A History of Aboriginal Media Activism in Canada
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FROM BIRCHBARK TALK TO DIGITAL DREAMSPEAKING: A HISTORY OF ABORIGINAL MEDIA ACTIVISM IN CANADA By KATHLEEN BUDDLE, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School ofGraduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment ofthe Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Kathleen BuddIe, December 2001 A HISTORY OF ABORIGINAL MEDIA ACTIVISM IN CANADA DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2001) McMaster University (Anthropology) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: From Birchbark Talk to Digital Dreamspeaking: A History ofAboriginal Media Activism in Canada. AUTHOR: Kathleen BuddIe, M.A. (The University ofWestem Ontario) SUPERVISOR: Professor Wayne Warry NUMBER OF PAGES: v,334 ii ABSTRACT The thesis addresses the interconnectedness of Aboriginal media practices; historically changing government policies; Aboriginal social and political movements; and the local situations ofreserve and urban Aboriginal peoples in Canada. It is premised on the idea that in order to understand the cultural transformations associated with the rise of modern Aboriginal society, it is necessary to assess the development of Aboriginal communications media and their impact, and to draw out the ways that colonial processes underwrite contemporary media practices. Focusing on the communicative aspects of Aboriginal agency, it documents colonialism as a form ofcommunication, and tracks Native communicative agency on a broad historical and socio-cultural scale. It attends to the centrality ofpeople and their social relations, rather than to media texts or technology. It offers an analysis ofmedia as a social form and media production as a crucial form of social action. It examines the "cultural mediations" that occur through Aboriginal media production. My principle concern is with Aboriginal strategies ofindigenizing, or diminishing the massness of, communications media through narrowcasting. Highlighting media practices and technologies as sites of hybridity and creative adaptation, I assert that the Native mediascape serves as a locus for the production oflocalizing, nationalizing, and modernizing discourses. The popular version of the narrative ofCanadian colonialism conveys the idea that European colonizers made readers oflisteners and that agriculture, literacy and more recently, "the media" were imposed on hapless Indian communities by the state. My analysis draws attention to the ways that technologies ofliteracy, printmaking, radio and television are actively and selectively appropriated. renovated and redeployed by Native peoples themselves. I show that by mobilizing Aboriginal audiences to imagine local communities and to forge social identities that are predicated on Aboriginally-authorized discursive constructs, Indigenous media activists are contributing to the articulation ofdivergent modernities and a new social order. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research for this work was made possible by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Ashbaugh Scholarship, and by grants from the Anthropology Department and the Department ofGraduate Studies at McMaster University for which I am very grateful. I am deeply indebted to my Supervisor, Wayne Warry; to Committee Members, Harvey Feit and Regna Darnell; and to my External Examiner, Faye Ginsburg for their sage editing advice, and for their guidance and encouragement. Their scholarly influences are pervasive throughout this work. I would also thank Dr. J. Quinn and Dr. L. R. Brooks for serving as members of the examining committee for my defense. I thank my friends, family, colleagues and mentors in the Aboriginal and academic communities whose comments, ideas and stories have enabled me to derive deeper insights into Aboriginal media and contemporary Anthropological theory. Though sadly some are no longer with us, they are, in alphabetic order: Leon Anthony, Josie Auger Cardinal, Patti Austin, Shannon Avison, Jean Becker, Mario Blazer, Sheri-Lynn Callihou, Cat Cayuga, Brenda Chambers, Peter Cole, Constance Classen, Del Crowe, Pam Cushing, Regna Darnell, Dave Courchene, Bert Crowfoot, Stan Dixon, Terry Dokis, Doug Cuthand, Ann Dreaver, Frank Dreaver, Michael Doxtater, Dave Ducharme, Jim Dumont, Gary Farmer, Harvey Feit, Lindy-Lou Flynn, Sylvia Gambler, Faye Ginsburg, Marie Gladue, Debbie Gordon-Ruben, Vern Harper, Fernando Hernandez, Tompson Highway, Paul Hogan, David Howes, Marcia Hoyle, Cecil Isaac, Judi Jefferey, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, Dean Kicknosway, Rosemary Kuptana, Joseph Lazore, Craig Lewis, Arthur Louttit, Terry Lusty, Monique Manatch, Sherman Maness, Theresa McCarthy, Conrad McCormick, Bea Medicine, Lisa Meeches, Clarence Michon, Andre Morrisseau, Miles Morrisseau, Trudy Nicks, Alanis