MASCULINIDANS-29

20 March 2011

Conversation between Neal McLeod and Sam McKegney at Sam’s home in Kingston, Ontario.

NEAL MCLEOD (Cree/Swedish) is a poet, screenwriter, visual artist, curator, scholar, and comedian. He grew up on the James Smith reserve in Saskatchewan and is currently a professor of Indigenous literatures at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He is the author of the critical book Cree Narrative Memory: From Treaties to Contemporary Times and two collections of poetry, Songs to Kill a Wîhtikow (Hagios Press, 2005) and Gabriel’s Beach (Hagios Press, 2008), and he is a co-editor, with Natasha Beads, of Sounding Out: Indigenous Poetics (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014). Having studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at Umeå University in Sweden, McLeod has exhibited his artwork throughout Canada, including as part of the 2005 exhibition Au fil de mes Jours (In My Lifetime) at Le Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. His comic work includes recordings and short films with the Bionic Bannock Boys.

SAM MCKEGNEY: The first thing I’d like to ask you about is the phrase “sons of a lost river” that recurs in Gabriel’s Beach. What does that image mean to you—to be the son of a lost river?

NEAL MCLEOD: It almost sounds like an emo band or something—Sons of a Lost River, or Sons of Nanabush or something. I would say that it all centres around, well probably a couple of things. One is the historical events of 1885, which in English have been rendered as the Riel Rebellion or the North-West Resistance, but in our language they say ê-mâyahkamikahk, which means “where it went wrong.” After those events occurred, for many along the Saskatchewan River, the whole world of the Cree and Métis changed drastically, particularly for men. Of course women were affected, but, after that time period, a lot of the men who were involved in those events were imprisoned, some of them were in exile, and unfortunately some of them passed. The freedom that Cree and Métis men had after that time period was greatly hampered, probably until the 1970s I would say, almost a hundred years.

I call it “The Lost River” because it’s a poetic journey, a poetic remembrance of the experiences, particularly of Cree and Métis men, after this time period. What are the consequences of getting institutionalized in terms of connections to land and territory, but also in terms of not being able to become initiated into okihcitâwak societies, and instead having to go to residential school? What are the consequences of that? What are the consequences of not being able to go freely to sacred places of fasting and honouring powers, such as mihkomin sâkahikan, that means Redberry Lake, or all the other places close to the Saskatchewan River?

I wanted to look at: how did we get to the point that we are at today, as Cree and Métis men? What is the historicity of that? How do you make sense of that? How do you make sense of being men in a context in which a lot of our power has, until relatively recently, been taken? And then, consequently, the anger that emerges from that, and quite frankly the violence as well. Not only how we have experienced that violence, but how we ourselves have inflicted that violence, and how that violence has been transferred across generations. Why do so many young Indigenous males in my home territory gravitate towards gangs? What do they find in gangs that they don’t find in other places?

So, I think that’s what that book of poems is about. It’s also trying to find your way back from that place of dislocation. It’s not enough to talk about your loss—how do you find yourself back? How do you make your way home? How do you find your balance, collectively and individually?

SM: What was it about the stories of your grandfather Gabriel Vandall that offered such a powerful resource in terms of being able to speak to that feeling of loss, but also the power and possibility of return?

NM: Quite a few of his uncles fought in the Resistance of 1885. In fact, one of his uncles fought in 1885 at Batoche and also in World War I as infantry, ironically, for the Canadian Army. He was sixty years old when he was in the infantry—he lied about his age, but he was sixty—and in the infantry, not some desk job. And I always thought, “What were the stories that guided the old people to be so fierce in their place in world?” His mother, who was named Cîhcam, she was the daughter of Masâskapaw who was the older brother of Atâhkakohp, who was a major Cree leader at the time of treaty. So, his father was a Red River Métis, but his mother was a Cree woman, and also a keeper of the Older Grandmothers’ Lodge of the Cree. She died in 1966, a little before my time, but I’ve heard a lot of stories about her. So, with this man, I grew up hearing about him my whole life, and hearing about his stories, and how my grandfathers, along with their friends, they were outnumbered, like 200 against 5,000. I suppose I was always interested in those odds. I was always interested in the things they told themselves. How did they find the courage when many people would have just run away?

