Walter Bonaise

(from Aboriginal VOICES magazine 1995)

Walter Bonaise is a Cree singer and elder from Little Pine, Saskatchewan (originally from
Poundmaker reserve). A young 52 today,  he started travelling across the country with his
father Alec  in 1973, singing at gatherings, assisting at sweats, and translating for his
father, who spoke mainly Cree. His father died four years ago, and Walter is now travelling
with his wife Doris, who makes handicrafts and teaches young people how to make their own.     
     This summer Walter visited the University of Manitoba (where he has been asked to teach
a course called "Music in Traditional Native Culture" this winter), the KUMIK (elder's lodge)
in Ottawa, and Restigouche reserve in New Brunswick.  He is respected as a singer and teacher
of songs, and as a pipe carrier. 
     He has been singing for 40 years, and 20 years ago he and his father began attending
Youth and Elder gatherings, where Alec would speak and Walter would "pick up drum songs here
and there." Walter still likes to work with the youth, and with elders. He will sometimes sing
with or write songs for Fly In Eagle (his nephew Allan Bonaise also sings with the drum). 
     Walter has his own songs, and many of his father's songs, which go back to 1915. He was
the one who would ask his father where his songs came from, when and how he made them. Many of
the old songs are "just straight singing... in those days there was no such thing as a grass
dance song or whatever,  not like today with the grass dance or sneak-up or whatever... it was
just straight singing, with no words." He saw the songs with words completely take over around
     1985, and "now all the singers are putting words together, and they think that's the
          traditional way of singing. It's not right." 
     "In my early days, there was no such thing as 'word songs' at the powwow. And it used to
     sound much much better. And you can dance to those old songs... I was a dancer for 11 years in
     Canada and the States, but when they started competition, that's when I quit. You can't compare
     a powwow today with a traditional powwow back in, say, '45. I don't go to powwows anymore,
          because I miss my old traditional singing, the real Indian singing."  
     The traditional powwow Walter grew up with ended around 1960 in his area. "Traditional
     powwow was a sacred dance, more or less. The only ones who used to dress up were the elders.
     There were no women dancers, only the men. The women would only dance at a Victory song, and
          they would dance in the back. 
     "And you have to eat a dog... the dog is a sacred animal. The dog is like the "musqua,"
     same thing like the bear, we say "musqua" to a dog because it gives us strength and the way to
     see things as an Indian. You see, that dog is so sacred... when you have a dog at home, some
     night... he may start barking from a certain area, and he will go all around your house,
     running around in a complete circle. That means he sees some badness coming to your house, and
     the loudness of that dog protects your house so you can sleep and relax. That's why the most
     sacred thing we have is the dog. The dog is a medicine, they used to use that in a medicine."
          Today the ceremonies and the songs have changed. 
     Walter says that the various types of modern powwow songs heard today originated with
     the Sioux people, including the idea of love songs in English ("...although I made some
          myself... because when I met my wife, she didn't understand Cree"). 
     Walter began making his own songs in 1956. "You have to see something, an object or a
     moving object, or the sound of something... that's how I make a song."  Songs also come to him
     when he's out driving his tractor, or taking a break at lunch hour. Sometimes Walter takes bits
     from powwow songs and puts them together to make new songs. Most of his songs are social dance
          songs.
     "I look at the people, and when I see they're restless, that's when I have to come up
     with a song to get them moving, feeling better." He describes the old Cree round or circle
     dance (where people are side by side) as being a healing dance, for the people. "The sound of
     the beat of a drum is a medicine to us singers... the same thing as the song, it's a medicine.
     Healing medicine. That's why we used to have healing dances years ago (an Indian two-step)."
          Walter does a lot of "entertaining," his drum hardly rests, because he still uses it to heal.
     His father's first song in 1915 was a round dance song. "Some days we wouldn't feel
     good, in the winter, that's when we would have these healing dances, that's where these round
     dance songs came in. We offered food to our forefathers first,  to give us strength, to give us
     our strength back through this dance. Lots of people used to walk out from the powwow, from
          this dance, feeling healed." 
