KNOWLEDGE KEEPER GUIDES
Knowledge keeper has talent for connecting with people
Joseph Naytowhow has spent most of his life trying to find his voice, and himself. It was never going to be easy. Church- and government-run residential schools made sure of that. Even today, half a century later, Naytowhow considers it lost time, a blank space in his life that changed everything. “It knocked your own culture deep down somewhere, in some crevice of your body. You just never really recovered,” says Naytowhow, who left Sturgeon Lake First Nation for Prince Albert Indian Residential School at age six. “Some people call it culture shock. Some people call it genocide. Some people call it life. I don’t know what to call it. I’m much older now and have much more of an understanding of what happens with one’s life.” The experience was so alienating, Naytowhow says, he didn’t know he was Cree until he was 20 years old. He was luckier than many in that the experience drove him to reconnect with his culture, to search for his voice through ceremony, music and storytelling. Today, the soft-spoken 67-yearold is recognized as one of Saskatchewan’s most prominent Indigenous artists, a gifted performer whose long career in the arts has helped introduce countless thousands to First Nations culture. He has a long list of acting credits, both on film and on the stage, is recognized as a songwriter, musician and dancer, and has a deep knowledge of both traditional and contemporary First Nations stories, which he uses to bridge different worlds. Naytowhow’s accumulated knowledge and obvious talent for connecting with people — during a short walk across campus recently, he said hello to everyone who passed, and stopped to chat with a few — make him a natural fit for his latest role. “He’s a very approachable kind of person,” says Regan Ratt-misponas, who as president of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union works closely with Naytowhow in his position as the student union’s new Indigenous knowledge keeper. “He’s someone people can easily have a conversation with, and he’s open to having a dialogue with people.” USSU general manager Caroline Cottrell could not agree more. She has known Naytowhow since 1989, when he was a student at the university’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program, and believes he’s an ideal fit for the position. “He exudes gentleness. He exudes kindness. He just becomes a person that you just trust,” Cottrell says. “Joseph (and Marjorie Beucage, who held the role previously) have been really instrumental … in providing safe places and spaces and knowledge to Indigenous and non-indigenous students.” Former USSU president Rollin Baldhead spearheaded the effort to create the position last year. At the time, it was known as the elder in residence, because he saw the need for more Indigenous knowledge on campus and felt the students’ union could take the initiative. “Being a student group, I thought that we should be the ones to … really take the first steps to these words that the university is using, which is ‘reconciliation’ and ‘Indigenization,’ ” Baldhead told the Saskatoon Starphoenix last year.
While Naytowhow is modest about his own accomplishments, emphasizing that he is a conduit for knowledge shared by elders — “master teachers” whose lived experience he studies — he is similarly enthusiastic about the university’s Indigenization project. When he was attending classes at the University of Regina in the mid-1970s, he says, the institution became one of the country’s first to bring in elders. Much has changed. Today, for example, the U of S has a dedicated centre for Indigenous students. “When they offered me this job and they gave me tobacco, I recognized the seriousness of that. They must know something, that there’s something I can help out with on the whole Indigenization journey,” Naytowhow says. Cottrell offers a similar assessment. In the almost 50 years she has spent on campus, the U of S has gone from having virtually no Indigenous students to around 2,800 and a concerted effort to make university more welcoming for them, she says. The role of Indigenous knowledge keeper is an important part of that effort, both for Indigenous and non-indigenous people, she adds. “There are enormous sensitivities around which people struggle, and particularly people of goodwill don’t want to get things wrong — and sometimes they don’t know how to get it right, and so they don’t do anything at all,” Cottrell says. “Joseph and Marjorie before him have provided a safe space for everybody, if they choose to avail themselves, to get it right.” In his role as USSU president, Ratt-misponas represents every undergraduate student. He says Naytowhow’s presence on campus has already created change, both within the students’ union and across campus. “Students have been very welcoming. People have felt welcoming, and also felt welcome because Joseph is around.” One recent example involves the Indigenous Business Students’ Society, which Aubrey-anne Pewapisconias-laliberte and Jessica Mirasty co-founded two years ago to give Indigenous students at the Edwards School of Business a sense of belonging. Earlier this year, Pewapisconias-laliberte says, the organization planned to host a round dance but she and the other members were struggling to ensure the traditional Cree ceremony was performed properly, as it was intended. While some of the concerns were spiritual — how to “clear the space” through smudging — others were practical, including ensuring the ceremony did not trigger a fire alarm, Pewapisconias-laliberte says. They called Naytowhow. “He was able to come in and tell us the importance that there is to being able to smudge in these spaces, such as the gym where we held our round dance. He told us what it was and how … it makes it welcoming and healing,” she says. “Just his explaining little things like that meant a lot to us.” Naytowhow, who also spent 15 years studying with a Buddhist master, says he wants to help bring people and cultures on campus together, in mutual understanding. That was the original intention of the treaty-signers, but was then lost, he says.
“This colonized approach and way of doing things has been here a long time. This other way also been here a long time but not really recognized, acknowledged or lived,” he says. “Slowly, people are starting to understand that, together, they are really powerful. Separate, they’re not as powerful.” One of the first things Naytowhow did after taking on the role was attend a University Students’ Council meeting, Cottrell says, during which he smudged and gave a blessing. “It doesn’t matter whether you have any faith in blessings, or put any stock in it. The students were visibly moved and it made the non-indigenous and the international students feel included in something,” she says. “It was safe. They didn’t have to feel awkward. It was just there — it was just part of what we did.” Although many celebrate Naytowhow’s presence on campus, his openness to connecting with people and his ability to share centuries worth of knowledge, he says he may still be looking for the voice he lost all those years ago. At the same time, Naytowhow recognizes the effect he has on people who are just starting to find their voices. “People seem to think I do know something,” he says with a laugh before lowering his voice again. “I need them just like they need me, what I have to share … It feels good to be doing this. I’m helping myself as well as others.”