CHRONICLE – It would actually be presumptuous to attempt to represent the First Nations and their literature in three books. The idea is rather to approach three interesting works which open a very small gap on the life and culture of these indigenous peoples.
In his novel Nanabush’s kiss, translation of Motorcycles & Sweetgrass published by Prize de parole, Drew Hayden Taylor promises straight away that he will tell us a whole story. And he keeps his word wonderfully.
Drew Hayden Taylor is a prolific author with Ojibwe roots; he wrote as much fiction as chronicles and essays. With Nanabush’s Kisswho also represented Indigenous literature at -’s Combat des livres in 2023, he rises to the level of the great storytellers.
In the first chapter, we discover a young Anishinabe from the Lac-aux-Loutres reserve who swims with a friend. We immediately feel a great attraction between the two, but we also feel that this friend is not an ordinary person. And there is a problem. The young woman decided to continue her studies at a residential school.
At the boarding school, she was given a new Christian name, Liliane, and during the two years that she spent in this establishment, she witnessed the mistreatment suffered by her fellow boarders. All her life, however, she remained the devout Liliane who mixed her Christian and indigenous beliefs.
The plot really begins 80 years later. On her deathbed, Liliane summons her former boyfriend. He reappears in the guise of a handsome young motorcyclist who will wreak havoc in his family and on the reserve. Especially among women.
Liliane’s daughter, Maggie, is chief of the Lac-aux-Loutres Nation. She is trying to resolve a territorial dispute with the neighboring white community, has a son who likes to skip school, a hermit brother who lives on an island and a spouse who died a few years ago.
Maggie is stressed. John’s arrival will turn his life and that of his family upside down.
As the plot progresses, we will learn who really is the one who calls himself John, but whose last name changes depending on each interlocutor.
In this book, Drew Hayden Taylor succeeds in bringing together modern life on an indigenous reserve and the traditions and mythology of its inhabitants. All this in a gripping novel that combines the supernatural, seduction, love, territorial chicanery, epic combat and even a battle with raccoons.
Fun for everyone!
To read: The rise of indigenous literature in minority Francophones
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The next two books come from the pen of Tomson Highway, a Cree from northern Manitoba who enjoyed an international career as a pianist as well as a renowned playwright and novelist.
The first book, The White Queen’s Kiss (trans. from Kiss of the Fur Queen), is a novel and the second, Eternal wonder: Growing up in the land of snow and infinite skies (trad. de Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up Cree in the Land of Snow and Sky), an autobiography.
Both books tell the story of two young Cree boys who grow up for five years in their hunting/fishing family before being sent to a residential school.
In The White Queen’s Kissthe author allows himself more fantasy. Moreover, he writes: “the history […] over the years, became more and more incredible, exaggerated, according to the Cree way of telling stories, of making myths.”
The novel begins with an emblematic scene from the Far North: a dog sled race. After three days and 150 miles (240 km), Abraham Okimasis and his dogs were completely exhausted. A mile before the finish, he has a vision of a White Lady who will support him and make him win the race.
At the finish line, Abraham, completely in a daze, even sees a fetus emerging from the White Lady’s diadem. Abraham’s wife will give birth to his son that same day.
The author takes us through the birth of this son as well as his younger brother three years later. The novel describes the journey of two little boys who accompany their family hunting and fishing in the Far North. Until they left for boarding school.
They will return to the village during the summer holidays, but their lives will never be the same again.
In this school, we try to forbid them their language, we instill Christianity in them with rules on the fingers and we sexually assault them. But the White Queen is watching over them, and they will get through this thanks to music. The eldest boy will become a pianist and the youngest, a dancer.
Also read: Acadia in three books
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While reading Eternal wonder, work published 15 years after the original version of the Kiss of the White Queenwe understand that everything Tomson Highway had described in his novel was based on his reality.
In this autobiography, he abandons the supernatural and tells us about his birth in a snowbank, family life in an Aboriginal village near the border of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut) and, of course , his years in a residential school.
By any measure, life in this book is difficult, but what emerges is precisely Tomson Highway’s eternal wonder at life.
He tells us about village life with humor, he takes us on exciting fishing and hunting trips, and he quickly goes over the abuses suffered at the boarding school. Rather, he lets us experience his love of his family, his pride in his people and, above all, his passion for music.
These two books essentially tell the same story, but it is interesting to read them both to understand the relationship between reality and fiction.
To read: Three thrillers to travel in time
Réjean Grenier has worked in the media for 47 years, as a journalist, senior editor at -/CBC, publisher and owner of a newspaper and magazine, and columnist. He presented a literary column on - for five seasons. He has been an avid reader since he was 12 years old. He grew up in a small village in Northern Ontario where there was no bookstore, but he quickly learned where to order books. His favorite type of work is the novel since “we only find the truth in the imagination”.
Type: Opinion
Opinion: Content that advances ideas and draws conclusions based on the author’s interpretation of facts or data.
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