     One of his father's best songs from the 1930s was a grass dance song. Today, he says,
     some of the old guys still sing it, and other of his father's songs. In the early 40s, Walter
     remembers waiting at home for his father to come back from hauling wood to town, and hearing a
     song from miles away as his father approached at night in the wagon. He still has that
     travelling song. Walter also makes popular songs - one he made in 1975 was sung across Canada
     and the States for at least five years. It has no name, a straight beat, no words, and is a
     love song. He also has a travelling song to call the thunder, made by his father, which is used
     before going to a powwow so that the people will be "..shook up and feel different..."  when he
          starts singing.
     He sometimes sings with drum groups, but says it is hard keeping a group together these
     days. Too many people drink, and this is not part of the sweat ceremony. The sweat is "the only
     way a young person can understand what his singing is all about." They should sweat "at least
          once a month, or twice, or every week."
     Walter's style of singing comes from his father. "The voice is always pitched above the
     drum, so the harder you hit the drum, the higher you have to sing. The young singers, they sing
     too low, sometimes lower than the drum. All you hear is drum. That's why they use
     loudspeakers... in the old days we didn't use loudspeakers, the people used to be able to hear
          us. They could tell from across the field who was singing."
     He uses the round hand drum.  He gets a bounce out of the sound by touching a finger of
     his left hand to the centre of the drum after every beat, a kind of springing sound. "The drum
     is alive. That is the most important thing, to have our drum alive. We are carrying a message
     to our creator, our god or whatever you're calling... and also the whole creation.It's entirely
     up to us, how we love the drum. If you were drinkin' two days, four days or three days before
     and you went and hit the drum, you will ruin your mind, or your heart, whatever... it's not to
     touch until after the fourth day or even forget about singing. That's how sacred the drum is,
     even this little hand drum. It's because the beat of the drum is the most sacred thing on
          earth." 
     His drum gives young people a lift, to help them find their spiritual identity. Many
     people are travelling to new places today in search of their spirituality, but Walter says:
     "For me, since I was brought up and raised with spirituality, it's very very easy for me, to
     find what I'm searching for. I don't need to go out there and search for anything, because it's
     there, in my community. All I have to do is use my brain, and my eyes, my heart, to identify
          what I want."   
       He says spirituality must be in the community, it can't be copied from somewhere else.
     "Sure, I can talk about it, but that's all. I can not teach anybody about spirituality. I can
     talk about the spirituality, all kinds of various important things, important steps of that
          spirituality. But, that's all. I can't tell you your spirituality. That's up to you."
     What about people who have lost their own rituals and ceremonies? Walter went to Roman
     Catholic boarding school, he was hit for speaking his own language, or sent off to say his
     prayers, "which I never did anyway, I used to pretend." He was "pushed into" Christianity by
     the missionaries, but "it's not in me. I studied the Bible very carefully. It's not in me. What
          I learned, from the Bible,  it's to be a hypocrite. I always reject that."
     He says that communities suffering from a loss of tradition should start by building up
     their own language. "If you lose your Native tongue, you will never find anything. A lot of
     young people today surprise me, because they talk their own Native language. And that's the
          most important thing. That is part of the spirituality."
     People learn from their grandfathers and grandmothers, by sitting with elders. "My
     father, I used to sit with him for so many hours. All I would hear from him were three things:
     'Come in... How is it outside ?... Goodbye...' the rest of the time, he was doing something
     with his hands... he was always moving, and I studied that, the movements he made... that's how
          I learned a lot of my spirituality. It comes from there.
