Roughly 300 people gathered in the Tla’Amin (Sliammon) First Nation Salish Centre March 30, where preschool and day care children modeled hand-made regalia and performed songs for the launch of the community’s Success by 6 program.
Brandon Peters, one of the organizers, said the program is to help aboriginal children retrieve a language and culture which is getting lost in a world of western entertainment.
“Sliammon is at a very critical point because there are already a lot of dead words,” he said. “They’re forgotten and they’ll never be remembered because our elders are gone. There’s so many different types of programs but one problem is there are very few fluent speakers left. This program is to encourage literacy within aboriginal people, specifically in children.”
With help from volunteers at Powell River Historical Museum and Archives, Peters took part in making puppets based on an ancient Sliammon character, Mink. “Mink is thousands of years old,” he explained. “He’s a trickster character. Back east, trickster characters are different from the ones on the coast. There’s Coyote back east. Here it’s Mink. Mink wasn’t only for children either. There are very adult-themed stories because he’s up to no good a lot of the time.”
Peters has been putting on puppet shows for a few years while working with the museum. He did his first puppet show two years before Success by 6 got started. While the characters are many years old, the puppets he uses were made in 2000 and Peters started volunteering with the museum in 2008.
Success by 6 program was also organized by Brandi Harry and Mike Washington. Harry created regalia which children displayed at the launch. Peters said Tla’Amin band members, children, heads of various entities in the Tla’Amin band, Tla’Amin politicians and other creative contributors to the project also attended. He hopes the project will bring children a little more in touch with their heritage.
“Studies have shown that a lot of children have a hard time identifying with people that are outside their own race,” said Peters. “So many stories are western-based, the blond and blue-eyed girl that lives happily ever after. That doesn’t work for aboriginal children. Exposure to aboriginal literature [and] aboriginal characters is essential for defining one’s self.”
He said it is even prevalent when those children get into university. At the University of British Columbia (UBC) where he attends, Peters said out of 46,000 students only about 600 are aboriginal.
He explained how children in other bands are immersed in their own culture at a young age. While response from children to Success by 6 has been positive, in Tla’Amin it doesn’t always happen that way.
“At times though it’s been difficult to get people to actually sing and to dance because they’re self-conscious,” he said. “It’s new to them. You go to other bands where they have a long house and they’re all over the place. The kids start singing and dancing at a very early age. So it’s second nature to them but here it’s something they have to be taught. It’s a sad thing. But kids are responding well to it.”
Peters has tried to make a difference in that area. His puppet shows have been put on DVD and are being distributed to the day care and the museum.
“There was no aboriginal material that’s on CD so the kids weren’t being exposed to anything other than western-themed books. I wanted aboriginal-themed books so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do that.”
