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Episode 356: Siku Allooloo
396 Plays2 years ago
Siku Allooloo (@discobou on IG) is a writer, poet, and filmmaker and we talk about her essays "Caribou People" and "Living Death."
Social: @CNFPod
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Newsletter/show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
The Creative Process and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
And then when I get to writing it's exciting because I feel like whatever it is that has started to evolve is starting to take shape and I'm the first person that gets to witness that.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey CNFers, it's CNF Pod, the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara. How's it going? Today's guest is Siko Alulu, and she puts the multi in multi hyphenate. Dig it, alright? Here's a little ditty from her website.
00:00:43
Speaker
She is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and filmmaker from Deninde, Northwest Territories, Canada, by way of Haiti and mythometallic Nunavut. An artistic innovator, siku often free imagines conventional forms as imbued by her cultural traditions, oral history, and land-based practice. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally,
00:01:12
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In several groundbreaking Indigenous art exhibitions, her poetry and other writing have been published nationally and internationally. The Guardian Canadian Art Magazine, Truth Out!, the Capilano Review,
00:01:27
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Her
Discovering New Voices Through Social Media
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first short film Spirit Emulsion from 2022 won Best Canadian Short Film at Gimli International Film Festival. She is currently leading the development of her first feature-length documentary project in Dihina
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as the writer, director, and co-producer with Jessica Helen Beck of Lantern Films. She's also a co-creator of the Woven-In Indigenous Women's Activism and Media Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, on display until May 7th of this year, 2023. Yeah, I know, right?
00:02:08
Speaker
A ways back, I saw CNF pod alum Christina Gaddy post on Instagram this collection of essays, Shapes of Native Nonfiction, published by the University of Washington Press and edited by Alyssa Washuta and Teresa Warburton. This is, to me, the utility of social media. This is how a lot of books get on my radar. Some books. I get a lot from
00:02:31
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a lot of publicist requests and pitches of that nature. But it piqued my interest because wouldn't it be nice to highlight some native voices on the show? So I requested the book. It sat on my shelf for at least two years and most books do because I'm a monster and I was like, shoot, I'm gonna flip to a random page and that person will be the first person from this book that I will read and I will interview them. And that was CQ's incredible piece, Caribou People.
Showcasing and Supporting Native Stories
00:03:00
Speaker
about colonial trauma and ancestral lineage. I loved it. And then I read another essay by her, which won the Briar Patch Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2016. And I was equally blown away. And as luck would have it, both pieces kind of rhyme. So we dig into those land-based education and finding ways to, quote, sew it up. That phrase will mean something as this conversation unfolds, man.
00:03:29
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And if you're not already subscribed, I hope you'll hit that button wherever you listen to podcasts. Consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcast to help the wayward CNF or say, oh, I'll give that show a chance. Got a new one? I'd like to read from Tess Enterline.
00:03:46
Speaker
Always a great listen. I can always count on Brendan to make the CNF podcast interesting informative and entertaining He asks terrific questions and keeps things real as a writer myself. I'm constantly learning more about the craft from his guests Thank You Brendan and thank you Tess Tess is also a member at the patreon page and I'd encourage you to take a look over there I'm experimenting with some new goodies
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So if you'd like to throw a few bucks into the C&F Pod tip jar, that'll help with the hosting of the show, which isn't cheap, the tech of the show, which of course isn't cheap, and if that interests you at all and you'd like to help out, we'd love to have a few bucks every month.
00:04:29
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Show is free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. And be sure to head over to BrendanOmero.com to sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, can't beat it.
Managing Overwhelm and Creative Integration
00:04:42
Speaker
So at long last, here's my conversation with the brilliant Siku Alulu.
00:05:00
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All right, a little overwhelmed of late. And I'm trying to get my head around some things. And my default is to just kind of shut down and curl up somewhere. And it's just unacceptable right now. I have to find a way to push through a big project. And I just have to get my act together.
00:05:28
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I'm in the same boat. Nice. Actually, so many people I know are. I feel like it's kind of a cruel first month of 2023. Yeah. Like, got us all in this state. Yeah, no kidding. As we continue to get warmed up, can you do me a favor and just pronounce your full name to make sure I get that right?
00:05:54
Speaker
Sure, siku, alalu. Okay, fantastic. And yeah, so I guess, you know, maybe a good jumping off point might be just how the start, like as both of you and I have attested, we are overwhelmed and maybe on different levels on the panic continuum. I wonder maybe how are you approaching that and trying to, I don't know, dance with it in a way where you still are able to, you know, get the things done you need to get done.
00:06:25
Speaker
forcing myself to take a lot of deep breaths and go for walks, like get out of the sedentary kind of like work tunnel that just pulls you in relentlessly and endlessly. So yeah, I really love being outside and just feeling the air and just getting out of the headspace too.