     "It takes you your lifetime. First of all you have to learn one most important thing in
     your life, is to be able to relax your life, yourself. Before you start asking your spiritual
     things to an elder... if you don't relax, you will never learn anything. That's what I find
     because I used to go out and visit my elders, they would tell me a story, from centuries and
     centuries ago, and that story was passed down from generation to generation. And in between the
     story, they would pitch in their spiritual things, so I could click that spiritual meaning in
     my mind - what does that object mean to me ? That's how you're supposed to learn about your
     spirituality, by listening. A good listener can go a heck of a long ways. But if you're trying
     to learn it very fast, it will never work. Because you will be so confused, because you're only
          looking at  today. You have to learn it word for word from an elder."
     Walter can see the bridge between Cree traditions and that of other cultures. Irish,
     Spanish or East Indian peoples have their own music, words and dances to identify their
     culture.  Walter wants to  share his own music and teachings with others, and so has begun a
     project to record and transcribe his music, so that it can be taught to children in reserve or
          public schools. And he will be teaching at the University of Manitoba.
     He says races, and nations,  are fighting each other because they don't know who they
     are. They lose their way through money. "Money is the devil - if you are so crazy with money,
     you are working for the devil. That's the name of the game. My Indian people believe in
     protecting nature. I want my children to live properly. If you're thinking the white man's way,
     then you might as well go and live in France or Europe, forget about trying to live on the
     reserve, you reject the reserve. So you go and try to find your identity outside of the
          reserve. That's the game you play.
     "Indian people are supposed to be the most important thing to nature. Indian people are
     supposed to be the most important to all creation, they're supposed to learn, they're supposed
     to know, better than anybody else. That's the Indian people. And also, they're supposed to be
     teaching the young people the importance of life, how important it is to be able to eat, and
     share food on a table... which we don't have today. And I think we are going into another
     world, if we continue to do the wrong things. The whole Western hemisphere is changing, is
     changing our way of life. If I'm driving a car, it's like an exchange with the creator, you
     know? But the young people, they're driving past 90. We are losing our spiritual identity and
     our Native land. Anything you find growing up from nature, like a flower - you look at it, how
     beautiful it is, that's how you want yourself and your children to look. That's our Indian way
          of life." Walter Bonaise
          Walter Bonaise is a Cree singer and elder from Little Pine, Saskatchewan
          (originally from Poundmaker reserve). A young 52 today,  he started
          travelling across the country with his father Alec  in 1973, singing at
          gatherings, assisting at sweats, and translating for his father, who
          spoke mainly Cree. His father died four years ago, and Walter is now
          travelling with his wife Doris, who makes handicrafts and teaches young
                    people how to make their own.      
     This summer Walter visited the University of Manitoba (where he
          has been asked to teach a course called "Music in Traditional Native
          Culture" this winter), the KUMIK (elder's lodge) in Ottawa, and
          Restigouche reserve in New Brunswick.  He is respected as a singer and
                    teacher of songs, and as a pipe carrier. 
     He has been singing for 40 years, and 20 years ago he and his
          father began attending Youth and Elder gatherings, where Alec would speak
          and Walter would "pick up drum songs here and there." Walter still likes
          to work with the youth, and with elders. He will sometimes sing with or
          write songs for Fly In Eagle (his nephew Allan Bonaise also sings with
                    the drum). 
     Walter has his own songs, and many of his father's songs, which go
          back to 1915. He was the one who would ask his father where his songs
          came from, when and how he made them. Many of the old songs are "just
          straight singing... in those days there was no such thing as a grass
          dance song or whatever,  not like today with the grass dance or sneak-up
          or whatever... it was just straight singing, with no words." He saw the
     songs with words completely take over around 1985, and "now all the
     singers are putting words together, and they think that's the traditional
          way of singing. It's not right." 
     "In my early days, there was no such thing as 'word songs' at the
     powwow. And it used to sound much much better. And you can dance to those
     old songs... I was a dancer for 11 years in Canada and the States, but
     when they started competition, that's when I quit. You can't compare a
     powwow today with a traditional powwow back in, say, '45. I don't go to
     powwows anymore, because I miss my old traditional singing, the real
          Indian singing."    
