Guy Sioui Durand
November 28, 2011
Wendake

"Myths still explain the world."

Guy Sioui Durand, Wendat

"Indigenous artists are hunters-shamans-warriors," says art sociologist Guy Sioui Durand. As hunters, they stay connected to the land and nature, to the spirit of animals and to ecology. As warriors, they express political criticism and fight stereotypes and appropriation. As shamans, they open passages between the world below and the world above. Heirs to a thousand-year-old culture, they know that every ceremony is rooted in a relationship with the world. That is why their practice transcends art for art.

Indoors. By the window, Guy Sioui Durand is sitting on a red velvet sofa. Next to him, on the sofa, are books and art magazines. At the back of the room is a bookshelf full of books. On a coffee table sits a birch bark basket with floral motifs and a wolf's head. A second basket, much smaller and made of wicker, is right next to it. Guy Sioui Durand is wearing a sweater from the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.

We must respect beyond romanticism or melancholy, when we use the term “Mother Earth...”. We already feel an attachment to the environment, ecology, the relationship of respect for nature, and many would like to carry this over to solely spiritual relationships. It's a craze, it's popular. But, we could do the same with planetary history. And why not cosmologically. We know very well that mythological thinking... I’m one of those people who claims that myths still hold explanation about the world. Yes, rational thought, yes, but since I’m in the art field, in the world of the imagination, I sustain that the founding narratives, mythologies, legends are just as important to create the cultural fabric as, as the measure of the world, rationality. And, uh, to give an example of this, I'm going to start the story from, I would say, the 1960s.

A cat jumps up on Guy Sioui Durand's lap.

In the 1960s, around 64-65, there was an artist who, starting from one stroke, starting from one stroke, and then colours, made something amazing and revealed it, uh, in North America. He revealed the shamanic world. Norval Morisseau, who many consider to be the modern Riopelle of art, he who was raised by his shaman grandparents. Through art, through his drawings, through his elements and his strokes, he will reveal what has never belonged to anthropologists, to ethnologists. Yet, there have been all kinds of discourse for it to be an anthropology, an ethnology, and all this; through art, colours and everything, the vivacity of the shamanic world. Passages between worlds.

Fade out.

For the first time, in 1967, in a city undergoing transformation, Quebecers are experiencing their own modernization of the Quiet Revolution. There's going to be Man and His World (Terre des Hommes). I mentioned “Mother Earth” earlier. Expo 67. And for the first time, there will be an independent Indian pavilion not reliant on the Quebec pavilion and the Canada pavilion. Ten artists will illustrate, are invited to decorate and what... What will take place will make it such that nothing will be the same afterwards. Why? Why? Because of Norval Morisseau, all ten artists, including Jean-Marie Gros-Louis de Wendake, Tom Hill, Mohawk, uh.... the Hunt brothers, I believe, from the Northwest Coast who come to make totems and especially Norval Morisseau and Alex Janvier, the Dené artist, the first Amerindian abstract artist, will all make politically committed works of art which ask the question: are we different, distinct. And for the first time, before the world, Man and His World, Expo 67, the largest universal exhibition, the Indian pavilion shows aspects of Indian reality as it was on the reserves in the 1960s rather than the invented Indian folklore that no longer exists.

Fade out.

But there are also those I call “hunters-shamans-warriors”, a neologism for artists. Hunters with animal spirits, with the territory, with respect, ecology, the environment; shamans, the spiritual dimension, the healing dimension, but also the dimension of passages and mythological thought; the warriors, those who can make political criticism, those who can ironically criticize stereotypes and reappropriate.... Well, all this... There’s a whole generation of artists who, in the 1980s, emerged, I’m talking about Diane Robertson, who are evolving: Édouard Poitras, Rebecca Belmore, a generation of several women.

Fade out.

Yes, of course, we always put the, the, the extreme difficulty of ss... for Amerindians, and especially communities, we see it with school drop-out, we see it with the concept of, of quickly adapting to urban values, uh... We also see it with the problem of homelessness. We always emphasize this, but if we focused on the benefits brought on by a relationship with nature, a relationship with, with nature as understood by Hubert Reeves, the ecosystem. Uh... Earlier, that's why I wanted to use the expression of the Moon and everything to show that as well. Uh, the relationship with animals, respect... How can one, in ultra-scholar environments, perform ceremonies of burning bones without remembering that the elders, if you had the urgent need to perhaps suffer from hunger? That when you have a moose, you kill nine hundred pounds of meat. You can last three months... When the herd is lost and you call on magic, you ask the shaman, you ask animal spirits, “Guide me so that we don't die of hunger.” You’re in a state of emergency, you’re connected to reality, you’re also in a state, you know why you’re doing this, which is not limited to “art for art”, like I was telling you.

Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur
October 25, 2011
Unamen-Shipu

"When you find him, he never leaves you."

Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur, Innu

Before being used to give rhythm to songs and dances, the teueikan—the Innu drum—was used for hunting. When his group lost track of a herd of caribou, Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur's grandfather would pull out his drum and sing. Then he would say what he had seen and point out the direction to follow. The caribou were there. The drum is a sacred object. It’s a connection with the spirit world. When a hunter plays it, he calls his protector to his side. Invisible to others, it accompanies him and guides him towards food.

Interview with Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur, translated by Richard Mollen.

Near a white brick wall, Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur sits on a black chair, steadying with his hand a traditional Innu drum suspended from the ceiling. He’s wearing a blue plaid shirt and a beige cap. Richard Mollen is on the left, but he doesn't appear in the camera’s view. Tight shot on Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur.

Richard Mollen

The best place to sing, is to sing in a tent, an indigenous tent, because your friend, his friend who, who watches over him can easily enter the tent, he says: “Here, his friend will have trouble getting in, he’ll look for a place through which he can get back to him.” It's as if, inside the wooden structure, you're trapped. The other one can’t necessarily get in, compared to an outdoor tent. His friend can be present with him.

Interviewer

OK. Uh, his friend is who extactly...?

Richard Mollen et Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

Close-up shot on Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur. Only his face can be seen on the screen. The drum stick, which he holds in his right hand, appears a few times as he gestures.

Richard Mollen

He says: “The singer, has a friend, but we never see him. He’s always behind him. He’s always behind him to protect him, to accompany him when he hunts. You never see him, this is his friend, his protector, as you might say...”

Interviewer

A protector?

Richard Mollen

Yes, a protector...

Interviewer

What is the Innu term?

Richard Mollen

He said, “Nuitsheuan [Innu word], his friend.”

Interviewer

His friend...

Richard Mollen

Yes.

Interviewer

OK! And he has a face, a body...?

Richard Mollen et Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

Richard Mollen

No. He says, “No, it's not like that.”

Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

Richard Mollen

He says, “His friend, he sees him.” he says. The singer sees him like someone walking around who, like a bird eh. Before moving towards something, but he sees him, his friend. He’s wandering around like that... a protection.

Interviewer

But, he only sees him when he plays the drum, or rather always in daily life, all the time...

Richard Mollen et Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

The camera pulls back towards the right to show Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur's left hand holding the drum. To the left of the screen, we see his right hand moving the drum stick up and down, preparing to hit it. The camera shot slowly closes in on Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur's hand, which steadies the drum by holding on to a leather shoelace at the bottom.

Richard Mollen

He says, “He’s there for daily activities, no matter what.” He says: “Whenever someone has found their friend.” He says, “Even for a hunt, all the caribou gather in the same place, to find them in the same place.” He says: “That's why his friend is here. We don't see him.” He says, “He can all be found in the little tasks that are done, not necessarily just by playing.” He says, "When you find him, he doesn’t leave you.”

Interviewer

But do you as a drummer choose your own friend, or is it your friend who chooses you?

Richard Mollen et Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

Richard Mollen

OK. He says, “I can know who, who will come with me after playing the drum.” He says, “I don't feel him now. When, after, when I've played the drum eh, that's when he should come.”

Interviewer

OK! And now, would he want to summon him?

Richard Mollen et Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur

[Comments in the Innu language.]

The camera pulls back to show a close-up of Jean-Baptiste Bellefleur. He’s on the left of the screen and, on the right, we see his hand holding the suspended drum.

Richard Mollen

He says, “Yes, I can summon him.” But, he says, “You won't see him, you know. You won't see him. Maybe he’ll be there, however you won't feel him. I'm the only one who'll see him and feel him in my teueikan.”

Interviewer

In the teueikan...

Richard Mollen

In the teuiekan, by doing... by singing. He says, “I can summon him, but you won't see him. You won't even know he’s there.” He says, "I'm the one who'll know.”