Interview with Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams at s7ístken site
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 25 - LORNA WILLIAMS
TONE
Testing, one, two, three, four. One two one two one two. This is SR number, SR 25, camera roll 32, next slate will be 125. This is at the _________ site, we’re on the Brookenhead River, Mount Currie and the date is the 9th or 10th of October, 1993. Gary Marcuse, Mind of a Child Production and that was a -8 tone at the head.
BEEP
BEEP BEEP
124 head.
LORNA So this would have been one of the _________ sites in the ...
Next will be 125 head
BEEP
LORNA This here would be, uh, one of the old _________, that, those are the winter houses that people lived in during the winter time and so they would settle along the river just when the Fall fishing would be beginning in this area. What they would do is they would dig down about six to eight feet and then build the walls, the sides up with walls and, uh, pack the dirt around in them and this would have been a good site because there isn’t, there aren’t any big rocks in here. And so they would line it with, first with logs and then, um, and then stuff the edges with, um, probably cedar bark and then, and then cover that on the outside, then there would be lots that would go over the top here. The opening, there would be an opening for the, for, right on the very, very top and there would be a notched log that
PAGE - SR 25
The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 25 - LORNA WILLIAMS
would go through, go through the, the top of the _________ and, uh, so those would be the steps going down into the, into the dwelling. Um, so they would cover those with, with saplings and then with, um with boughs of the trees and then with, then they’d recover the whole thing with the dirt and so all you would see is, um, would be kind of a dome that would be on the top and then later on when the snow came, then that, you would see just snow mounds in here. The fire pit would be built right in the middle and often there were several of these that would be in a group, probably three or four and there would be one really large one and that would be the house of the, the main family with a head man and, then the smaller ones would be probably their children and, um, um, then there would be a smaller one and that would have been used as a, as a winter cache and so they’d leave the food in there so that they could, so they planned during, for the whole course of the winter so that they would have food throughout, um ...
GARY When did you first learn about this place?
LORNA Oh, I guess we, I’ve been, I’ve been coming here for a long time with, um, with the old ladies. Because the ground here is so nice, they use this, the whole area here for, uh, cedar, uh, root digging and then, um, and so I’ve always known that they were here. I had always had a sense that they were here but I didn’t, I don’t remember any one point in time when I didn’t know they were here and they’re, we see these all through, through our land. But it wasn’t until I was probably about seventeen or eighteen that I really, uh, had a sense that people lived in them and it was when my, um, my aunt, my Dad’s oldest sister was te-, was showing me, um, where the last one that she lived in, where that one was and then her telling me the story that she lived in these, in a sense, connected me to the, to the time when I guess further back in history, that it, that these
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 25 - LORNA WILLIAMS
places came in, came to life for me. And so, usually people would, um, live in these, not for, not for a long time, um, and they’d rebuild them pretty well throughout the land, depending on, on where the families were moving.
Could you take a stroll up here .... (instructions )
LORNA That one there is an example of a cache site. See. Uh huh.
So I walk out this way and come through here?
Ya, and to there. (more instructions)
One two three four. This will be a guide track for the MOS shot of Lorna walking through the _________ sites and I will just simply say roll when camera rolls, for rough timing. To be recorded off a radio mic with a bit of ambience background. That is to say, wild sound.
Camera’s rolling.
One two three four. This will be wild sound following Lorna to go with the walk through the winter house sites.
And cut.
BEEP BEEP
That was wild sound for the walking through the sites.
One two three four. This will be ... I’m going to do a bit of wild on the river, please. Going to do a bit of wild on the river here.
And cut.
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 25 - LORNA WILLIAMS
That’s the river from up on the bank.
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
26, we’re on camera roll 32. I’m Gary Marcuse. This is the Mind of a Child production. We’re at the winter village site. This is Saturday the 9th ... 9th of October. And -8 coming up.
TONE
The next slate will be 126.