My father always talked about his grandfather, he was close to his grandfather that passed away. He died the same year as his mother actually, 1966. He received about twenty medals in combat, both in World War I and World War II. So, he fought in the same army as some of his uncles. They say he wasn’t scared to die, and that’s probably one of the reasons why he was such a great solider. Some people have the Bible, some people have the Koran, I had these stories to think about and to try and find my way through. So I think that’s why I always gravitated to these narratives.

SM: The sense of masculine lineage is present and forceful in your work—both in your poetry and in Cree Narrative Memory. I wonder if perhaps you could speak to your connection to the masculine environment in which you grew up.

NM: I think that the reason why the threads of masculinity are strong in the work that I’ve written up to this point is that I was raised by a single father, and those are the narratives that I would have encountered. Also, the stories that my father heard were primarily from his grandfather, who in turn was informed by other men. So that’s kind of where the narrative genealogy comes from. My father was particularly close to his grandfather, who was raised by some of these men who had fought in these battles, and also who had fought against Blackfoot in earlier times. It was a source of understanding their place in the world, and also in terms of understanding a time when they had power and were not simply emasculated through residential schools or through the colonial process of the Indian Act, or anything like that. I think all of these stories of warfare actually celebrated a time of strength, not simply in an archival sense of the past, but as the living present. I think they drew strength from these stories. My great-grandfather was quite successful as a farmer, and they were able to adapt to new circumstances. They were quite strong in the language, I would say, and even to this day are quite strong, those that remain. Some families had the threads of these stories kind of unravelled, but that didn’t happen in my family. The stories were still spoken of, and it wasn’t in some distant past, it was something people would thread into their lives. So, I’m grateful for that. I think some people, they haven’t spoken the Indigenous language sometimes for three, four generations, or even longer, and it’s a lot harder for them to thread things together.

But also, I had to work really hard at developing an awareness of Cree knowledge. Some people are fortunate enough to have spoken it their whole lives. I’ve heard it since I was very, very young, and when I really worked at speaking it, I was able to retrieve old memories that pre-existed when I had a clear concept of the boundaries of language. So, I was able to get the rhythm and pronunciation pretty easily. But, I had to work hard at retrieving the language, and I found it to be a very interesting and layered process. I try my best to speak Cree to my son, the youngest one particularly, and he has a fairly solid working knowledge of the language.

SM: Mentioning that being around the language gave you a certain access that actually predated your conscious connection to the language, I’m wondering how this relates to the theorization of memory as you discuss it in Cree Narrative Memory, and the idea that memory is not limited to conscious retrieval of specific information but extends beyond individual experience. I guess I’m curious about the relationship between memory and language?

NM: I think I would even perhaps say it in a slightly different way. I would say that memory is related to sound. Some of the earliest memories that I have are of my great-grandfather, his name was Peter Vandall, or Kôkôcîs, as his nickname was in Cree. We’d go visit him when I was a kid, up until I was about fourteen and he passed away. But he had a very distinct rhythm when he spoke Cree. So I think that the layering and the retrieval of memory is all about sound. It’s about the echoing of those voices. So, if you have a clear voice that can thread all those things together—I know we’re mixing metaphors—but it’s almost like a vessel, a container. If you can remember a very specific voice, you can thread all those things together, or gather the sound together, and then other things can be grafted to it. And, when you realize that that old person heard some of those stories from people that were born in the 1830s, I mean how far back does that go? It’s kind of humbling in a way, but it also contextualizes things.