     The traditional powwow Walter grew up with ended around 1960 in
     his area. "Traditional powwow was a sacred dance, more or less. The only
     ones who used to dress up were the elders. There were no women dancers,
     only the men. The women would only dance at a Victory song, and they
          would dance in the back. 
     "And you have to eat a dog... the dog is a sacred animal. The dog
     is like the "musqua," same thing like the bear, we say "musqua" to a dog
     because it gives us strength and the way to see things as an Indian. You
     see, that dog is so sacred... when you have a dog at home, some night...
     he may start barking from a certain area, and he will go all around your
     house, running around in a complete circle. That means he sees some
     badness coming to your house, and the loudness of that dog protects your
     house so you can sleep and relax. That's why the most sacred thing we
     have is the dog. The dog is a medicine, they used to use that in a
          medicine." Today the ceremonies and the songs have changed. 
     Walter says that the various types of modern powwow songs heard
     today originated with the Sioux people, including the idea of love songs
     in English ("...although I made some myself... because when I met my
          wife, she didn't understand Cree"). 
     Walter began making his own songs in 1956. "You have to see
     something, an object or a moving object, or the sound of something...
     that's how I make a song."  Songs also come to him when he's out driving
     his tractor, or taking a break at lunch hour. Sometimes Walter takes bits
     from powwow songs and puts them together to make new songs. Most of his
          songs are social dance songs.
     "I look at the people, and when I see they're restless, that's
     when I have to come up with a song to get them moving, feeling better."
     He describes the old Cree round or circle dance (where people are side by
     side) as being a healing dance, for the people. "The sound of the beat of
     a drum is a medicine to us singers... the same thing as the song, it's a
     medicine. Healing medicine. That's why we used to have healing dances
     years ago (an Indian two-step)." Walter does a lot of "entertaining," his
          drum hardly rests, because he still uses it to heal.
     His father's first song in 1915 was a round dance song. "Some days
     we wouldn't feel good, in the winter, that's when we would have these
     healing dances, that's where these round dance songs came in. We offered
     food to our forefathers first,  to give us strength, to give us our
     strength back through this dance. Lots of people used to walk out from
          the powwow, from this dance, feeling healed." 
     One of his father's best songs from the 1930s was a grass dance
     song. Today, he says, some of the old guys still sing it, and other of
     his father's songs. In the early 40s, Walter remembers waiting at home
     for his father to come back from hauling wood to town, and hearing a song
     from miles away as his father approached at night in the wagon. He still
     has that travelling song. Walter also makes popular songs - one he made
     in 1975 was sung across Canada and the States for at least five years. It
     has no name, a straight beat, no words, and is a love song. He also has a
     travelling song to call the thunder, made by his father, which is used
     before going to a powwow so that the people will be "..shook up and feel
          different..."  when he starts singing.
     He sometimes sings with drum groups, but says it is hard keeping a
     group together these days. Too many people drink, and this is not part of
     the sweat ceremony. The sweat is "the only way a young person can
     understand what his singing is all about." They should sweat "at least
          once a month, or twice, or every week."
     Walter's style of singing comes from his father. "The voice is
     always pitched above the drum, so the harder you hit the drum, the higher
     you have to sing. The young singers, they sing too low, sometimes lower
     than the drum. All you hear is drum. That's why they use loudspeakers...
     in the old days we didn't use loudspeakers, the people used to be able to
          hear us. They could tell from across the field who was singing."
     He uses the round hand drum.  He gets a bounce out of the sound by
     touching a finger of his left hand to the centre of the drum after every
     beat, a kind of springing sound. "The drum is alive. That is the most
     important thing, to have our drum alive. We are carrying a message to our
     creator, our god or whatever you're calling... and also the whole
     creation.It's entirely up to us, how we love the drum. If you were
     drinkin' two days, four days or three days before and you went and hit
     the drum, you will ruin your mind, or your heart, whatever... it's not to
     touch until after the fourth day or even forget about singing. That's how
     sacred the drum is, even this little hand drum. It's because the beat of
          the drum is the most sacred thing on earth." 
