

Curley who, along with Thomas, were instrumental in organizing the Community Circle

and inviting people to the screening. This skewed the results to the first two questions in

at least one case.

Thirteen-year-old Jane-Leigh Jamieson, who participated in the Community

Circle, did not even mention Keith in her introductory comments: “I don’t know who

Peter is or Gloria, but I would like to” (Circle Transcript, September 2014). However, in

her answer to Questions 1b and 1c she indicates that she was aware of the roles played by

Gloria and Peter before viewing the film. This is technically correct as is her “yes”

answer to Question 2. “Without seeing the film,” the question asks, “would you have

known about the roles and contributions of Keith [Lickers], Gloria [Thomas], and Peter

[Hill]?” Jane-Leigh is apparently basing her answer on the knowledge she gained from

being part of the Circle. Yet, in her answer to Question 1a she says she did not know of

Keith’s role, which, technically, she did. For this reason I have not counted her answers

to the first two questions.

The answers of the three protagonists were also not counted for the first two

questions because as subjects of the stories they all knew about each other’s roles. Two

of the respondents were the wives of Hill and Lickers, and so they too do not fit the

criteria for the first two questions. Finally, Garlow, director of the GREAT, is the sister

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of Thomas and has been aware of the roles of the three across the years. She also

unhesitatingly offered the use of the GREAT for both the filming of the Community

Circle and the premiere screening of the resulting film. Removing Jamieson, Thomas,

Lickers and his wife, Hill and his wife, and Garlow left fourteen responses to consider

for Questions 1 and 2. Of these remaining fourteen, only three knew Lickers, five knew

Thomas, and two knew Hill. These proportions closely resemble the findings of the

Community Circle in the graph below (see Table 1). As for Question 2, twelve of

fourteen indicated that they would not have known about the stories of the three

protagonists without seeing the film.

Table 1. How Many Knew Keith Lickers, Peter Hill, and Gloria Thomas?

Participant Knew Keith Lickers

Knew Gloria Thomas

Knew Peter Hill

S. Miller No Yes Yes H. Thomas No Yes No L. Green No No No L. Powless No Yes No A. Martin No Yes No S. Bero No Yes No J-L Jamieson No No No A. Freeman No Yes No D. Montour Yes Yes Yes TOTALS 1 7 2

8.2 Question 3

3. How did learning about the contributions to education in Ontario by Keith [Lickers], Gloria [Thomas] and Peter [Hill] make you feel? _____________________________________

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Films, if nothing else, are evocative and emotional. I was therefore interested in

the qualitative experience of the respondents with regard to the content of the stories.

The “transplantability” of a story rests greatly on the compatibility of the cultural soil.

When I imagined a people that, for many generations, have been controlled by a

government determined to eradicate their myths, legends, and religion in the cause of

assimilation, I imagined a people who would welcome stories that belonged to them

rather than those imposed upon them.

8.2.1 Results of Question 3

Of those who attended the screening at Ohsweken, nineteen of the respondents were

members of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. Of these nineteen

respondents, nine used the word “proud” to describe how learning about the protagonists’

contributions to education made them feel. An anonymous respondent – who appears to

be a Six Nations citizen – felt “proud that we have the people living in Six Nations who

had the education, and desire to promote and develop Native content in curriculum.”

Others said they felt “inspired,” “awed,” “amazed,” “honoured,” “overwhelmed,” and

“happy.” All of the responses were positive except for a bittersweet comment by an

anonymous viewer who was “sad – so long in coming to some sort of light for us.” Of

the two who were not members of Six Nations, one, who identified as Indigenous, felt

“confident” and the other, who identified as non-Indigenous, declared themself “joyful.”

In Tyendinaga, four anonymous respondents used the word “proud.” The

sentiments of Rotinonhsyonni (Haudenosaunee) scholar Marlene Brant Castellano, who

voiced her “Respect for their endurance through decades,” resonated with an anonymous

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respondent who answered “It was exciting to know that Rotinonhsyonni people have

been integral to the curriculum as we know it today.” Further to that, one respondent was

simply “Proud to be Haudenosaunee.” Another anonymous Indigenous respondent

sounds a forlorn note, echoing modern realities: “What they did was important, but many

obstacles remain as far as ever [with respect to] regaining our languages.”

Of the respondents from the Screening Room movie theatre in Kingston, two

Indigenous and four non-Indigenous respondents used the word “proud.” Kim Chapman

elaborates: “Proud and thankful for the contributions they have made. As a primary

school teacher their work has affected the programs I have taught.” Clara Snyder, a non-

Indigenous high school student, announced herself “amazed, proud, and hopeful”: after

the screening she asked if the film could be screened for her school history course. Leigh

Barnum, a non-Indigenous elderly businessman, declared himself “tremendously

respectful.” Evolutionary biologist Lonnie Aarssen, expressed himself “sad but also

happy for them” and indicated that he “could feel their pride,” further commented on “the

great value of storytelling as a medium for discovery and education.” Richard Chapman,

one of the three Indigenous respondents, experienced a wide range of emotions: “Sad,

happy, filled with wonder. I could not help but cry. So very proud.”

The Kingston responses proved how off target I had been in my expectation of a

more technical focus on the part of the respondents, given that they were not familiar

with the three Six Nations protagonists. Perhaps it had to do with the universal aspect of

the story in which the protagonists are pitted against seemingly impossible odds – a

David and Goliath scenario. Responses to the three screenings, overall, were notably

positive. Perhaps the responses to the remaining questions will shed light on why.

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8.3 Question 4

4. What stood out for you in the film? _________________________________________________________________

During his presentation to a 2013 Youth Suicide Awareness Conference in Alberta,

Michael Chandler stated: “The whole policy of the Canadian government … is to, in fact,

kill the Indian in the Indian – to assimilate their identity out of existence.” A crucial

component of Canada’s assimilation strategy, he continued, was to suppress and belittle

Indigenous stories. Conversely, this research seeks to restore and nurture a yearning for

stories long denied. To that point, an anonymous Six Nations respondent, present at the

Ohsweken screening, commented that he was taken by “the importance of learning about

[his] culture and language, and building [his] confidence.” His statement is an indicator

that the film achieved its purpose.

I wanted to understand what engaged and touched the viewers; what did they take

away; what would resonate with them? Was their focus on the technical quality of the

film, its content, omissions, or other issues? In the event that the focus was on the

content, were there obvious themes? In the responses to the question, “What stood out for

you in the film?” I expected commonalities arising from the shared experience of multi-

generational cultural suppression. Would the film catalyze a more conscious awareness

of these denials and thereby fulfill the promise of “feeding” the community? Question 4

provided an opportunity for viewers to quantify what they valued the most in the film.

8.3.1 Results of Question 4

Six Nations: What Stood Out

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The word “proud” is what stood out in Six Nations responses. For Barbara Miller it was

pride in “the achievements of the humble people in the film,” for Rod Miller “the length

of time it has taken to get here.” Other respondents pointed out “the lack of knowledge of

people in our community.” For Joshua Manitowabi, the positive contributions of the

“Aboriginal Education Office in Toronto” dominated his post-screening reflections. Of

the 21 attendees at the Six Nations screening, five were participants from the Community

Circle: Lickers, Hill, Gloria and Hailey Thomas, and Jamieson. Hill’s humour, especially

the suggested epitaph for Keith’s tombstone – “I left the Ministry and it took seven

people to replace me” – resonated with Jamieson and Gloria and Hailey Thomas. In

addition to Hill’s humour, multi-generational education stood out for Gloria Thomas.

“The work yet to be done” was much on one respondent’s mind: “What exists is

encouraging but what we need is greater.” The theme of allies within the Ministry of

Education drew comments. People were surprised about the support of the Ministry of

Education for Native Studies and Native Languages, especially when compared to

federal government opposition. Another expressed his opinion: “The importance of

learning about your culture and language and building your confidence.” That was what I

had hoped – that Native viewers would feel a sense of pride.

Tyendinaga: What Stood Out

Always the astute observer, Tyendinaga’s Brant Castellano noted how “rooted in

community they [the protagonists] remained, their humour and, [their] impact on

successive generations of learners.” She deftly captures the essential elements of

successful cultural continuity: a community with deep multi-generational roots and

humour in the face of adversity nourishes future generations. Although all three

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protagonists worked outside the community, their homes and families remained rooted

on Six Nations, their efforts in education providing a strong foundation for those to

come.

For Melinda-Nikki Auten Tayohseronitye, “The experience Keith spoke of –

taking non-Indigenous committee members to the residential school and the impact it had

on them” made her wonder how other non-Indigenous people might benefit from similar

experiences. In the film, Keith is overseeing a Curriculum Committee of 32 non-

Indigenous educators tasked with developing a Native Studies resource guide. By way of

introduction to the subject matter, he takes them on a four-day tour of St Anne’s

Residential School in the James Bay area. Witnessing the reality of the Cree children’s

existence reduced all of them to tears, he says. Tayohseronitye suggested that first-hand

experience is the best teacher. Evva Massey felt there was a “need for Native Studies to

be strongly embedded in the curriculum for ALL.” In agreement, Auten Tayohseronitye

expresses a chronic weariness of repeatedly setting the record straight.

“The passion Keith had to make a difference in education for Aboriginal peoples”

stood out for one respondent. For another it was “just realizing how much work went into

getting where we are.” The use of the word “we” implies that the film brought out a

strong sense of community between Tyendinaga and Six Nations. Despite the four-hour

drive separating the two communities, there exists a sense of unity. One viewer was filled

with admiration, dismay, and a sense of shared destiny. He was able to appreciate “the

many years each put in and how early they started and how after 30 plus years with all

that effort we are somehow still behind.” Another respondent, referring to the three

protagonists, was moved by “their humility and modesty.”

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Confirming the effectiveness of film to bring stories back to the community, what

stood out for one respondent from Tyendinaga was “that some of the Circle participants

didn't even know these community trail blazers, and they are from the same community.”

In the words of an anonymous respondent, the film brought out an awareness of “the

amount of history [they] didn't know.”

Kingston: What Stood Out

“This film had every promise of being boring: a documentary on education? On writing

curriculum?” Local writer Rose DeShaw’s post-screening comment brought laughter to

the theatre. So why wasn’t it boring? As she continued to speak, the reality of that

opening statement hung in the air like a piñata filled with answers – some of them

written on the questionnaires and some of them spoken in the Question and Answer

period following.

Three non-Indigenous respondents, Christine Grossutti, Andrea Choi, and John

Rose, all doctoral candidates in Department of Geography and Planning at Queen’s

University, took the time to participate and were willing to go on record. What stood out

for Grossutti was “the importance of telling and knowing stories like this because it gives

us hope.” For Choi it was “the generally positive reception by the Ontario Ministry of

Education to implementing a Native Studies curriculum,” while for Rose it was “the

combination of narration and conversation in the Circle; a complementary use of voices.”

