Documentary explores Indigenous cultures
New PBS series travels the Americas to follow a common cultural and spiritual thread
Native America Tuesday, PBS
Crawling around in a cramped ancient tomb, filmmaker Gary Glassman had a big idea — an idea that led him to create the new four-part PBS series Native America.
“Like a lot of conceptions, it sort of happened in the dark. I was making a film about the Maya and I was in a 1,600-year-old tomb beneath a temple pyramid in Copán in the middle of Honduran jungle and I was just blown away by this beautiful city in Central America with amazing architecture, art, sculpture and their own writing system and a society that surpassed Europe at that time, and I just started wondering where did this all come from? I was absolutely sure it did not come from ancient aliens,” said Glassman, from the Rhode Islandbased Providence Pictures.
Glassman began to wonder about truly ancient people and whether or not there is a connection between Central America and the other parts of the Americas.
“I started talking to scholars and reaching out to native people,” said Glassman about the project’s early days in 2001. “I realized yes, there is a connection. That there is in fact what you might call a foundational belief system that is shared across both continents with a diversity of expression.”
Looking through the lens of what Glassman calls “native knowledge and modern scholarship,” the series, narrated by Mohawk and musical legend Robbie Robertson, brings together history, science and tradition to uncover and celebrate stories.
With ancient social networks as the baseline, the production then reached out to various Indigenous people and got the story that was central to each group while at the same time shining a light on the commonality that threads it way through two continents. “We wanted to prove that point by going as far north and as far south as we could go,” said Glassman.
On the list of the many Indigenous people consulted and featured in Native America are members of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation from northern Vancouver Island and the adjoining mainland.
The production got the OK to film the intimate hereditary chief ceremony and potlatch, bestowing the title on Alan Hunt.
“The fact that they were doing it and we were in production was just pure luck,” Glassman said.
“Of course there was some apprehension initially,” said Hunt. “We pride ourselves on being kind of the best-kept secret on the coastline for stuff actually inside the Big House, but PBS was great. They came up and were very sensitive and accommodating to the things we allowed to be shown and certain parts that we really didn’t want shown. And then just the physical act of them being there and being able to stay out of the way.
“Ultimately my sentiment echoed what the series overall was, which is we are still here,” Hunt said. “We’re tied quite closely to this land and that was their focus. Ultimately I was happy to share it with the rest of the world.”
“I totally understand the distrust and they have plenty of evidence for that,” Glassman said about early talks. “Not only in media but of course through history. So many broken treaties, it’s been horrible. So it is totally justified.”
Hunt’s mother, Terena Hunt, said after careful consideration and consultation it was clear that the production had respectful and factual intentions and that participation would leave the Kwakwaka’wakw with a nice piece of recorded history.
“The big thing is bridging the past to the future through my son,” she said. “My thought was for future generations to be able to document the ways of our people and share that with the world, to show that we are alive and well.”
She said getting to see the final cut was exciting and also eye opening, leading her to look at a familiar tradition through a new lens.
Glassman and fellow filmmaker Julianna Brannum, herself a member of the Comanche nation, have been touring the series before it goes to air on PBS affiliates.
They were in Vancouver recently for a public screening and event with the Hunts and others from the Kwakwaka’wakw nation.
“Once people see it, they embrace it,” Glassman said. “We kept our native participants in the loop the entire time. Often what happens with a media production is people come in cameras blazing and get what they want and never talk to the people again.
“Right from the very beginning, we spent a lot of time with people talking about our vision and how it would be an authentic voice for native people and asked them what would they want to say if they were to participate,” said Glassman, whose company has produced programs for likes of BBC, History, National Geographic and Discovery.
“What we filmed was based on that collaboration and through the whole process they were making sure we got it right.”