True Stories

Caroline Michel Vollant - I've only seen it once. It was at Tshishe-shastshit. The hunters wanted to know something about the game. They set up a shaking tent. The man who enters the shaking tent can speak to Innu animals. I heard several animal voices coming from the tent. I especially remember the wild goose and the loon. The ceremony lasted a long time. I fell asleep. Nowadays, we no longer perform the shaking tent ceremony. But I think we still have the powers. Maybe they're sleeping.
Pierre Michel - There's a bond between the animals, the earth and the Innu. A person who hunts lives with the animals. The Innu is looking for food. He goes inland to reach our traditional hunting territories, where the caribou is. The caribou provides us with everything. Its bones for certain tools, its hide to clothe ourselves, its meat and fat to feed us. It's good to have a Makusham with our dear ones. A huge feast to celebrate the hunt and respect the animal's spirit. Everything is alive. I didn't know this when I was younger. But one day, it's your turn to say what you've been told.
Zacharie Bellefleur - Everything is alive. And much more than the eye can see. Everything deserves respect. There is more than one presence in the forest. We say Katshimeitsheshu: forest Innu. These beings travel through the air or on the air. Only one person in the clan can see them. Sometimes munitions disappear, traps are overturned. They've never hurt the Innu.
Caroline Michel - I lived on this land till the age of ten. I remember the portage when the forest burned. We heard noises. Strange things. We were the first family to go inland that year. We found traces of a passage in the marsh grass, but no prints on the ground. My mother said there were signs. Strange things all along the way. My father decided to set up camp on an island to see if someone, or I don't know what, was following us. There was no moon that night. A squirrel chattered close to the camp. I could hear nothing else. I'd heard that an angry squirrel at night is a bad sign. The next day, my father confirmed this, telling us that we would lose someone in the family. He's the one who left us. He drowned that spring. I haven't been back here since.
Music - Philippe Mckenzie

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True Stories

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