BEEP
126 head, camera’s ready
LORNA When I was about eighteen, the same age as my daughter Megan’s age, I remember being, um, trying to find out more about, um, our past. And, um, my uncle played such a big role in the community, in the community, in directing the community, um, in being there for our people who passed away and I knew that he had come from a really large family. I think he had twenty-five brothers and sisters and, um, and he and my aunt, who was my father’s sister, uh, used to always tell us stories. But one night I was visiting him in his house. I used to go there occasionally and have tea with him in the evening and so I was asking him about, um, I had started off by asking him about the flu because I had heard about the, the flu epidemic in 1918 and, um, he was quiet for, for awhile and then he told me that, um, then he told me about, um, the story that he heard when he was young about, um, when the smallpox had come through, through our valleys and, um, he was telling me about this, this young man who lived, um, probably way up in the upper valley and, anyway he said that there was, that this man’s, this young man’s family was, were all dying and the head man told him to go down, down the valley and to ask, to get some people to come up to, to help them. And so he started to run through the, just along the trails and, um, he came to a
PAGE - SR 26
The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
________ and as I said, they were always, tended to be grouped and so he went to tho-, the, he made the noise, he call-, hollered and the, just the signal for, to let them know that, to let the people know that there was somebody who was going to enter because entrance was from the top of the dwelling. He, um, he went up the, the stair and, uh, he looked down into the, into the pit and, um ...
We’re changing to CR 33 and the next slate will be 127. That’ll be a head slate.
BEEP
LORNA He saw the, the group of ________ where he was going to go and find help and he noticed that it was really quiet, but he, he, he gave a holler when he saw them and hollered to warn the people that um, that he, that he was coming and so they, they could get ready in the, in the pit house. And he climbed up and he looked in and there was still a little bit of smoke and, but he looked in there and everybody was sitting in there and lying down and, it felt really weird to him. He went down the, the steps and he realized that, um, that all the people in there were dead. And he, I guess he realized that what had been happening in their village was, had happened there too. And so he built a fire up and, um, and then he started to, he collapsed. He collapsed that house and, um, and then he, then he thought he’d go down to the, to keep on going to the next, to the next village. And, uh, so he went on his way again and, um, and the same thing happened. The same thing happened as, as the first one he visited and, uh, all day and all night he ran ... through the woods ... and he had to keep collapsing the houses and he realized that, that what had happened was that this sickness, this disease had been spread throughout the whole, of, amongst all the people. And I think he, he kept on going until he came down into this area before he, before
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
he found, um, before he found people who were still alive. And by that time he knew that, that there wasn’t any help probably for, for his, for his family. This was really painful for my uncle. As it is for me. Because I think that, it wasn’t until then I realized, I guess that a piece of the whole story about what had happened to us in our history and finally, I was able to have some answers and so that I knew that it wasn’t a weakness in our, in our way of living life. But, um ... it was also really, it was painful for him because for him, although death is very much a part of life and that can be accepted, but when death comes in those kinds of numbers, what it does is that people, it’s so big that people can’t, um, deal with the, the trauma. My uncle’s job that had been passed down to him and here-, through hereditary lines was to be the, in a sense, the holder of the memories of the people and so he knew and recorded in his memory all the changes the people made in their lives. The changes in territory, the changes in, um, the social and political structure and, um, and so we didn’t write things down but he recorded all of those in his memory and he felt that, so that story which began before he was even born then, I think was weighed on him because in 1918 when the flu hit our communities, and this would have been about fifty years apart, and already he was responsibly, he was being groomed and he knew he was being groomed to, um, record the history and, um, and part of that job then is to take the names from people and that, and those names are held for the next generations and so that that’s how the history, in a sense, is linked together. And in 1918, there were so many people dying that, um, that they had to again build, um, bury the people in pits and so that they couldn’t have a ceremony, they couldn’t treat death with respect and treating, dealing with death has to be as respectful as you treat life and, um ... so that night he was, you know, in a sense, telling me that, um, how important it is for us to, to have an understanding of our past and, uh, and that we,
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
we’d been silent about it for too long. And, um, I know that it was painful to him for all through his life that, um, he felt that he let people down because there were gaps then in his memory which he was supposed to then pass on to the next generations and he felt that, he felt responsible, responsible for that loss.
