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Research Prompt #6 - Indigenous Life and Sovereignty - Part 5

Prakash Krishnan, Concordia University

Part 5 - Ontario (Ojibway, Iroquois, Seneca, Cree)

Cheenama the Trailmaker : An Indian Idyll of Old Ontario

(1935, English, Silent, Black and White, 35mm, 16mm, 37 mins)
Accession Number: 1935.0016
Producer: National Museum of Canada
Holding Institution: Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (35mm, 16mm, VHS, Digibeta)
Description: A filmic reconstruction of the traditional livelihood and culture of the Ojibway peoples pre-contact from white European settlers. The silent film follows the daily activities of Cheenama and his family, including his wife, Penni, and their children, Oka and Blue Jay. The activities depicted include berry picking and the making of baskets, skins, and clothes, fabricating a canoe from birch bark, harvesting food, and preparing rice.
Commentary: This film is a fictional reconstruction that attempts to reanimate Ojibway culture pre-contact for educational purposes. As a reconstruction without narration, it is important to consider how the activities depicted may or may not respect the actual practices of the time and may simply reinforce assumptions of the time of what Ojibway life may have been like. For instance, this film depicts one family living in isolation, thereby erasing how networking of community support are integral for many Indigenous communities.    
Bibliography:
Peter Morris, Embattled Shadows: A History of Canadian Cinema, 1895-1939, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978.
Watch Online: archive.org/details/upenn-f16-2090_cheenama_the_trailmaker
CESIF Link: Cheenama the Trailmaker : An Indian Idyll of Old Ontario

Serpent River Paddlers

(1975, English, Sound, Colour, 16mm, 14 min)
Accession Number: 1975.0070
Producers: Film Arts; Don Haig
Holding Institution: York University, Toronto (16mm)
Description: The film showcases members of the Huron-Wendat nation crafting canoes and snowshoes.
Commentary: Not much information is available on this film, but it appears to focus explicitly on the craftmanship specific to the Huron-Wendat.
CESIF Link: Serpent River Paddlers

The Colours of Pride

(1973, English, Sound, Colour, 16mm, 28 mins)
Accession Number: 1973.0027
Sponsor: Department of Indian and Northern Affairs : Ministère des Affaires indiennes et du Nord
Producer: Henning Jacobsen Associates
Distributor: National Film Board of Canada : Office national du film du Canada
Holding Institutions: Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (16mm, 3/4"); Carleton University, Ottawa (16mm); Ottawa University, Ottawa (16mm); University of Toronto, Toronto (16mm)
Description: The film presents four Indigenous painters in Canada, Norval Morrisseau, Allen Sapp, Alex Janvier, and Daphne Odjig whose work represents their cultures and traditions and has garnered national and international interest. The film is guided by Tom Hill, a Seneca scholar from the Six Nations Reserve in Brantford, Ontario.
Commentary: One of the few documentaries in the CESIF catalogue that showcases Indigenous peoples’ lives and crafts outside the ethnographic gaze. Instead it focuses on their various styles of paintings and their relationship with their respective cultures and communities.
Watch Online: www.onf.ca/film/colours_of_pride
CESIF Link: The Colours of Pride

Eagles on the River

(1977, English, Sound, Colour, 16mm, 30 mins)
Accession Number: 1977.0030
Producer: University of Guelph
Holding Institutions: Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (16mm, VHS); University of Calgary, Calgary (16mm)
Description: The film depicts the story of members of the Dokis First Nation (Ojibway) living on the French River between Lake Nipissing and Georgian Bay. It contrasts their experiences with pressures to assimilate into white society while seeking to maintain their independence and cultural identity. Through narration by G.E. Mortimore of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, some history and context of the reserve and relationships between the Dokis and white society is given. For instance, the film describes how the eagle on the Dokis flag represents their control and freedom from white society, and how they aimed to control the flow of people and ideas between the reserve and the city by such means as preventing the opening of a school. It includes interviews with band members sharing stories from their youth and showing the development of the life in the bush.
Commentary: The film showcases various scenes from the Dokis First Nation from an ethnographic gaze and that showcases their resistance to assimilate to the ways of life by white society. It explores, albeit briefly, some of the changing conditions that resulted in the infrastructural development of the reserve in order to facilitate economic growth that comes at the expense of some loss of the culture, lifestyle, and traditions the Dokis had fought to maintain. The film portrays this shift as an inevitable consequence of progress, without deeply interrogating the vital conditions and pressures imposed from settler society that drove these changes within the reserve.
Watch Online: frontierbushcraft.com/2012/09/10/the-dokis-eagles-on-the-river
CESIF Link: Eagles on the River

Arctic Goose Hunt

(1967, English, Sound, Colour, 16mm, 15 mins)
Accession Number: 1960.0005
Producer: Douglas Sinclair Film Productions
Distributors: Labatt Breweries; Universal International
Holding Institution: York University, Toronto (16mm)
Description: The film follows a group of Cree hunters on an autumn hunt for snow goose (blue goose), along the shores of James Bay. It demonstrates the Cree’s intimate knowledge of goose hunting and demonstrates their baiting and calling techniques to lure the geese within shooting range. The goose down and bones has been traditionally used to make clothes and tools.
Commentary: This film is one of many that seeks to capture through an ethnographic lens Indigenous peoples’ hunting and other livelihood practices in an attempt to preserve or historicize the still-living culture.   
Bibliography:
National Film Board of Canada, Films by Other Producers Distributed in Canada by the National Film Board of Canada/Films de divers producteurs distribués au Canada par l’Office national du film du Canada (Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, c.1968), 4.
CESIF Link: Arctic Goose Hunt