Docents Anonymous
“You’re standing on the unceded territory of the Squamish and Lil’wat people.”
Flakes ‘til wraiths
Fir ‘til water
Somebody’s god rests
on Black Tusk
“Sometimes the Audain works with them. They approve of what we’re doing here.”
Everybody has a flood
Pit houses fill
to bursting canoe
’til peak or sky voice
“This is a Lil’wat song. It is a work song.”
Language ‘til it isn’t
banned for being
two hands curve
to the swell of
cedar
“Sometimes the workers say, ‘the men’s is straight forward, the women’s, always right.”’
Maybe it’s a journey
song after all
I set my foot in the
flat-bottomed canoe
pray balance, pray guide
“Sometimes people think it looks like lungs.”
We make monuments
with how we spend our
mind - stone swallows
and preserves
“I’m never asked about houses.”
I just returned from a trip to Whistler, Canada (beautiful!) where I had a lovely weekend and also attended a few museums. It has been a while! The Audain Art Museum was an impressive collection of British Columbia artists and we also attended the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Center. This museum shares and celebrates the shared relationship of the Squamish and Lil’wat tribes who, historically, have shared the land we now know as Whistler.
The quotes in the poem are from the docents of each museum, interspersed with thoughts/learnings/feelings I had while in the museums.
Much of this is rooted in legends/ways of knowing that we heard about while navigating the cultural center. A few examples:
Black Tusk is a rock formation that plays a core role in legends of both the Squamish and the Lil'wat.
The two hands image refers to the principle that if a member of the tribe is not able to wrap their arms fully around the trunk of a cedar trunk, then they are able to take two hands width of bark, until the strand breaks. This bark would then be used for baskets, decor, masks and more. If they can reach around it, they are only allowed to take one hand’s width.
A Squamish story tells of transformer brothers one of whom transformed a longhouse into an incredible granite rock face.
Thanks for reading.