Irene Robinson launched the second of an ongoing series of books on Nuu-chah-nulth life and culture at the July 21 Elders Lunch at Clutesi Hall.
Titled ?uukt’akimt (ookt’kimthl in Easy-speak ) Nuu-chah-nulth Families, the two-book set, prepared by the Port Alberni Friendship Centre, examines the structure and life of families prior to Contact and after Contact.
Robinson said she started the project with funding from the Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation, but she had to put it aside due to her “crazy” work schedule at the Friendship Centre.
“Then they called about eight months later and said, ‘How is the book coming?’”
Robinson was able to re-boot the project, but there were further frustrations, including losing a portion of her assembled notes during her office move from Knee-Was. At that point, she reached out to a network of elders to gather and shape the body of knowledge that forms the book.
“We had meetings with elders, and NTC has a book, Sayings of Our Elders, that we used,” Robinson said.
“I talked to our elders about what their childhood was like, and I remembered what our childhood was like, because Mom brought elders into our house. I remembered how the elders treated us and how they taught us. How gentle it was and how you could have fun and laugh as you learned.”
Robinson said she used her previous book, Kleet-su, Feeding the People, as the model for Nuu-chah-nulth Families, taking a look at the family system pre-Contact and how the early colonizers reacted to it.
“At Contact, why was it so dangerous to the colonists and the settlers? How they set out to attack it, and where we are today.”
At the time the first settlers arrived, seeking to exploit the seemingly unlimited resources, Nuu-chah-nulth Nations and families had a sophisticated system of laws governing their lands and communities. Something had to give.
“Our people were strong enough to say ‘No, you can’t use that. That’s ours.’
They knew who they were; they knew what they owned; they knew what their territories were. And it was right down from the adults down to the kids, because the kids were taught. And that was a threat to the colonizer, because they wanted to own.”
Robinson said the colonizers initially made an effort to manipulate the older people, in order to gain more control over these organized indigenous people. When that didn’t work, she said, they resorted to marginalizing them in government communications and institutions.
“They called them ‘old unimprovable people who could not join in the march of civilization,’ because they would not change to become what [the colonizers] wanted them to be.”
That false image of their forefathers was fed to generations of Nuu-chah-nulth students at church- and government-run residential schools.
Robinson said her research blew that myth right out of the water.
“We did have a way of teaching. We did have education, when all the time I was told in the schools that we were primitive, we were savage, that we didn’t teach our kids, there were no schools… “Our way of teaching was different from theirs. Our children were taught from the time they were in the womb. Mothers talked to the baby they were carrying.”
The education process was gentle. Unlike the notorious residential schools, there was no yelling at the children and no violence. While children were encouraged to excel, teachers were careful not to inflate or deflate the self-worth of their students, Robinson said.
“No one was ever held up above the rest. No one said, ‘You’re the best singer; you’re the best hunter, you’re the best canoeist.’ No one was ever held up above the rest. Everybody achieved success.”
For those who achieved the highest levels, their elders would gently reinforce their success with praise.
“And if you had done something that wasn’t so great, they’d say, ‘Sit down.
I want to tell you a story.’”
The haahuu’pa was accomplished through storytelling, Robinson explained.
“The story would show something similar to what they had done, only Raven would have done it or Eagle so that he could see, ‘That’s what I did.’
It taught them how to think; it taught them how to make decisions. So the storytelling was a really strong way of teaching.”
Through this system of education, Nuu-chah-nulth children were drawn to excel in the skills that were necessary for their families to flourish.
“Everybody comes with a gift. And as the child grew older and the gift was identified, they were given extra teaching in the line of their gift.”
That child might become the hook-maker or the canoe-builder or the one who tended the berry crop.
“Everything that people did in the community contributed to the community whole, and balanced that community,” Robinson said. “No job was looked down on. No one said, ‘Oh, they’re just the Garbage-man.’”
Each Nuu-chah-nulth family would nurture its own core of skilled members, with some families, in turn, specializing in specific trades critical to the community such as whaling or canoe-building.
Other areas covered include traditional teachings on maternal health, such as which foods to avoid during pregnancy.
“And we also have how you give a baby a name because you love them, and, because names are family owned, how it grounded the baby into that family.”
Both books feature a cover and artwork by Ray Sim. The companion volume is an illustrated Nuu-chah-nulth phrase book depicting everyday situations, with text in the International Phoenetic Alphabet and Easy-Speak, along with the English translation.
“These are things you might be able to use every day,” Robinson said, quoting, “’My older sister always looks after us.’ That is something you could say to someone. It’s in phoenetics, in Easy-Speak and in English.”
The International Phonetic Alphabet is included at the back of the illustrated book. Robinson said Haahuupayak School gave permission to publish their user-friendly version of Nuu-chah-nulth alphabet in the linguistic symbols used worldwide.
The Nuu-chah-nulth Families set was published locally by Houle Printing, and is now available at a cover price of $20.
