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Grandmother

Transmission of Knowledge

3:43 min. - Passing on traditional knowledge to young Innu and others is the goal Evelyne, our grandmother, has set for herself.

Transcription

Evelyne St-Onge - I was always torn between dreaming and wanting to save the culture and... also wanting to save the language. I was friends with Céline, who worked in Innu, and Zachary, who was always in the bush. And we had this meeting with Eddy. To start making educational videos. Making audio-visual documents, it was new material... I worked with books and Philippe who sang in Innu, and now we were making films in Innu, and for that, it was really interesting and also... the most important and interesting thing about it all, the films were in our language, were in Innu, and also spoke about the land and... there was great pride in doing that, and myself especially, personally, I was proud to participate because my three children, my three children were in the group and I was very, very proud of that... that they participated, that they would also learn this along with me. To write MinganieChronicles, was another way for us to demonstrate... another way... there's another side of history that people don't know about. Canadian history, what we learned in school, most of the time I was embarrassed to be Native, I often wanted to hide and make my skin pale.
I went to ICEM and told them I had a project. It's a partnership programme with the Commission des Droits de la Personne. And it's a programme to inform Non-Natives about Native reality, to make them more aware of who we are today, and we'll do that by reaching secondary schools. This programme has worked for 10 years. And it's very much in demand. It responds to Québécois' curiosity, because they want to get to know us better.
I'm proud of my children. And I'd like them to pass it on to their children. Now it's my turn to engage with them, to strengthen, you see, their knowledge. Nowadays you need both cultures, we need to be proud of being Innu. You have to know at least part of your history and... I'd like my children to be at ease in both cultures, to be comfortable in the city, in Natashquan, in Mani-utenam, that's how my parents gave me freedom, or ease.
Music - Kathia Rock


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