The comments by Grossutti and Choi echo those of a number of Indigenous respondents,

whereas Rose’s comment takes me back to the heart of the challenge we faced in our

efforts to achieve a balance between the voice of the community and that of the narrator.

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Although the questionnaire provided little space for written comments, the

Kingston responses were copious by comparison to those of Six Nations and Tyendinaga.

The content was rich and targeted and aligned with the issues reflected in the comments

from Six Nations and Tyendinaga.

In her questionnaire response, what stood out for DeShaw was “its clarity – the

tone of shared wisdom.” She found it “gripping and was sorry to see it end.” The film

was “valuable – not just for the Aboriginal community,” and represented “a true

honouring, retelling, and questioning” of the role played by Indigenous educators in the

Ontario school system.

Other audience members included painter and writer Douglas Snyder, who stated

himself “fortunate to hear about their efforts” and noted “the honesty and enthusiasm for

this education.” Bruce Kauffman, a local poet was “happy that some progress is being

made” and especially “that against certain initial odds, some people were able to

advance.” Susanna Davis, a nurse and healer, who has worked over a lifetime with

Indigenous peoples and knows their stories well, was “hopeful and thankful” and found

“this film is a great educational visual aid for classrooms.” Jim Neill, a retired teacher

who had also worked on the Native Studies curricula at the Mowat Block, was interested

in “the personal accounts in the Circle.” Bob Raftis, retired businessman, found

noteworthy “their patience, perseverance and commitment.” For Leigh Barnum, a nation-

wide business owner, it was “the courage and perseverance of these three,” that stood

out. The little-known contributions of high-level administrators in the Ontario Ministry

of Education were pointed out by a non-Indigenous teacher, Kim Chapman, who noted:

“There have been people at higher government levels such as Dr. Bette Stephenson who

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were so supportive.” Chapman announces herself “proud and thankful for the

contributions they have made. As a primary school teacher their work has affected the

programs I have taught.” Her daughter, Portia Chapman, a Queen’s University

undergraduate student, was one of four Indigenous respondents. What stood out for her

was “the progress of Native Studies being taught in schools over time.” She is “glad to

know that there are people who are trying to make Native Studies more public.” Portia’s

Indigenous father, Richard Chapman, also attended the screening. What emerged for him

was “silence. The Circle was silent, dear, and caring. True honour transpired and

transcended the film.” The Chapman family response thus spanned the generations.

It was only after I had looked through the completed questionnaires that I realized

that one of the four Indigenous respondents had experienced difficulty in responding.

Although he speaks English, he is more at home in his traditional Cree language. He

would be described as a “traditional person” in Indigenous parlance. He chose to remain

anonymous. An option to have a verbal interview would have served him better. As it

was, he offered: “I don't know how to put it into words.” Although lack of English

writing skills presented as a problem for at least one Indigenous person, for three other

Indigenous attendees writing is a strength – as witnessed in post-screening responses

written after the event. All respondents are Indigenous women and each screening

location is represented. (See 8.13 Post Screening Responses)

Part of the explanation as to why the film was so well received may be found in

Jennifer Snyder’s telling of what stood out for her. As part of the non-Indigenous

majority (eighteen of 21) at the Kingston screening, Snyder is ideally positioned to

identify the element that contributed to the film’s appeal for that demographic. What

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stood out for her was “the underscoring of shameful Canadian history contrasted by the

gentle deep nature of the Native people.” This theme is at the heart of the May 2015

report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC), chaired by

Justice Murray Sinclair (2015). The TRCC’s report addresses the treatment of Indigenous

peoples by the Canadian government and its agents as a tragedy of epic proportions, the

telling of which is gradually making its way into the public sphere of the nation. Growing

awareness of a century and a half of what the TRCC terms “cultural genocide” (see

Appendix A), has finally pierced the shroud of denial that enabled the Canadian

government to dismiss or even refute the tragic consequences of its assimilationist

agenda (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015).

In an online article (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network 2015), Chief Justice

of Canada Beverley McLachlin explains that “Canada committed ‘cultural genocide’

against Indigenous peoples through policies like Indian residential schools, which were

created to wipe out the languages and cultures of pre-existing nations.” What in the past

was termed assimilation, explained McLachlin, “in the language of the twenty-first

century … is called cultural genocide. The most glaring blemish on the Canadian historic

record relates to our treatment of the First Nations that lived here at the time of

colonization.” McLachlin added that “an initial period of cooperative inter-reliance

grounded in norms of equality and mutual dependence” was supplanted by “the ethos of

exclusion and cultural annihilation.”

In an interview with Evan Solomon of CBC Radio's The House (Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation 2015), Justice Murray Sinclair concurred with McLachlin “that

cultural genocide is probably the best description of what went on … But more

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importantly, if anybody tried to do this today, they would easily be subject to prosecution

under the genocide convention” of the United Nations (see Appendix J). Sinclair explains

to Solomon that “by forcibly removing children from their families and placing them

within institutions” the actions of the government “fall within the definition of genocide

under the” United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

of Genocide (see Appendix J).

The historic designation of cultural genocide has, in part, been rendered official

due to the inconceivable magnitude of the horror. Planting Stories, Feeding Communities

addresses this situation from the outset of the film. The multigenerational scale of

residential school abuses is often met with disbelief. “There must be some mistake.” “No

one would systematically perpetrate such evil. If exposed, it would be stopped.” Jennifer

Snyder paints a picture of a shameful antagonist and a gentle, yet resilient, protagonist.

To the degree that this analysis is correct, it makes the case for why the film struck home

for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers. Both groups of viewers understandably

felt proud of, and inspired by, the protagonists’ achievements.

8.4 Question 5

5. Have you read the online Thesis: Native Studies in Ontario High Schools: Revitalizing

Indigenous Cultures in Ontario? Y ☐ N ☐

Question 5 was included to substantiate the working premise that the findings in

my MA thesis were virtually unknown to the members of the Six Nations community. If

my premise were correct, there would be no positive responses from members of the Six

Nations community who attended the screening. Even though the data is relevant to their

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community on several fronts, and has been available online at QSpace for over three

years, I maintained the belief that no one from the Six Nations community was likely to

have read it. Part of the reason is that without a promotional strategy to bring it to public

attention, how would members of the community have had the opportunity to even

consider the option of reading it? Most people are not interested in reading a 200-page

academic thesis, even if the material is relevant to their interests. Thus, the document will

very likely remain forever collecting virtual dust on its virtual shelf.

If the film successfully presents relevant stories and findings to the Six Nations

viewers, it could serve the function of a promotional tool. By animating a lifeless

document, Planting Stories, Feeding Communities has the potential of generating interest

in previously unknown findings that are relevant to the Six Nations community. Opening

the door to such knowledge, via a communally shared screening on a large screen – the

theme of “writ large” will be addressed further on – has the prospect of generating a level

of dialogue that could not be achieved by watching the same film alone on the small

screen of a computer or hand-held device, or by reading the document. The social hum of

a premiere screening in a well-equipped theatre, featuring members of the community

has, in itself a degree of allure. Considering that we had less than a week to advertise

using the community radio, newspapers, and posters, we managed to secure a satisfactory

turnout.

The title and text of the poster did not promise blockbuster action scenarios.

Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples, and Film, calls

out to the traditional more that the modern in the potential audience member, that is, until

the last word. “Film” introduces a note of modernity to the traditional ones that precede

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it. “Film” also stands in contrast to the poster’s visual content and layout. The poster

sketch is based on the traditional Haudenosaunee story, “The Three Sisters: Corn, Beans,

and Squash.” It depicts a woman planting seeds, silhouetted by what could be an early

morning “squash” sunrise, or perhaps a late evening “squash” moonrise.

The text of the poster invites the potential viewer to participate in four activities.

Two are described in the first sentence:

Please join us in celebrating the stories of three Six Nations educators, Keith Lickers, Gloria Thomas, and Peter Hill, and to answer the question: Is film an effective way to bring research findings and stories back to the communities from which they were taken?

Celebrating stories and answering questions is not an ideal combination to attract an

audience to a 5:00 P.M. screening on a sunny, late-July Tuesday. However, the

alternative did not align with the honesty and openness that had characterized my

relationship with the community to date. So to err on the side of integrity, I sealed my

fate by informing them of further activities that would take place following the screening.

Viewers will be invited to fill out a brief questionnaire, followed by a brief Question and Answer period with researcher/producer/director, Paul Chaput MA, PhD Candidate from Queen’s University.

My goal was to ensure that all potential attendees understood that they were in for a

combination of entertainment, knowledge transference, and participatory research.

The answers to Question 5, I anticipated, would likely be a resounding “No,” but

there was another element that served to amplify the depth of this expected negative

response. Those most likely to have read or to have had an interest in reading a thesis on

Native Studies are educators. Based on the film’s focus on Native Studies, I estimated

that a significant proportion of those who would attend the screening would either have

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an interest in education, a connection to the three protagonists, or both. If no one in such

a demographic had read my MA thesis, then the odds were that no one else in the

community had. In fact there are three exceptions to this. The protagonists of the film

figured prominently in several areas of the MA research. They each proofed quotes that I

used from their interviews, and they each received a copy of the completed MA thesis. If

they were to be in attendance, I would expect three positive responses to Question 5.

If an aversion to academic writing was not a factor in a respondent’s decision on

whether to read the MA thesis or not, then we would be left with interest in the material

as the deciding factor. In the case of the latter, the answers of Indigenous educators to

Question 5 should generally be positive, not only for Question 5 but for all subsequent

questions. By introducing the audience to relevant unknown knowledge, the film

facilitates the possibility of respondents making choices that, prior to the screening, were

not possible to make. Using these answers, I would hope to gain insight into addressing

the mechanics behind the disturbing absence of relevant knowledge, and the related

stories that have been generated by academic research, my MA thesis being a case in

point.

8.4.1 Results of Question 5

Six Nations Responses

Lickers, Thomas, and Hill indeed were in attendance at the screening and, as I

anticipated, they were the only respondents to indicate that they had read the MA thesis.

All three signed the Consent Form (see Appendix E) permitting me to disclose this

information. Out of 21 respondents at the Six Nations screening, nineteen self-identified

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as members of Six Nations, one as Indigenous, and one as non-Indigenous. Of the

nineteen Six Nations respondents, five were teachers.

Tyendinaga Responses

Five out of 11 Indigenous respondents from Tyendinaga were also teachers. One was

non-Indigenous.

Kingston Responses

Six of the Kingston respondents were teachers but only one self-identified as Indigenous.

The comparison of the responses of the non-Indigenous teachers from the three

screenings with those of Indigenous teachers to Questions 6 to10 should provide valuable

insights. Given that the subject matter is Native Studies, I assumed that non-Indigenous

respondents would be less likely to read the MA thesis after having seen the film.

8.5 Question 6

6. Do you think film is more suited to communicating findings back to the community

than a written thesis? Y ☐ N ☐

What works best to return findings to Indigenous communities: a textual thesis or

some form of audio-visual? I would have been surprised to find that people thought film

was not more suited to deliver the stories to the community than a written MA thesis.

