Acwsalcta Christmas Concert

The Christmas Concert is over! And for the musical director of the musical, "A Teddy Bear Christmas", that would be moi, what a relief! My stress level is down many notches today. The choir, kids from K-6, started rehearsing the songs right after Remembrance Day, and we learned 3 songs for the performance. Another song was sung by a soloist, 7-year old Tamika, in grade 2; the other song was way too schlocky and I knew that no one would want to sing it, so I turned it into a poem for the actors to recite, particularly since it summed up the whole message of the play, which was that it's not the presents that are important, but rather, being with family and friends. The acting was done by the grade 11 & 12 students, as there is no way that any of the younger kids would act. The choir rehearsals were often so frustrating that I wanted to scream at the little sods to get rid of their bad attitude and just sing and enjoy yourself, and there were many times that I just wanted to QUIT and WALK OUT and let some other masochist do something for the concert. But, persevere I did, and the final performance was a big success. The choir members all held teddy bears and wore bear masks, and were really quite cute.

And for Christmas this year, I got the best present imaginable - they're going to split my grade 1/2 class for the morning so that I will be teaching just the 12 grade 1s in the morning, and reading assistance in the afternoon. There will be another teacher to teach the grade 2s in the morning, and the 1/2 class will be combined for the afternoon, as it is now. The morning is when all the academic subjects are taught, reading, writing, spelling, and math. This means that I will be able to do a much better job, and really put my Orton-Gillingham training to the test: how well will the grade 1s be able to read after almost a whole year of learning to read the O-G way? That is the question.

Christmas plans this year include a quick trip to Halifax to celebrate Ruthie's 70th birthday. Then its off to Washington State for my annual Christmas meditation course.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
Please feel free to post some comments, send Christmas greetings, or whatever!

Bella a Cappella

Last spring, I was invited to join the prestigious Bella Coola women's a cappella choir, called, aptly, Bella a Cappella. With my joining, the group is now a nine-voice choir. Members include a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, 4 teachers and 2 secretaries, and it's a nice cross-section of women from the community. Of course, we are all non-native, a consideration up here where half the community is native. The choir rehearses weekly, though when there are gigs coming up, we rehearse twice a week. All our repertoire is memorized, which initially, was daunting, but actually makes a huge difference, as the quality of the performance is much better. When I joined the group, they were singing barbershop type arrangements, known as "Sweet Adeline" when it's women singing. I have helped to expand the repertoire of the group by getting different types of music sent up from Vancouver because I think just singing the barbershop arrangements is limiting to the potential of the group. So now our repertoire includes renaissance music sung in Latin, a Serbian gypsy song sung in Serbian, some jazz and show tunes, South African spirituals, as well as Sweet Adeline arrangements. Our most recent gig was at the Christmas Arts and Crafts Fair held in November. For this event, we dressed for the season, in our usual 'all black', along with Santa hats and red gloves. We sang Santa Baby, Winter Wonderland, Java Jive, and Nishka Banja (our Serbian gypsy tune). We were well received, and we are way out ahead, in terms of musical accomplishment, I think, of our choir competition, the Bella Coola men's choir, and the Bella Coola Community Choir!!!

Potlatch


Yes, the November 12 potlatch seems like a very long time ago, but I wanted to write about it as it was a very interesting experience, and this time I stayed for the whole thing!

The photo is of the stuff I got - the whole idea behind a potlatch is to invite all your family and friends, as well as community members, and they witness whatever it is that needs to be witnessed, in this case, it was a memorial for a deceased family member, as well as passing on a chieftanship from father to son, and numerous adoptions and Nuxalk name givings. So, the guests had many things to witness. To thank everyone for witnessing, the host gives away a whole lot of stuff. I didn't get a lot compared to some people, and the elders always get the most stuff. It's quite a different philosophy from ours, where the more stuff you have, the more important you are; in this culture, the more you give away, the more prestige you earn.

The event started at 4:00 sharp, which in this case was 4:45, at the Nuxalk Hall, with the Spirit Dance. For this event, they actually locked the doors so that no one is allowed in or out of the hall. Everyone was sitting at the tables, and one by one, 'spirits' of deceased family members were announced in Nuxalk, and came into the hall. The 'spirits' were masked and robed, and proceeded very slowly around the perimeter of the hall, bowing to those they passed along the way. The hall was silent except for an occassional drum beat, and the low and haunting sound of the spirit whistle. There were about 10 spirits in all who were being remembered.

Following the spirit dance was the feast. It was slim pickins for vegetarians at this feast, and all I ended up having was 2 buns! Everyone else dined on fish, deer and moose meat stew, mashed potatoes and gravy. There was salad, but by the time I got to the table, it was all gone. Desert was fruit salad, which is usually frozen cherries and raspberries, and other local fruit.

Then came the chieftanship ceremony, in which the elder chief passed his hereditary chieftanship on to his son. Incidentally, the new chief is the dad of two of my students! After this, there was name giving and adoptions.

Around10:00 p.m. there was a second round of food. This consisted of plates with open-faced sandwiches and various sweets. It was a good pick-me-up, particularly for me, as 10:00 is generally my bed time!

This was followed by the dancing, first, the children's dances, then, the women's and men's dances. The dancing was over by about 12:30, and then the family started bringing in the gifts for the give-away. They brought dozens and dozens of plastic laundry baskets full of stuff, as well as numerous boxes full of stuff. Gifts included household items, such as dish towels, bowls, mugs, cups, utensils, salt & pepper shakers, etc., then there were blankets, pillows and towels, jewelry, and food, including bags of flour, and canned fruit, jam, and applesauce. As well, there were mugs with the family crest and the date of the potlatch. And yes, I made it through the whole thing - we were out of there by 1:30 a.m.!

It was quite the event, and it was a true privilege to be there. Considering that the potlatch ceremony was banned by the government in the 1870s, partly through the influence of Christian missionaries who figured that it just wasn't right to give so much stiff away...what kind of a heathen would give all his stuff away?? I mean, really now! The potlatch was not legalized again until the 1950s, though they continued to be held in secret in many places in the Pacific northwest. It is amazing that the tradition has survived, and today it is alive and well.