SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE

The importance of Elder and youth connections

First Nations cultural knowledge keepers are passing down their heritage to future generations. Because of the loss of culture, language, values, and ways of knowing that the Mi’kmaq have endured, it’s vitally important that Elders share their knowledge with younger members of the community.

One important spinoff of Indigenous tourism is the way it leads to the rediscovering and revitalization of traditional knowledge within Mi’kmaw communities. Many Indigenous tourism operators provide their services to other Indigenous individuals and groups, including students, teachers and families eager to learn more about their own heritage and traditions.

At a mawiomi, children might participate in dances and songs. Many of these are common across Indigenous communities throughout Turtle Island. However, Mi’kmaw children are now learning more about their own original customary music, dances, and songs.

Even games can help pass along traditional values and knowledge. An example is the tabletop game waltes (pronounced “walt-iss”), an ancient competition using a bowl, disks or dice, and hooked sticks. Eskasoni Cultural Journeys on Cape Breton Island teaches visitors how to play waltes. This mini workshop is one of several on a 2.3-kilometre nature trail where an interpreter from the community waits at each stop. (Other stops include hunting and fishing, traditional housing structures, dance, Mi’kmaw medicines, the trading post, and breadmaking over an open fire.)

Waltes is played with a wooden bowl that doubles as a spiritual totem, a use that led settler authorities to ban it. “The bowl is made from the burl of a tree,” explains Faye Sylliboy, the manager at Eskasoni Cultural Journeys. “The sticks are made from a tree. The six dice are made from the ankle bone of a deer.” The game itself teaches Mi’kmaw children the customs of their ancestors and how these emerged from their close relationship with the land. The game also says something of the extensive cultural loss inflicted by settler culture.

Sylliboy says visitors find the trail educational. “People come here with judgments and they leave with a totally different perspective, a better understanding of who we are. I enjoy teaching them and breaking those barriers between our cultures. Every tour, there’s someone we can teach. Working at this job, we get to be ourselves. We get to teach people who we are, where we come from. It leaves me feeling so happy.”

Sylliboy adds that they’re teaching waltes, the “Mi’kmaw Honour Song,” and the traditional dance called the kojua (go-ju-wah) to as many Mi’kmaw children as they can. They’re teaching kids to learn more about their culture and language, so they in turn can go out and share the Mi’kmaw perspective.

“We’re rediscovering and reclaiming our language and our culture,” says Robert Bernard. Knowledge sharing within Mi’kmaw communities is just as important as sharing with non-Indigenous people. “It’s going to take time for us to re-introduce these to our communities, people, cultural knowledge keepers and performers, but we’ll get there.” *