The common portrayals of Indigenous peoples in film, the media, and children’s music have shaped the public perception of Native people in North America for over a century. These typically inaccurate stereotypes have etched themselves deeply into the consciousness of every North American, and are an insidious and destructive force to the contemporary identity of Indigenous peoples. (Jackson 2bears)

There is a growing list of First Nations and Métis artists, writers and musicians who have turned to using digital technologies as a resistance strategy to heal wounds and expose myths, or entertain readers and viewers by using unique and true voices. People like: Cree Métis artist and writer Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew (Speaking the Language of Spiders); Mohawk/Italian multidisciplinary artist and curator Skawennati Tricia Fragnito (Projects); Iroquois/Onondaga photographer, curator, writer and cultural analyst Jeff Thomas (Scouting for Indians); and Mohawk artist and hip-hop musician Jackson 2bears, whose deceptively simple Flash movie, Ten Little Indians, is the feature of this article.

2bears is in intriguing company. On the literary front Ten Little Indians is the name of a 2003 book by Sherman Alexie, with stories about Native Americans; and Agatha Christie published a novel of the same name in 1939 (first released in England as Ten Little Niggers, renamed And Then There Were None, and finally released in the US as Ten Little Indians).

The children’s song Ten Little Indians has been adapted by such musicians as: Harry Nillson, whose version was covered by The Yardbirds (with ferocious lyrics, including “Six little Indians, Trying to stay alive. One took another's life, Then there were five.” - which seem to reflect the degrading conditions on many reserves); The Beach Boys (an odd version that uses words like squaw and Tonto’s Kemo Sabe); and Bill Haley & the Comets (a version that simply repeats the most commonly known verse set to a jazzy swing melody). Jackson 2bears' version remixes derisive lyrics from a children's song.

Ten Little Indians: a playful cultural critique in the form of a 3-min animated music video. The motivation behind the work is derived from traumatic childhood memories of the popular children’s song “Ten Little Indians”. The video appropriates a version of this recording taken from Mother Goose Favorites produced by Happy Time Recordings, and mixes it with hip-hop breaks, vocal phrases, and record scratches.

Email Interview with Jackson 2bears

Adams: You say that the motivation behind Ten Little Indians is "derived from traumatic childhood memories of the popular children's song" of the same name. Can you say something about those memories? What was it like being a young Indian in Brantford, Ontario?

2bears: Memory is always a tricky thing. This story begins last year in the summer of 2004. It was a typically beautiful morning in Victoria, and I was out digging through a dusty stack of 50-cent vinyls at the local Salvation Army store. And then all of a sudden there it was, amongst the scratched-up Barbara Streisand and the half melted Cat Stevens, a vintage copy of Mother Goose Favorites vol. 2 by Happy Time Records. Time stood still, like in one of those Matrix movies, as a flood of memories overwhelmed me, and I gazed up the record jacket and saw track no. 7: Ten Little Indians.

I grew up in Brantford, Ontario, just outside of the Oshweken reservation where my father was born. I was sent to a predominately white school, and at the time I was the only Indian kid in my elementary class. It was Indian week and we were learning about the noble savages that once roamed the land that we now proudly call Canada. As part of our learning experience, we were instructed in a sing-a-long with Mother Goose's rendition of the Ten Little Indians tune - a modified version that included a couple extra verses added to the original.

So, I'm asked to stand at my desk, and during the chorus the others would point at me and sing "...what are you doing you bad little Indian ... looks like you're eating, you bad little Indian", and so on. Now, what makes things worse is this: I actually remember liking it. Probably because it meant that I got some extra attention, but more than that, I thought of myself as lucky, one of those "liberated Indians". I wore white people clothing, I spoke like the white kids, and was more than happy when one of my grade school friends kindly told me "don't worry, I don't think of you as an Indian."

Time thrust back into motion, and I find myself once again hunched over the record bin at the Sally-Ann. The Mother Goose record cost 50 cents, but I would have paid $500. It was clear to me at that moment that I had something to do, though I wasn't sure exactly what that was. I knew that I had to reclaim this song for myself, and revisit these obscure questions about my identity. In this way, the experience of working with this particular cultural artifact has been a cathartic experience for me, one that I will undoubtedly continue to explore, as these questions of self, belonging, and identity are still for me unresolved.

Adams: Your father was Mohawk and your mother was Dutch. So you are Métis. But your name, 2bears, suggests a personal identification with the Mohawk. Can you explain why?

2bears: Well first off I don't consider myself to be a part of the Métis Nation, I consider myself to be Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk). I suppose the simple answer would be to say that I am a registered Mohawk of the Bay of Qunite, and they tell me I'm a Mohawk from Tyendinaga.

The original definition of Métis is (and correct me if I'm wrong) a person conceived by an Indian mother and a European father, and the child was not considered to be Indigenous for these reasons. Being that this particular definition was blatantly sexist, the law was changed a couple of decades ago, and the rights of Native women were recognized as being equal to that of Native men. Bill C36 was passed, and many who had lost their status as Native people were reinstated. The law now can be summarized in this way: those being of mixed ancestral heritage could legally identify with their Indigenous heritage, and have the right to be associated with their particular Nation.

