Traditional Methods of Making: Dog Trail
Three years ago, I embarked on a journey of truth and reconciliation for my own identity and cultural connection. The project - Traditional Methods of Making - Imagined through a Contemporary Lens – would use Blackfoot traditional methods of making combined with my own contemporary knowledge. One part of this project, the musical composition piece titled Dog Trail, is on exhibition at Arts Commons running December 9 through to February 23 in the +15 Soundscape.
The first step in my mind—develop two new musical instrument designs and craft four instruments based on them. Then, during year two of my research, write a full-length musical album using those instruments (as well as my other invented instruments). The third step—go through traditional protocols to make rock art on a significant site such as the Glacial erratic near Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, and then finally bring these individual pieces together to make a finished research book accompanied by a musical album, including original cover art.
This topic seemed easy enough when I conceived it; consult with Ceremonialists, Knowledge Keepers, Elders, and Cultural historians through the proper protocols (as I’m learning them), build two new instrument designs, write music that bridges traditional and contemporary practices, and participate in ceremony and transfer rites while simultaneously conducting research through reading and visiting museums and cultural sites. Research through these methods is a passion of mine and an important connection to who I am as a maker, facilitator and, existentially, an Urbanized-Half-Native. And learning the protocols is a life-long pursuit. I have made mistakes as I’ve navigated and learned my background, but I actively try to improve every day so that I may more easily integrate them into my daily life and communicate our common knowledge cultural teachings to others.
I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the information I learned growing up in the public school system and what is commonly believed by non-Indigenous members of the community. I now understand that seeking authenticity in a convoluted, socially constructed, and colonized realm has made it hard to discern the barrier between truth, fact, point of view, and speculation when applied to history. The truth is, most of what I was taught was purely fictitious or significantly whitewashed, and I never even learned about residential schools until I was in my early 20s. My Indigenous family members never talked about those things, but I knew that there were serious and heavy things that had happened to them.
When I was 25 years old, my Grandpa Tailfeathers took me to the site of the former residential school and showed me the unmarked graveyard of friends and family members who never made it home. This realization, paired with the death of my father Darcy when I was only a year old, fueled my desire to connect to my Indigenous heritage more than ever before. The research I undertook was a way to connect to my dad and the rich history of my ancestry through my own exploration, rather than be led through the process by strictly reading history books and visiting already known cultural sites. As an artist and maker, I connect most strongly with my history through craft and the methods of making, rather than the language which I have always found challenging. My plan became to use the traditional Blackfoot territory map to visit culturally significant geographical locations.
My research has lead me to explore the history behind how and why the Blackfoot existed traditionally and the ways we used different plants and animals for various purposes as well as applying spirituality/religion, music and arts, social and political systems to those beliefs. Also interacting with other nations to find those technical skills and then making many new, complex works from it all…I realize now that this project was about more than just the skills and methods developed by my ancestors. It is about the society as a whole. This is a group who figured out purpose, balance, and existence as one living creature among many in the world, valued stewardship of geography, plants, animals, astronomy, seasons and trade, all stemming from the appreciation of natural beauty that a Creator has left for us to learn from. They were storytellers, dreamers, activists, and conservationists living in such an advanced society and ecosystem that the system scarcely needed to change for thousands of years—up until the Europeans brought themselves, and everything else they introduced, to the land.
There are many important locations with known information, stories, and landmarks that are confirmed by the Blackfoot Confederacy and are acknowledged as historic sites. The other landmarks I have been exploring mostly started out as my own speculation applied to the traditional map, the oral/written history and comparing landmarks that fall under the area of the traditional territory. This approach has yielded pictographs and pictograph remnants that I’ve rediscovered and am now in the process of attaining protection for these sites. As an aside, I find it interesting that I only really see or hear about the cultural landmarks and sites in Alberta and Montana, even though the land area in the traditional territory takes up a third or more of Saskatchewan. There are unanswered questions by universities, archeologist, and researchers about landmarks, tipi circles, petroglyphs and pictographs that they haven’t figured out yet or connected to specific Indigenous Nations. I think the answer lies with visiting and looking at these locations, artifacts and seek consultation about authenticity with the leaders and knowledge keepers of the Blackfoot and Treaty Nations community.
Research, consultation, and hands-on approach with materials is where this project needed to go––understanding the logical reasons of living in this specific territory, the landmarks, the plants/animals, the sciences, tools and arts of the Blackfoot people. If you find something upon the land that may appear like it has historic cultural significance, I encourage you to report it to the Archaeological Society of Alberta and please, please, do not touch or damage the object.
The musical album that I wrote is a concept album about storytelling, called Dog Trail and is on exhibition starting December 10 to February 23 in the +15 Soundscape in Arts Commons. The soundscape is the entire album in its full non-stop story form, including an additional song only included on the full soundscape version, and extra/extended sounds to build atmosphere.
A young man sitting in his lodge on the land and with him is an ancient dog that has lived for hundreds of years, a guide for the man’s ancestors. He asks the dog to tell him old stories. (Seasons and moons)
She tells the man about the need for memory and to tie it to the land, something that has been here for thousands of years before the present day. His ancestor was once a young brave, he needed to prove his worth so he needed to follow the old ways and travel through his people’s territory and know the special and important places. Visit with his distant relations, the other nations of his people. To visit interlopers who don’t recognize the relationship with the land and teach them harsh lessons if needed. To write songs of honour and document those places and his deeds along the way. (Dog Trail)
She would go with him for a year or the full 13 moon calendar (13 songs/tracks) from spring to spring. Circling the entire territory, he would see and participate with many important tasks, ceremonies and landmarks. First, interact with and participate in the important hunt of the Buffalo jump in his home clan’s land along the porcupine hills (Buffalo off the cliffs- inspired by head smashed in, old women’s Buff jump, pine coulee, Williams coulee, beaver valley, nose creek, the cowboy trail).
Then he rides on eastward on the foothills and sees many animals and rivers like the bow, red deer and south Saskatchewan rivers (Foothills- Hillside Ride)
He sees and interacts with a moose crossing a great river (moose in the rushes)
He stops at the Majorville cairns/star chart to participate in star tracking (read the Stars)
He has a visit from an owl and has nightmares about newcomers and interlopers that he’ll need to prove his worth by either chase out or kill so that they stop stealing the resources and occupying the land without understanding her (night visions past Medicine Hat into the Saskatchewan territory) he travels on to the cypress hills to circle back and camps along the Harris lake.
He sees firelight near his camp and journeys through the nearby lake’s reeds to watch foreigners in their camp, he plans an attack and to steal horses. (Hidden in the reeds)
He follows them later and then attacks them. (Counting Coup)
He journeys further southwest and along the Rocky Mountains and watches a group of big horn climb. (Waterton area)
He finds a deep red canyon where he sings and gathers red ochre for painting. (Red Rock Canyon)
He follows the canyon into the mountains and paints his story on the wall as the dog finishes her story. She also tells him that there are more stories to tell of where he went, that there are more places. (Carve the Rock, paint the stories)
The young brave tells the Dog what he wishes to do with his life, now that he has heard the long story. (Nomad -inspired by all the special places in the territory and observing the traditions).
If you would like to learn more about Dog Trail, please visit artscommons.ca.
Above: One of the pictograph locations that I rediscovered; A special glacial erratic split rock overlooking the Old Man River. I have found no information about this location, I am asking the Elders about it.