GARY There’s a little transition point to help people follow, just for audio ... you mentioned that it was your uncle’s job to take the names ... could you go through that again, just be a little bit more specific about when that happens.
LORNA Um, when, um, people die, as part of the, as part of the, the ceremony of death, I guess you would say, the, um, people would remember the names that were held by that individual and so that it would be recorded somewhere that, uh, this person carried those names and those names also meant that you had, the, went with the, came with the responsibilities for territory, for, um, continuity of the line, you know, through the ages and, um, and also a social responsibility because with each of the names there was also attached, uh, um, responsibilities to the communities and um, when you, when people chose then to give the name to, to someone, then it was because they were, they, that the, that they recognized qualities and characteristics in a person so that they could meet with, meet the responsibilities. See, so that’s what you would have to hold in his memory and keep all of that organized so that, so that when someone was about to be named, they, usually the old people would come together and they would agree on, on a name and so then he would have to keep all of, like, keep it straight as to which line it was, you know, like, the lineage, I guess.
128 head slate.
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
BEEP
LORNA It’s, um, it’s easy to focus on, I guess the sense of loss and grief and the trauma of losing so many people all at once but it’s, but we have to think about, I guess, what was lost and, um, and how that influenced the community. In our communities, people had responsibilities, I, as I said, because for example there would be a certain family would be in charge of all of the burial ceremonies. There was someone else who was responsible for remembering boundary lines because there were no fences. There were, it was boundary lines that people knew and, um, and it was recorded in memory. There was, uh, someone was responsible for, uh, making sure that everybody had fire wood for their winter time and so, and, and that person not only was responsible for getting the fire wood, but in determining where in the territory it would be the best for picking, for cutting the trees and, uh, or thinning it out and cleaning, cleaning up the forest and so that people just didn’t do that just haphazardly. Uh, there was somebody who saw, I guess, a bigger picture and so knew how to, and then would direct the people. There were also others who, for example, who were responsible for the food gathering places and they would let the people know where in the territory they could gather uh, food, pick berries and, um, get their root, uh, root vegetables. And they did this so that, because they knew that we couldn’t over, uh, use the resources in any one area. And so that they had to, they had a bigger plan than just going out to get food. They knew when and where was the best place to go so that they carefully husbanded the, the natural resources. And so it was a very different form of agriculture and it was that sense of, um, social and political responsibility of the individuals who live in a, in a very tight society then that began to break down from, you know, just during the course of those fifty years when the small pox came through and then, and then the
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 26- LORNA WILLIAMS
influenza ... and I realize ...
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
This is SR 27. This is continuing at the site. This will be wild sound. The next slate will be number 129. I’m Gary Marcuse. This is 9, October, 1993. -8 coming up.
TONE
One two three four. Just continuing the thought from the previous take with Lorna’s discussion. This will be wild.
LORNA It was then that I realized that, um, that what I was witnessing and trying to understand, I guess, of the breakdown of the families in the community, the apathy that I, that I seemed to sense in the people ... I didn’t understand why people were like that and it was, so it was his story that night that, uh, helped me to, that made me realize that it was connected. Like the, that the reasons in a sense were connected to those, to those deaths and that trauma. And that sense of loss, and so the breakdown then wasn’t the alcohol, because, as I originally thought. It compounded it. But, um, that it was connected, you know, to all of those years, you know, before that ... a hundred, a hundred or so years before.
GARY Do you have any sense of what you yourself might have had if those people hadn’t been lost to the community. I mean what sorts of things, do you have any sense for your own, in your own experience from what you figured out now, what sort of things would be different if those people had survived? Is that possible?
