• INTERVIEW • THE LONG WALK of When Alanis left Odanak to live with by Maurie Alioff and her parents in Trois-Rivieres, life be­ Susan Schouten Levine came very different. She was now the only Indian child in the entire town, un­ lanis Obomsawin has been told that able to speak French fluently, and she when she was six months old, she had to "surVive a lot of things that are not Awas afI:licted by a mysterious dis­ so nice to think about," No matter which ease that almost killed her. The night route she took home from school, she everyone thought she would die, she lay was systematically beaten up by her in bed falling into a deep coma. The doc­ schoolmates. Alanis has never forgotten tor had said that she wasn't to be moved Mlle. Reault, the teacher who twisted or touched. Everyone.stood around her, her long crimson fingernails into her watching helplessly and waiting. arm and called her a ·'sauvagesse." Alanis Suddenly, the door swung open, and a also had to suffer through Canadian his­ great aunt, a very old woman, came in, tory classes, which always seemed to be wrapped up the baby in a big blanket, about martyred priests being tortured to and carried her off to a little shack on the death by Indians. It wasn't until her reserve. Because of their respect for the father died, when she was 12, that she old woman's age, the other relatives, al­ began to rebel against the prejudice and though upset, said nothing. "She kept me racism. "As I grew older," she says, "I was for six months," says Obomsawin "No­ always made to feel that I should be sell­ body knows what she did to me, but I ing myself, or that I should be someone's survived." maid, but I always found a way to,fight Obomsawin's mother had brought her back." to Odanak, the Abenaki reserve north­ Ironically, in the eyes of the federal east of Montreal, just before the illness government, Alanis was not officially an struck. She was raised in the house of her Indian, and eventually, she fully realized mother's sister, Jesse Benedict, and her what it meant to be'non-registered'. As husband Levi, who had six children of she points out, "I never had any rights. their own. As a child, Alanis had no real But you see, when you're young, you sense of the world outside the village don't grasp that. 1 never knew that story that sits just above the St. Francis river - - registered or not registered - all 1 even the village on the opposite shore knew was that 1 was an Indian, and that barely existed. The most vivid memory was that. It's much later that it all came she has of Odanak is the relationship she out, and 1 realized the racism and pre­ had with two old people on the reserve. judice that can exist even amongst your One of Alanis's songs begins, "When I own people. That's probably the hardest was very young, I had two friends - my thing to live through - to feel those kinds old aunt Alanis, and my mother's cousin of things." Theophile Panadis. Myoid aunt Alanis, At the age of 22, Alanis left Trois­ she was beautiful. She made baskets, and Rivieres for a two-week trip to Florida she loved me. Theo would tell me the ~ that turned into two years of taking care Abenaki history." When Alanis talks about her child­ of children, modelling bathing suits, and ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii• ' ii' ~ a learning to speak English. After she hood, her sensuous memory conjures up moved to Montreal in the late '50s, she all the Sights, sounds, and smells that she became part ofa circle of writers, photo- experienced. "In those days," she says, graphers, and artists that included "everybody made baskets and canoes. Leonard Cohen, Robert Herschorn, Vit­ They worked with the wood from many trees - especially the ash, spruce, birch, ALAN I S torio, Derek May, John Max, and many and pine - and sweetgrass was an im­ others. (Ask Alanis if she was the inspira- portant part of everyone's daily life. tion for Catherine Tekawitha, the mythic There wasn't one house you could go to heroine of'Cohen's Beautiful Losers, that didn't have those smells. I realized and she might laugh, "Ask Leonard.") that much later in my life because I , About that circle, she says, "We were missed it so much." She also misses the O B0 MSAWI . N friends. They were very cultured people, sight of people sitting in straight-backed and 1 learned a lot from them, their way chairs, braiding the sweetgrass and of being. Lots of good times. Lots of sing­ weaving the baskets. Everywhere you ing." hens were laying eggs ~ Everybody told looked were brilliantly colored Alanis has never, throughout her life, Gradually, she began to emerge as a her not to do it, that she would upset the ashwood splints, curling like ribbons on and despite many attempts