The stories in the thesis were not known for the most part, so we know, in this case, film

is more effective than written text. This resonates with Lickers use of publicity and other

marketing strategies to raise awareness of the newly created Native Studies curricula. I

am open to the possibility that film can, in this instance, serve a function similar to that

of a good PR campaign. It could raise awareness of textual material and, thereby, the

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possibility of deeper interest. If you were not aware of the existence of something, why

would you look for it? In fact, it may not be that film is “more suited” than the written

thesis to bring findings back to the community, but that it is better at presenting the

contents of the source document.

8.5.1 Results of Question 6

Six Nations Responses

Out of 21 responses, 18.5 thought that film is more suited to communicating findings

back to the community than a written thesis. (One respondent gave a “50/50” response,

which was counted as .5 for each of “Yes” and “No”). One respondent did not answer the

question. Instead, he wrote, “We need several ways to communicate the findings back to

the community.”

Tyendinaga Responses

Out of twelve Tyendinaga respondents, 11.5 (one respondent gave a “50/50” response)

said they think film is more suited to communicating findings back to the community

than a written thesis.

Kingston Responses

All of the 21 Kingston respondents think film is more suited to communicating findings

back to the community than a written thesis. Of the respondents, seventeen self-identified

as non-Indigenous and four as Indigenous.

Overall

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I expected a measurable difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous responses to

this question. I assumed that Indigenous respondents would think that film would be a

more effective way of communicating findings back to the community and that non-

Indigenous respondents would be less inclined to agree. Instead the slight hesitation came

from the Indigenous respondents.

8.5.2 Question 7

7. Having seen the film, are you now more likely to read the thesis? Y ☐ N ☐

I wanted to know if the film, by generating a deeper interest in the subject matter,

would serve to motivate viewers to read the MA thesis, much like an alluring trailer

might entice people into the theatre for the full feature. If some respondents answered

that, after seeing the film, they were more likely to read the thesis, then it would open up

the possibility that film might indeed serve as an awareness-building tool. Overall, it

seems likely that most would feel excluded from access to the Academy.

8.5.3 Results of Question 7

Six Nations Responses

Out of 21 responses, eighteen said they are more likely to read the thesis. The two

respondents who said they would not likely read the thesis are both members of Six

Nations of the Grand River First Nation. One respondent did not answer the question.

Tyendinaga Responses

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Out of twelve Tyendinaga respondents, 11.5 said they were more likely to read the thesis.

(One respondent gave a “maybe” response, which was counted as .5 for each of “Yes”

and “No”).

Kingston Responses

Of the 21 Kingston respondents, nineteen are now more likely to read the thesis after

having seen the film. The two who are not likely to read it are both non-Indigenous. Of

the respondents, seventeen self-identified as non-Indigenous and four as Indigenous.

Overall

What I find most fascinating here is that 48.5 respondents of 54 are more likely to read

the thesis. Of the 4.5 who are not likely to read it, 2.5 are Indigenous and two are non-

Indigenous. I expected a high “Yes” response from teachers, but not 100 per cent and

certainly not such a high positive response rate from the other respondents.

8.6 Question 8

8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the usefulness of film as a format to

communicate academic findings back to the community?

Least 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Most

Here, I wanted to quantify the efficacy of film as a tool to communicate academic

findings. Ideally, I would have preferred to test the viewers on their mastery of specific

points, such as the correlation between youth suicide and the level of cultural continuity.

I expected that most viewers would rate film toward the higher end of the scale. The

reason for this has to do with the discrepancy between not knowing anything or very

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little concerning the contributions of Lickers, Thomas, and Hill at the beginning of the

film, to knowing a lot 40 minutes later. I believe the tendency in those circumstances is

to attribute the difference to the usefulness of film. What else could have caused it? I

wanted to deepen my understanding of the underlying structure at play throughout this

exploration of audio-visual efficacy in education.

8.6.1 Results of Question 8

Six Nations Responses

On a scale of 1 to 10, eight respondents rated the usefulness of film at 10, five at 9, six at

8, one at 9.75, and one at 5, for a total of 8.940 out of ten.

Tyendinaga Responses

Out of twelve Tyendinaga respondents, four rated the usefulness of film at 10, three at 9,

four at 8, and one at 7, for a total of 8.833 out of ten.

Kingston Responses

Of the 21 Kingston respondents, twelve rated the usefulness of film at 10, four at 9, one

at 8.5, three at 8 and one at 4, for the highest total of 9.166 out of ten.

Overall

Combining all three screenings the overall average of the 54 respondents is 9.004 out of

ten.

8.7 Question 9

9. Do you feel the material in the film is valuable to the community? Y ☐ N ☐

This question is qualitative and probes the feeling of the viewer concerning the

perceived value to the community of the material in the film. A “Yes” or “No” choice

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worked best here in the spirit of keeping the questionnaire as simple and quick to

complete as possible given the limited timeframe, common to all screenings. Since the

material was likely to be new to most of the viewers, their evaluation would likely be

based on the sense of pride that arose from the positive portrayal of the protagonists’

accomplishments. I wanted the respondents to focus on the content of the film, rather

than the medium of film. I could have also asked for examples of what is specifically

valuable but I wanted to keep the questionnaire simple in order to accomplish our goal in

the timeframe allotted.

8.7.1 Results of Question 9

Six Nations Responses

Of the 21 Six Nations respondents, twenty felt that the material in the film was valuable

to the community. One did not answer the question.

Tyendinaga Responses

All twelve Tyendinaga respondents felt that the material in the film was valuable to the

community.

Kingston Responses

Of the 21 Kingston respondents, everyone felt that the material in the film was valuable

to the community.

Overall

Combining all three screenings, 53 of the 54 respondents felt that the material was

valuable to the community.

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8.8 Question 10

10. Would you recommend the film

a. to others in your community? Y ☐ N ☐

b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Y ☐ N ☐

c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Y ☐ N ☐

d. for use in Native Studies courses? Y ☐ N ☐

I find it hard to imagine that someone would recommend a film they felt had no

value for the intended audience. Question 9 establishes whether or not the viewer sees

value for the community in the film. This question sought to establish the size and nature

of that community, and to understand who else they thought would find value in the film.

By recommending the film, they are projecting the receptivity of the imagined audience.

I also wanted to know how universal they thought its appeal was. For example,

recommending it only for others in their community would have indicated they believe

its appeal resides at the local community level: in other words, assessing the viability of

the story, as “planted” in the compatible cultural landscape of Six Nations.

Recommending the film to other Indigenous contacts outside the community would

suggest the respondent saw the film as having broader appeal or value to Indigenous

communities beyond Six Nations or Tyendinaga. However, it must be noted that the

respondents were not asked whether the other communities included other First Nations.

Answers to Questions 10c and 10d could help identify how the film might be used as an

educational tool. It could potentially be sourced on line or become part of Native Studies

curricula, in which case the likelihood of the stories becoming part of a resurgent

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mythology is heightened, as is the idea of “feeding” the community throughout

successive generations.

8.8.1 Results of Question 10

Six Nations Responses

Would you recommend the film

a. to others in your community? Nineteen said yes, two did

not respond.

b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Eighteen said yes, one did

not respond, and one said No.

c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Twenty said yes, one did not

respond.

d. for use in Native Studies courses? Twenty said yes, one did not

respond.

Tyendinaga Responses

a. to others in your community? Eleven said yes, one did not

respond.

b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Eleven said yes, one did not

respond.

c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Ten said yes, two did not

respond.

d. for use in Native Studies courses? Twelve said yes.

Kingston Responses

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a. to others in your community? Twenty-one said yes.

b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Twenty-one said yes.

c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Twenty-one said yes.

d. for use in Native Studies courses? Twenty-one said yes. Overall

Combining all three screenings (n=54), the overall numbers concerning to whom viewers

might recommend the film are as follows:

a. to others in your community? Fifty-one said yes.

b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Fifty said yes.

c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Fifty-one said yes.

d. for use in Native Studies courses? Fifty-three said yes.

8.9 Question 11

11. Check off the categories that pertain to you:

a. ☐ Member of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation

b. ☐ Indigenous

c. ☐ Non-Indigenous

d. ☐ Teacher

e. ☐ Public School Student

f. ☐ Private School Student

g. ☐ Undergraduate Student

h. ☐ Graduate Student

i. ☐ School Board Trustee

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j. ☐ Employee of a School Board

The background of the respondents is an essential factor in analyzing the questions. First

of all, I wanted to identify members of the Six Nations community, because they are the

audience that I had in mind when creating this film. I also wanted to be able to compare

their responses with other groups.

The second group I wanted to identify included respondents who were Indigenous

but not members of Six Nations. The third important category was non-Indigenous

respondents. I expected to see a difference between the responses of Indigenous and non-

Indigenous respondents.

8.9.1 Results of Question 11

Six Nations Reponses

Of the 21 respondents at the Six Nations screening:

a. Nineteen were members of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, and one

was non-Indigenous. (Of the nineteen who identified as Six Nations, fifteen also

identified as Indigenous. I deleted these redundant, although technically correct,

responses).

b. One self-identified as Indigenous

c. One as non-Indigenous

d. Five as teachers

e. One as a public school student

f. None as private school student

g. Five as an undergraduate student

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h. Four as a graduate student

i. One as a school board trustee

J. One as an employee of a school board

Two added their own categories: one social worker and one policy analyst in education.

Tyendinaga Responses

Of the twelve respondents at the Tyendinaga screening, one anonymous respondent did

not answer.

a. Zero self-identified as members of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.

b. Ten as Indigenous

c. One as non-Indigenous

d. Five as teacher

e. Two as public school student

f. Zero as private school student

g. Two as undergraduate student

h. Four as graduate student

i. Zero as school board trustee

j. Zero as employee of a school board

k. One added the category: “educator,” preferring this terminology instead of teacher

Kingston Responses

Of the 21 respondents at the Kingston screening,

a. Zero self-identified as members of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation

b. Four as Indigenous

c. Seventeen as non-Indigenous

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d. Six as teacher

e. One as public school student

f. Zero as private school student

g. Eight as undergraduate student

h. Seven as a graduate student

i. Two as school board trustee

j. One as employee of a school board

 

8.10 Additional Comments or Recommendations

The comments section provides an opportunity to elaborate on points that have not been

addressed in the questions.

8.10.1 Six Nations Comments

Fourteen people signed the consent form; four were men. There is no way of determining

the gender of the seven respondents who remained anonymous.

I start with the comments of Jane-Leigh Jamieson, the youngest audience member

at the Six Nations screening. Jamieson commented: “This film is so real with our people.

Making history with our humour (Peter). Good to hear our language.” Her sparse

sprinkling of positive words builds on her answer to Question 3, which asked how the

viewer felt about learning of the accomplishments of the three protagonists, “Proud.”

Jamieson’s comment, “the film is so real with our people,” underscores the reality of how

rarely, if ever, she sees her Six Nations community on the “big screen” of modernity.

