Eka ashate · does not flank: ode to the resistance of the Innu of Uashat mak mani -ternam

In his fourth novel, Eka ashate · Do not flankthe Author Innu Naomi Fontaine recounts resistance to colonialism to Uashat Mak Mani-Unam by oscillating between reality and fiction. Inspired by stories obtained from seniors, she tells chapters known to the history of the place, but also more intimate sequences of the life of Innu who live in these sister communities.

There is a lot of the words of the elders in there. There are a lot of their vision of the world, their stories, their experience. What they wanted to bequeath ussummarizes Naomi Fontaine.

For example, the author of these lines discovered during her reading that one of the chapters tells the story of her uncle, a survivor of the residential schools who resisted as much as he could and who inspired the title of the novel Eka ashate · Do not flank.

On the other hand, Naomi Fontaine also wanted to find his place in this work by putting hers. It had to become fiction, because it is my personal contributionshe explains. She tried, at first, to write the stories with the real names of her characters and by finding the real dates of the events they reported to her

However, There was something that did not cease she describes, not wishing that the work takes on the appearance of a collection of news. Faced with this observation, she contacted her publisher who reminded her that she was not a historian, but a novelist. “Naomi, you should change the names. You can invent, you have the right”recalls the writer. Even if stories are based on the real life experience of people, This is where I really fell in creation and in the pleasure of creating this community .

Chronicles of a daily fight

From the first page, the novelist addresses her intention with words inscribed in capital letters.

They kept silent for more than half a century. Auckland pin. When there are no words. It was the silence that killed them.

The discovery of the possible not marked tombs near the former Kamloops boarding school in British Columbia in 2021 was a trigger in his reflection. Although she learned the news at the same time as everyoneshe had already started research on the law on Indians and colonialism in general.

To be confronted with this macabre discovery and the history of colonization caused a fundamental questioning: After having lived all this, how is it possible that my people still exist?

Because, she finds that language is always alive, that culture and traditions are always present in her community. The identity is even very strongunderlines Naomi Fontaine. And that is not new yesterday either: she knows the work of An-Antane Kapeh, the first innue writer who told resistance to colonialism in the 1970s in Schefferville, well.

In his novel, Naomi Fontaine therefore stages many elders who have resisted their way, Everyone with their stories, their experiences, their childhood, their fights, and through the story of my mother too.

Her mother is indeed one of the main characters, and it is through her that Naomi Fontaine realizes that the resistance was made through the small gestures.

It is the daily fight inside families. People who did not want to give up […] They fought against themselves, against being colonized, to doubt its culture. And today I realize that our culture is still really strong.

Between the chapters, the author also inserts verses of songs from musical artists from his community that sing in Innu-Aimun such as Kashtin, Philippe McKenzie, Bill St-Onge or Scott-Pien Picard.

For her, inserting verses of their songs which also tell the daily life of the Innu was fine with the concept of the book.

We often forget their work. We sing them, we listen to them on the radio, we like it, we dance in the eveningsNaomi Fontaine wanted their texts to travel beyond indigenous communities.

I have a lot of respect for the innue-songwriters-songwriters who sing in our language. I find it so much a beautiful gesture of resistance.

Eka ashate · Do not flank (Incriving Memory) will be in bookstores on August 4