What Does The Fox Say? Art Performance Depicts Missing Indigenous Women Issue

“The word “fire” in the saulteaux is defined as “woman’s heart”. They say that the love of  a woman is so great, so powerful, when she withdraws it, destruction can occur. That is how powerful a woman is. When a woman takes her love away, you are actually nothing. That is what my grandfather said. The rejection of a woman is like fire. A woman’s fire is powerful and pure. That is the foundation of a heart of a woman. The foundation of our people is the heart of a woman. When they are strong we are strong. We survive because our women are strong. The day we begin to recognize this is the day we will become great again.” -Dr. Danny Musqua

Do you want to know what I find disgustingly sad and heartbreaking? Is that because I am an Indigenous woman of Canada I more likely to be kidnapped, raped, and viciously murdered. This is the sad truth of our country.

There are over 600 missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, this is epidemic towards women and this issue needs to be taken seriously. But it seems that we are silenced, does it even matter if we are alive or not? Sometimes it doesn’t seem as though society cares…

My teachings that I have learned is that you have to respect your mother “okâwîmâw askiy”(Mother Earth in Cree). Keep her clean and protect her, and if you do she will take care of you. Women are the life givers in this world, therefore they are the creation of life. Hence the saying “Respect our Mother” also retaining to Mother Earth.

Since contact there have been many changes in Canada. For example the topic that is being discussed: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Traditionally First Nations men went to our women for advice about for the good of the community, they were very much a part of the political structure of our people.

For a lot of years the women have been pushed aside, we have a lot of broken women within Indian Country, but not only broken but we have strong women. I feel that it is those broken women that endured such traumatic experiences that are the strongest. But many times they are forgotten.

Just because a woman is Indigenous does not mean she does not matter…

Julianne Beaudin performs live art at the Riddell Centre

On April 7, 2014 a young brave First Nations woman named Julianne Beaudin courageously preformed a very heart wrenching visual arts performance called “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women – Failed Inquiry” in the middle of the Riddel Centre at the University of Regina. I went to the performance and below is my interpretation;

Of course I woke up and I felt like that little white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, I had to rush the an appointment I had and of course when I got there, there was a backlog of people. After I was done I had 15 minutes to get to the Riddel Centre. When I got to the university, I had about 2 minutes to run in and get to the performance, and I just made it like I always do!

I sat down and was so out of breath and felt like everyone was looking at me, because I was just sounding like a pig just breathing hard lol. Any who I got comfortable and sat down.

Beaudin was in a black dress with a bandana around her face covering her mouth and she had Cree syllabics in red paint written downs her arms and legs. She was sitting down like she was tying her shoes hut she was not tying her shoes. She was tying red ribbon around her legs and arms.

The bandana is a signifier that Indigenous women are silenced with no voice, but it also signified that she is kidnapped;.

The black dress and red ribbons tied around her legs and arms depicted death and blood to me. The red Cree Syllabics represented that she was an indigenous woman, because just because she has dark skin could not be just the only hint that she was an Indigenous woman. The red syllabics help enhance the image of who she was.

The red ribbons tied around her legs also showed me that it was an impression of an Indigenous woman being taken captive. She was tied up but she could kind of move but it was a struggle, she started to pour maple syrup all over her body, you can smell maple syrup throughout the Riddell Centre. to me it was like blood and the sticky situations or the stereotypes that are stuck on Indigenous women.

After she was done pouring the whole litre of syrup all over herself, she started to scream and cry.  She was crying and screaming to top of her lungs and this very surreal. I got chills down my spine and it put the picture in my head of what our Missing and Murdered Indigenous women endured. It was sad, this was sad because just thinking that this happened to our women and nothing is done about it.

After her screams and cries she gets up still struggling and sticky, her head is down and takes a white cloth that was about a foot and a half wide and three feet long. She lays it down over the sticky syrup where she struggled. The she gets up again and picks up two pieces of red cloth that are about a foot long each. She lies the red cloth at each side of the big white cloth. That turned out to be an interpretation of the Canadian flag.

It covered the syrup which to me depicted all the women that are missing in Canada, they could be concealed.

She now sang very very very loud so everyone could hear her, she sang so loud and it was strong, this gave me goosebumps and chills again. But what I noticed is that people were still just walking by her. There was some people who paid attention and supported the performance but there was a lot that would just walk by. They did not seem to care. I think Beaudin had her art performance in the middle of the Riddell Centre for a reason. This was an example of how society ignores this very issue.

At the end she stops and quiets down, she then goes into the middle of the Canadian flag representation and lays down into the fetal position. It was like the middle of the flag was the womb of Canada. My interpretation was that the women who are ignored are the very foundation of why this country exists.

It is obviously to woman going missing is the lack of respect and the hatred of predators attacking our women. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in our society with protecting and treating our women with the status that they do have. Some of these women put themselves in places where they shouldn’t be. Living those very at risk lives. We need our culture and to go back to honouring our own. These issues go back to colonization and racism

Justice system should take these missing and murdered Indigenous woman seriously. It is evident that there is still a two-tier justice system where our people are not getting justice. In the end this just isn’t about justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women, but justice for all mankind.

When I am walking in my neighbourhood I do not feel safe, when I go to Wascana Lake I do not feel safe. A man does not know how it is to be a woman and always having to constantly  worry about if we are going to be kidnapped or assaulted in any way. We need our men to protect us, a man is created big and strong not to over power woman, but to protect them,.

I would also love to thank and congratulate Julianne Beaudin for the excellent job she did, she put herself in an uncomfortable position but she did it for the Indigenous women who are not with us right now. This was real, she did not sugar coat it. She just simply did the performance how it is. She made herself uncomfortable and the people walking by and watching uncomfortable, maybe that’s why people try to ignore the fact that Indigenous women are targeted, because it makes them feel “uncomfortable”. This is the uncomfortable feeling it is to be a First Nations woman.

By Novalee Fox, What Does The Fox Say?