Winkler I am a mohawk mite with my
Rickson tie in Jamaica I’m also a first
year law student here at Queens I also
did my undergrad here so I’m pretty
familiar with the campus and with the
indigenous community here so we’re
representatives from four directions so
TEDx teens some students came to us and
really wanted expressed their interest
in building a relationship with the
different indigenous communities in
Kingston and so they asked and they
really wanted to incorporate indigenous
voice into this conference so we thought
the best way to do that was through the
drum because through throughout I guess
the history of colonization a lot of
First Nations communities have lost
their language as well as all the time
today our voices are still silenced so
we use the drum as a way to reclaim our
voice and uplift the voices of others so
what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna start
off with a welcome song as indigenous
people we believe that everything in
creation has a spirit so everything from
like the height of my drum to you to
mother earth to the sky it everything
has a spirit so we sing a welcome song
to bring our spirits together as we’re
all here for this one purpose so yes I
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so yes honorable show and is no Karthik
Longo Kwai Bach tang and hoon Jabbar who
scored oh damn no kitchen and the Monday
monkey so I’m really happy to be here my
name is Hellena
I am Anishinabe clay Ojibwe from the
Anishinabe and I’ve been at the four
directions for about seven years now
helping to share my strengths and my
weaknesses with the people mostly as a
drum teacher has crafter as a
traditional knowledge keeper and I just
love it and we’re really happy that
you’ve asked us out here today to learn
to learn about us and so with our songs
what’s really important is the stories
because sometimes our songs are in
vocables which are as you know chant
like things with nonsense syllables they
they don’t have any meaning to them but
the story took the song means everything
right so we chose to tell you a
particular song today called wild flower
a wild flower was written right here in
Kingston by one of our elders called
barb Hooper and Barb now is she’s quite
elderly she’s about 90 now and has had a
stroke and is quite but she’s still with
this here and so a bunch of years back
she asked me if she could come to one of
my drum groups and I knew that there
would be no way that barb could tie the
drum because of her her physical
problems so I thought well in my own
selfish way I could get her story you
know if I gave her a drum so we called
that ceremony and a bunch of us were
over there at the four directions and
sure enough I gave her that
brahmand and i told her that she would
give us the story that i would consider
that a good trade and so sure enough she
told us this story right from her mouth
so she said to us she said one day as
the youth powwow was over there at Lake
Ontario Park just maybe about ten years
ago after she went home you know she
felt kind of sad that the fit the powwow
was over you know she’s sitting at her
table having herself a cup of tea she’s
still got her regalia on and she said
what happened when she went into this
kind of waking dream and you know we’ve
all done that right you’re sitting there
and you’re just your mind goes off and
you’re totally awake but you’re thinking
about something else so she said this
song came to her and so she said what
she saw was a man on a horse on a cliff
wearing buckskin and he had you know
long dark hair and what he was was the
look out over the community and what he
saw was he said to himself was it looked
like wildflowers all the people down
there he said they’re over there were
the children playing and over there the
grandmothers were gabbing and you know
the trouble was lurking in in the
distance so you know as a community we
need to look out for each other
so as the song goes and it’s all in
chants it’s all in vocables you know it
starts out with the grandmothers gabbing
and then the grandmas is back in it and
then the trouble alert so the
grandmothers have to raise your voice
like we all know that as grandmothers we
have to in parents now have to raise our
voice sometimes to our children to get
them to to come around and then when we
do your life goes back to calming and
soothing again so that’s our story about
the wildflower and that’s gonna be our
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they are mooning gets what’s gravity is
good I know what gate to Road them that
no day grant an egg and egg either who
don’t know Laura miracle ninja hazard
asana so what I just said to you I spoke
to you in Mohawk and I said I told you
that my my Mohawk or my holding the
show-me name is daya run yet yonder s I
mean she you she recognizes two skies
and I told you I live in time to Nega
which is a mohawk community one hour
west from here so I commute every day to
Queens I also told you that I sit with
the bear clan so you know my governance
and I told you that my English name was
Laura miracle so you know I walk in both
worlds
I also the other hat I wear is I also
work out for directions Aboriginal
Student Center
I’m the aboriginal cultural safety
coordinator there and the next thing
we’re going to sing to you I always say
one of my sayings and and I really it
really sticks strong with me is in order
to know what you’re going you need to
know where you came from and it’s
important to know histories in our
relationships and one of the histories
this next song is called way though some
of you may be familiar it’s actually
saying to the tune of Amazing Grace and
it and a lot of times when we sing our
songs it’s about it’s important to know
the stories it’s not about just doing
something no matter what you do not just
songs songs are one of the highest
honors to have to have to have been
given to you because people are actually
lifting your spirit up and they’re and
and they’re giving you their voice but
also it’s important to know why we’re
singing them and the stories behind it
so that’s why I a lot of times I won’t
sing outside unless I know the story and
actually Halima taught me this song it’s
called halo and it represents that the
history of residential school and the
resilience of our people during that
that very traumatic experience and when
our children were taken to these schools
they were dehumanized and they were
stripped of their identity and their
names and they were just given numbers
and so we were we were punished we were
conformed into Anna wave that we weren’t
familiar with and our children had to
learn how to go to church like the
Western dominant Society and how to pray
and pray in church like them and go to
school like them but we were stripped of
our language and our culture so in order
to conform this song we lo came our
children were in in in church and having
one of the songs they had to learn to
sing was amazing grace and so when we
sing our songs we use a lot of vocables
there are some words but there’s a lot
of vocables so this song the children in
order to not get reprimanded
they used vocables to be able to sing
this song
so this song honors those who didn’t
survive residential school but those who
did and it honors that era and it honors
those voices and the resilience of
additional so where take this is this is
this is a very emotional song and if you
want to sing it in English while we sing
yeahit’s Chima glitch and so if there’s
anything that the aboriginal person
wants you to know that in 1492 we
welcomed the ashen-faced strangers and
we have always wanted to live in subsistence and the rest is history