Uatan - A short story which illustrates Indigenous youth in the future who love their culture

 Josephine Bacon is a poet who writes in both French and Innu-aimun. I visited her website and it was in French so I used the magic of the internet to translate it. Here is an example of her poetry: 

I made myself beautiful

so that people would notice

the marrow of my bones,

survivors of a story

that is not told.

Her poetry is so beautiful when translated into English. I feel sad that I don't even know how beautiful it must be in French and Innu-aimun. 

Kim O'Bomsawin, Abenaki, recently created a documentary about Josephine Bacon. Here is the trailer. 

I found Josephine Bacon's short story Uatan, a beating heart in Wapke, which is an Indigenous science fiction short story anthology from Quebec. I admit that in my mind, I sort of just think of Quebec as basically Ontario but French. Wapke helped me get a better sense of the distinct people who are Indigneous to Quebec as well as a greater appreciation for the beauty of the land in Quebec. 

Summary

A youth wakes up from a dream. It's 2070 and he is in his homelands, which his people have returned to. They use modern technology like greenhouses, and seem to be thriving. He tells his father about his dream and they spend the day together. He goes to sleep again, and dreams that someone is creating a bag for his drum. He wakes and tell his father, and his father tells him that his drum is not for decoration and that he should ask for a bag to be made for it. At the end of the story it's revealed that "All drum players must have had three dreams about the teueikan before they can make use of it." (p.150).

Reflection

 A lot of stories within the genre of Indigenous futurisms deal with what many consider to be dark topics: zombies, apocalypse, dystopias, and so on. This story is an example of a light story that just feels good to read. 

It is nice to imagine that in the future Indigenous youth will have everything that they need. And in the future these Indigenous youth will want to participate in their culture and the adults around them will support them as they take on cultural roles and responsibilities. 

Similar to 2091, this short story also envisions a period of justice where Indigenous people are able to have more agency over their lives and able to actually just be modern while also having an Indigenous relationship to their homelands. 

The story is a hopeful portrayal of the future of Indigenous youth, families, and communities. And as Chelsea Vowel says, “having some space to cast ourselves as far into the future is vital and potentially emancipatory” (p. 20).

This story is very, very short (three pages). I personally love short fiction. I also love concise writing. The first time I read this I thought, "hmm not sure what that was." It was so short that it almost got lost among the other, longer stories. But the story stuck with me, and so I visited it again. Something that I appreciate about short fiction is the way that it requires the author and the reader to attend carefully to every word. This story would be good to share in a creative writing class along with the inquiry question, "how does the author accomplish characterization, setting, and plot within a very tight word count?" 

Works Cited 

Bacon, J. (2021). Uatan, a beating heart. In M. Jean (Ed.), Wapke: Indigenous science fiction stories (pp. 148-150). Holstein, Ontario: Exile Editions Ltd.

Vowel, C. (2022). Buffalo is the new buffalo. Vancouver, British Columbia: Arsenal Pulp Press.

***

This is a sister blog to https://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/