Indigenous Cultural Visuality in Haida Gwaii
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MAPPING KAAY LLNAGAAY: INDIGENOUS CULTURAL VISUALITY IN HAIDA GWAII, B.C. by MARGARET SMITH B.F.A., The University of Victoria, 2008 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in (CROSS FACULTY INQUIRY IN EDUCATION) The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) April, 2012 © Margaret Smith, 2012 Abstract This thesis maps out the wide range of knowledge and practices that form the field of Haida cultural visuality. Writing from an Indigenous space, which is interdisciplinary and relational, this thesis shows that culture encapsulates the relationships, responsibilities, practices and values made manifest through the actions and materialism of a people. Indigenous culture is a living experience that is informed by a wide range of relations including the use of tools and mediums of Western institutions. This thesis aims to illuminate the inalienable relationships between the past practices of Western anthropological institutions and the current movements within Indigenous owned and operated cultural centres, with a specific emphasis on research conducted at the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay, in Haida Gwaii, B.C. Canada. Through the lens of cultural pedagogy, I illustrate how the Haida Nation is using education and representation as a tool to heal from cultural genocide. Within this context, I examine a wide range of international discourse and map out how, using a range of responses, the Haida have formed this emerging terrain. How have Indigenous people, caught between a European cultural system and their own traditional knowledge bases responded to appropriation, representation and pedagogy? How have they resisted and how do they continue to resist colonial cultural oppression? What are the cultural values and responsibilities that motivate Indigenous people to build their own cultural centres? How do they use these centres as pedagogical sites towards cultural regeneration? How do these sites further agendas of self-representation, cultural protection and self-representation? This thesis will show how the Skidegate Haida community has responded creatively to these issues and has created a pedagogy that continues to reiterate their relationships, protect and construct knowledge and is active within the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay. ii Preface To the UBC Research Ethics Board, and their prompt and friendly service approving my canoe with its certification number # H11-02724, I thank you. iii Table of Contexts Abstract ................................................................................................................................ ii Preface ............................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contexts ................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Foreward, Forward and Forewarned ........................................................................ 6 Journeying West .................................................................................................................. 9 Mapping My Colonial Journey: How I Learned to Love Museums ...................... 13 Mapping My Attachments to Haida Gwaii ............................................................ 16 And Now for the Moccasin News! ......................................................................... 25 Trickster Tales from the Museological World ....................................................... 30 The Museum: A Story of a Wannabee Ethical Space ........................................... 34 Stories: [Un]Told and [Un]Folding ....................................................................... 37 New Stories and New Directions .......................................................................... 46 Journeying North ............................................................................................................... 50 Trickster versus Researcher .................................................................................. 54 Theoretical Underpinnings, or How I Became an Indigenous Researcher ........... 55 Using a Salmon Cycle/Medicine Wheel Framework ............................................ 57 The Quadratic Dance: Researching the Self ......................................................... 59 I Pack My Bags, and in them I Put… Assumptions of the Research Project ........ 67 All Aboard! Participants and Research Site .......................................................... 69 Up the Toolbox Sleeve: Methods and Mechanics ................................................. 71 iv Creating My Ethical Canoe ................................................................................... 74 And Now, from the Desk of Coyote ..................................................................... 81 Story Time with Thomas King! ............................................................................. 83 Journeying East .................................................................................................................. 88 Culture/Economy/Environment/Community: The Matrix Overloaded ................ 90 Re: Placements, Renewal, Re: Self-Representation ............................................ 100 Raven and Coyote Sing them Home: Ode to Repatriation .................................. 113 Re: Connection, Reclamations and Re: Visioning .............................................. 115 Journeying South ............................................................................................................. 127 Weaving the Blanket and other Synthesizing Tales of Weft and Warp .............. 129 And Now a Word from our Sponsors! ................................................................. 133 Re: Pedagogy, Re: Culture and Re: Lationship Pedagogy .................................. 135 Re: Visuality, Re: Haida Cultural Visuality ........................................................ 148 And Now From the Desk of Coyote .................................................................... 155 References ....................................................................................................................... 156 Appendix A: Summary of Research, Letter of Introduction ........................................... 177 Appendix B: Co-researcher’s Informed Consent form .................................................... 179 Appendix C: Advertisement of the project ..................................................................... 181 Appendix D: Project principles of Respectful Research ................................................ 182 v Acknowledgements… This thesis gratefully acknowledges the Haida Nation, on whose lands I now live, I raise my hands to you and to your generosity, warmth and kindness. …to all my co-researchers who took the time to talk, share, edit and tell jokes: Haawa! Marsi! …to Tanu Lusignan and Jason Alsop at the Haida Heritage Centre, who took time out of their busy schedules: Haawa! Marsi! …to Bob and Ellen, who put up with endless discussions on colonization, which is, after all, the problem and solution to everything! And have bailed my canoe more times than I can remember. … to my wonderful partner George Martyniuk, who nursed me through the weaving process with patience, love and lots of coffee! Sahkitowin! Kisâkihitin! …to my supervisor: Peter Cole, a wonderful Raven who paddled me along and paddled along with me and helped me create my canoe and this robe of knowledge: Haawa, Marsi, kukwstum! …to my committee: Patricia O’Riley, a rhizomatic coyote, who wagged her tales so that I could follow: Niá:wen, Merci, Thank you! And to Jill Baird, a wonderful curator and educator who led me through the halls of the museum and taught me to dance the in- betweens: Haawa, thank you! P.S. my committee is a bunch of tricksters, and they put me up to the whole thing! Marsi, Ay Ay! Thanks for journeying with me. Sahkitowin! Kisâkihitin! vi Introductions… Dishinakashon Marnie, doetchine Edmonton… Meyinan, muskawisewin mena ayinesewin Ta natohtamahk menata nahehtamahk…. Hiy hiy ki anaskomitinan… The Haida Gwaii community's newly built heritage centre is a 40-year project. The Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay1 is magnificently designed building. Within six traditionally styled and interconnected houses sit a range of cultural/educational sites, which overlap and interface each other in their daily functions. Conceived as a multifunctional space, it greets its local and global audience with the unique and sophisticated style that the Haida are renowned for. Heritage and culture for the Haida people incorporates all that is worth protecting, nurturing and passing forward to others and its presentation engulfs the vast array of relationships that are connected to both the tangible object and intangible concept (Gii-dahl-guud-sliiaay, 2006). This interdisciplinary, relational and situated nature of the “Kaay Centre”, as it is locally known, sets it apart from western cultural institutions. This thesis will explore the ways in which the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay functions to support and facilitate Haida cultural regeneration and representation through inter-cultural