Essential Song: Three Decades of Northern Cree Music

Afterword

[ Afterword In Essential Song, Lynn Whidden has given us an example of indigenous music from the northeastern subarctic Cree community of Chisasibi, Quebec . Whidden describes and interprets the hunting songs she has collected and their importance in the spiritual, emotional, and psychological world of Cree hunters. Whidden shows how hunting songs connected hunters to their hunting spirits and to the animals they loved and hunted. Indeed, this is a very different understanding of hunting in which animals participate with hunters in the hunt and give themselves to conscientious hunters who act appropriately in respecting the protocols that sustain animals. In the 1980s, hunting songs were becoming something of a memory for the Cree Elders of Chisasibi who still carried the knowledge and occasionally performed their hunting songs within community life. Sadly, the Elders felt that contemporary Cree generations did not know the hunting songs’ ceremonial, spiritual, and religious importance. Similarly, in my youth as a Cree boy growing up in Moose Factory, Ontario, I did not know the hunting traditions and songs of our people or even that they existed. Although my family environment consisted of Cree language, food, and stories, what I knew of “being Indian” was very different and removed in many aspects from those of my ancestors who practised the old ways. One day, in the early 1970s, I happened upon my father (an ordained Cree Anglican minister) listening to strange singing coming from his reelto -reel tape recorder. This strange voice sounded like moaning, but my father explained that it was a Cree person singing a song from Eastmain, Quebec. To me it sounded as foreign as Moroccan drum music. I thought of the singing as something “Indian” and perhaps old, from the “bush” Indians whom I considered different from us. I had no idea that what I was hearing was from a hunting culture and tradition that my family, parents , grandmother, and I were directly descended from. In my adulthood, like many contemporary Cree, I have become interested in the language, traditions, oral stories, and music of our people. 127 Hunting songs have become a part of my quest for knowledge and insight into an important Cree style of human expression. Like the desires of the Cree Elders of Chisasibi (1980s) in having their hunting song traditions passed down to future generations, Lynn Whidden’s work in a very significant way has enabled this process to continue. Her book documents the elders’ knowledge and communicates it so that it can be passed on to individuals such as myself and other future Cree peoples. Moreover, the elders’ knowledge via Whidden’s book has tremendously expanded my understanding , knowledge, and interpretation of hunting songs. Essential Song bridges a gap between the Cree Elders of Chisasibi and contemporary Crees wishing to understand the hunting “tool” complex, hunting philosophy, and animal spirituality of their ancestors who were so deeply connected to the land and animals. The elders also show us that, as contemporary Crees, we continue to need the land and animals in sharing our stories of the past, but most importantly, in building a strong sense of ourselves with new, oral futures. Indeed, for contemporary Cree musicians like myself, Whidden’s book provides a window into the past and a departure point for incorporating hunting songs into annual Cree festivals and community gatherings. Perhaps the hunting songs can be used as tools again, this time for building understanding of, and respect for, the religious aspects of the music, hunting culture, and animal spirituality of our ancestors. Stanley L. Louttit, M.A. Independent Cree writer/researcher Wemindji, QC 128 Afterword ...