00:06:52
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That's what I'm doing these days, at least trying to every day remind myself like I'm a human being living in
Land-Based Education and Cultural Significance
00:07:01
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planet, not just living at my desk. Right. My wife stumbled across something on Instagram about talking about internalized capitalism. And it's something I had never heard of. But this idea, maybe I'm sure you're aware of it, is just how this constant need to feel like we need to be productive all the time.
00:07:25
Speaker
And it definitely hit home because any time that I'm not, if I'm not rowing the boat, I always feel like, shoot, I'm wasting time. The deadlines are coming. I got to hustle, man. Same. I think it's like that when you're an artist or just a self-employed person because you're constantly having to hustle. I don't think it's like that if you have a regular government job
00:07:55
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or you get to shut off at 5 p.m.? And reading a bit about you in your biography here, it's like you have a really multi-disciplined artistic prism through which you metabolize the world. You do a lot of different things. How have you come to be so creative in all these disciplines, be it film, writing, poetry, and other kinds of art?
00:08:25
Speaker
I don't know. It's just kind of I've never had like a clear vision for like this is something I want to do that's been like I've never thought I want to be a writer or I want to be I've thought about film for a long time but basically I just the extent of what I
00:08:49
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spend time with is whatever it is I'm working on and really trying to be present with that and see it through the form that it feels like it's meant to be for that piece. I think now I'm starting to see everything come together from the things I've done in the past, which is like land-based education, running cultural programs up north,
00:09:20
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out in the bush with elders and young people trying to foster just safe and wonderful places for cultural inheritance to get passed between generations in place on the land the way that it always was meant to before colonial interruption. That was a big part of the work that I was doing
00:09:44
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before I started publishing my writing and then doing all the other things. Now I'm working in film and seeing how those things are really, they're all basically coming from the same place. It's all looking at our lived experience as indigenous people and the work of, that's really, I see as really important work is the intimate rebuilding of
00:10:12
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our connections within ourselves and with each other and you know just with our our culture and trying to foster spaces for us to be able to be present with that again and have that come through because Indigenous arts always came from that context of the living breathing world.
00:10:36
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embedded in all those relationships and those connections that are so beautiful that really are sustaining. So I think I've applied pressure or I've applied my energy in lots of different facets trying to breathe a bit of life into those different avenues and now as I'm working on a larger
00:11:01
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a lifelong dream project, actually a film project. I can see how all those different things have informed where I am and what I'm working on now. For those who might not be fluent in it, when you're talking about land-based education, what exactly does that mean?
Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Rights
00:11:21
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Oh, it's so awesome. Well, for indigenous people, basically our whole societies were out on the land. So that's where the land base comes from. So for the kind of culture camps I'm talking about, there's an
00:11:40
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Bush University. It's called Descenta Center for Research and Learning. It's in the Northwest Territories outside of Yellowknife, where I grew up, and it's in Dene territory, Dene homeland.
00:11:54
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with Dene elders and experts like people that know how to harvest food from the land, how to live there and do things safely, all the survival stuff, all the artistic practices and the language. They have like all these amazing skills and we bring them together. We bring young people out there, whole families can go out there.
00:12:22
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And we basically just provide a context for people to be able to learn those practices like ice fishing, hunting, harvesting, traditional medicines from the land, cooking traditional foods, making things from like birch bark or fur or bones, bone tools, basically like
00:12:49
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re-engaging, reactivating those ancestral practices that have been around forever and are still there. I know there's a lot of people that are finally in this era, the last generation or so, able to take those practices back up without being really violently persecuted by like, you know, by like colonial forces. So yeah, it's, it's really cool.
00:13:18
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people get to go and spend time with their elders and their family and do beautiful things that feel really restorative and grounding. What's it like to see someone light up who might have a gap in their land-based education? It's just so incredible. People feel connected to things that maybe have been out of reach.
00:13:47
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I don't know what it's like where you live, but in the North, especially the Northern Territories in Canada, there's not very long of a gap between how our ancestors lived in a more kind of culturally intact way, like a way not so interrupted by the Western world. That was only like, for some of us, one generation.
00:14:15
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for some of us two or three generations, but it's really not very long. So for young people getting to go out on their land, for example, visit places that they've never been to or have
00:14:32
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that safety of being taken care of to be able to go out in a boat and with someone that knows how to navigate the water safely and to go spend some time in the camp and hear language and see traditional foods being prepared and harvested and just like the laughter and the community and those things, they're so amazing and really beautiful and then it's also
00:15:02
Speaker
like you can't really get that anywhere else where you get to re-engage with those practices that are, they're in your genetics, they're in your family, they're in your community and you've seen them, but then to have the space to be able to start to take those up yourself is, it's just really very powerful. And I don't think
00:15:25
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I don't think when people start to experience that, I don't usually ever see people be like, nah, this is not for me. I usually see people dive in in a really concerted way and basically that just continues on that trajectory for the rest of their life. People mostly just want to be able to integrate their culture more and more and more because it's life giving in so many ways and it really feeds your spirit and it gives you a lot of strength.
00:15:53
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How important is the art you do, be it whatever discipline it is, to translating the importance of this land-based education? I guess the way I think about the things I do is, some of it is outward-facing advocacy, talking about
00:16:15
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really the need for us to confront colonialism, to decolonize those systemic forces that continue to interfere with our lives and our sovereignty and in fact continue processes of genocide in a really ongoing way. For example,
00:16:39
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There's a crisis of missing murdered indigenous women and girls, trans and two-spirit people, which is ongoing to this day. So we have to exist in this world. We exist in countries that are occupying our homelands and societies that are built to really eradicate us in ways that most people don't even understand or aren't even aware of the inherent
00:17:09
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racism that perpetuate. So a lot of my work is half of it I would say is outward facing trying to call awareness to those systemic forces and to our need for safety. And then the other half I would say is inward facing speaking
00:17:34
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to my own relatives or people or indigenous people and who've been so impacted for so many generations and like, you know, there's a lot to rebuild and there's a lot of those, I'd say intimate spaces that need a lot of love and a lot of care. So I think a lot of the work that I do is speaking to those things
00:18:03
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as tenderly as I can with just a lot of love and a wish for healing and repair.
Food, Memory, and Cultural Identity
00:18:13
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Yeah, I get the sense that everything that we've just been talking to briefly here really comes through in the Caribou People essay that appeared in my copy of Shapes of Native Nonfiction and collected essays. And I really love this piece.
00:18:30
Speaker
I wanted to get a sense of how important essays of this nature, or just essays in general, of how important openings are. I really liked your first paragraph to this. It just seemed like it was really ethereal, but it was also kind of touching upon some very open themes, like you say, about the trauma of colonial trauma.
00:18:56
Speaker
you know, just everything that is thrust upon indigenous people up in the Northwest Territories where you grew up. So I was wondering if you could just speak to that, how important that was to kind of grip us right from the start. Well, I would say our cultures are very, very potent and our foods, our traditional foods are so potent.
00:19:24
Speaker
The opening story, it recounts a real experience of eating food from Nunavut, where my dad's from. And we, yeah, it's called caribou people because we are caribou people. Like a lot of indigenous people across the North actually are also identified as caribou people. Yeah, when you are eating traditional food, it has the power of
00:19:54
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waking things up for you.
00:19:58
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For example, if they've been dormant, if you haven't been even exposed to that for a long time, and it's not just indigenous people, I think probably people all over the world, when you get your soul food, it can just connect you right back to home and to memory. So I started thinking about those access points to the spirit or to like the culture, the connection, the land,
00:20:27
Speaker
All those things that are are who we are and they are who we come from they're what make us and They're they can get Taken over or not taken over Suppressed by colonial society, but they can never actually be completely removed from us. So things like practicing
00:20:55
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or learning how to make dry meat or dry fish, for example, or just eating some of those soul foods, country foods from the land, they can put you back in touch. And I think they nourish your whole self. I think that's a part of why they're so powerful and so spiritual, those foods.
00:21:21
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But yeah, I think it's really important for people to have those access points. So there are direct connections with the things that so many Indigenous people do.
00:21:34
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Having to fight to protect the land from contamination or destruction is also fighting to protect those caribou, for example, or clean water or all the things that enable us to actually be Indigenous in the land and practice our ways of life. Those all get connected and I think food is one way of showing all of those overlaps.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, and there's, you know, in the essay too, you say like the caribou herd up there used to be around maybe as high as 350,000 head, and then it's reduced down to something like 15,000, which is just kind of blew my mind. But I think also like symbolic in that is just, you know, because it's sort of like, you know, Western culture is sort of
00:22:24
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Yeah, push that erasure on that species and in a sense it's really reflective in like, you know, you know your culture and how that's been marginalized for the, you know, Western gain. So I really saw the mirror and in that and how you approached it. Good for heat. Yeah, you read that really well.
00:22:48
Speaker
It's yeah, it's I love to like where you were talking about to how these you know food of that nature really can just tap into your into your soul and it's like your cousin too said it's just like you know you know what our people have eaten for thousands of years it's so deep in our DNA that it just took us back and you guys are just kind of like you know stewing in that and it was just a kind of a wonderful moment of how like powerful those those things are and how deep and how far back they go.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's what's natural. I think it's like, that's natural to us. I think more like eating chicken, for example, is really not natural for us. There's no chickens from where, you know, they don't come, they come from very far away. And living in a way that, you know, the Western world wants to homogenize everything and the
00:23:46
Speaker
center locus of that is, um, it's very culturally specific in a way, even though it's like very generic or homogenized, but you know, the scent, what's become central in the Western world really doesn't come from our world. And I like to normalize where, what is central to our people and our world is, and, you know, the rest can get marginalized, but let's remember our own center.
00:24:16
Speaker
I like how you break down and structure the essay.
Colonial Impacts and Cultural Rebuilding
00:24:21
Speaker
Maybe you can just kind of give us a sense of how you approach structure when it comes to pieces of this nature, and maybe this one in particular, how you wanted to break it down into its components and tell a really kind of gripping story. It's a fairly short essay, but there's a lot in there, and you structure it really well. Thank you. The most important
00:24:45
Speaker
thing is connection and locating where I'm coming from. So what I'm speaking to is like I'm showing you that memory, that experience of feeling that connection and just how beautiful it is and how natural that is, how easily we fall back into that and remember place and time that we come from as a new age
00:25:16
Speaker
women. And then the next part is I think grappling with something I've grappled with for a long time, which is how to foster more of that with the community of people, how like the actual work of trying to help communities rebuild those things. And it's really difficult colonialism and residential schools and all kinds of
00:25:46
Speaker
you know, those really overt, very violent colonial forces, they really have bared down upon us and impacted our ability to even know how to relate with each other, certainly between generations, but also just between individuals, it's become very difficult. There's all kinds of hang ups now with
00:26:14
Speaker
our own ability or sense of ease or even permission to be able to express ourselves emotionally or from the heart and to rebuild relationships because those have been so destroyed. I don't know if you know about residential schools but
00:26:37
Speaker
There's a lot coming out about the reality of residential schools across Canada and boarding schools across the United States. And so when we're out on the land, a lot of that stuff, those hangups also come up because we're in a setting where things are supposed to be more natural and more fluid. And yet also even in those spaces, even when there's like no colonial forces really there,
00:27:07
Speaker
materially or there's no people there enforcing things, we still have those hang ups that we need to heal. So as a facilitator in those programs, I'm always trying to think about those things because you can't just put elements back together and then they work. You actually have to heal the connections and make people feel safe
00:27:32
Speaker
to practice and to let the culture flow and the relationships flow again. So the second part of the essay is really looking at that and realizing if we don't figure this out, if we don't do this work to solve this piece, this relational piece, then generations
00:27:53
Speaker
going forward aren't going to have those access points that allow you to drop back in to the culture. So talking about that and also trying to weave in a conversation with this elder that's saying, you know, our culture really is, our people really is like this moose haichu is working on. It has all these holes, but the thing to do is we have to sew those holes back up and make it unified again.
00:28:22
Speaker
And that's the message I was really hoping people take away from that because I think a lot of time people can feel a lot of shame for what we have endured and the holes that are left in our families and in ourselves by colonialism. But those really aren't our fault. And we really do have the power to heal those, to sew them back up and be strong again.
00:28:52
Speaker
So that's the more important thing. And I think the final piece was really about the land itself and the impact that the land just environmentally has been enduring and the reality of colonialism through the lens of climate change and those impacts.
00:29:15
Speaker
taking a really stark look, I think, a really realistic look at the state of the planet and making the connection between what is possible for us in order to have these safe spaces, in order to rebuild and be Indigenous people on the land the way that we always
00:29:38
Speaker
have been. That is actually under duress and so we kind of need to apply focus in all those different places at the same time.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, you cite how you were speaking with a beloved elder, and she said, like you were alluding to, the society, your society is very much full of holes, and she's incumbent upon you to try to sew it up and try to bridge those gaps and put it all back together.
00:30:11
Speaker
So, in your own assessment, how big are the holes and what is the challenge going forward to, as you say, sew it up?
00:30:27
Speaker
holes exist in all society. Like the state of the world is bigger than just the piece that any indigenous nation, you know, exists in or holds like the whole entire planet is under extreme duress right now. And also our society and late stage capitalism, I think is really reeling from what
00:30:56
Speaker
the Western world has done to us or what we've done to ourselves. So a lot of people are trying to contend with this all over the world. But I think for Indigenous people, we have knowledge of a different way of living in the world that is sustainable and is sustaining. Like I think in that essay, I say,
00:31:25
Speaker
those ways of life. They're called life-giving because they give life, but they also sustain us in the process. I'd say it way better. I'm not quoting it well, but it's like, it's a life way or it's a way of life, but it also gives you life. So we have knowledge of that. We have really
00:31:51
Speaker
tangible structures and systems that help us be in balance with the environment and the whole natural world. And in the process of living like that, it also keeps us in balance as human beings. And so that's the most important thing that I think Indigenous people have always held on to.
00:32:16
Speaker
and hopefully always will hold on to and those are so important for us as nations but the world actually has a lot to learn from us because for us, like I said, those aren't so far in our memory. It hasn't been so long that those have been impacted.
Family, Forgiveness, and Cultural Responsibilities
00:32:40
Speaker
There's a moment also where your mother takes you and your brother to see a caribou herd. And if I were standing over your shoulder at that time, what would we be seeing, if you could describe what that looked like, what that felt like? Well, a herd.
00:33:06
Speaker
of these like most beautiful beings caribou moving together at a very gentle walking pace all in one direction across the ice and there's like 400,000 of them and it's a beautiful winter day and you see millions of hoof prints all around the ice and
00:33:35
Speaker
giant clouds, hovering above them of their breath and gunshots. Gunshots going off, rifles. And that's happening and people are so happy. There's like a buoyant, beautiful feeling of happiness and gratitude and just joy, people being able to
00:34:05
Speaker
experience this most beautiful day of so much life and abundance. It's just really a gift.
00:34:13
Speaker
And around that time too, you write that I think you were six years old or your father and your parents split up and your father left and that left is something of a world-breaking event for you and your family. And I think you write too that despite all the hard truths that can be said about that man and the shatteredness of each of us, I will always cherish this. Though he may not have been able to fulfill his role in most ways, he always provided us with meat.
00:34:42
Speaker
He loved us in the best way. He knew how Char in this in that paragraph I get a sense that there probably was a great deal of resentment at one point, but I sense forgiveness I don't know maybe you can speak to maybe both in both those poles of maybe the resentment you felt in the forgiveness you matured into Yeah, I think I
00:35:06
Speaker
You know, a lot of kids go through this where parents break up and you know, you have a sense of abandonment from one parent or another. And for me, yeah, I didn't have any explanation for a long time. And it wasn't really until I started to
00:35:31
Speaker
learn about the reality of residential schools. My dad is a residential school survivor, and that wasn't something that anybody talked about. We didn't learn about it in school growing up, and it only started to get talked about in the public
00:35:51
Speaker
in like 2008, 2010 or so, we had a major truth and reconciliation commission across Canada that finally brought this history to light and shocked everybody. I think many people in Canadian society
00:36:10
Speaker
still are going through a state of disbelief of how do we never know that this happened before, that the Canadian government stole 150,000 Indigenous children, virtually all Indigenous children from everywhere in the country
00:36:24
Speaker
and put them in these essentially prison camps, work camps, and did all kinds of horrible things to these children. Most people didn't know about that. So when I learned about these things, it gave me finally an explanation for
00:36:45
Speaker
why my father was the way that he was or why that separation had happened. I finally started to have some understanding of intergenerational impacts and thinking through trying to see him as a whole person and also give him credit for
00:37:09
Speaker
the ways that he did continue to be in our lives or the way he did show up. And for him, it was a more unspoken gesture of love and connection that is culturally very important because for Inuit, providing meat is
00:37:36
Speaker
a very central part of our life and so he did continue to do that and I had to see through that cultural lens that those things are still there.
00:37:52
Speaker
You know, I wanted to talk about this living death essay, too, that you wrote. You know, you won a creative nonfiction prize for it for Briar Patch magazine. 2016 is kind of crazy. It's coming up seven years ago now. Geez. Say it like that. It's like, oh, my God. Like 2016 in so many ways feels like it's just yesterday, even though it's like been an agonizing seven years in so many ways.
00:38:17
Speaker
But this is, you know, talk about putting the creative in nonfiction where, you know, you have this sort of almost like ghost story-esque element to the start written in italics that kind of sets the tone for everything that comes forward. So maybe you can just kind of unpack how you went about constructing and writing this essay.
00:38:42
Speaker
This was a zombie story that always haunted me growing up. My mom and grandparents were from Haiti. And my grandfather was an especially amazing storyteller. And I always loved this story, but it always used to just completely terrify me. I think elements of it probably still terrify me.
00:39:13
Speaker
It's a story about Haitian zombies, which is like a practice in voodoo, where you can use like, not anyone, but like there's, I guess, witch doctors that can use
00:39:32
Speaker
plant medicine or medicine from a blowfish and it's tasteless and odorless and you can slip it into somebody's drink or their food. And then they sometime after go through a process of physically appearing dead, but their mind and psyche are still completely intact. And then after being pronounced dead, they're basically woken
00:40:02
Speaker
by the shaman or the person that put the medicine on them. And then they are essentially living dead. They're zombies. They have no free will and are basically just put to work. And they don't remember their name. They don't remember anything about their human life. They're basically just vacant beings.
