This past week has been very interesting, especially speaking with the indigenous people from the Tembé tribe who I met a second time away from the hustle and bustle of the IDEA Congress. It was a great honour to be talking so directly with the Tembé Chief – I got to hear firsthand of his community’s struggles such as the poor health of many of his community members: people are dying of malaria and are not getting enough medical attention. During this second meeting – which lasted about one hour (in the presence of other Tembé community members as well as Moe Clark, Émilie Monnet, Martha Steigman and Devora Neumark) – the Chief talked about the importance of the connection with the land; that is the way that his people have survived. I shared with him how our community’s customs are linked to the land also and I spoke of how the Canadian and Quebec governments have been trying for years to break that connection.

I felt that I could relate to the criminalization of the Tembé protesters: it seems that peaceful protests do not get any attention whatsoever, whereas violent ones get at least a response. This image of the “violent Indian” serves the government very well. I spoke about how people were criminalized back home for peaceful blockades set up to protest the governments’ non-compliance with the trilateral agreement signed in 1991. As soon as I get my hands on the photos that we took that evening, I will post them to the blog and will ensure that the images are also sent to the Tembé people as per our agreement.

Devora asked about the support of non-indigenous people. We were told that they did not get much support from non-Natives; this led me to explain how the Barriere Lake community has been building solidarity with non-Native individuals and major unions such as the CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) – which in fact is very important and effective.

I was upset to find out that one of the Congress organizers actually said that the Indigenous people were not invited to speak because what they had to say was not at the University level. From what I’ve seen at the IDEA Congress, the Indigenous tribes were there to dance and sing; they were not given the time and space to talk about the pressing issues in their community and to find solutions to their problems as they wanted. One of the people from the Tembé nation said that Congress participants were pleased enough to watch them dance and sing, but uninterested in hearing about their struggles. He said that the only people who benefited from the Congress were the hotels and restaurants. Generally, the Tembé people felt that there were few positive consequences for them in participating at the IDEA 2010 event.

Before leaving, the Chief said that he had a gift for me to bring back to my community. The gift was a tattoo (made of non-permanent ink-like substance from a local plant) – a symbol of leadership, his community’s Chief symbol. I accepted the gift on behalf of my community and customary leaders. Émilie, Moe, Martha and Devora were also given specific tattoos chosen by the Chief’s wife.

The workshop that was co-facilitated by Moe, Émilie, Martha, Devora and myself was called The Ethics of Collaboration: With, For and About Creating Art Projects with Indigenous People. Although there were not very many people who attended – given the incredibly over-booked schedule and confusion about the program, this is not surprising – we had a long and productive discussion about how art can contribute to the community’s history and the struggles we face today. We talked about how the youth could be educated through art. Amongst the challenges and risks associated with collaborative art projects that got discussed are: 1) what actually remains in the community once the project is completed – as so often the skills and material that get created is brought out of the community; 2) the possible misrepresentations of the community leading to reinforcing negative stereotypes; 3) the energy and resources put towards a creative collaboration are not available for more direct political actions.

At the same time, there are also benefits associated with creative collaborations; amongst the positive consequences that were highlighted during the workshop are: 1) the inspiration and motivation to preserve our culture, language and identity; 2) through the use of art, Indigenous communities can develop different political tactics and non-violent direct actions that could possibly reach a large audience and get a lot of attention. During the workshop Martha’s short film entitled Honour Your Word was screened. While I consider that Martha’s documentary is about the community and was not done with the community, the youth were very inspired to continue with the struggle after seeing it. Honour Your Word was shown all over Turtle Island. As it turned out, the day of the workshop, a Federal Electoral Officer was dispatched to the community to follow through on the Department of Indian Affairs (Minister Chuck Strahl) signed order of the Section 74 of the Indian Act, which would abolish our customary governance code.

Moe, Émilie and I were also scheduled to perform as part of the Theatre Festival Programming. Unfortunately, Émilie got ill and so only Moe and I presented. Moe sang a couple of songs that she and Émilie have been working on as part of their Bird Messenger project and I did a presentation about the Barriere Lake community’s struggle to save the traditional form of government. A short segment of Martha’s film was also screened.

One particularly pleasant experience that I encountered here in Brazil was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean – it was the first time that I got to taste salty ocean water! The travel to Marudá and Algodoal Island took more than six hours from the hotel in downtown Belém. I also had the chance to go on a boat ride on the Amazon River and visit a small Indigenous community who live deep in the Amazon Forest on an island called Mari Mari. The community was very welcoming. They fed us tapioca and other delicious local treats. The men in the community brought us for a forest walk. They showed us amazing plants and the food that they cultivate there. They also talked about how they prepared the food.

At the end of the day, before we got back on the small dinghy, some children from a nearby island along with several adults from Mari Mari put on a performance of how animals play an important part in preserving the trees of the Forest. I found that the kids were not shy and were ready to take on being in front of all of us strangers. Seeing them in the outdoor stage set up for their performance and how much they were enjoying themselves – even the crowd was smiling – was so moving and inspirational. This performance confirmed for me that my community would likely enjoy doing something similar, especially with the kids: a theatre play or storytelling of our own history.

I want to give many thanks to LEVIER for this opportunity to go to Belém. It was an extraordinary experience. Thanks also to Moe, Émilie, Martha and Devora for all their hard work in helping me out with the passport and translation, etc.