     His drum gives young people a lift, to help them find their
     spiritual identity. Many people are travelling to new places today in
     search of their spirituality, but Walter says: "For me, since I was
     brought up and raised with spirituality, it's very very easy for me, to
     find what I'm searching for. I don't need to go out there and search for
     anything, because it's there, in my community. All I have to do is use my
          brain, and my eyes, my heart, to identify what I want."   
       He says spirituality must be in the community, it can't be
     copied from somewhere else. "Sure, I can talk about it, but that's all. I
     can not teach anybody about spirituality. I can talk about the
     spirituality, all kinds of various important things, important steps of
     that spirituality. But, that's all. I can't tell you your spirituality.
          That's up to you."
     What about people who have lost their own rituals and ceremonies?
     Walter went to Roman Catholic boarding school, he was hit for speaking
     his own language, or sent off to say his prayers, "which I never did
     anyway, I used to pretend." He was "pushed into" Christianity by the
     missionaries, but "it's not in me. I studied the Bible very carefully.
     It's not in me. What I learned, from the Bible,  it's to be a hypocrite.
          I always reject that."
     He says that communities suffering from a loss of tradition should
     start by building up their own language. "If you lose your Native tongue,
     you will never find anything. A lot of young people today surprise me,
     because they talk their own Native language. And that's the most
          important thing. That is part of the spirituality."
     People learn from their grandfathers and grandmothers, by sitting
     with elders. "My father, I used to sit with him for so many hours. All I
     would hear from him were three things: 'Come in... How is it outside ?...
     Goodbye...' the rest of the time, he was doing something with his
     hands... he was always moving, and I studied that, the movements he
     made... that's how I learned a lot of my spirituality. It comes from
          there.
     "It takes you your lifetime. First of all you have to learn one
     most important thing in your life, is to be able to relax your life,
     yourself. Before you start asking your spiritual things to an elder... if
     you don't relax, you will never learn anything. That's what I find
     because I used to go out and visit my elders, they would tell me a story,
     from centuries and centuries ago, and that story was passed down from
     generation to generation. And in between the story, they would pitch in
     their spiritual things, so I could click that spiritual meaning in my
     mind - what does that object mean to me ? That's how you're supposed to
     learn about your spirituality, by listening. A good listener can go a
     heck of a long ways. But if you're trying to learn it very fast, it will
     never work. Because you will be so confused, because you're only looking
          at  today. You have to learn it word for word from an elder."
     Walter can see the bridge between Cree traditions and that of
     other cultures. Irish, Spanish or East Indian peoples have their own
     music, words and dances to identify their culture.  Walter wants to 
     share his own music and teachings with others, and so has begun a project
     to record and transcribe his music, so that it can be taught to children
     in reserve or public schools. And he will be teaching at the University
          of Manitoba.
     He says races, and nations,  are fighting each other because they
     don't know who they are. They lose their way through money. "Money is the
     devil - if you are so crazy with money, you are working for the devil.
     That's the name of the game. My Indian people believe in protecting
     nature. I want my children to live properly. If you're thinking the white
     man's way, then you might as well go and live in France or Europe, forget
     about trying to live on the reserve, you reject the reserve. So you go
     and try to find your identity outside of the reserve. That's the game you
          play.
     "Indian people are supposed to be the most important thing to
     nature. Indian people are supposed to be the most important to all
     creation, they're supposed to learn, they're supposed to know, better
     than anybody else. That's the Indian people. And also, they're supposed
     to be teaching the young people the importance of life, how important it
     is to be able to eat, and share food on a table... which we don't have
     today. And I think we are going into another world, if we continue to do
     the wrong things. The whole Western hemisphere is changing, is changing
     our way of life. If I'm driving a car, it's like an exchange with the
     creator, you know? But the young people, they're driving past 90. We are
     losing our spiritual identity and our Native land. Anything you find
     growing up from nature, like a flower - you look at it, how beautiful it
     is, that's how you want yourself and your children to look. That's our
     Indian way of life."