I think that’s another aspect: these stories connect people. And when people don’t do that the language and narrative loss is extreme. I don’t want to be disrespectful to my generation, but if you ask people about stories that stretch back a bit further, some people my age, they don’t know the answers because they never sat with the old people and visited with them. And, partly that is just because that is not their temperament—they might be good at some other things—but once people stop visiting with old people, I notice that the language loss and the loss of memory is quite profound and deep. It only takes one generation where people are not keen on something for it to just begin to unravel. That’s one of the ironies of oral history; if it’s unattended to, it can unravel quite quickly. However, if it is nurtured and maintained, there is nothing more powerful. Because when you have a living voice that takes you back and traces you back to Big Bear, or some of these other great leaders, and also the grandmothers of course like Cîhcam, it’s quite a powerful experience. Because when they tell these old stories they are almost able to bring those people back through their sound. I think that where I come from, people—younger people—are very hungry for this sound; they are very hungry for reconnecting.

THAT’S ONE OF THE IRONIES OF ORAL HISTORY; IF IT’S UNATTENDED TO, IT CAN UNRAVEL QUITE QUICKLY. HOWEVER, IF IT IS NURTURED AND MAINTAINED, THERE IS NOTHING MORE POWERFUL.

SM: In terms of the ability to sit with the old people, and to listen to the sound and to experience that history, what advice would you give to people who, through no decision making of their own, have found themselves very distant geographically, or otherwise, from their own territories, their own communities? What responsibility do those people have to try to connect to that history?

NM: It’s up to them if they want to or not. It’s pretty much that simple really. Sometimes that sense of responsibility is fostered in families. For other people it’s not. So, I can’t make a statement about what my advice would be if they don’t feel that calling. However, for those that are interested in it, there is nothing wrong with being honest and saying, “I don’t know something. I don’t know how to say this.” It’s never too late to retrieve a language. If you have a desire to go back and rethread it and retrieve it, it’s there. Use anything at your disposal. I actually, literally, write out words from the Cree dictionary. Pretty much every day I write out words, which is kind of nerdy.

I don’t want to romanticize oral traditions. But what’s going to help preserve the language today? Something like Facebook. I was against Facebook, but I joined it about two and a half months ago, and I post words every day, and there’s discussion about the nuances and the meanings. Digital technology can be quite liberating. It can thread together people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to communicate easily with one another. And it’s cheap or free. I mean, you have the basic cost of your device, but the Internet is relatively cheap. There’s an online Cree dictionary, with about 50,000 words, so, you can cheat. Sometimes when I talk to my dad, I go online, and he’ll ask me how I pick up all these hard words, and I kind of cheat and type them in while I talk to him. He doesn’t really know, but I guess if you publish this article, this book, he’ll know!

You got to have fun with it too. Sometimes people make Indigenous languages all dour. It’s like a Scandinavian movie and the sky is all dark, and people are drinking tea, and there’s a cuckoo clock that ticks randomly and jumps out, and everyone is all melancholic. I mean, language won’t survive unless it’s fun, it’s that simple. If people see language only in a ceremonial fashion, it’s probably not going to survive. It has to be a living, daily language. You have to text in Cree. You have to be cool in Cree. If you’re cool in a language then people want to speak it. I remember when we started the Crow-Hop Cafés in 2000, my friends John and Bill Cook, they sang songs in Cree. When you can actually charm ladies—or men—in a language, that’s a good incentive to want to learn it. There’s a certain romantic cachet in speaking it; it boosts the ratings a little bit.

I think you got to have a sense of humour too, and you got to be a little thick-skinned, because you will make mistakes and errors. I’ve said some ridiculous things. Cree people like to tease, it’s our national sport. Italians have soccer, we have teasing. It’s not some sacred way or walking the Red Path or anything. It’s just because people are constantly practising their wits, and it’s an admired skill. That’s probably why we’re good at stand-up comedy and stuff, and also poetry and live performances, because it’s imbedded in our culture to be like that. Accounting? Now, that’s another matter. Just kidding. I’ll leave that up to the third-party managers.

SM: On top of being a recurring line in Gabriel’s Beach, “Sons of a Lost River” was also the title of a series of your paintings. And there are prints of your paintings included in the poetry collection, Songs to Kill a Wîhtikow. How do those visual images speak to the poetry for you? Did they come at the same time? Does the process of writing poetry create the need to express in the painting and vice versa? Or do they happen at different times while thinking about similar issues?

NM: Well, there have been many fine works of writing, of Indigenous literature, which talk about someone’s life story and so on, in great details sometimes. I wasn’t really interested in doing that about some of the darker elements of my younger days, so instead I simply used the metaphor of a wîhtikow. So instead of having to mention those things directly, I could just bundle it all up as a wîhtikow. It was immediately a very visual thing. It was not just simply for artistic reasons or aesthetic reasons though. Probably if I wouldn’t have painted twenty-foot paintings of wîhtikows, maybe I would have had a breakdown, or maybe I would have gotten cancer or something, or unfortunate events of the past would have manifested themselves in other ways. So, for me, art isn’t simply about aesthetics and artistic decisions. Let’s face it, Cree people sometimes couldn’t afford a $140 therapy session. So, you paint and write instead. It does the same job, but sometimes it’s a little harder.

THE VERY THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GOOD AT WARFARE CAN MAKE YOU PRETTY HORRIBLE IN RELATIONSHIPS, IF WE’RE TO BE HONEST. ESPECIALLY FROM A MASCULINE POINT OF VIEW.

SM: Is it difficult sometimes to look at that artwork if it has come from a traumatic place?

NM: No, not at all. In the Introduction to Songs to Kill a Wîhtikow I talk about naming the darkness. If you don’t name the darkness then you can never move beyond it, individually or collectively. That darkness can be the darkness of things that have happened to us collectively and individually, but also, how we ourselves are part of it as well. Honestly, I’m against the settler-Indigenous dichotomy, because it simplifies the universe too much. We ourselves can do things that are not conducive for social balance. I think part of the process of writing is trying to document and articulate these things in a way that is socially responsible. It tries to find a space where we can re-imagine things.

SM: That last comment made me think about the image from the other book of poetry, of being able to “carry the fire of Gabriel’s Beach,” and how that—in my reading—relates to the ability to acknowledge experiences that are difficult or traumatic and yet to endure. What does carrying the fire of Gabriel’s Beach mean for you?

NM: Here’s the balancing position, if you will. On one hand, you need a certain amount of fire, or resolution, to survive horrific and traumatic events, collectively and individually. If you don’t have that fire, you will actually be engulfed. The legendary storyteller Louis Bird talks about how some people turn wîhitikow when their trauma just overwhelms them. However, on the other hand, the idea of the fire also relates to what happens when you go too far. The very things that make you good at warfare can make you pretty horrible in relationships, if we’re to be honest. Especially from a masculine point of view. All those things that cause you never to bow down to rednecks can also be disastrous in personal relationships. So you see, that’s the situation. That very fire that allows people to survive, and particularly males, that can be the fire that burns them inside.

I’ll be honest—I have no problems talking about this because I’d rather people talk about it than not talk about it—I’ve been a violent male in the past, both with males and with female partners. When I was in my mid-twenties, I signed up for a program to deal with these things. I noticed that that was a pattern with males in my family. Some people would not talk about it, right? But I think we should talk about it and think about how we got there. That was actually one of the reasons why I wanted to document the poems and to write them down, to think about how we got there. Where did we go? What are all of these events? We always have individual choices, but there’s always a context to those choices, and if things are threaded across more than one generation, it frames your individual choices. It takes more to re-imagine yourself out of those things. So, the fire, you need it to live, you need it for life, but it can also burn you inside, and sometimes those around you, I would say. Particularly when social circumstances and individual circumstances become difficult.

