On Nov. 3, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council’s hupiimin wiikšaḥiiy’ap Nursing Services premiered its new cultural DVD entitled [Nuučaanułathin] We Are Nuu-chah-nulth, written and produced by Nitanis Desjarlais and John Rampanen, through their Shape Shyfter Studio.
It focuses on the history of Nuu-chah-nulth traditional healing practices, the suppression of culture by settlers/colonizers and the decades-long effort to restore Nuu-chah-nulth cultural practices into the health care system.
Retired NTC Nursing Manager Ina Seitcher, who, along with NTC nursing administrative assistant Holly Harrison, Pearl Dorward and Jackelyn Seitcher, formed the Cultural Advisory Committee in 2013, said it’s actually the second of two DVD projects.
“I wanted to do a DVD for the Nuu-chah-nulth communities, to explain the services that are available,” Seitcher explained. “I spoke with [Community & Human Services Director] Simon Read, who suggested we also do a cultural DVD.”
“We had elders from the Northern Region, elders from the South and Central Regions,” Seitcher said, naming some of the many people who contributed.
Desjarlais and Rampanen also co-produced the “informational” DVD, which will be distributed to Nuu-chah-nulth communities in the near future.
“On the nursing DVD, we knew what we wanted,” she said. But for the cultural DVD, the Cultural Committee turned over creative control to Desjarlais and Rampanen, she explained. “And they ran away with it.”
The 45-minute video opens with a prayer by elder Benson Nookemis and is narrated by Rampanen.
The central figure is a young man wearing a traditional mask, played by nephew Sabre Rampanen. The narrative begins with “The way we used to be.”
The young man is a healer. As Rampanen narrates, the healer gathers medicinal plants, treats patients and performs healing ceremonies.
“These are the ways of our ancestors, that still hold true today,” Rampanen intones.
The next section is “The changes that happened to us.”
The first Europeans that arrived in Nuu-chah-nulth territory were explorers and traders. The trading ships were followed by navy ships. Then the settlers.
By the mid-19th century, measles and smallpox had killed 90 per cent of Nuu-chah-nulth people. Traditional healers had no means of combating these imported diseases. Over the decades, whooping cough, tuberculosis and influenza would inflict yet another gruesome toll. The healer in the mask wanders through this landscape, obviously lost.
The third section is “The evolution of the NTC.”
In part, it’s a history of how the Nuu-cha-nulth Tribal Council began in the mid-1970s, and focuses on the series of demonstrations, first in Nanaimo and later in different communities, that served notice that Nuu-chah-nulth Nations were demanding to be taken seriously.
One of the first demands was for the closure of the Alberni Indian Residential School. Done.
As the NTC evolved, one of the key priorities that was identified was the need to improve health and child and family services.
Appearing on screen, NTC Vice President Ken Watts sums it up: “We want to do it our way. We should never settle for where we’re at.”
NTC President Deb Foxcroft also appears, speaking about her role in the Nuu-chah-nulth Health Study in the mid-1980s that resulted in the development of NTC Child & Family Services.
The video uses visual clips, old and new, from Ha-Shilth-Sa, the Nuu-chah-nulth newspaper, to highlight the events and the progress over the decades.
To re-emphasize the overall theme of We Are Nuu-chah-nulth, the producers selected a speech by Ray Haiyupis at the 1996 NTC AGM where he stresses the need to incorporate traditional knowledge into both health care and family services.
The video ends with the healer joining a ceremonial dance by students at Haahuupayak School. In a ceremony within a ceremony, he passes on his mask, and his traditional knowledge, to the next generation.
Response was immediate and emotional.
“Once, I thought we were lost. But I look at our children and I can see that we are strong,” Pearl Dorward said.
“This has been a long time coming,” Simon Read observed. “We have waited for a generation of young Nuu-chah-nulth with the expertise and the cultural energy to bring this about.”
In a lighter mood, Desjarlais delighted the audience with some back-stage revelations, including the fact that most of the outdoor footage of the bare-chested healer was shot last February.
“We threw Sabre into a whole day – naked – on the West Coast in winter,” she said.