Obomsawin, Roger Obomsawin, Andie Palmer, Sharon Pasula, Donna Rae Paquette, Wilfred Peltier, Judi Phillips, Richard Preston, Roberta Price, Petra Rethmann, Wendy Russell, Cathy Sewell, Cory Silverstein, Dan Smoke, Mary Lou Smoke, Art Solomon, Christopher Spence, Muriel Stanley-Venne, Buffy Ste. Marie, Maurice Switzer, Jake Thomas, Minnie Two Shoes, Ron Walker, Wayne Warry, James Wastasecoot, Jordan Wheeler, Chief Gary Williams, Ben Winton, Jane Woodward, Brian Wright-McLeod and Greg Young-Ing. Migwetch, nia:weh, kinan§Skomitin and thank you for entrusting me with your stories and your ideas. Without the steady love, support and good humor of my immediate and extended families, an undertaking such as this would not have been possible. I am thankful for my grandmothers: Ena BuddIe Campbell, Rose and Leon Hudecki, Isabelle McLeod and Bea Medicine. I am profoundly grateful to my mother, Judy BuddIe and father, Harry BuddIe who represent, by far, the greatest influential forces in my life. I fondly thank my aunties and uncles: Barb and Ross Barlow, Joan BuddIe, Jackie and John BuddIe, Joan and Ron Foulds, Denis and Licia Hudecki, Leon and Sue Hudecki and Marggie and Rick Hale. I'm very grateful to my siblings: Peter, Paul, Matthew, Andrew, Stephanie, Michael, Christina and Sarah BuddIe. I also thank my brothers, sisters, friends and relations: Josie Auger Cardinal, Jean Becker, Erin, Kathleen, Norma, and Jerry Crowe, Noella Crowe-Salazar, Gary Farmer, Lindy-Lou Flynn, John Graham, Del Martiniuk, Cathy Sewell, Dan Smoke, Mary Lou Smoke and Ron Walker. Warm thanks are due to my cousins: Ross and Maureen, Trevor and Melanie, Karen, Sean, Kevin, Leigh-Ann and Matthew Barlow; David and Jennifer BuddIe; Tracy Foulds; Theresa, Daniel, Loretta, Anthony, Rosemary and Patrick Hale; Nicole and Shayna Hudecki; Debbie and Dave Mosiuk, Jim and Linda Plytas and Jim Rhijnsburger. Finally, I am grateful both to and for my beautiful daughter, Seraphine Rosebud Crowe, who sat on my lap throughout the later stages of my writing. She has brought me immeasurable joy and untold happiness. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: English Language Literacy And Print Technology On the Utility ofLiteracy Models 12 Aboriginal Symbolic Literacies 18 The Print Revolution and the North American Invention ofthe Newspaper 23 Chapter Two: The Medium Is The Methodist. 30 Crops, Clocks and Cupboards 33 Moderate Modernity: Selective Appropriation and the Hybrid Form 38 The Anishinabek Literati: the Beginnings ofNative Print Journalism in Canada 44 Printed Pride and Protest: Early Anishnabek Literature 50 Chapter Three: Native Authorial Authority .55 Schoolcraft's The Literary Voyageur 56 Hurlburt's Petaubun 59 The Indian: A Vision ofAboriginal Sovereignty 63 Wilson's Our Forest Children and The Pipe ofPeace 84 Chapter Four: Transformative Strategies in the Hudson's Bay Territories 95 Birchbark Talking: the Printing Press and Cree Syllabary 99 Steinhauer's Methodism: an Oji-Cree-ative Hybrid 112 Impediments to the Formation ofRegional Cree Political Organizations 127 Chapter Five: Competing Indian Identities in the Mainstream Presses Settler Discourse in the Prairie Presses 143 Native Nationalizing Discourse: Inscribing Indian Dissent in the Mainstream Press 163 Writing Strategies and the Spirit of Self-Authorship among World War Two and Residential School Veterans 177 Chapter Six: Native Political Presses in the Post-war Era 190 The British Columbia Aboriginal Point ofMediation 192 Aboriginal Mobility and Organizational Media Mobilizations 204 The Calumet and the Evolving Form ofAboriginal Protest.. 217 Chapter Seven: Red Taped: Native Communications Societies and Community Casting Technology as a Discourse and Native Narrowcasting 232 Aboriginal Radio Activity 253 Canadian Aboriginal Broadcast Policy 260 Inscribing Ideoscapes And Community Building 280 Conclusion 305 Bibliography .314 v INTRODUCTION Whatever the mode of narration, whether by smoke or hand signals, by word of mouth along the moccasin telegraph, through wampum exchanged in inter-cultural trade networks, by divining, dreaming or speaking to spirits in a shaking tent, Aboriginal peoples have long been engaged in processes ofdiscursive mediation. Most recently, they have adapted the printing press and are innovating electronic technologies to meet the contemporary communication requirements of their communities. This thesis is premised on the idea that in order to understand the cultural transformations associated with the rise ofmodem Aboriginal society, it is necessary to attend seriously to the development ofAboriginal communication media and their impact, and to draw out, as Appadurai (1996:18) has done, the ways that colonial processes underwrite contemporary media practices. This study examines the circumstances ofAboriginal media production and highlights media practices and technologies as sites