By Kodie Cherrille (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: July 1, 2015
In front of about 50 people, Sebastien Tanner Abbott and Chelsei Grey place 20 yellow hoops. Abbott looks like he’s 15, Grey’s maybe eight or nine, and they’re both wearing traditional aboriginal garb. A ceremonial song — all ecstatic drums and a hair-raising, trembling voice — begins to play through the speakers.
Abbott and Grey begin to dance around the hoops — they’re the size of hula hoops, maybe smaller — then they pick a couple up. They dance through them: first the head, then one side of the body, and then the other. Picking up three more hoops, Abbott contorts his body through them, holding the hoops in place with his wrists, elbows, knees, even bringing one hoop to his mouth.
While dancing to the music, he slowly flaps his arms: he’s a golden-yellow bird luxuriously circling the world. The audience applauds and whoops. At one point, Abbott dances with 11 hoops; Grey, not to be underestimated, dances around an ornate globe of nine hoops.
Hoop dancing was one of the many demonstrations put on for UFV’s third annual Aboriginal Awareness Day, which was celebrated in the Great Hall of the Student Union Building (SUB) on Wednesday, June 17. The event came just a few days before Canada’s National Aboriginal Day on June 21.
The Aboriginal Awareness Day was spurred from what 2013-14 Student Union Society (SUS) aboriginal rep Ashley Camille saw as a lack of indigenous events and discussions at UFV. Since its inception, the day has been among the larger SUS-led events at UFV, perhaps second only to Weeks of Welcome.
This year, the event also saw the SUB’s Great Hall used at full capacity for the first time, with a long table of demonstrations and workshops spanning the centre of the room.
Demonstrations included Stó:l? wool-weaving, drum-making, Halq’eméylem language lessons, and an exhibition of old indigenous tools used in the times of the fur trade.
Jim Middleton, the man behind the table of tools, picks up a small metal rod; it’s thin, about four inches long, and at one end has a circle of teeth, like a lower jaw filled with nothing but canines.
“This is for cleaning out birds,” says Middleton. “You would stick this into a bird’s mouth, turn it around a bit, and,” he makes a yanking motion with the rod, “you pull out all the guts.”
Another cleaning tool was a bit more familiar: a small washboard.
“This one’s not as coarse as other boards,” Middleton explains, pointing to its ribs. “This one’s for lingerie, actually.”
“It’s the delicate cycle!” exclaimed one onlooker.
After attendees had time to visit tables on their own, attention was redirected to the front of the hall, where a game of slahal had begun. Slahal is an ancient game, originally played by tribes on the west coast of North America.
The goal of slahal is to get all the short sticks, which are divided equally between the two teams. One team has a set of four longer sticks, which they hide behind their backs. The other team tries to guess where these sticks are. If they’re right, they get the stick; if they’re wrong, they have to give a shorter stick away. When the guessing team receives all the longer sticks, it’s their turn to hide them and try to win the short sticks.
The game continued until the event was over, at 2 p.m. By then, the hall was nearly empty.
UFV’s Aboriginal Awareness Day offered a window into the vibrant culture of Stó:l? and Métis Peoples. Coming a few days before National Aboriginal Day, its tone was similarly festive, but with a much more local focus. Ultimately, both days are statements.
“We’re still here,” said elder-in-residence Eddie Gardner at last year’s Day of Awareness.
As the young hoop dancers mesmerized the crowd, that sentiment was not spoken, but felt.
