In the turn of a phrase, Aitken’s story transported his audience all the way back to the beginning of time, such that for those who were present in the room when he struck the drum one could actually hear “the first sound ever, in the beginning … The heartbeat of Mother Earth. -Timothy B. Powell
This week’s TLAM class was particularly exciting and relevant for me, as I hope to work in a museum archive hybrid someday, one that has a genuine and enduring relationship with native communities in the area. We discussed the Gi bugadin-a-maa goom project —which means “To Sanction, To Give Authority, To Bring to Life” in Ojibwe. This project was undertaken by Larry Aitken, the Tribal Historian for the Leech Lake Ojibwe Band; the goal being to create a ‘living’ museum of historical documents, photographs, artifacts and digital videos of members of the community, whose knowledge can awaken archival material through storytelling. By using the Ojibwe language, stories and knowledge to bring life—and shape—to tags, codes and metadata and by creating their own taxonomy, for their own history, the Ojibwe people can reclaim intellectual sovereignty. Through this project, the Ojibwe have discovered that digital technology is actually a better medium than print culture for capturing the fluidity, spontaneity and multilayered quality of storytelling.
In class we also watched a short excerpt from the video The Drum Speaks, showing Larry Aitken talking about the importance of ceremonial objects to the understanding of his peoples’ history and identity; in particular drums, which play an integral role in Ojibwe creation stories.
Larry speaks of the spirits that lie within the drums, how they are asleep until the drum is hit, and in that moment—the moment the drum is hit—the spirits are awakened. It is in this way that the Ojibwe people ask for the attention of the spirits in order to communicate with them. It is believed that the sound of the drum was the first sound ever heard—the first heart-beat of Mother Earth. So in listening to the beat of the drum, one is actually hearing, and experiencing, the beating of Mother Earth’s heart.
Reading about all of this in Timothy Powell’s article, A Drum Speaks: A Partnership to Create a Digital Archive Based on Traditional Ojibwe Systems of Knowledge was interesting, and I felt like I understood the basic idea; that the drum is not merely an artifact to be placed in a glass case and observed from afar, but is a living thing, meant to be interacted with in order to be understood—for its true meaning to be felt by those whose history it holds. However, while watching the video in class, and listening to Larry play the drum and sing the songs to awaken the spirits, I was able to experience the drum on a deeper level, one that surpassed any written words.
I realize that my experience remains relatively superficial. I don’t know what the words in his songs mean, and I don’t know which spirits he called upon, but I feel like I was witnessing something special, something beautiful and humbling that represents a connection to—or a relationship with—something that most people no longer value or appreciate, and I felt honored to experience it.
-Prairie Hady