Josephine Bacon

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Josephine Bacon (2015)

Joséphine Bacon (born April 23, 1947 in Pessamit, Québec , Canada ) is a Canadian writer , translator and director . She is of the Innu First Nation and writes in French and Innu-Aimun . Bacon is considered the "grande dame of autochthonous literature" in the province of Québec.

Life

Joséphine Bacon was born in 1947 in the Innu community of Bersimis (later Betsiamites, now Pessamit), 50 kilometers west of Baie-Comeau . She spent the first five years of her life semi-nomadic in the wilderness, the "Nutshimit". At the age of five, like 80,000 other indigenous children, she was separated from her parents and admitted to the state boarding school on the Maliotenam Indian reservation near Sept-Îles for forced assimilation . There, however, she met young people from the surrounding communities with whom she was able to converse in their own language.

At twenty, Bacon left the reservation to become a secretary in Quebec City . In Ottawa she attended a six-month course at the "Bureau des affaires autochtones". In November 1968, Bacon arrived in Montreal , where she made a living from odd jobs. After some time she met a student Indian couple who introduced her to city life and the music scene. Through the couple, she was introduced to anthropologists working with the Innu of Labrador and Quebec. She did transcriptions for the scientists and got to know the founding myths of her people, which she did not know from her years at the boarding school.

As a research assistant, Bacon accompanied Sylvie Vincent to Natashquan to chronicle the myths and stories of the local elders. In addition to this activity, she also worked with linguists . She relearned the Nutshimit language, "which isn't the same when you're sedentary and you live on the reservation." Bacon became a translator and as such accompanied documentary filmmaker Arthur Lamothe . She was trained as a documentary filmmaker by the Office national du film du Canada (NFB/ONF). Their first production - now lost - told the story of Innu elders and clan mothers from Kahnawake . Most recently she directed Tshishe Mishtikuashisht - Le petit grand européen. Johan Beetz , a documentary about the European Johan Beetz (1874-1949) who married an Indian woman.

Bacon began writing in 2008 through a chance encounter with poet and storyteller Laure Morali (b. 1972). Her volumes of poetry pay homage to the elderly, the nutshimit, and 50 years of her life in Montreal— because Montreal made her who she is . Bacon regularly returns to her tribal home 1500 kilometers north of Montreal to teach the younger generation her language and thereby strengthen the connection to the cultural origins of her ancestors.

Her short story Nashtash Goes to Town describes the fate of a young Innu woman. She leaves the reservation, which is characterized by alcohol and poverty, cleans car windows at traffic lights in the big city and finally works as a dancer in a nightclub.

“To this day, young people are stuck in a dilemma between the identity of their parents and grandparents and modern life in the city. They don't really feel at home in the reservations either. I myself lived in a boarding school for 14 years. I had to work out the cultural heritage of my ancestors myself. My parents still lived as nomads, and I was also born a nomad.”

- Josephine Bacon

Kim O'Bomsawin portrayed Joséphine Bacon in the 2020 documentary Je m'appelle humain (English Call Me Human ).

awards

factories

Poetry:

  • Batons a message - Tshisinuashitakana. , Montreal 2009.
    • Message sticks – Tshisinuatshitakana. Toronto 2009.
  • with José Acquelin : Nous sommes tous des sauvages. Montreal 2011.
  • Un thé dans la toundra – Nipishapui nete mushuat. Montreal 2013.
    • A tea in the tundra - Nipishapui nete mushuat. Saskatoon 2016.
  • Uiesh – Quelque part. , Montreal 2018.
  • with Laure Morali (ed.): Nin Auass - Moi l'enfant. Montreal 2021.

short story:

filmography

Screenwriter:

  • Ameshkuatan - Les sorties du castor. Quebec, 1978
  • Mishtikuashisht - Le Petit Grand Européen. Johan Beetz. Quebec 1997.

Director:

  • Mishtikuashisht - Le Petit Grand Européen. Johan Beetz. Quebec 1997.

Actress:

  • Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes.
  • Bootlegger. Directed by Caroline Monnet , 2021.

Participation:

  • L'empreinte. 2015
  • Je m'appelle humain (Call Me Human). Directed by Kim O'Bomsawin , 2020.
  • Archipelago. 2021

web links

Commons : Joséphine Bacon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c d e deutschlandfunk.de : Autochthonous literature in Quebec. Writing as proof of existence. (Dated March 20, 2020; accessed November 15, 2021)
  2. ^ a b c d ici.radio-canada.ca : Joséphine Bacon, la vie en trois temps d'une femme d'exception. (French)
  3. ↑ This office or organization for autochthonous affairs certainly had a different name in the 1960s.
personal data
SURNAME Bacon, Josephine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer, translator and director
BIRTH DATE April 23, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Pessamite, Québec , Canada