Yes, there are films and documentaries featuring Indigenous peoples but they are mostly

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English-speaking, pan-Indigenous characterizations disconnected from the bosom of

specific, recognizable, Indigenous communities.

Jamieson’s comments brought an unforeseen dimension to the impact of the film.

Her view that “this film is so real with our people” stands in contrast to an implied

customary absence of her “people” in film and media. The concept of walking in two

worlds is simpler to grasp through Jamieson’s eyes. The film awakens a forgotten

appetite for the reality of “our [her] people” – a reality that is never reflected in the

mirror of global mass media. The film breaks the spell of an unquestioned form of

assimilation – absence. That absence has filled the curricula forced upon Indigenous

children in Ontario for the past 150 years. It is still the case in Ontario high schools in

spite of rising numbers of Native Studies course offerings.4

In a riveting presentation at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts,

Queen’s University, Justice Murray Sinclair, Commissioner and Chair, TRCC, described

a perfect crime as one in which the “victim believes that a crime has not occurred and

nothing’s been done wrong to them and they actually defend the perpetrator” (the Tom

Courchene Distinguished Speakers Series, March 27, 2015). Indigenous youth like

Jamieson are accustomed to the absence of their traditional culture in dominant non-

Indigenous society. The normalization of this passive daily condition is a “perfect

crime.” Assimilation by omission simply offers cultural choices that leave out traditional 4 In 2007–2008, the number of students enrolled in Native Studies courses was 2,216, or 0.31 per cent of the total Ontario high school student population of 716,103 (Ontario Ministry of Education 1999-2010). In 2008–2009, Native Studies enrolees increased to 0.6 per cent and in 2009–2010 to 1.14 per cent of Ontario’s total high school student population (Ontario Ministry of Education 1999-2010). These apparently minor increases are rendered more meaningful when we consider that Indigenous peoples constitute only two per cent of the Ontario population (Statistics Canada 2006).

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products. For Jamieson, the customary experience of not seeing herself is suddenly filled

by a solid recognizable humour, and the music of the rarely heard language that she

learned in an immersion school.

As if in answer to Jamieson’s implied wish for more “real” film, the voice of

undergraduate student Jessie Anthony sounded a hopeful note for a future in which

reflections of the Six Nations realities will more frequently populate the global media’s

fare of familiar strangeness. Anthony firmly placed her stake in the ground. “As a

Onondaga Six Nations Beaver Clan woman and emerging film maker,” she remarked, “I

was very inspired, educated, and thankful to have seen this work! Nia:wen!” That she

formally spoke as a Six Nations woman with the authority of her clan adds an important

implication for the future of the Six Nations culture. Both Anthony’s and Jamieson’s

comments are potent indicators of a vibrant cultural continuity rooted in the traditional

Haudenosaunee governance model, presided over by Clan Mothers and Condoled Chiefs.

The voices of the men who signed the consent form speak of more technical data-

related issues. Among them is Joshua Manitowabi who wanted to know, “How many

schools taught Native Studies in the late ’80s and early ’90s?” (Unfortunately the

Ministry of Education did not start collecting data until the late ’90s). Similarly, Lickers,

who “was really impressed with [the] research,” appreciated the film’s recognition of the

contributions to Native Studies curricula by Al Bigwin, Gloria Thomas, Peter Hill, and

George Waldrum.

Barbara Miller, also an undergraduate student, made some practical suggestions

that implied a solid endorsement for the role of film in education. “Thank you for

producing this film and [your intention to] notify the Education Department if more films

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are produced. Brock University’s Adult Aboriginal Education program could use this

film as an example” (Miller, 2015, Six Nations Screening). Having the film

recommended as a resource for post-secondary education is heartening. I am curious,

however, as to why her recommendation specifies the Adult Aboriginal Education

Program. Perhaps the combination of information and entertainment is at the heart of it.

The last word goes to the Elder and Clan Mother Onondaga Deer Clan, Gloria

Thomas, and her granddaughter Hailey Thomas. Though two generations separate them,

their comments show uncanny similarities. For Hailey it is Hill’s “humour and

multigenerational education” that stand out. And for Gloria it is “Peter's humour …and

… walking in two worlds.” They share a common love of humour coupled to the art of

brevity and clarity in expressing a clear, long-term vision. These qualities are the stuff of

strong leadership. The simplicity of the vision of multigenerational education can be

likened to that of the seed whose sprouting leads to unimaginable complexity as it

develops. That this is accomplished all the while “walking in two worlds” is the

important contextual Six Nations reality, essentially, amounting to being educated in two

worlds. Combining their comments succinctly summarizes Gloria Thomas’s long-held

vision of a “Nation of educated people who take leadership positions in both worlds”

(Chaput 2014). She “gets into trouble for it because not everybody on reserve believes

[they] should be “A students” in state-run schools. For these two women, and for several

others, Hill’s humour stands out as a memorable quality they take away with them.

Hill himself did not make a comment at the end of the questionnaire, but in his

answer to Question 3 (How did learning about the contributions to education in Ontario

by Keith, Gloria, and Peter make you feel?), he could not resist the opportunity to turn to

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humour: “Amazed,” he declared. “Even I was impressed!” As for what stood out for him

the most he offered: “The subtle humour present. We did have fun!”

For all three audiences, seeing Six Nations protagonists writ large on the “big

screen” is an experience that is out of the ordinary. It was my first time, and perhaps the

first time for all 54 respondents. The cloak of invisibility is momentarily lifted, revealing

insights that were previously inaccessible.

8.10.2 Tyendinaga Comments

There was a notable shift in the energy of the audience during the Tyendinaga screening.

Within the section of the film where community members make their comments, there

was a palpable emotional peak in the room as Jamieson, the youngest member of the

Community Circle, spoke. Later, during discussion following the film, several audience

members commented on that moment. They explained that Jamieson, a shy, silent, pre-

teen, had lived at Tyendinaga in the recent past. They were amazed at her onscreen

presence in the Community Circle, surrounded by “important” people. Jamieson drew in

the audience by providing a personal link to the story.

8.10.3 Kingston Comments – non-Indigenous Voices

My film made it possible for the words of Six Nations people, in a Community Circle, to

touch the lives of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous audience members across space

and time. In this section, Michelle Savoie, a Monitoring Team Leader, NCIC, Clinical

Trials Group at Queen’s University, and others who are quoted are non-Indigenous.

Indigenous voices follow in Post Screening Responses. Savoie “learned a lot through this

film about how a community and its identity can be reinvented with a positive impact for

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the future and even now.” She comments about learning about the “role of education, and

how it can be used in destructive ways,” and how it “can take on a new spin to change

the negative back to its proper form.” This is a fulfilling and unexpected outcome for

those of us who collaborated to bring the story back to the Six Nations community and

beyond.

The theme of the film’s potential as an educational tool is reflected in the

comments of over half the respondents. John Rose, who is nearing the completion of his

PhD in Geography, comments, “The film would be useful for Education students (future

teachers of elementary and high schools).” Rose sees that it is “important for education to

know how curriculum development occurred and how to help Native Studies move

forward in the province.” He adds his voice to the growing chorus of non-Indigenous

teachers and academics who espouse the continued expansion and development of Native

Studies. Long-time teacher Kim Chapman has “attended a number of First Nations, Métis

and Inuit workshops/presentations at the Hastings Prince Edward DSB.” She believes

that “it would be worth having this movie as part of teacher presentations in the future.”

Snyder, Ethics and Regulatory Team Leader, NCIC Clinical Trials Group, at

Queen's University, cuts to the heart of the matter, commenting “the progress in the area

of education is well-told in the film without being overshadowed by the tragedy of the

residential school children.” Professor Lonnie Aarssen aptly summarizes my hopes for

this research: “This film deepened my appreciation of culture in general and its

importance for the wellness and equanimity of humanity.”

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I added two additional questions for the participants in the Community Circle

after the questionnaire was completed: Question 0 and Question 5.a. Since there were

two surveys (one for Community Circle participants and one for audience), in order to

collate the data accurately, I shifted the original numbering. As a result, the first question

for Community Circle participants became Question 0.

8.10.4 Question 0

0. As a participant in the Community Circle did you feel your voice was represented

in the process used by the researcher? Y ☐ N ☐

Since my research was based on CBPR I wanted to make sure that the Community Circle

participants felt that their voices had been represented. Based on the efforts taken to

ensure that each participant had a screen presence, I expected positive responses. Above

all, I wanted the scenes in which they appeared to feel like true representations of them.

As the storyteller, I created the film for the benefit of the Six Nations community. I

wanted to tell their story.

8.10.4 Results of Question 0

Of the 12 who participated in the Community Circle, only five were at the screening. Hill

did not answer the question and apparently Jamieson filled out the General Form, which

did not include this question. Gloria Thomas, Hailey Thomas, and Keith Lickers all felt

their voices were represented in the process.

8.10.5 Question 5.a

5.a. Did you read the thesis before ☐ or after ☐ the Community Circle?

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For those respondents who were Community Circle participants, I wanted to know if they

had read the thesis before or after the filming of the Community Circle. If they had not

read it beforehand, then I wanted to know if their participation in the Community Circle

and their exposure to the stories shared that evening would influence them to read the

thesis.

8.10.6 Results of Question 5.a

The results of this question are inconclusive. Only five of the twelve Community Circle

participants were present at the Six Nations screening to complete the questionnaire.

Three of the five participants, Hill, Thomas, and Lickers had read the thesis before the

Community Circle as a result of their role as interviewees in the research for the thesis in

2012. The two remaining Community Circle participants, Jane-Leigh Jamieson and

Hailey Thomas, did not respond to this question.

8.11 Post Screening Responses – Indigenous Voices

Six Nations: Gloria Thomas

Gloria Thomas wrote a thoughtful message via email on September 2, 2015 to say, “Paul,

I’ve been thinking about my feedback comment to your film re ‘other narrative’ of

community based education.” She explained that she had “worked with Keith and Peter

on policy that impacts Aboriginal students in provincial schools, including our 500

secondary students who attend local provincial boards via tuition agreement.” Thomas

continued that, although “many First Nations pay the province to provide elementary and

secondary education to their students, Six Nations remains federal pending local control

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of education for 1200 elementary students.” She emphasized that the community have

“never given up the idea for [their] own high school.”

By her comment, Thomas “meant to clarify that Six Nations (as is the case for

364 other First Nations) remains committed to education design/delivery based on [their]

inherent rights. It’s a narrative [she] finds hard to give up due to [her] experience,” she

summarizes, “and a complicated, imperfect [one] because Six Nations has lots of work to

[do to] achieve it.”

Out of concern that the Six Nations vision be accurately represented, Thomas

added that since she, Lickers, and Hill “represent Six Nations educators in [the] film,”

she “thought reference to narrative of nationhood informs a complete picture.” She

continues with an apology: “Sorry for my interference on that issue.” For me, it was a

most welcome comment and one that importantly reflects the community’s voice as

represented by Thomas. In closing her email, she says: “It may be too much to rework

my feedback into your written text.” My response was to include her comment – in

accordance with the collaborative principles enshrined in CBPR.

Tyendinaga: Marlene Brant Castellano

Post-screening reflection brought a perceptive comment from Tyendinaga’s Marlene

Brant Castellano. As a seasoned educator, she weighs in on the challenges and

possibilities afforded by “new media tools” in the realm of education. “Your project

stimulates imaginings of how new media tools can change education. We don’t have to

wait for publication of weighty text books.” She emphasizes, “We can capture and feed

back stories that inform and inspire.” Brant Castellano (2015) continues in her analysis

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by comparing film and “You Tube” with the hope of “streams of images” being more

durable than viral phenomena. She summarizes, “The challenge will be to capture the

stream of images and hook them into loops that give them more durability and impact

than viral phenomena on You Tube.

Brant Castellano leaves us to ponder the creation of long-term educational

products with the capability of educating rather than serving as momentary

entertainment. Even though weighty textbooks have their place, can film effectively help

community-based researchers introduce Indigenous societies to stories, just as Planting

Stories, Feeding Communities has done? Brant Castellano thinks that film can play an

important role in education.

Kingston: Rose DeShaw and Portia Chapman

Rose DeShaw posted a review of the film on her blog the day following the Kingston

screening. For DeShaw, “Planting Stories, Feeding Communities is a remarkable piece of

work in itself.” But, she adds, “That it is as well, scholarly, and academic in the best

sense, is an achievement that deserves to be honoured by all cultures.” DeShaw, who has

only recently embraced her Inuit ancestry, felt that she “suffered the loss of never having

the opportunity” to be immersed in her culture and to talk about her Indigenous roots.

The film offered such an occasion.

Marlon Brando declined his Academy award for The Godfather in 1973 so as to

allow Indigenous activist Sasheen Littlefeather to deliver a message concerning working

conditions for Native American actors in film and television. Littlefeather delivered one

minute of the address. Nevertheless, Brando’s “Unfinished Oscar Speech” (1973) was a

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defining moment for Native Americans. Their story had been told and through its telling,

their lives had been changed.

The quote from Gloria Thomas’s (2013) doctoral dissertation near the beginning

of Planting Stories, Feeding Communities, makes a similar point: “Canada would be a

very different place if the stories of Aboriginal people were generally known and were a

part of the shared culture of the nation” (2013, viii). Integrating these stories into a shared

culture is the preoccupation of many Indigenous artists devoted to deepening the

narrative leading to such integration.

Portia Chapman (2015) wants to tell the repressed stories of her people through

the medium of art. She aspires to be part of the “awakening” that “gives the people back

their spirit” (Riel 1885). “As a person raised in a white world of ‘privilege’ one would

think that my first people’s stories would not be that important to me,” Chapman writes,

“nothing could be further from the truth.” While her grandfather cautioned his family to

hide their Native roots, her father made their heritage part of their everyday lives. “The

voices of our people … seem to … run through our veins.”

“If in my lifetime,” Chapman (2015) reflects, “my spoken words are never …

heard, maybe visual expression of those words will be heard,” just as the “dissertation

film struck me and my family in our hearts and minds. I am proud of my lineage,” she

explains, “and the stories shared in the film filled me with even more pride.”

8.12 Word Clouds

Planting Stories, Feeding Communities is a film about control over the words and stories

that populate the public school curricula in Ontario. Prior to 1975, the curricula offered

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by the Ontario Ministry of Education (MOE) were populated by non-Indigenous words

and stories. In the instances where there was mention of Indigenous peoples, they were

non-Indigenous versions. The introduction of the People of Native Ancestry (PONA)

resource guides in 1975, and subsequent suite of ten Native Studies curricula, launched in

1999, established the equivalent of Indigenous “curricular reserves” providing a space

where Indigenous stories, words, and languages were being introduced into “settler

educational landscapes.”

From this perspective, the film Planting Stories, Feeding Communities could be

seen as Indigenous territory: a place free of colonizing forces. Drawing from the palette

of the Community Circle participants’ words, the film paints a scene of collaborative

sharing and learning. Whereas ministry curricula are tethered to social and political

constraints, film and the arts in general are often given broader latitude.

I wanted to compare, contrast, and analyze answers and reactions from the

audiences in Ohsweken, Tyendinaga, and Kingston, to examine responses for similarities

and differences. My goal was to survey Indigenous and non-Indigenous answers to

Questions 3 and 4 as well as peruse individual comments. Plowing through

questionnaires, once again, seemed like an onerous task for what it might yield. My

second editor for the documentary film, Annie Palone, introduced the idea of “word

clouds.” They provide researchers a means of visually representing text. “The more

frequently a word is used the bigger and bolder it is displayed” (McKee 2015). I was

curious to see what would be revealed by having the text translated into a graphic

representation based on frequency of usage. McKee (2015) finds word clouds easy to

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share and a simple way to image and understand results. A  visual  representation  of  words  

intrigued  me  and  I  was  drawn  to  the  possibility  of  acquiring  useful  insights.    

I wondered if the prominence of certain words at the micro (the three screenings)

and macro levels (combined screenings), might bring to light insights into Indigenous

versus non-Indigenous responses. The first three word clouds on the next page represent

the aggregated or combined responses. The following nine word clouds are graphic

representations for the responses at each screening.

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8.12.1 Aggregated Responses Questions 3, 4, and Comments

Figure 1 Question 3, Combined: How did viewing the film make you feel? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 2 Question 4, Combined: What in the film stood out for you? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 3 Comments, Combined.5 Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

5 Note: The prominence of the word “Great” is attributable to respondents correcting our decipherment of the acronym GREAT from Grand River Education and Training to Grand River Employment and Training.

Question 3 How did learning about the contributions to education in Ontario by Keith, Gloria, and Peter [Lickers, Thomas, and Hill] make you feel? At the aggregate level, “proud” is the most prominent word used by the respondents. The words that follow, in descending order, are: “work,” “film,” “people,” “know,” “happy,” “curriculum,” and “inspired.” Question 4 What stood out for you in the film? At the combined level “film’” dominated the responses to Question 4, but not to the same degree. The words that follow are: “people,” “proud,” “education,” “know,” “work,” “community,” and “curriculum.” Comments In the Comments, the word “film” is notably more prominent than in the responses to Question 3 and Question 4. In descending order of prominence, “film” is followed by: “education,” “Great,” “history,” “schools,” and “community.”

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The aggregated word clouds of the three screenings reveal some fascinating similarities.

The responses to Question 3 yield the following words in descending order: “proud,”

“film,” “work,” “people,” “know,” and “happy” (see Figure 1). The responses to

Question 4 show the order of the following words in descending order: “film,” “people,”

“proud,” “education,” “know,” and “work” (see Figure 2).

Remarkably, there is a close match between the most prominent words in the

responses to Questions 3 and 4 with the exception of “happy,” in the responses to

Question 3 and “education,” in the responses to Question 4. The rankings are admittedly

different but the consistency is evident. The combined Comments (see Figure 3) yielded

the following hierarchical prominence of word usage in descending order: “film,”

“education,” “history,” “Great,” “community,” and “schools.”

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8.12.2 Question 3: How did Viewing the Film Make You Feel?

Figure 4 Question 3, Six Nations: How did viewing the film make you feel? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 5 Question 3, Tyendinaga: How did viewing the film make you feel? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 6 Question 3, Kingston: How did viewing the film make you feel? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Question 3 How did it [viewing the film] make you feel? The universal predominance of “proud” for all three screenings is a welcomed endorsement of my earlier projection, at least where Six Nations and Tyendinaga are concerned. The Kingston audience responses did surprise me. When I looked more closely at their responses, there were several who felt proud for the Six Nations educators; it was pride by proxy. Jennifer Snyder was “proud and impressed with their persistence.” Portia Chapman and her father, Richard Chapman (both Indigenous), felt “proud” and “so very proud.” Four anonymous respondents from Tyendinaga were “proud.” One was “very proud” and another “proud to be Haudenosaunee.” For (Melinda) Nikki Auten Tayohseronitye, it was “exciting to know that Haudenosaunee people have been integral to the curriculum as we know it today.” Six Nations had nine out of 21 respondents who used the word “proud.” Four were “proud” of the protagonists, others were “proud” “hopeful,” “inspired,” and “excited.”

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8.12.3 Question 4 What in the Film Stood Out for You?

Figure 7 Question 4, Six Nations: What in the film stood out for you? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 8 Question 4, Tyendinaga: What in the film stood out for you? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 9 Question 4, Kingston: What in the film stood out for you? Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Question 4

What in the film stood out for you? The disaggregated responses of Six Nations to Question 4 reflect the predominance of “people” and “film.” Barbara Miller appreciated the “achievements of the humble people in the film.” What stood out for an anonymous respondent was the “lack of knowledge of people in our community.” Other words that stood out include “Peter’s,” “community, language, education knowledge,” and “government.” In Tyendinaga “Keith,” and “community” stood out the most followed by “Peter,” “Gloria,” “know,” “years,” and “experience.” For Kingstonians, the word “people” dominated their word cloud, e.g., “People at higher government levels” (Chapman, Kim), “some people [who] were able to overcome certain odds” (Kauffman, Bruce), “Hearing stories directly from people” (Snyder, Clara), and “the positive impact of these dedicated people” (Savoie, Michelle). Overall, the word “people” stood out at Six Nations and Kingston. In Tyendinaga the words “Keith,” “Peter,” and “Gloria” stood out. In other words, people generally stood out.

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8.12.4 Comments

Figure 10 Comments, Six Nations Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 11 Comments, Tyendinaga Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Figure 12 Comments, Kingston Courtesy of Annie Palone 2015

Comments

The word clouds resulting from the responses to the “comments” are similar for all three screenings. “Film” is the most obvious for each but the similarity does not end there. For each of the three screenings, “education” is also a top contender. Barbara Miller from Six nations comments, “Thanks for producing this film.” Jamieson’s comment emphasizes the preponderance of “film”: “This film is so real with our people.” In Tyendinaga, Marlene Brant Castellano comments on film’s “effectiveness in education,” while Aubrey Auten “loved the film because it had a lot of useful information for a lot of Indigenous people.” Others commented that it was a “great film,” that “the film was put together very well,” and one wished that “this film could have been produced ten years ago.” In Kingston, where I had anticipated a more reserved tone to the comments, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that for Carolyn Hetherington, an accomplished actress, “this was a very well produced and positive film that provides hope for the future.” Michelle Savoie “learned a lot through this film.” Jim Neill commented, “Great film. TVO or CBC Docs should air it.”

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8.12.5 Summary of Word Clouds

The word clouds tell a simple story. At the most basic level they tell us that respondents

felt “proud,” that what stood out the most was “people.” The two-dimensional landscapes

of the word clouds are not normally within the sphere of our visual awareness. “Proud,”

and “people,” seem logical outcomes, now that the word clouds have brought them out of

the shadows of written text. Each audience is in tacit agreement with the other across

space, time, languages, and cultures.

 

8.13 Writ Large

What might one glean from the social quality of a community convening for a screening

of a film about their “own people?” There is something about the big screen that cannot

be duplicated by smaller screens. TVs, monitors, and hand-held devices are less

compelling for a large crowd and generally accommodate a lone viewer or small

gathering.

From 2000 to 2008, I worked as a co-producer, director, writer, narrator, and host

with Mushkeg Media on the series Finding Our Talk: A Journey through Aboriginal

Languages. These stories of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities were aired on

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), a national TV network. Since 2008 I

have had occasion to meet some of the members of the communities whose stories I

wrote and directed. One such story is that of the Maliseet (in their language the Wolastoq

people) of New Brunswick (Chaput 2001).

The Wolastoq documentary shares a thread with the Six Nations story. Each film

explores personal histories, the common thread being the element of a shared experience:

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the communal viewing of the film. Although the APTN episodes were not always viewed

on a large screen, they were viewed on the “big screen” of a national TV network. For

both Jane-Leigh Jamieson of Six Nations and the Wolastoq peoples, the larger forum

provided the experience of being visible in a medium typically devoted to mainstream

culture. For the Maliseet it also provided the opportunity of being introduced to other

First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities who followed the Finding Our Talk series.

Planting Stories, Feeding Communities has only begun to reach more distant audiences.

Every episode of Finding Our Talk featured a Language Warrior who had played

an important leadership role in saving both language and culture. In the case of the

Wolastoq, the episode entitled Gentle Words – Maliseet featured Christine Saulis, then in

her early seventies. She had been involved in developing curriculum for the Maliseet or

Wolastoq language since the late 1980s at the South Devon Elementary Public School in

Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Imelda Perley, who is the first of her people to get a degree in linguistics in

Maliseet/Wolastoq at the University of New Brunswick, has taken a leadership role in the

recovery of the traditional language and culture of her peoples in the communities of St.

Mary's, Kingclear, and Tobique; she emphasizes Saulis’s key role in language recovery.

During one of her filmed interviews, Perley praised Saulis at the time of Saulis’s

retirement: “If she retires, she’s only retiring from teaching in the classroom. She’ll

always be a teacher. Christine is one of those people we will always remember” (Chaput

2001).

When the film about Saulis’s contributions came to the big screen, I was not

present but assumed, as was the case with previous audiences, there was a great feeling

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of pride. When one’s own makes a major contribution to community and their story is

projected onto a large screen, it is as if the person is present. They are larger-than-life and

the audience feels as if they know the person. After the Saulis screening, I received no

feedback. Coincidentally, in the fall of 2011, a decade after the filming, I met her son,

Malcolm Saulis, at a course on the Negotiation and Implementation of Treaty and

Aboriginal Rights at Kingston Centre for Mediation Services. Saulis is a trained

traditional circle keeper and a professor on the Wilfred Laurier University’s Faculty of

Social Work, born on the Tobique Indian Reservation of the Wolastoq or Maliseet

peoples. Always curious about how our efforts had impacted the communities featured in

Finding Our Talk, I asked him if he would care to comment on any notable events after

the launching of the episode in 2001.

Saulis expressed great emotion about the impact of the community screening of

the film about his mother’s life. The stories affected them deeply; Christine Saulis,

whose life was featured, had died soon after the film was completed. The screening

brought up potent emotions for all concerned. For Saulis to see his mother on the big

screen and for her community to view the screening after her death touched them

profoundly. It was as if Christine was still present, continuing her valuable work.

Without that film, Christine Saulis’s initiative in restoring Native language and

culture to children in Fredericton would have been lost. In a parallel situation, Lickers

and Hill in Planting Stories, Feeding Communities were retiring and moving out of the

limelight. The chance of their stories being lost was equally great. Thomas was involved

in education so her presence seemed to be guaranteed for a time. Fortunately, in this case,

timing was propitious: all protagonists were in attendance for the premiere screening.

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Time is of the essence when a few people hold valuable historical information and it has

not been put into any form that can be passed on to the next generation. The films in each

case were powerful messengers.

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Chapter 9

Conclusions: In Search of Best Practices

My dissertation explores what Chandler and Lalonde (2004), among other social

scientists, describe as “best practices,” resorting to the use of film to return knowledge

from academic findings to Indigenous communities in a manner that most closely

approximates the multi-sensorial scope of the Indigenous oral tradition. The supreme

challenge is to undertake such an exercise without perpetuating past colonial approaches,

the imposition of harmful outside authority foremost of all. Best practices can contribute

to increased peer-based communication between academic institutions and Indigenous

communities. Using the methodology of community-based participatory research

(CBPR) has proven useful in maintaining a balanced relationship between the researcher

and the community, and has ensured that control remained as much as possible with the

community throughout the entire research process. Best practices are meant to contribute

to an ongoing critique, and are not advanced as the laying down of immutable codes and

protocols. Best practices as championed by CBPR strive to protect the voice of the

community and ensure that engaged representation is factored into the development and

implementation of research.

The idea of returning research findings back to Indigenous communities in a

culturally appropriate fashion took root while I was writing my MA thesis. I knew that an

online PDF version would not meet that criterion. In my Social Sciences and Humanities

Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) application for doctoral funding, I emphasized

that I wanted to deploy my training as an Aboriginal filmmaker in the cause of

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conducting research, ultimately creating a documentary as part of my dissertation. Film is

a well-trodden geographic territory for me, one that I have traversed in the past with

reward and satisfaction.

I was delighted to receive SSHRC funding and so I began my doctoral odyssey on

a familiar path – also seeking “social justice and change” as De Leeuw, Cameron, and

Greenwood (2012, 181) passionately champion. Forging uncharted geographies by using

film to bring my MA findings back to the Indigenous community from which they had

sprung brought my doctorate into a focus that diverged from the traditional academic

path. Thus my journey began.

As a co-producer of 26 episodes for the APTN television series Finding Our

Talk: A Journey Through Aboriginal Languages, I played the role of host and narrator

for the series in both French and English, writing and directing five episodes.

Participating in Community Circles was also part of my previous occupation. With those

experiences shaping me, I embarked on making a documentary film with participants

from Six Nations. I recognized CBPR as a mode of inquiry I had already engaged in my

earlier endeavours as a filmmaker. I was excited to begin collaborating with an

Indigenous community I respected and with whom I felt a rapport.

Established relationships with Six Nations participants created a comfortable and

stimulating milieu. This was especially the case with my key subjects, who had given me

telephone interviews four years before for my MA investigations. I had also interviewed

Andrea Curley at the International Indigenous Elders’ Summit in 2004. I eagerly

anticipated the filming portion of the research with Six Nations, where I would finally

meet Keith Lickers and Peter Hill face to face. Familiarity with the Indigenous

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geography of Six Nations Grand River, along with my thesis material, would provide a

sound foundation on which to build a story that nagged to be told. I set the initial project

rolling with a call to another prominent Six Nations figure, Gloria Thomas, at that time

pursuing her PhD in education at Queen’s University.

9.1 Establishing Best Practices

At the outset, it was necessary to undertake a critical analysis of components of filming,

communications, and editing, to ensure adherence to participatory research protocols in

Indigenous communities. I was aiming for considerate, thoughtful interactions that would

not inadvertently perpetuate a colonial mindset. Creating the film was a complex process:

mulling over and synchronizing the direction of photography, set design, camera

operation, sound, music, lighting, editing, and post-production was a constant challenge.

We were a team of two, videographer Jon Aarssen and myself, working on a low-budget

film with time constraints.

In terms of best practices, I advocate the following:

1. Embark on the project with a tight-knit team. A crew of four would have been

ideal – including a director, a sound engineer, a director of photography/camera

operator, and an additional camera operator. When filming is community-

directed, the team must have consummate technical skills to maintain credibility

and engender confidence among the participants.

2. For most shooting situations, two cameras would have been ideal, especially to

capture the extent of dynamic environments during “one shot, one stake”

situations.

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3. As a result of my close ties to the community at Six Nations, I benefitted as

director in being able to organize and accommodate participants. In some

situations, that required additional assistance, as in the case of the larger gathering

of the Community Circle in Ohsweken. To further such ends, I recommend hiring

a trusted director’s assistant for group filming.

4. Ideally, all participants should feel at ease and relaxed, understand what is

happening, and be apprised of the time frame, especially when it is operationally

tight. While shooting the Community Circle with only two crew in Ohsweken,

elements of pre-production were overlooked, shots missed, sound not optimally

captured, and participants to some extent neglected, or at least not kept

sufficiently informed on the filming process. For large groups an extra

cameraman on set, along with a sound person, would improve the overall quality.

5. Including film in which CBPR considerations are to be borne in mind creates

an added dimension: the undertaking must align with the intention of the

academic project, as well as the objectives of the community. Production values

and production decisions aside, each reasonable suggestion should be taken into

account. Pertinent concerns of the Indigenous community ought to come first.

6. The issue of directorial power and control remained critical throughout the

project. The familiar Hollywood power structure places control in the hands of

the director. As both primary researcher and director, community members and

collaborators in the production side of the undertaking generally deferred to me in

the decision-making process. On occasion the complexities of filmmaking can

become a deterrent to participatory collaboration. Feeling the pressure of my role

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as producer, director, writer, and researcher was at times overwhelming. In those

moments I reminded myself that I was part of a decolonizing, community-based

participatory process and, as such, power and control must ultimately rest with

the community I wanted to serve. To be an effective manager in those

circumstances required learning to shift my focus from myself as a lone “leader”

to that of maintaining and forging friendships with members of the Six Nations

community participating in the project. By sharing the power accorded me as

director, I managed to unburden myself of the toxicities associated with hoarding

it. Meaningful friendship is synonymous with respect. Where respect prevails,

power is more likely to be shared. I recommend that research of this kind be

predicated on the basis of friendship; it is key to the success of CBPR. De Leeuw,

Cameron, and Greenwood (2012, 192) state categorically that “research

relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples” need to include

activities unrelated to research in order to “find in friendship a potentially fruitful

space to undertake such work.” I wholeheartedly, and most emphatically, concur.

7. A personal assistant would have been of great value because of the

extraordinary number of small tasks to attend to throughout. I recommend that

any researcher secure sufficient funding in order to create an efficient team with

adequate equipment. Filming is an expensive as much as an onerous undertaking.

9.2 The Director

As the creative force behind the film, I became the storyteller. I organized shots,

championed quality in sound and lighting, solved problems, decided on the style of shots

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and how to frame them, stored data, and dealt time and again with all kinds of challenges,

including inclement weather and uncooperative security personnel at the Mowat Block.

While simultaneously selecting shots, contemplating framing and angles, adjusting

lighting and editing visuals, layering in music, and cutaways, I was strategizing about

how to blend them. I sought to combine a storyteller’s voice with those of director of

photography, musical director, and editor to create a coherent, integrated vision. Which

story elements matter the most? I had to bear this always in mind as I wrote and narrated

the story.

The film Planting Stories, Feeding Communities adds a dimension to traditional

research methodologies but remains intimately connected to all my investigative

undertakings and its final companion, a dissertation. These two elements of my doctoral

pursuit were used as tools to honour ancient practices and traditions of Native peoples,

above all to emulate the Indigenous oral tradition.

9.3 Considerations and Recommendations

The director must consider CBPR, and other aspects of the research methodology, at all

times during the shooting and editing process. Effective representation of voice is a

central concern, especially when it comes to the conversion of a story from one medium

or language to another. As Cruikshank (2005, 78) observes, “Converting spoken words

to written texts also raises questions about the ‘texture’ of oral narrative.” I raise a similar

concern regarding the conversion of oral storytelling to film, particularly during the

editing process, while the editor is selecting visuals, layering in music, cutaways, and

other enhancements. The director must creatively and strategically blend the voices of all

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the storytellers, along with those of the cinematographer, the musical director, and the

editor. Great complexity, I repeat, is involved. How are priorities decided upon? Which

story elements matter the most, and why? These questions, at the forefront of the creative

process, must be resolved with best practices in mind, to ensure that the director protects

and transmits the voice of the community. In addition, I offer the following observations:

1. While filming, the director must take pains to see that subjects’ wishes are

honoured and that ethics documentation is completed, collected, and secured.

2. The director, as the person most responsible for undertaking the project, must

make sure that he or she transmits the overall intent, as community preference

dictates.

3. Questions posed in interviews and focus groups by the research team must be

worded carefully, so that they are not considered leading, or misleading.

4. The director must be open to change, be flexible, and be willing to be part of

the creative process that is directed by the players, depending on what the

community finds valuable in the process. It was necessary to assume several

roles: director of photography, sound editor, birdcall expert, communicator,

apologist, encourager, and planner. At times, I confess, it all seemed too much,

and I felt overwhelmed. Furthermore, at times we were forced back to the

drawing board by narrations, clips of footage, and renderings gone wrong,

cancelled interviews, disturbance around venues, riding the train and retracing

steps in Toronto in spite of armed security guards who took a dim view of what

we were up to. The critique of an early preview by Clarke Mackey triggered a

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rethink of basic procedures so as to avoid a “talking heads” outcome in the

finished product.

5. My ability to make decisions accurately with regard to CBPR was largely

based on a healthy working relationship with the Indigenous community; it is

critical that the researcher/director values this relationship. Friendships not only

within the Indigenous communities but also amongst my team – that which De

Leeuw et al. (2012, 181) describe as “a space within which to develop and

articulate critiques” – proved to be just as important in terms of resiliency when

things went awry. I sought always to cultivate a respectful working relationship

with the community, collaborating with them and valuing each contribution, all

the while considering changes that would make the film resonate with audiences.

To enhance best practices further, I would also advocate that:

1. Crew should rehearse set up of cameras, lighting, and sound equipment since

timing can be crucial for many shots, especially when participants’ availability is

limited.

2. Community participants should be encouraged to tell their stories without

structured or scripted interviews.

3. All participants should recognize the importance of establishing and

maintaining good relations. “Claims to overcome difference and distance may actually

retrench colonial research relations” caution De Leeuw, Cameron, and Greenwood (2012,

191). This is a point well taken, and one I trust acted upon positively.

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9.4 Next Step: A Gift Ceremony

Based on analysis of the data and the general reactions of respondents, I believe that

Planting Stories, Feeding Communities serves its primary purpose: to deliver academic

findings back to the Six Nations community. How, then, best to effect an actual hand-to-

hand delivery?

What I envision, and harbour hope in, is a ceremony that would formalize a

trusted relationship. I picture co-creating a performative event, a Gift Ceremony of sorts,

one that would include representatives of Six Nations Band Council and members of

Queen’s University administration. The Gift Ceremony might take place on Six Nations

Territory following a screening of Planting Stories, Feeding Communities for the broader

community as well as the Community Circle participants who would be honoured for

their critical role in the research work. A copy of my MA thesis, doctoral dissertation,

and documentary film would be presented to the Chief and Council, and the traditional

Condoled Chiefs and Clan Mothers for use in their library and dissemination beyond.

I end with a Mohawk prayer of thanksgiving translated by Chief Jake Swamp:

Akwekon onkweshona entitewatkawe ne kanonhweratonhtsera

To be human is an honour and we offer thanksgiving for all the gifts of life.

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Appendix A – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Definition of

Cultural Genocide

Extracts from the Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Truth and

Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015)

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate

Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a

process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal,

social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation

of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described

as “cultural genocide.”

Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and

biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural

genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to

continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political

and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly

transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are

persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated

and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to

prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.

In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things …

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There should be little wonder that Aboriginal health status remains far below that

of the general population. The over-incarceration and over-victimization of Aboriginal

people also have links to a system that subjected Aboriginal children to punitive

discipline and exposed them to physical and sexual abuse.

The history of residential schools presented in this report commenced by placing

the schools in the broader history of the global European colonization of Indigenous

peoples and their lands. Residential schooling was only a part of the colonization of

Aboriginal people. The policy of colonization suppressed Aboriginal culture and

languages, disrupted Aboriginal government, destroyed Aboriginal economies, and

confined Aboriginal people to marginal and often unproductive land. When that policy

resulted in hunger, disease, and poverty, the federal government failed to meet its

obligations to Aboriginal people. That policy was dedicated to eliminating Aboriginal

peoples as distinct political and cultural entities and must be described for what it was: a

policy of cultural genocide.

Despite being subjected to aggressive assimilation policies for nearly 200 years,

Aboriginal people have maintained their identity and their communities. They continue

to assert their rights to self-governance. In this, they are not alone. Like the

Settlement Agreement in Canada, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of

Indigenous Peoples is a milestone in a global campaign to recognize and respect the

rights of Indigenous peoples. It is time to abandon the colonial policies of the past, to

address the legacy of the schools, and to engage in a process of reconciliation with the

Aboriginal people of Canada …

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Appendix B – GREB Approval

July 15, 2014 Mr. Paul Chaput Master’s Student Department of Geography Queen's University Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6 GREB Romeo #: 6003216 Title: "GGEO-107-10 – Why Has the Ontario Post Secondary Native Studies Curriculum Been Offered Where It Has and What Impact Has it Had Where It has Been Offered?” Dear Mr. Chaput: The General Research Ethics Board (GREB) has reviewed and approved your request for renewal of ethics clearance for the above-named study. This renewal is valid for one year from July 22, 2014. Prior to the next renewal date you will be sent a reminder memo and the link to ROMEO to renew for another year. You are reminded of your obligation to advise the GREB of any adverse event(s) that occur during this one year period. An adverse event includes, but is not limited to, a complaint, a change or unexpected event that alters the level of risk for the researcher or participants or situation that requires a substantial change in approach to a participant(s). You are also advised that all adverse events must be reported to the GREB within 48 hours. Report to GREB through either ROMEO Event Report or Adverse Event Report Form at http://www.queensu.ca/ors/researchethics/GeneralREB/forms.html. You are also reminded that all changes that might affect human participants must be cleared by the GREB. For example you must report changes in study procedures or implementation of new aspects into the study procedures. Your request for protocol changes will be forwarded to the appropriate GREB reviewers and/or the GREB Chair. Please report changes to GREB through either ROMEO Event Reports or the Ethics Change Form at http://www.queensu.ca/ors/researchethics/GeneralREB/forms.html. On behalf of the General Research Ethics Board, I wish you continued success in your research. Yours sincerely, Joan Stevenson, Ph.D.

Chair General Research Ethics Board c.: Dr. George Lovell, Faculty Supervisor Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Chair, Unit REB Ms. Joan Knox, Dept. Admin.

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Appendix C – Six Nations Ethics Approval

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Appendix D – Letter of Information

Letter of Information

“Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples and Film”

This research is being conducted by PhD Candidate, Paul Chaput, under the supervision of

Professor George Lovell, in the Department of Geography at Queen’s University in Kingston,

Ontario.

What is this study about? In 2011, during the course of my MA research, I interviewed three

members of the Six Nations community regarding their roles in the creation and implementation

of Native Studies curricula for Ontario high schools, embracing the period from the early 1970s

to the present. The resulting thesis, Native Studies in Ontario High Schools: Revitalizing

Indigenous Cultures in Ontario, is now online and has been read by a few academic peers, but

the story of the individual contributions of Six Nations members remains relatively unknown to

the broader community. This research explores the ‘best decolonizing practices’ to transmit

academic findings back to the Indigenous community from which the data was originally

extracted. To that end, I argue that film, as a form of story telling that engages the senses in

multiple ways, closely approximates the long-standing oral tradition of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Using a Community-Based-Participatory Research (CBPR) approach, this research will explore

how best the researcher and members of the Six Nations community can collaborate in the co-

creation of such a film.

The study will feature filmed interviews, which will take place in a location or locations

agreeable to the participant. I will ask questions about the creation of Native Studies curricula

and how it has affected Six Nations individuals and communities. There are no known physical,

psychological, economic, or social risks associated with this study.

Is my participation voluntary? Yes. Although I will be grateful if you would answer all

questions as frankly as possible, do not feel obliged to answer any questions that you find

objectionable or that make you feel uncomfortable. You may also withdraw all data relevant to

your interview at any time by contacting Paul Chaput; paul.j.a.chaput@queensu.ca.

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What will happen to my responses? Until the film is screened, I will keep your responses

confidential. Only my supervisor, the videographer, the editor, and I will have access to this

information in its raw form. You will have the opportunity to see, comment upon, and request

adjustments during drafts of the film. The conclusions may be published in professional journals

or presented at scientific conferences, but any such presentations will be of general findings and

will never breach individual confidentiality. I will quote only material which you have given me

permission to use. Should you be interested, you are entitled to a copy of any publication

generated from this research.

Will I be compensated for my participation? No.

Consent Form and Documentary Release Form: These forms (found below) will require your

signature – if you have not already done so – in order that I may use the content of the interviews

in the creation of a documentary film and the writing of my dissertation.

What if I have concerns? In the event that you have any complaints, concerns, or questions

about this research, please feel free to contact Paul Chaput; paul.j.a.chaput@queensu.ca; project

supervisor, Dr. George Lovell lovellg@queensu.ca ; or the Chair of the General Research Ethics

Board (613-533-6081) at Queen’s University.

Thank you. I very much appreciate the time you have taken to read this Letter of Information. I

hope you are able to participate in this research study.

Sincerely yours,

Paul J. A. Chaput M.A., PhD ABD Department of Geography Office: Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room D 303 Phone: (613) 533-6000 ext. 75122 Email: paul.j.a.chaput@queensu.ca Info link: http://geog.queensu.ca/grads/chaput.asp

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Appendix E – Consent and Release Forms

Consent Form

“Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples and Film”

Name (please print clearly): ________________________________________

1. I have read the Letter of Information and have had any questions answered to my satisfaction.

2. I understand that I will be participating in the study called: “Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples and Film.” I understand that this means that I will be asked to answer questions posed by researcher Paul Chaput. I understand that a digital video camera and audio recorder will record the interview. I understand that transcripts will be made of the interview.

3. I understand that my participation in this study is voluntary and I may withdraw at any time.

I understand that every effort will be made to maintain the confidentiality of the data now and in the future. Only the researcher and his supervisor will have access to the raw data. The data may also be published in professional journals or presented at scientific conferences, but any such presentations will be of general findings and will never breach individual confidentiality. Should I be interested, I know that I am entitled to a copy of the findings.

4. I am aware that if I have any questions, concerns, or complaints, I may contact Paul Chaput; paul.j.a.chaput@queensu.ca; project supervisor, Dr. George Lovell lovellg@queensu.ca ; or the Chair of the General Research Ethics Board (613-533-6081) at Queen’s University.

I have read the above statements and freely consent to participate in this research:

Signature: _____________________________________ Date: _______________________

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Documentary Release Form

Name: ____________________

Project Title: Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples and Film

I hereby consent without further consideration or compensation to: the use, broadcast, and distribution (full or in part) of all digital images taken of me and/or recordings made of my voice and/or written extraction, in whole or in part, of such recordings for the purposes of creating a documentary film featuring the roles of Six Nations educators in the creation of Native Studies curricula for Ontario high schools.

Signed at Six Nations on ________________________ 2014

(Month) (Day)

Participant Signature__________________________________________________

Address ________________________________ City _____________________

Email __________________________________

Province ____________________ Postal Code _____________

Date: ____/____/____

 

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Appendix F – Inventory

Video Camera: Canon 60D Lenses: Canon 50mm 1.8

Samyang 85mm Cine T1.5 Canon 16mm-35mm 2.8L 18mm-200mm 3.5-5.6 IS 10-24mm 3.5-4.5

Memory: over 120GB of SD card memory, most 45MB/s class 10 (2@90MB/s+) Battery and accessories: (4 LP-E6 Li-ion Battery packs, Magic Lantern, and Cinestyle, rain cover, UV clear, Circular Polarizer, Warming, and Fluorescent lens filters, Energizer AA) Additional Cameras and Accessories: GoPro Hero HD GoPro Hero 3 (Black Edition, tripod mount, articulating clamp mount) Hotshoe accessory mount for 15mm rig (homemade) Sevenoak View Finder SK-VF02 Sevenoak Cam Stabilizer, SK-W02 Cowboy Studios 15mm Shoulder rig (Extra weights), Follow Focus,+ Matte Box and handles. CanadianStudio Pro 48"/120cm Pro DSLR Camera Slider Manfrotto 128LP tripod Head Manfrotto 128RC tripod Head Manfrotto 055XB tripod HP 7 inch Android Tablet (DSLR controller equipment) Tablet mounting bracket (for tablet to be used as external monitor) Audio Recorder: Zoom H4N, 4 track field recorder, (Wind screen, Mic stand mount) Microphones: Rode VideoMic Pro Shotgun Microphone with Rycote Stabilizer hot shoe mount. Audio-technica OMNI lavaliere Microphone AKG D5 Microphone AKG TPS D3700 Microphone Mixer: Mackie DFX-6, six channel integrated live sound mixer. Roland Weighted Boom Mic Stand 2 x 10’ XLR cables

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2 x 20’ XLR cables 2 x 25’ ¼” cables 40’ 3.5mm male to female headphone cable Sony Studio headphones Skull Candy Earbud headphones Lighting RotoLight RL48 (9 colour gel set) 2 8’ PVC light stands (homemade) 8” Clamp Light 150w max 10” Clamp Light 150w max 3 x clamp-on flood lights 60w max 2 x 40w draw 200W CFL bulbs soft white 2700k 2 x 40w draw 200W CFL bulbs daylight 6500k 4 x 100w full spectrum light bulbs 3 x floodlight bulbs (white, red, orange) 5 x 10lb sand bags + one 20lb sand bag (homemade) 2 x 8’ PVC light stands (homemade) 2 x Small (4”) Cowboy Studio Light stands 3 x 35’ extension cords 2 x 10’ extension cords 2 x 6 outlet power bar Reflectors (silver) 2x 4” 2 x extra-large gorilla clamps 2 x extra small Guick Grip clamps 2 x 10” ‘c’ clamps 2 x 4” ‘c’ clamps

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Appendix G – Videographer’s Notes

This creatively charged academic journey we now know as the documentary film Planting Stories, Feeding Communities began as a desire to apply the analysis and research skills I had learned at Queen’s. I contacted W. George Lovell, whose course GPHY 229 “Place, Space, Culture and Social Life” I was attending at the time, to inquire about volunteer opportunities in the upcoming summer months. Lovell was an ideal contact considering that his passion for geography and Aboriginal Middle American cultures motivated my return to Queen’s as a mature student. Lovell responded that he was fully engaged over the summer, but pointed me to a doctoral student of his, who was considering the creation of a film as part of his research. It took a single meeting with Paul Chaput to realize the importance of his MA research and his subsequent vision of returning stories to communities – of making research more accessible. With my background in photojournalism and filmmaking, along with a lifelong interest in Aboriginal culture and history, my fit with the project was natural. During our first meetings we discussed the film as it was proposed, a creative piece complete with dramatizations and original visual examples. I was asked to help with camera operation in the role of director of photography, as well as editor. These proposal ideas were to be made possible with the aid of funding, and would involve a small crew of people to help in the production. I was a little naïve about the scope of the project. If adequate funding had been available throughout there is no doubt that Paul’s original proposal ideas would have come to life on screen. Over the following months it became clear that funding would be an issue. The film took on an entirely different focus: one of involving the community in the filmmaking process and letting the film come to life from that experience. This project was a tremendous learning experience for me. I had a few months to prepare for the first two shoots in Ohsweken, which allowed me to test a transition to a fully functioning one-man film crew. Having only a very limited personal budget I had to make some considerations about lighting. In the past I had relied on natural light or a LED Rotolight. In this case, I knew that I would be filming indoors in a variety of lighting situations and would have to add light to keep the ISO low enough to avoid excessive noise in postproduction. I have lit scenes indoors with halogen work-lights which, although cheap and bright, are also hot and bring added headaches via colour correction in postproduction (to overcome their yellow hue.) I wanted to avoid that in this production.

Having been a budget filmmaker for a few years I am familiar with “do it yourself” blogs and aids for digital video production. On one of the forums I read a post advocating the use of PVC plumbing to create useful stands at a minimal cost. I designed my own version and headed to the hardware store for the necessary supplies. In the end

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each of the two stands cost me 25 dollars and a few hours labour. They served well as light stands, but were customized for my needs. Given the nature of PVC though, and its weight, the light stands required the use of sand bags, and had limited capacity. In the past I had made a 25 pound sand bag for use on the base of the video tripod. I made additional bags to support the light stands. They comprise two extra-large slide-lock Zip-lock bags, and two different types of duct tape in “traditional silver” and “high visibility orange.” Along with technical planning I also practised the ‘flow’ of set up and tear down procedures.

The biggest learning curve was dealing with sound – much of my previous experience had been with a focus on visuals, music being synched and added later. This project made it crucial for me to be able to control both the sound and visuals, which added a whole new level of pressure to the various shooting situations. Paul and I went to Six Nations without any additional help. Paul was preoccupied with the logistics of accommodating and organizing a variety of participants and interviewees while I did the technical work of setting up the camera, lighting, and sound. Normally, within a documentary film crew there would at least be one person dedicated to each of the above tasks. That allows team members the necessary time to consider what is best for their part of the production without having to multitask.

Time was of the essence. I was monitoring the audio via headphones, without being actively involved in its capture. That was problematic in situations where the sources of sounds were dynamic. I was unable to actively engineer the sound capture in a way that minimized interference – my focus was unequally divided between what I was seeing and what I was hearing. Jon Aarssen, 2015

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Appendix H – Questionnaire

Film Questionnaire: Planting Stories: Feeding Communities General SN

1. Were you aware of the roles played by Keith, Gloria and Peter in the creation of Native Studies and Native Language curricula before viewing the film?

a. Keith Y ☐ N ☐ b. Gloria Y ☐ N ☐ c. Peter Y ☐ N ☐

2. Without seeing the film would you have known about the roles and contributions of Keith, Gloria, and Peter? Y ☐ N ☐

3. How did learning about the contributions to education in Ontario by Keith, Gloria and Peter make you feel? ____________________________________________________________

4. What stood out for you in the film? _________________________________________________________________________

5. Have you read the online Thesis: “Native Studies in Ontario High Schools: Revitalizing Indigenous Cultures in Ontario”? Y ☐ N ☐

6. Do you think film is more suited to communicating findings back to the community than a written thesis? Y ☐ N ☐

7. Having seen the film, are you now more likely to read the Thesis? Y ☐ N ☐

8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the usefulness of film as a format to communicate academic findings back to the community? Least 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Most

9. Do you feel the material in the film is valuable to the community? Y ☐ N ☐

10. Would you recommend the film: a. to others in your community? Y ☐ N ☐ b. to Indigenous contacts outside of your community? Y ☐ N ☐ c. to non-Indigenous contacts? Y ☐ N ☐ d. for use in Native Studies courses? Y ☐ N ☐

Please complete the last question on the reverse of the questionnaire.

11. Check off the categories that pertain to you:

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k. ☐ Member of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation l. ☐ Indigenous m. ☐ Non-Indigenous n. ☐ Teacher o. ☐ Public School Student p. ☐ Private School Student q. ☐ Undergraduate Student r. ☐ Graduate Student s. ☐ School Board Trustee t. ☐ Employee of a School Board

Comments: Add any additional comments or recommendations.

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your contribution to this research.

The participant’s questionnaire had two additional questions:

0. As a participant in the Community Circle did you feel your voice was

represented in the process used by the researcher? Y ☐ N ☐

and

5a. Did you read the Thesis before ☐ or after ☐ the Community Circle?

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Appendix I – Poster

Planting Stories: Feeding Communities

Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples, and Film

Premiere Screening @ GREAT Tuesday, 21 July 2015 at 5 p.m.

PLEASE JOIN US in celebrating the stories of three Six Nations educators, Keith Lickers, Gloria Thomas and Peter Hill, AND to answer the question: Is film an effective way to bring research findings and stories back to the communities from which they were taken?

Viewers will be invited to fill out a brief questionnaire, followed by a brief Question and Answer period with researcher/producer/director, Paul Chaput MA, PhD candidate from Queen’s University.

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Appendix J – UN Convention on Genocide

Convention on the

Prevention and Punishment

of the Crime of Genocide

Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9

December 1948.

Article 1

The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in

time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to

punish.

Article 2

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to

destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical

destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.