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Innu people fight assimilation by taking their show on the road

by Ryan National Features Writer

Canadian University Press

Assimilation is a dirty word for many native groups in Canada.

The Innu __ people of Labrador learned all about assimilation from the white governments of Newfoundland and Quebec. When the En- glish and French govern- ments divided Labrador into two provinces, the Innu were the big losers. The Innu were moved from their tra- ditional camps to reset- tlement areas like She- shatshit, Labrador in the 1950s. First they lost their homeland, but they now realize they are los- ing something less tan- gible yet more difficult to hang onto than a land claim. The Innu are watching their white visitors overwhelm their culture. Be

While they appreciate the con- cern of well-intentioned white activists, the Innu want to tell their own story in their own words. That desire brought four young Innu ° from Labrador to a St.John’s theatre this summer to

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illustrate the plight of their people in the stage production Ntesinan. In the first scene of Ntesinan, which means “our land” in Innu, the actors succinctly estab- lish the Innu’s percep- tion of the white infiltra- tion of the communities with one short, chilling exchange.

Ntesinan opens with the entrance of a young Innu man, dressed in traditional native gar- ments. He walks onto the sparse stage and sits on the middle of a log. Behind him, a backdrop symbolizes the harsh beauty of the northern bush of Labrador. A white man swaggers onto the set and with forced affability, asks the Innu man if he may sit down on the log. The Innu agrees. But then the white man asks for more space “just to stretch out my legs”, which the Innu gives without protest. The white man requests more and more space, his voice dripping with saccharine conge- niality, until the Innu has given up all his space and has fallen off the log.

The white man_

then jumps to his feet, warning the Innu man to “stay off of my log.” This three-minute scenario aptly illustrates the native’s perception of the white people and the effect they have had on the Innw since their arrival. The natives have been slowly pushed off

their land into settle- ments created by white policy makers. To quell their protests and out- rage, the government of- fered them social assis- tance and the amenities of white culture. | But those concessions do not change the fact that the Innu have been treated unfairly and subjected to invasions of their cul- ture and their native lifestyle.

Ntesinan was born out of the Newfound- land arts community’s desire to help the Innu

reclaim their land and

their identity. Orig- inally, members of a St.John’s theatre group known as Resource Cen- tre for the Arts (RCA) wanted to do a_ show as a protest to the in- creased militarization of Labrador.

Last year,

Goose Bay, Labrador be-

came one of the _pre- ferred sites for a new NATO base and was al- ready experiencing in- creased military activ- ity. Local business peo- ple and the provincial government greeeted the military with enthusi- asm, touting the base as a source of employment and financial expansion for a chronically unem- ployed province. Peace activists, environmental- ists and native rights groups rallied together to demonstrate their op- position but politicians and business people quickly dismissed their concerns. The NATO

base debate regenerated lingering hostilities be- tween the white New- foundlanders and the na- tive Innu people. Newfoundland direc- tor Mary Walsh took the idea of a_ theatre production to the Innu eople who immediately changed the project’s fo- cus. Walsh went to the Innu settlement of She- shatshit to find people to write and produce the show with her. There, she met Jack Penashue, Edward Nuna and sis- ters Clem and Anasta- sia Andrew, Innu youth who had some acting ex- perience in high school and more importantly,

the enthusiasm to try a new and somewhat risky project.

“The show was ex- panded to include all as- pects of Innu life because the NATO base is just one of the problems of the Innu people. You can’t make a play about a political issue.. A play - is about people’s lives and this is one aspect of the Innu’s lives,” said Walsh.

Walsh is an actor and director who gained

noteriety as a member

of the comedy troupe CODCO and as a cast member of a CBC-TV program Up At Ours. Her solo projects have included one- woman shows and her most recent directing project was a play about child abuse. Walsh

brought years of experi- ence in directing, impro- visational acting and coi- lective script writing to the project. Her back- ground helped the Innu actors vocalize and il- lustrate the concerns of their people and develop their ideas into a full- length dramatic produc- tion.

The four Innu actors went — S

into the native commu-_

nity to interview their people in the Innu lan- guage, since most people over 35 don’t speak En- glish. What came out of those interviews was an _

Thursday, November 26 1987=>