What does it mean to tell Indigenous stories? These 3 authors explore the idea
What's in a story? The broad range of storytelling approaches by Indigenous authors reflect the power of story to heal, inspire and educate.
On location at the Vancouver Writers Festival, Shelagh Rogers spoke with three Indigenous authors — Brandi Morin, Cree/Iroquois/French author of Our Voice of Fire, Cody Caetano, a writer of Anishinaabe and Portuguese descent and author of Half-Bads in White Regalia, and Eldon Yellowhorn, a member of the Piikani Nation and author of children's books such as Sky Wolf's Call — about the power of stories and storytelling in a panel titled "Writing Indigeneity."
Shelagh Rogers: When you think of the word Indigeneity, what do you think of?
Elden Yellowhorn: I think of being from a particular area — equivalent to a native of that area.
Cody Caetano: When I hear that phrase, "Writing Indigeneity,"' a lot of things come to mind. I hear in that an urge for cultural guardianship, cultural transmission. I think of writing Indigeneity as being a mode of testimony and witness, and also referring to a spiritual concatenation: thinking about the past and forward.
I think of writing Indigeneity as being a mode of testimony and witness, and also referring to a spiritual concatenation: thinking about the past and forward.- Cody Caetano
Brandi Morin: Indigeneity to me also represents being of the land, being of a place. It also represents grounding, reclamation and restoration.
Shelagh Rogers: Brandi, at one point in the book you write: 'Silence is a tool of violence used against our people in the attempt to erase and eradicate us. Do you write against silence?
Brandi Morin: For so long, the truths of the Indigenous experience, for most, were stifled.
In my work as a journalist, I have worked to help bring that to the forefront. Silence is violence. Even when it comes to the horrors of the residential school system or the violence of colonization, most people had no awareness of that, including even in my own family, where my kokum was a survivor.
They were even stifled to the majority of non-Indigenous people across this country as well. Silence equals the violence. Both have gone hand in hand.
Listen | Brandi Morin on All in a Weekend:
Shelagh Rogers: Eldon, you talk about the power of stories. What does a storyteller have to have to be able to hold the stories?
Even when it comes to the horrors of the residential school system or the violence of colonization, most people had no awareness of that, including even in my own family, where my kokum was a survivor.- Brandi Morin
Eldon Yellowhorn: Commitment, compassion and a little bit of hilarity — to be able to keep people entertained.
Shelagh Rogers: Cody, can you talk about your mother and how she discovered who she was?
Cody Caetano: My mom is delightful. She's a writer and a great storyteller. She was someone who spent a long time — 12 years — looking for her family. She knew she was adopted. She was told that pretty much as soon as she could comprehend what was going on and moved out on her own at 16 after her dad passed away and was just sort of living in the city of Toronto.
She met my dad and moved with my siblings and I to a highway village on the way to 'Algonquin Cottage Country,' which is a place where people have houses to take breaks from their houses.
I think my mom had begun searching for her family, and she was sort of torn about that because it can be painful for the family who adopts you. She found her birth family, who are from the Manitoba Interlake between Lake St. Martin and Manitoba. When I asked her about what that felt like, she told me that it was so joyful.
Listen | Cody Caetano on The Next Chapter:
Shelagh Rogers: Brandi, there is a lot about fire in your book. What does fire mean to you?
Brandi Morin: Fire is motivation. It's passion. It's resilience. It's courage. It can sear. It can ignite. It can be warm. It's just a way that I describe what this journey has been throughout my life and pursuing this purpose of journalism.
Shelagh Rogers: Eldon, what kind of responsibility do you feel you have in the work that you do?
Eldon Yellowhorn: Getting it right. That is my main challenge. Archaeology has had such a bad reputation amongst Indigenous people for so long. Even in the early part of my career, people used to make very disparaging remarks about me pursuing a career in archaeology.
But at the same time, I recognize that there was a voice that was absent from the archaeological discourse, and that was the people whose ancestors created the archaeological record.
I recognize that there was a voice that was absent from the archaeological discourse, and that was the people whose ancestors created the archaeological record.- Eldon Yellowhorn
Bringing in the Indigenous voice to me was creating an internal pathway: because all people, regardless of where you are, we all have an internal dialogue about the nature of antiquity and of the past.
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
