Candace Maracle  0:07  
This is a smudge bowl. And inside of here is sage. This is considered by many Native American nations to be a sacred medicine. Which brings me to the topic of this video, the filming of all things that are considered sacred in Indigenous communities. I'm just going to give you a little overview about what to do and even in instances where we can entirely decide what to do, it's always a safe bet to ask the person that you're interviewing. Smudging is considered to be a ceremony. And it's something many nations do, it doesn't counter any religion, I would call it more of a spiritual practice than anything. But it's the act of cleansing one's energy or one's spirit with the sacred smoke of the medicine that we're burning. We can also smudge with this is a tobacco tie. It's our sacred medicine as well. And this is sweet grass. In the same way, you wouldn't handle someone's collectibles, you would treat the medicines that you come across in Indigenous communities with that same amount of respect and reverence. Now, you might ask why Indigenous people get so touchy about filming their headdresses or filming these wampum belts And the reason for that is because a lot of this stuff was just repatriated to us. So first, it may or may not have been stolen from our communities, was often disrespected, or maybe legal, like I said, through the Indian Act And now we're just beginning to get parts of that back and rebuilding our culture and revitalizing things like our ceremonies and the language. So that's one reason. I came across this meme on social media and it kind of distilled it down for me. And it was something like, while it was okay for kids to be playing cowboys and Indians, it wasn't okay for people like my grandparents to actually be Indian. Even as an Indigenous journalist, I have to make sure that I'm going through all the appropriate channels and I get all the right clearances to make sure that I'm shooting with the approval that is necessary. For example, for my last documentary, I shot a lot of it in a longhouse, and longhouse, as you will know already from my first video, is where we a lot of our ceremonies take place. And so it's considered to be sacred. In addition to that, I was asking for another camera person to be brought into the longhouse. In order to do that I have a contact in this particular community, which was Kahnawake near Quebec, near Montreal, to check with the clan mothers and get their approval. I also checked with the person that I was going to be interviewing. Now this is an instance for a longer shoot, for example, if you wanted to do a longer form media piece, this was for a documentary. But if you still wanted to take pictures, if you wanted to do a longer feature, you'd be well advised to check with someone within the community that you're familiar with, who is also familiar with all the protocols so that that person can is able to get the proper clearances. We're always wondering why First Nations people are getting so upset about cultural appropriation, the Navajo print, you can see at Urban Outfitters people wearing headdresses at Osheaga and Coachella, what's the big deal? Well, I'm hoping with by the end of this video, that you're going to be able to understand at least a little bit why we hold someone sacred, and why we hope that the people around us who are going to be enjoying parts of our culture or wanting to learn about our culture, also hold that sacred.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai