On the Way to K'ómoks

... a blanket that was a gift to all attendees ...

Now my job is to use the blanket and to 
carry on witnessing what I heard and saw that day.

This past week, I have had some days when I thought that the moments have been so rich and profound that I hardly know how to process them.

I think that is what is taking me so long to write about the following daytime up the east coast of Vancouver Island. I did go to Comox to witness the ceremony between the Human Rights Museum and Kwakwaka'wakw artist Carey Newman (Hayalthkin'geme) who was making a contract with them about the art installation called The Witness Blanket. Others might have read the news release which I published a few days ago just gathering information out of it. When I read it, I cried. That is because those few words captured all that was happening in the five hours we were there.

The adventure began with 5 women in a car, doing the 3 hour drive there and then the 3 hour drive back – destination?

Comox in the rain.

We sang for a while – sometimes interesting songs we liked to do with children. Tara provided a new song I  didn’t know. “We are going on a picnic.” I can’t even replicate her version on you tube though I tried and found many other melodies.

We figured out the song using Solfa Method of Sight Singing and we knew how to identify and when to sing augmented fourths in other tunes. We also discussed everything seeing Al Simons behind stage at a festival to the latest Shakespeare to be seen on NT Live.

We talked for a while about an assignment Jess Asch was to turn in. We mostly listened while Jess provided a summary of what she wanted to say. Her assignment was to be 300 words. We listened and we asked questions and we wondered how she would synthesize all of her ideas into a few paragraphs.

 We talked about the upcoming election, about our hopes and dreams that it will lead to a more just political system.

We stopped to fill up the van and to get snacks. In my experience, purse are usually already filled with snacks.  But not for these women.

This is the first time I have ever been in a car with adults where the snack stop was an important part of the journey.

... detail of the edge of the blanket ...
... a design that is found in the Human Right's Museum ...

As we entered the Malahaat Highway there was an overhead electric sign saying “Watch for water pooling on the road”. When our car hydroplaned, that is when someone said, “Oh, that breath-holding experience is what that electronic sign was about back there.”

There was pretty much silence around the sign on the highway that said, “Hitchhiking is illegal. Picking up hitch hikers is illegal.” “What is that about”, I asked Rebecca.

“It is easier for the government to put warning sign like this on the highway, than to provide accessible transportation for people between the cities in northern British Columbia,” she said.

We used our google maps to find our way to Kumugwe, the K'ómoks First Nation Bighouse, and to make a very sharp right to get into Wendy’s for coffee and more snacks. The right turn was so sharp that we entered their exit road instead of the entrance to the mall. Now that was a sharp right.

Five women in a car, 300 kilometers each way.

We couldn’t have had more fun.

Arta

A News Release about an oral ceremony

On Wednesday, Rebecca, Jess Asch, Brook Edmonds and Tara Williamson and I drove up to Comox, B.C. to watch the oral ceremony that finalized an agreement with the Museum of Human Rights.

Below is the news release which tells what happened better than I can do.

Indigenous oral ceremony finalizes historic agreement with Museum
Winnipeg - October 16, 2019 -A historic agreement between Kwakwaka'wakw artist Carey Newman (Hayalthkin'geme) and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR ) was finalized today through traditional ceremony at Kumugwe, the K'ómoks First Nation Bighouse on Vancouver Island.

Carey Newman and The Witness Blanket. 
Photo: CMHR, Doug Little

The ceremony marks the first time in Canadian history that a federal Crown Corporation has ratified a legally binding contract through Indigenous traditions - in a process that has attracted interest from legal and cultural communities, Indigenous peoples and academics all around the world.

The groundbreaking agreement governs protection and use of The Witness Blanket, Newman's powerful art installation made with over 800 items collected from survivors and sites of Indian residential schools across Canada. In an unprecedented process, Kwakwaka'wakw traditions and governance and Western contract law have been given equal weight, vesting rights with the artwork itself as a legal entity that carries the stories of the survivors.

The ceremony, held near Newman's traditional territory, was facilitated by chief and spiritual leader Wedlidi Speck, head of the Gixsam namima (clan) of the Kwagul people. The ceremony included song and dance and the presence of an ancestors' mask, with Newman and CMHR president and CEO John Young each stating their purpose and intentions for the stewardship of The Witness Blanket. Respected witnesses from the Kwakaka'wakw community, youth, elders and people with connections to the project, then reflected on their responsibilities as storykeepers and memory holders. The parties celebrated with a feast in the tradition of potlatch, acknowledging the gift of the agreement and the deep relationship that has been forged.

"Reconciliation means letting go of certain ways of doing things and looking for new ways that fundamentally alter the nature of relationships," said Newman, a master carver who is currently Audain Professor of Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Victoria. "Through spoken words and shared memory, we can express our commitment in ways that transcend written contracts - how we feel, our hopes and our goals for this agreement and our relationship as collaborative stewards of the Blanket and survivors' stories it holds."

Young said the approach to this agreement reflects the Museum's commitment to recognizing the importance of Indigenous values in ways that encourage thought and discussion about promoting human rights.

"The Witness Blanket has national significance as a framework for conversations about the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada," he said. "As we jointly acknowledge our duties as its caretakers, we want to begin in a good way, based on a strong relationship of shared understanding and respect."

Professor Rebecca Johnson, Associate Director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit at the University of Victoria, said the oral ceremony binds each party together on a deeper level than simply signing a legal document. Through the bodies, words and interactions of participants, the agreement is brought to life as a physical entity, she said.

"It matters that the parties are face to face, that they see each other and hear each other express their commitments and intentions," said Johnson, who attended today's event. "The ceremony places the agreement firmly in their memories and embeds it in their personal intentions."

The Museum will soon begin restoration work on the 12-metre-long, cedar-framed art installation, in preparation for an upcoming exhibition project. A travelling photographic reproduction is touring Canada, currently showing at the Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library in Winnipeg until October 31 before travelling to other locations in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia and the Yukon.

A new book called Picking up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket, has recently been released by Orca Book Publishers. An official national book launch is scheduled for November 20 at the CMHR in Winnipeg with Newman, co-author Kirstie Hudson and national CBC radio host Shelagh Rogers. A documentary film about The Witness Blanket is also being distributed for educational purposes by the CMHR and for broadcast by Animiki See Distribution, a subsidiary of the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network (APTN).

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to the evolution, celebration and future of human rights. Using multimedia technology and other innovative approaches, the CMHR creates inspiring encounters with human rights for all ages, in a visitor experience unlike any other.