Flying Geese. Francis Kagige. 1973

Sacred Trout. Richard Bedwash. 1988.

Mother Nature and Woman. Roy Thomas. 1970.

Human Mother and Bear Offspring.Norval Morrisseau. 1970

Memekweshik. Norval Morrisseau. 1974.

Fisher With A Broken Tail. Jackson Beardy. 1972

another explanatory panel with pictograph image

One Who Lives Underwater. Blake Debassige. 1978.

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Meditations on Red. Nadia. Myre. 2013.

Woman In White Buckskin.Blake Debassig. 1976.

Of the various paintings, the ones I was most drawn to were those by Norval Morrisseau. While the exhibit’s mission statement used the term “artistic evolution” it seems rather mild to describe Morrisseau’s explosive impact.  How about “revolution”!  He created something unique from the rudimentary pictographs he saw and used it to infuse new life into the traditional myths and legends of his people, the Ojibwe.

He drew on the stories he heard his grandfather tell on the shores of Lake Nipigon when he was a boy.  Had he listened to the elders he would have put the paints away.  It was the encouragement of non-indigenous people (the current term to describe them is “Settler”!)  like the Weinsteins in Cochenour and Selwyn Dewdney in London who kept him expressing his vision on canvas and whatever else he could find to paint on.

Thunderbird Woman. Norval Morrisseau. 1965.

Shaman. Norval Morrisseau. 1964

Drummer. John Laford. 1977.

If there was one painting in the exhibit that tied together the Morrisseau-style paintings with the floral beadwork of Anishinaabeg women it was Saul Williams’.  It has the iconic Morrisseau circle overlooking the scene – I almost expected to see the cosmic lines connecting it to the plants and the woman!   And while it has some of that x-ray view of reality found in Morrisseau paintings,  the look takes more from the floral beadwork.  It even shares the same more muted colour palette as many of the examples of beadwork in the room.

White Women and Their Plants.Saul Williams.1978.

Something I did not think about while I was there was what preceded the use of European glass beads.  Since the aim of the exhibit was to take me ” on a journey through the artistic evolution of one of the most populous and diverse Indigenous communities in North America”  I missed seeing examples of the traditional pre-contact porcupine (and occasionally feather) quillwork.

There may have one or two examples that I did not focus on.  Perhaps I just have an easier time with the artwork on the periphery of the room than with the examples of beadwork which dressed a number of headless mannequins in glass display cases, as skillfully and creatively as they were done.  This may have been a great time to have a guide who could point out stuff and connections that I would never see or understand on my own!

detail from a friendship bag

While most of the paintings and other artwork on the walls drew inspiration in some way from Anishinaabe myth and the spirit world – especially Morrisseau’s paintings – the beadwork was marked by an all but complete absence of representation of mythic beings.  I did see one beaded image of what I take to be Animikii – the Thunderbird –

thunderbird motif in beadwork

– but other than that it was mostly either geometric or floral (and sometimes florid and overly busy in a Victorian kind of way) patterns.  By the late 1800’s some Anishinaabeg girls would have been in residential schools set up to teach them the basic skills thought necessary to live in the new Dominion.  I wondered if this had an impact on Métis and Anishinaabe beading style.

There were a number of objects in the horizontal display cases in the center of the room – like those shown in the images to the left and below – but I, unfortunately, left them for last and then found it difficult to get decent glare-free photos of the ones I stopped to look at.  A return visit would have given me a chance to spend more time considering their place in the exhibit.

And (just kidding!) where were the dream catchers? If there is an Anishinaabeg artifact – other than the canoe – that is known the world over, it has to be the dream catcher. In fact, New Age spirituality seems to have appropriated it as one of their cultic objects. I’ve seen them hanging in mountain huts in Patagonia, a surf shop on the east coast of Tasmania …

the end of a ceremonial club

From afar I spotted the display below and my mind said “a young girl’s fancy dress”!  I had a duh moment as I read the identification card and learned that it was a man’s ceremonial hood.  That explained the bumps coming out of the black front of the dress!

man’s hood from Moose Factory area – collected between 1833-1845

And nearby were a couple of child cradles.  However, the Algonquian word for “child” is papoos and that is the word that many will use!

And finally this image – to me the most moving and intense moment of my visit as I stared into the eyes of the various members of this Ojibwe family – the two sons standing straight and proud with their beaded bandoliers, the two daughters dressed in the manner of those people from afar who came into their home and native land, and the mother and father, she with an elaborate bead necklace and he with a long-stemmed pipe.

I realize that 150 years ago to get one’s portrait taken was a deadly serious affair and no smiles were allowed as the subjects froze for fifteen seconds and the photographer did his thing.  I am sure a family portrait in Toronto taken at the same time – whether of a well-to-do family or first-generation Irish refugees of the Great Famine  – would have that same no-smiling look.

But I felt something else here. Perhaps I was reading more into it than is there? Perhaps it is all the current talk about reconciliation?  It is almost as if they were saying – “Now that you’ve come, what can we do together to make things right?”  I am left wondering how their lives unfolded, and if they were able to live fulfilling and happy lives relatively free of the prejudice and discrimination that comes from being a minority or the loser of a struggle for land and power. I think I know the answer.

an Anishinaabe family posing for a formal portrait

And it made me think back to a day three years ago when I stood in a museum in La Paz, Bolivia, looking at a collection of images much like the one above. Engaging, unsettling, provoking wonder…an Anishinaabe family in Canada, an Aymara family in La Paz…both adapting to new realities. Admittedly the situations which these two Indigenous Peoples find themselves is not the same. While the Anishinaabeg make up maybe 2% of Canada’s population, the Aymara and the Quechua together make up 90% of Bolivia’s population and in Evo Morales they have had an indigenous President since 2006.