to force her, singer (first professional engagement: chickens and make them jittery. But strings overhead. eaten meat. "Animals," she says "have Town Hall in New York City) and a Alanis swears that no matter how close When she was small, Alanis liked to histories just like us. They know their storyteller, who was specially interested she got to the hens to hear their cooing squeeze into the chicken coop while the friends, and they know their enemies." in giving young children a concrete and and clucking sounds, they remained per­ When you watch the films she's made, meaningful sense of her people. In 1965, fectly calm. Today, she might suddenly you notice how often images of animals, a CBC Telescope program about Alanis Susan Levine is a film maker who lives lower her voice, do an imitation of the birds, and fish appear in them - images caught the eye of Wolf Koenig and Bob in Ottawa. Maurie Alioff teaches film sounds, and break into a hoarse laugh be­ like the salmon that flash, or pulsate in Verrall, two NFB producers who invited and literature at Vanier College in cause performing the hen iffiitation slow motion, across the screen in Inci­ her to consult on several projects. Montreal and writes screenplays. makes her cough. dent at RestigouChe, At the Board, she began making her 10lCinema Canada "':June 1987 • INTERVIEW • own films, and she devised multimedia do or say," says Alanis without any trace educational kits that are ingenious of disappointment. "She has things of her microcosms of the Man0wan and own that I have to respect, and it will be L'Ilawat tribes. She has also appeared in later, perhaps only when I'm dead, that many other people's films, among them, Kisos is going say, 'Oh, my God, my Kathleen Shannon's Our Dear Sisters mother was like this.' I know that in ad­ and Gordon Sheppard's Eliza's Horo vance, and that's her time, that's her life." scope. All these years, she has continued The Alanis is the kind of person who seems her singing career, appeared frequently totally in possession of herself. Every on Sesame Street, and in 1983, she was movement she makes - whether she's awarded the Order of Canada for her threading film on a Steenbeck or spend­ contribution to native rights. Films ing hours cooking one of her spicy, sen­ Alanis Obomsawin lives with her 17- suous meals - is gracious and elegant. year-old daughter, Kisos, in downtown You can sometimes feel daunted by the Montreal. The 19th-century townhouse strength of her presence, or by an appar­ they share is filled with paintings, photo­ ent aloofness, but a moment later, you graphs, pastels, and lace. The kitchen, are bathing in her warmth and humor. which is the focal point of the house, She's entirely in touch with Montreal makes you feel you're in the country and the rest of the world outside with its wood-burning stove and long re­ Odanak, but that tiny village and the fectory table. When Kisos was a small Abenaki tribe (the word lJIeans 'people or Alanis Obomsawin, film is what rites of adolescent girls to a portrait of a child, Alanis, in the tradition of her of sunrise') are the continual sources of she calls a "bridge," or a "place" 108-year-old Cree woman called Agatha people, took her daughter everywhere - all her strength. "I have a drive," she tells Fwhere native people can talk to each Marie Goodine. We watch women who even to work. "Our people have always you, "from every bit of memory I have other, and to us, about their losses, their are still in touch with ways of life that re­ worked and had their children with from my childhood." memories of injustice, their desire to volve around the land and water - rock­ them," Alanis says. "Here, people make a At this point in what Alanis would call share what is good about their way of ing their babies, ice-fishing, gathering separation, but I never allowed it. I guess the "long walk" that is her life, she feels life, and with that sharing, become wild rice, hooking carpets and carving I was the scandal of the Film Board, be­ "I have come to a time now - it was strong. We have a sense of filmmaker images out of stone. Alanis also shows us cause I seemed to have raised Kisos very,very hard at the beginning - that I who is a listener and a compassionate the experiences of the first native there, but I don't think it damaged any­ have developed my own way of standing observer, like John Grierson, Alanis be­ woman who worked at Indian Affairs, a body; on the contrary, I think it was good on my two feet no matter where I am, lieves that film must attempt to trans­ young student at Harvard, and women for them." and being part of our culture, and carry­ form people, even to the point of causing who have been badly hurt by city life.