How to recognize the millefeuille Achilée, the impatient of Cape Town, Nettle? How to use fir gum, chicoutai, four-time? How to treat cramps, dermatitis, infections with plants?
Each indigenous community has its pharmacopoeia, and the ancestral knowledge which dictates its use has been transmitted from generation to generation.
At times, this knowledge was communicated to non-Autochtones-after all, it was thanks to an infusion of bark of conifer that the Aboriginal people helped the French to cure scorbut at the start of the colony.
But most of the time, this knowledge is transmitted orally, between natives. Even that, according to Constant Awashish, a great chief of the Atikamekw nation, some elders consider it important “that this knowledge is transmitted orally and are not written, in particular so that they are not used to unhealthy”.
It is not all the natives who think so, recognizes Mr. Awashish. But there are many enough for having been irritated when the herbalist Isabelle Falardeau published, from 2015, his five volumes of “Aboriginal uses of medicinal plants in Quebec”. A blatant case of cultural appropriation, they denounced.
Not to mention the fact that Mme Falardeau published her books under the name La Métis, a pseudonym that she adopted during her stay with the Innu and whose ambiguity earned him accusations of identity theft1.
All that is told in this long judgment rendered in June by judge Sophie Picard2. The latter rejected an injunction request to silence the artist Atikamekw Catherine Boivin, who publicly denounced Mme Falardeau on social networks.
Catherine Boivin, we understand it when reading the judgment, does not only criticize Isabelle Falardeau for identifying herself as “Métis”, a legally reserved term for members of the historic communities of the Métis. She accuses him of having appropriated the concepts of herbalism which did not belong to him in order to be enriched personally.
Her words, instead of the author, are relentless. These books were published “with the aim of exploiting indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants,” she repeated to me, during a conversation in the garden of her house, in Odanak, in July. “It was to make her herbalist name. »»
In 2020, when she started denouncing the herbalist on social networks, Catherine Boivin was not the first to do so.
Already, in her first work in 2015, Isabelle Falardeau defends herself to have appropriated the knowledge of the innu seniors whom she frequented in Mani-Unum. “I deserved (and not stolen!) Their teachings,” she wrote in the introduction of her first volume. “The Innu warned it not to do it,” recalls Catherine Boivin.
Isabelle Falardeau, for her part, said before the court that he wanted “helping the natives not to lose the knowledge of their elders”.
“My intention was to give back to the natives everything I learned, in thanks for what I experienced with them,” she also wrote to me in a long testimony. “I received small drops of knowledge here and there. Over time, I gave a river … in which the antimetis [en référence à ceux qui lui reprochent de revendiquer une identité métisse] try to drown me. I naively believed that my work would be appreciated (and it is, by several), but I would never have thought it was stoned for that. »»
Catherine Boivin sighs. “It has always been like that, with the natives,” she says.
Photo Édouard Desroches, Archives La Presse
The filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Atikamekw Catherine Boivin
We are told that we know what we need. We are told that we want to save us, that we know how to do it … it’s infantilizing. As if we were unable to take care of ourselves.
Catherine Boivin, multidisciplinary artist of Atikamekw origin
All right. But by not hosting, in writing, these knowledge which are transmitted orally, is there not a risk that they are lost?
“Of course there is a concern for transmission among natives! But that is important to settle it by ourselves. »»
The natives are not closed at collaborations with non-Austgnes, recalls Catherine Boivin.
When researchers want to carry out work there, communities have set up protocols that define how the data will be collected, manipulated, disseminated. “Previously, we shared everything. But at some point, we became suspicious because people began to exploit our knowledge, ”says Catherine Boivin. “It is often happened that researchers come to our communities, collect data, leave, and never come back. »»
“So, if someone is interested in our know-how, it must be done in collaboration with the community, and with the support of everyone. It must benefit the community. And the community has the right to refuse the project. »»
At the end of her judgment, judge Picard wrote that several witnesses stressed the “skills and knowledge about the wild plants” of Isabelle Falardeau. “Nothing prevents him, if she wishes, to continue her lessons and conferences by adapting her speech in order to avoid the recriminations made to him by some. »»
What if, instead of appropriating a culture, we rather sought to appreciate it?
Catherine Boivin also gives conferences on this theme of “cultural appreciation”.
Cultural appreciation is based on permission and respect.
Catherine Boivin, multidisciplinary artist of Atikamekw origin
“It is a mutual approach. Everyone must be able to benefit from this exchange. Cultural appropriation aims to exploit the cultures and the image of natives. Because it is very fashionable today to be indigenous. »»
So how to appreciate without appropriating? Can we, for example, wear earrings made by a native even if you are not yourself? “Yes, because that is cultural appreciation. You encourage an indigenous artist, who took the time to design and create the jewel. And you, by buying it, not only do you contribute to your business, but you wear the earrings, you tell where they come from.
“Me, I encourage people to buy native. Go see entrepreneurs, and make sure these people are really indigenous. Ask what community, what nation are they from. If they do not explain to you where they come from, this is where we have to ask questions. »»
“A friend said to me:” The problem with indigenous cultures is the natives who come with “,” says Catherine Boivin, laughing. “But I would add that if we take the time to listen to us, to understand what we say, that’s how we are going to walk. »»
1. Read the chronicle “the right to denounce, in all respect”
2. Consult the judgment rendered by judge Sophie Picard
What do you think? Take part in the dialogue