00:40:31
Speaker
And I started to think about that in the context of colonialism and what it wants to do to us as indigenous people, or really as all people. I think it's not just indigenous people that have experienced this or are contending with this. I think human beings all over the planet, especially ones that have been living in
00:41:01
Speaker
occupied homelands like Canada and the United States who don't really have a lot of those connections back to their ancestors. I think that's also the end product of colonialism that wants to remove your history. They want to remove your name of your nation. Just
00:41:25
Speaker
Kind of crazy. I see this in fairy tales sometimes where, you know, somebody will like steal your name. Like in Miyazaki's Spirited Away, the villain steals the names of the people that they employ and then that's a way of controlling them. But that's also a way that colonial governments control indigenous peoples. They give us a different name that isn't our name for ourselves.
00:41:54
Speaker
And for indigenous people, our name for ourself almost always means human being. And so we're given these appropriated names and the culture wants to turn us into something that we weren't before, basically a workforce.
00:42:14
Speaker
that has no memory of our connections and no power, no free will. And we're basically just sadistically put to work for things that are not of us. So I was thinking about colonialism through
00:42:35
Speaker
are just that whole experience through the lens of the story. And that's what I wrote. Yeah. And it's like, um, I just, what was, uh, it really just wild how you, you know, use the, that zombie story as, as a way to, you know, talk about this. And I don't know, just in the thought process and how your mind works, what was it about, and you might've already kind of touched upon this, but I just,
00:43:02
Speaker
would love to hear you say it again. It's just like, what was it about the zombie story that really spoke to this idea of colonialism, colonial trauma? I think the scariest part of that story that has persisted for me is the idea that somebody that you know very intimately, like a family member, could potentially be
00:43:31
Speaker
like their whole personality can be stolen from them. Everything that makes them the person that you love and know so well, that that can be stolen from them. And then they can be manipulated into just somebody going through the motions and somebody just following orders. That always scared me so much.
00:44:00
Speaker
And even the idea that, whoa, that can happen to me. I think colonial violence can do that to people where when you go through post-traumatic stress disorder, you kind of go through a process of like losing yourself and
00:44:20
Speaker
being fearful. And I think that's another facet that we experience. When I was studying colonialism and learning, okay, what is it trying to achieve? What is it always trying to do? It is trying to strip Indigenous people of who we are.
00:44:42
Speaker
and break our connections to our world, our worldviews, our ways of life, our connections to the land, our stories, our histories, all those things that are our cultural personality and our free will. It's always trying to eventually steal our free will and put us to work in their service. So
00:45:11
Speaker
I think that is a very terrifying, very sinister thing for an entity to want to do. And in the Haitian story, it's always really clear that that's like a villainous thing to do, that kind of exploitation. But when we think about governments like Canada or United States, a lot of people don't really think of them
00:45:41
Speaker
as sinister in relationship to Indigenous people. But that's, I think, the commentary I wanted to place back on colonial bodies is like, it is an entity that's very dark, that has a very sinister aims, and this is what it wants to do to us.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, in the piece too, like in the zombie story, to bring the person back, you give them salt. And, you know, part of the, at the very end, you say that ancestral being is the salt for this, trying to patch together, sew it up, if you will, of the cultural holes. So I know, I really see, like in the two essays that we talked about, I really see they seem to rhyme with each other, if that makes any sense.
00:46:30
Speaker
Cool. It's really nice to hear that. It's where, I mean, for me, everything is very much connected and interconnected. And there was a lot of years between, I think, or at least a few years between those two stories.
00:46:47
Speaker
And there are different parts of my heritage. One is the Haitian side, one is the Inuit side. But for me, they definitely intersect. And it's cool to know that outwardly or, you know, as a reader, outside of my psyche that they intersect for you too.
00:47:09
Speaker
We were talking a little while ago about land-based education and you watching people kind of light up when they're learning new skills and you're being able to teach these skills and so forth.
Creative Processes and Technological Tools
00:47:20
Speaker
When it comes to just, let's say, writing, what is it about writing and the process of it and sitting down to do it that when it's going good, that lights you up?