LORNA I don’t know. I don’t think it’s fully possible. But I think that that’s, um, in a sense, that’s what, um, an important part of what Reuven was saying about cultural understanding, I think is, what he, what he’s helped me to do is in a sense to, he’s given me a map to go back to those
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
times because parts of those are still in our memory, but we live life, we don’t necessarily articulate why we do things and why we think things, why we have, in a sense, connections and relationships that, uh, that we do. And, um, so I began, in a sense, to be able to see family structure in a different way. Like, I finally began to understand that, um, that why it was important for us to, um, to learn patience, to learn persistence, to learn, um, deep caring and acceptance of, of others. Um, I guess it’s, um, when I was growing up though, there was still a lot of it, as I said before, um, there was, there were still evidence and, um, and for that I was, I’m really fortunate so that I could see and understand why it was important that people passed on, um, the, the jobs, the social responsibilities to the next generation and when we started to try to, um, in a sense, take, take back our lives, you know, through, um, through education, through starting the community controlled schools that, um, it was that, it was trying to under-, it was ... trying to put into words what it was, you know, that was, um, that was, um, the way we naturally lived because we knew that we were different and we lived life differently and, um, I guess, again I was really fortunate in that there were people like my, my uncle’s parents and, and other old people who still had a deep sense of, of the way things, of the way lived things, the way they communicated with, um, with one another and with the spirit world and I remember the stories of people gathering and being together and, um, but you see I didn’t think about why those were important until I think, until later in life. But, that night those stories that he told me, helped me to understand that the whole story of breakdown, like, happens, with a lot of other elements. It isn’t just, like what I was witnessing. And it also, it, I think what it did too, was it helped me to see how resilient and strong humans are. That people could, um, I guess that I saw the, the, that people still had, like a will, they
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
could have, could continue to have a will to go on and to live and to rebuild and, um, you know, their lives. And having lost, like the small pox, thousands, thousands of people. And, um, and that people could still, um, be loving and kind and caring about one another, you know, and, um, and not, and so I finally could, in a sense, unglue my eyes from the apathy that I was seeing, the destruction and I could see, finally, I, too, I could see the other side. The other, the joy that people had and their sense of humour and the peace that they had. Ya. And so, in order to have that, you have to have, I think, a lot of life and energy to, ya, to live life fully like they did. Mm mm.
We’re on camera roll 34. The next slate will be 129 head slate. And we’re on SR 27.
BEEP
LORNA It wasn’t until several years later when I was, um, then working with the school and, uh, and we were charged in a sense with the responsibility of, um, of telling our own history from our point of view. And, the story that my uncle told me was, by this time, always in my mind and then I found some old documents, uh, in the archives. Some from Tate, who was one of anthropologist, Boaz’s students, and he had come through here and in that book he talked about, um, that in, mid-1800’s, there were about thirty thousand of us who lived in these valleys and by 1950, there were only five hundred and I, and I remember when I read that that I, that was when I fully, in a sense, realized the, the extent of the, of the loss and the trauma that our people had experienced. And in a way, those gave me new eyes from which to look at the strength that was still in the people and that they could persist and retain as much of who we are ______ with that kind of, with that kind of a loss.
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The Mind of a Child Face to Face Media Ltd.
WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
GARY Can you give short version of disease and how many people were lost.
LORNA Um, so looking back at all of the diseases, it wasn’t, it was small pox and influenza were the two major diseases but there were several others then that um, that caused a lot, the population to drop from about thirty thousand to five hundred.
GARY What’s your sense of what that loss did ...
LORNA The loss ...
GARY ... so many people.
LORNA Well the loss is, is a sense of history, a sense of connection. And when you know that, um, how knowledge is transmitted intergenerationally, and when that many people die, when that many people are gone, it leaves major gaps in, um, the knowledge base of the people.
GARY How does that affect (unclear) ...
LORNA Mm. Reask that question again.
GARY I’m going to leave that for another time.
This will be head slate 130.
BEEP
LORNA So, thinking about the, the amount then that has been lost, how do, how do we as a people begin to rebuild that, how do we reclaim our history in a sense, and start form this point in time, is I think, the challenge for our children. It’s our challenge now as adults to, um, in a
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
way, to leave behind the, that sense of loss, that sense of trauma and to continue with history and not be bound by so much a past but by focusing now on today and the future because what we’re building today needs to be as meaningful to all our children as, as life was meaningful to us because of our ancestors. And so, using, um, mediated learning and what, and trying to describe exactly what those me-, words mean, is, in a, is, I think the way in which, um, I can help my daughter to understand her heritage, to feel a sense of history, to feel a sense of coming from somewhere because then that’s what helps her to go into her future and it helps, and I have to think about not just her future, in a sense, and her sense of history, but also the sense of, of history that she’ll pass on her to her children and to our grandchildren and so on.