Historically, the Cree men who lived in the 1800s before the reserve period, their world was a less fragmented world, I would say. There was a context for violence. People would go through warfare and so on, whereas now we don’t really have the same context for violence. Once again, I’m trying not to essentialize, but without that context for male aggression—and females can manifest it too, so it’s not necessarily men—I think it’s not surprising that there are so many Indigenous males where I come from in prison. It’s still relatively recent, the shifts in the West, and realistically where I come from, we’re not going to be assimilated in the next hundred years. So we have to radically think about what has happened in the past. So to me, the book of poems isn’t simply a book of poetry per se, it’s a map. I would like, ideally, to reach young men from where I come from, and have them realize that they don’t have to be violent in the way that they are sometimes indoctrinated to think that they have to be, to be men. They can be men and not be violent. I think we’re still collectively trying to figure that out, I would say.

HISTORICALLY, THE CREE MEN WHO LIVED IN THE 1800S BEFORE THE RESERVE PERIOD, THEIR WORLD WAS A LESS FRAGMENTED WORLD, I WOULD SAY. THERE WAS A CONTEXT FOR VIOLENCE. SM: THE REALLY MOVING POEM TO YOUR SONS AT THE END OF GABRIEL’S BEACH SPEAKS TO THE ABILITY TO NURTURE THAT FIRE IN GOOD WAYS THAT DON’T HAVE TO SPILL OVER INTO VIOLENCE. HOW DO YOU PERCEIVE YOUR ROLE AS A FATHER IN RELATION TO THESE ISSUES?

NM: Well, I failed my one son because of alcoholism, I’ll be honest. I was able to reconnect with him when he was older. That was Justin. Cody is raised a lot differently. He is not subjected to the quasi-militaristic training that I received growing up. He’s completely oblivious to some of those things, which is good. But, I think we can have the Healing Foundation, we can have all these organizations that help us, which are very good. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and so on. But, we have to start off with our own sons. And, I’m speaking from the perspective, being a father with sons, that we have to start off with them. What kind of path can we create for them that is different maybe than the one that was created for us? To be honest about the past, not to romanticize it—that is the danger, like “everything in the past is good.” Boys were trained for warfare at the age of seven, which just doesn’t happen today, right? So, how do we move from that culture to where children leave home at eighteen? There’s some major differences. Where people would go on revenge parties, now people come and talk about Jesus and turning the other cheek.

SM: Linking back to our discussion of Gabriel on Juno Beach, how do you define the term “warrior”? In the opening pages of Gabriel’s Beach, you translate the Cree term okihcitâw as “worthy young man,” which seems connected to “warrior,” but it’s not exactly the same. So what are the nuances?

NM: So, number one, I’m not a word warrior. [Laughter]

SM: You’re not into [Gerald] Vizenor?

NM: I like Vizenor, and I kind of find that idea interesting, but if I were to go to my own ancestors in the next level and say, “Yeah, I’m a word warrior.” And they’ll be like, “OK, well, we fought at the Battle of Old Man River, and Juno Beach, and you took your pencil where?” It just kind of doesn’t have the same… In the old days they would recite their war stories, but writers talking about their readings doesn’t really have the same cachet, I don’t think. No disrespect to my fellow writers, my sister writers. But, your question was... What was your question again?

SM: Well, the first part is basically about the term “warrior”...

NM: Oh! Okay. I remember. I personally don’t like the word “warrior.” I mean, I’m not going to talk about anyone else’s traditions, because it’s not my place—Mohawks, or other nations—it’s not my place, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable commenting on it. But, there are actually two words: one is okihcitâw, that means literally—there are societies that were called okihcitâwak, and the chicken dance in contemporary powwows is a remnant of that old society, which is why in the West, particularly, all the old veterans go first, because it’s a remnant of all these old societies—but that word is originally an Assiniboine word, it’s ahkacîta, which meant those societies. But it also has an older root meaning “Thunderbird”—interestingly, it referred to thunderbird. But then as it was absorbed into Cree it changed from ahkacîta to okihcitâw; it means to give away freely to others, or to provide for them. The word “provider” is probably a better translation.

The other word is môsâpêw, that’s what they called Gabriel, my Auntie mentions that. Now, interestingly there are three layers to that word. One is môsâpêwak, that means the buffalo bulls that are on the side of a herd, because they are kind of lingering. So then, they use that as a metaphor today: môsâpêw is like a bachelor. But then, there is another layer of men who put aside everything for the benefit of others. The idea of warrior, it doesn’t work for me. If it works for other people, then that’s great, but it doesn’t work for me. I know Cree words that describe the stories that I know better. But, maybe someone who was bereft of language, an Indigenous language, the word “warrior” would work for them, but it doesn’t personally make any sense to me. It’s a very narrow idea; it only focuses on one narrow aspect. Just like Yoda, right? Remember when he’s in Dagobah, and Luke says, “I’m here to see Yoda the great warrior.” And Yoda says—I’m not going to say it in the voice because I don’t want to freak out your grad students—but he says, “War does not make one great.” Well, same thing. It wasn’t war that made them great.

One time my friend, John Quinny, whose grandfather Pahpahakwân-Piyêsiw or Prairie Chicken Thunderbird—it’s quite an interesting name—he was with Big Bear, and he was with Wandering Spirit in 1885. As kind of a nerdy college boy, I said like, “Oh you mean he was with Big Bear? Wow. And he was with Wandering Spirit? What did he tell you about Wandering Spirit?” And then he just said, “Actually, he told me more about how to be a good person.” So that’s why I don’t like the word “warrior” for me because it’s a very narrow sense of what those old guys were.

SOME PEOPLE WANT TO RADICALLY DECONSTRUCT GENDER. IT’S CONTINGENT AND SO ON, AND MAYBE IT IS. BUT IN MY UPBRINGING, THERE IS A CLEAR CLUSTER OF THINGS THAT MAKE UP WHAT WE MIGHT CALL CREE MEN, OR CREE MASCULINITY.

SM: What are the lessons that one might shed light upon, or turn to, to teach young men about what it means to “be a good person”?

NM: They have an expression in Cree—“they,” as if I’m not a part of it. It just sounds more dramatic—they say kaya pakacî, which means “don’t give up”; âkakêyimomô—“keep going.” That’s probably number one. Number two is, probably, to take responsibility for your life, and not to blame society for everything. Sometimes people are just assholes. You can’t blame colonialism for being an asshole and you can’t blame the fur trade. Like, really? So, I think that taking responsibility for your life is key. And to try and think of creating a world, or helping to create a world, that extends beyond yourself. So, instead of simply thinking about your own artistic career, how can your work actually help people, even in a small way? I admire people who are very active in social activism, but, okay, cleaning a house, cooking, I don’t have time to go out and work in a soup kitchen or something. The best I can do—I’m not a warrior—but the best I can do is to write, and to paint, and put some ideas out there, and maybe document some things in our language for others to think about. Beatrice Lavallee said that the old Grandmother Lodge of the Crees, that old entity, told her the two key things are tâpwêwin and nêtawêwin—“speaking well” and “truth.” So you have these two words and the only way to make sense of them is to thread them into your life. There’s no dogma, per se, right? That’s why our spiritual traditions are a bit different.

SM: Are there any other things you want to discuss with relation to masculinities?

NM: Some people want to radically deconstruct gender. It’s contingent and so on, and maybe it is. But in my upbringing, there is a clear cluster of things that make up what we might call Cree men, or Cree masculinity. Now, I would say that there’s a whole cluster of things like being brave, and thinking of others, and not being a coward—that’s one of the biggest things, don’t be a coward. But the key is that it has to be tempered by and contextualized with all the grandmother stories as well. Because if you only have stories about warfare and stories about the men, you’ll only have half of it. It wasn’t until I was older that I got to hear about my grandmother Cîhcam, and I really got to know Louise Halfe and Beatrice Lavallee in kind of a deeply personal way, and I really got exposed to some of the grandmother stories. So I would say that to talk about Cree masculinity and Métis masculinity—Métis from the West—you have to also think about the grandmother stories, or it would be very incomplete, I would say. I think we have a responsibility to re-imagine these things and to make our traditions live in the present, to take the best from the classical ideas and then to weave them into a living present.