00:47:33
Speaker
I think just clearing the space to be listening really deeply, that's so enjoyable for me. So the actual writing process, I would say, probably starts when I'm not physically writing, like when I'm doing something more
00:47:57
Speaker
peaceful or I don't know some it often happens when I'm going for walks or I don't know just in a more contemplative open-minded neutral space then I can start to hear things come up like themes or words or stories there's something with something about it that I'm like oh okay there's something I need to pay attention to
00:48:26
Speaker
So just spending a bit of time with that kind of takes me down the rabbit hole. And then when I get to writing, it's exciting because I feel like whatever it is that has
00:48:42
Speaker
started to evolve is starting to take shape and I'm the first person that gets to witness that. When you go for walks and stuff, do you keep a notebook and a pencil or a pen on you so you can be keeping track of things? That's something I'm religious about. No, but now that I live
00:49:07
Speaker
in like a cell phone age reality. If, if like, I know there's something that I'm going to forget, I'll just use voice note. I'll just like record it in a voice memo and jot it down later. But generally I kind of just like, at first I mostly just like think about it for a while until it starts to coalesce.
Documentary Project on Indigenous Resistance
00:49:35
Speaker
And are you much of a journaler? In my twenties, yes. Like tons and tons of journals these days. Not so much. I don't know. I feel like technology just infiltrated so, so in like ubiquitously. And insidiously too. Yeah. And that's the word. Yeah.
00:50:01
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like even myself, I live in a bit of a different era than before. I remember thinking, why did they put cameras on cell phones? That's so dumb. No one's ever going to use that.
00:50:19
Speaker
And when you're out walking, do you listen to anything, be it music or podcasts, or do you keep it quiet so you can be your antenna or tune to whatever might strike your brain? I'm somebody that I really don't like anything like headphones-y or whatever interfering with the natural sounds. So, no, I love to just go and
00:50:49
Speaker
hear like the way that the wind and the leaves sound or the way that the water sounds rushing by or the birds. I really love to hear that. So nope, I don't usually listen to anything except for that on my walks.
00:51:04
Speaker
Very nice. Well, I want to ask you, well, just one more thing as we kind of bring this conversation down for a landing, and it's something I always like getting a... Actually, no, I'm sorry. There's two things I want to... I actually would like you to just talk a little bit about your feature-length documentary that you're working on. I imagine in the start of our conversation is that you were referring to something that was something of a lifelong dream, and I have to think that this is it. Yes, it is.
00:51:34
Speaker
actually kind of jumping off from the short story, Living Death, not focusing on the zombie piece, but really focusing on that history of my Taino ancestors, being the first indigenous people to encounter that collision with European imperial forces. And shortly after being
00:52:03
Speaker
told that we don't exist anymore and in fact fast forward to present day over 500 years later we are we're still continuing on in the longest standing indigenous resistance movement in history and so there's that is one of the threads and it's also looking at the life story of my mother and
00:52:33
Speaker
the Red Power movement, which is in the late 60s and 70s in the United States. And she had an indigenous newspaper. There was a really groundbreaking force at that time and very much part of the American Indian movement. So it's looking at indigenous resistance and this political
00:52:59
Speaker
burgeoning time that basically was so formative for so many indigenous political bodies today and people today, movements, our resurgence movement presently comes from there in a long tradition.
00:53:20
Speaker
I'm probably not speaking about this so well, but it's a film I've wanted to do for so long that's looking at my mom's life story, and especially the contribution of Indigenous women in the movement, which has been so erased. So many things have gotten erased in colonial history, but one of them is the reality that Taino people still exist, and the other one is that Indigenous women had a lot to do with
00:53:48
Speaker
the resurgence movement and political movements of so many of our nations. So I wanted to tie all those together. You're sewing it up. I'm sewing.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yeah, very nice. Well, that's awesome. I hope when it comes out that you send it my way because I'd love to watch it and be able to talk to you again on the show about it because I think that would be a lot of fun to unpack that.
00:54:21
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. I would enjoy that. Cool. Nice. Well, now my final question, which is I like asking guests for a recommendation for the listeners out there. And that can be like anything from like a brand that you're excited about to beef jerky, I don't know, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever you like. So I'd extend that to you. What might you recommend to the listeners out there? Well, this is an obscure
00:54:47
Speaker
recommendation because I don't know if anyone's going to really be able to access this outside of Canada. That's all right. We've got some listeners in Canada, I think so. Okay, cool. There's this tea that I really love called, it's by Hornby Island Tea Company, which is one of the islands here in
00:55:11
Speaker
the coast of BC where I live and they make a hibiscus mint medley and it's so delicious. I like to drink it as an iced tea and it's really refreshing and there's no caffeine and it's just beautiful all around.
00:55:32
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, this was wonderful to get to talk to you about your work and how you go about writing these particular essays that we spotlighted and any number of things that we could talk about in the future, especially when this documentary comes out.
Engagement and Overcoming Creative Challenges
00:55:48
Speaker
I think we've got a lot that we can still, a lot of threads we can still pull on. So I just want to thank you so much for carving out the time, Sekuta. Come on the show and talk a little shop. Thanks so much.
00:55:58
Speaker
No, thank you. This was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it. Okay, thanks for listening, CNFers. Thanks to Siku. I look forward to speaking with her more. There's multitudes there, man. If you liked this conversation as much as I did, consider sharing it, tagging me in the show at cnfpod on Twitter and created nonfiction podcasts on Instagram.
00:56:25
Speaker
In any case, consider heading to patreon.com slash cnfpod to throw a few bucks into the tip jar. The show is free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. You can always rage against the algorithm with my up to 11 monthly newsletter by heading to brendanamare.com. Hit.
00:56:41
Speaker
The book research on slot is on. Finding newer, richer sources is on. It's overwhelming, at times invigorating, but mostly terrifying.
00:56:57
Speaker
A good pal of mine has been such a great help, and she helped craft an email to a delicate source for the book I'm working on about Steve Prefontaine. And this email had to be perfect, and I sent it to her to read it.
00:57:14
Speaker
I sent her a draft and she massaged it a bit far better than I ever could, making sure I was selling myself a bit better and making sure I made it clear that I had done quite a bit of legwork already and that the narrative around pre had been skewed somewhat and how I aimed to set the record straight.
00:57:36
Speaker
and have a more three-dimensional portrait and how readers and fans will greatly benefit from this person's insights. So this book will be all the more richer and detailed. I sat on this email for days. I was really afraid to send it.
00:57:52
Speaker
Because as long as it was sitting in my inbox, in my drafts, it couldn't be turned away. I couldn't get yelled at and chastised and told the fuck off, which has been known to happen.
00:58:09
Speaker
Basically, it ends by saying, like, let's have an, if anything, like an off-the-record conversation. You know, I'll drive up to where you are. We'll meet for coffee. We'll meet for lunch. You can size me up. And if you'd still rather not participate after seeing me face-to-face and seeing how earnest I am about it and how carefully I would handle the subject and the subject matter, if you'd rather not participate, I'll respect that. And I'll never bother you again.
00:58:38
Speaker
Eventually I worked up the courage yesterday and I hit send.
00:58:45
Speaker
And he wrote back right away. Confused by the cell phone, my phone number I provided, which is, it's a North Carolina number. You know, I live in Oregon, so there's a disconnect there. So I often come across as like, what the hell is that? Are you spam? Are you a debt collector? Happens all the time. Not the debt collector part, but, you know, just like, who are you? He wrote back. He was like, thanks.
00:59:12
Speaker
And that was it. He acknowledged the email. It got to him. He knows what I'm up to. Now the ball's in his court. That's all you can do, right? And with any reporting and research,
00:59:27
Speaker
You have to go to the edges and go out on that ledge. You might not get the perfect, you know, person of the perfect interview, but by getting out there and knocking on doors, you give serendipity a chance. You know, Lindsay Borgann, author of Tree Thieves, she said something to that effect.
00:59:46
Speaker
The accretion of these details is like the road rising up to meet your feet. And the only way you give yourself a chance is through the willingness to lose. You know the old adage. You mess 100% of the shots you don't take. Same can be said for reporting. 100% of the people you don't call or email won't get back to you.
01:00:09
Speaker
You don't even give it a chance. You know, and this one guy, he might not talk to me. In fact, I almost didn't message him at all because some middleman told me he wasn't interested. You know, no longer trusting how the middleman conveyed my message, I did, I was just like, you know, I'm going straight to the source. As of this recording, this source that I'm deeply hoping to speak with, he has not said no. He might say no today, he might say no as soon as I stop record on this and I'm not gonna retract this.
01:00:39
Speaker
Odds are he will say no, and I will honor that and move on. And who knows, maybe someone else who says yes, who speaks with me and likes me, might speak to him, and he might come around. Be like, okay, maybe I don't have as much to worry about this. He seems like a stand-up guy.
01:00:59
Speaker
And I guess that's the rigor. And the worry for me is running out of time. I have 14 months. That's it, to do the reporting and the research and turn in a first draft. And the first draft has to be damn near perfect.
01:01:16
Speaker
At times, it can take people a year to come around. When I wrote a feature several years ago, I took some people I was lobbying to talk, it took two years. They came around and the story came out nice, and it was fine, but two years, two years. And so it could take this guy a year, maybe more, and maybe I'll be out of time at that point, and he'll be like, you know, I'd love to hear what you have to say, but I'm afraid
01:01:44
Speaker
times up for this. And so we put in the work, the rigor, and the hope that the good fortune will intersect at our willingness to merely show up. So stay wild. See you in Evers. And if you can't do interviews, see ya.
01:02:15
Speaker
you