GARY Just to put it another way, have you told Megan this story your uncle ...
LORNA I didn’t tell this, I didn’t, you know, I didn’t tell this story to anybody until I was working on that film project that I was working on and, but, um, my brother read the story and he read it to his class and they were of, um, you know, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds and, um, and the, I think that what it, what it did, in the story that he told me back about telling this story to his class, was that, um, that in a way they had a sense of, of a distant past, in a way that they hadn’t before. And so I think that it’s, um, that that’s what, that’s these kinds of stories I guess that I think we have to begin to retell. When people have been through a trauma, when people have been through something that when that’s so, um, bit in a sense as, as this, bigger than an individual that um, sometimes in the business of life, you don’t, you don’t realize how important those stories are because it was also that sense of story telling that was also lost, I think, you
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WINTER HOUSE SITES SR 27- LORNA WILLIAMS
know, a big portion of it and so even though many people of my age have benefited from those stories, but we didn’t carry them on because they were already, I think, in a way, um, not as strong as they, as, and strongly used as they have been in the past. And so, the other thing is that I think it’s important, the sense of timing when you tell, when you tell people those stories, I think is really important and the fact that, see my uncle, I spent a lot of time with my uncle and my aunt who in, especially during, um, you know the winter nights we used to go and spend the whole evening over there and, um, and it wasn’t until I think he knew that I was at a point where he could tell me that story, I could in a sense grasp some, uh, grasp it and, but also to deal with his pain and my pain that, um, that he, that he told me that night and so when you’re a story teller, you have to know when to tell a story, not to just that, you know, that there’s time for a story and so you have to, I think take into consideration, you know, peoples’ pre-, readiness to hear stories and, and it helps them in a sense to make the next, you know, make the next, uh, jump.
GARY So why is this a good time to tell this story?
LORNA I think that, because I think that in the work we’ve done in, not just in amongst the people here in Mount Currie, but it’s a sense that I get all, all around, you know, in all of the communities and the children and the young people and adults that I come into contact with, that, um, we’re ready in a sense, in a state of inquisitiveness that, um, that we can go beyond in a sense, the pain and anger and the sense of loss. Those are important to experience and to acknowledge but you have to also be ready to see a bigger picture.
All right, this will be a forest ambience with occasional vehicles in the background.
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Production material centres around two interviews conducted with Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams near the former site of a S7ístken, a traditional semi-subterranean winter dwelling of the Lil̓wat7úl, along the Birkenhead River.
In tape 1, Wanosts’a7 gives a detailed description of a S7ístken and typical layout of a S7ístken village; and how inter-generational stories strengthened her connection to such locations.
Tape 1 continues with a second interview in which Wanosts’a7 talks about learning her family’s past; her uncle and his role in the community, including his stories about how smallpox and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic impacted Indigenous communities; and how loss and trauma breakdown community social practices.
In tape 2, Wanosts’a7 talks about learning the extent of the loss and trauma that her people had experienced, and finding a greater appreciation of the strength that still remains; and the importance of rebuilding and continuing to carry stories into the future.
The filmed segments of the first interview run from 01:53 on tape 1, and continue until 06:09 on tape 1. The films segments of the second interview begin at 09:39 on tape 1, and continue until 10:20 in tape 2.
Additional sequences of the environment and Wanosts’a7 walking can be found proceeding and following each interview, as well as a sequence of Wanosts’a7 driving at the end of tape 2. Much of this material does not have corresponding audio.
Originally recorded on 16 mm film and 1/4” reel-to-reel audio later transferred and synced to Betacam SP for use during post-production. Dates on cassettes are believed to reflect date of transfer.Transcripts of the 1/4” sound reels were created by Face to Face Media for use during post-production. These audio transcripts include additional interview segments not found on the videocassettes and have been provided unedited.Digitized by the The MediaPreserve. Access files created by University of Victoria Special Collections and University Archives. Metadata by Matt Innes.
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This material is made available on this site for research and private study only.