The term is now sometimes used to identify all mixed-blood (Aboriginal and European) peoples. Perhaps I would prefer the third definition in the dictionary: a mixed breed animal (belonging to a specific cultural heritage).

Recently, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal peoples in Canada has concluded that ancestral links need not be genetic, and states that Indian status should not simply be based on quantum blood requirements. It also makes clear a fundamental right: that Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right to identify themselves with their Indigenous roots, and have the right to be recognized as such. For me, I exercise my right to be identified with my people and the Iroquois Nation. I think that it would be inconsistent to say that I am something else for these reasons. This does not mean that I ignore my European heritage, but it does mean that I have chosen to also recognize and identify myself with specific cultural heritage handed down to me by my Indigenous forebears.

The name Tekeni Ohkwari (2bears) was given to me at birth by my father. Apparently a great-grandfather of mine, Levi Parker, was also known by that name. He was Seneca, as were most of my grandparents, including the prophet Handsome Lake. My grandmother however was raised as a Mohawk, spoke the Mohawk language, sang the Mohawk songs, attend their ceremonies, and lived her life as Kanien'kehaka. My grandfather was a full blood Mohawk. Though much of the old ways have been lost in our family, I feel it is my obligation now to rediscover some of the traditional ways of my Native heritage. This includes recognizing my mixed genetic make-up as much as it does being true to what it means to be Onkehonwe. This is often hard for some people to understand … for me it is a personal quest.

Adams: You say the video "is intended as a kind of resistance strategy, and through the adoption of the music video form, seeks to undermine and expose these mistruths that are present today within North American Culture." Can you say something about those mistruths, and how the video addresses them?

2bears: Your question is again one about identity.

Mistruths? Just take the way Indigenous people have been represented by the media; on television, film, in children's books, and in classrooms, on the news, in radio broadcasts, by government propaganda ... etc. Generations of Native American children have grown up like me watching "Cowboys and Indians" movies, and messed-up TV shows like Little House on the Prairie. For decades the media has been shaping the public perception of Indigenous people through stereotypes like: the town drunk, the wise elder, or the noble savage, and almost always portray Native people as either primitive, violent, or as dependent and helpless. So my question is … how do you think these stereotypes are affecting the identity of Indigenous youth? How are we to negotiate a path around these media representations to the truth about our people?

And though there is now some awareness of these misleading stereotypes (political correctness and all that) but the tradition of cruel and unjust stereotyping continues. Take for example that movie released a couple of years ago, The Indian in the Cupboard, where the dialogue of the tiny Iroquois toy-warrior made flesh by a freaky magical cupboard, is reduced to "Ugh" and "me no understand". (I could go on and on about this movie, but it is already on the chopping block for a remix in the future).

Anyway, it seemed like a good idea to produce an artwork that adopts the form of the enemy (so to speak). In this way, through an absurdist take on this silly children's song, I could address the ways in which the dominant culture in North America has been (mis)representing the people Native to this land. Also, it has been a way for me to express in a public forum the ways that I have personally been affected with regard to the portrayal of Indigenous people, and hope that in this I can inspire others to question for themselves the effect it has had on them.

Adams: You talk about using hip-hop breaks, vocal phrases, and record scratches. In The Turntable, by Charles Mudede, he talks about proper hip-hop. Is your work proper hip-hop, or a hybrid? Can you tell us something about the development of your work, through club gigs in Toronto, to now where you incorporate computers? I understand your first instrument was a tape deck?

2bears: I grew up with hip-hop. I suppose what Mudede means by proper hip-hop is : music made from other music and not with instruments in the classical sense. Mudede would call hip-hop a kind of meta-music, a musical form that takes music as its subject, and is different than traditional musical styles precisely because it is based around the act of re-playing other music.

I guess in the beginning I was making hip-hop proper. It is true, I started making music with two tape decks and a mixer I purchased from radio shack (that still works). I would lift a tape from my parents’ disco collection and drop it in the one deck, find the drum break, and record it off to the other deck. Then I'd press pause on the record deck, rewind the tape to the beginning of the drum break, and then do it again. I would repeat this act over and over again until I had a recording of just the drum break running continuously for 4 or 5 minutes. Then with the help of my radio shack mixer and my trusty microphone, I'd bust some seriously lame vocals over top to finish off the track.

Once it had become clear to me that I had no talent for writing lyrics or rapping, I purchased a little keyboard and started making instrumental music. After a brief stint playing keyboards and guitar in a few different bands, I picked up a computer with the intent of composing tracks of my own. After I finished art school in the late 90's I moved to Toronto and got involved with the underground arts scene, which primarily congregated in late-night club venues and warehouse spaces around the city. It was here that I began to perform live music sets using my computer, keyboard, sampler and turntables, incorporating video projections to add a visual element.

To answer your question, I suppose that now my process is a kind of hybrid hip-hop style mixed with a little bit of computer nerd. I still use a lot of live instruments, but I also do a lot of programming and sample grabbling to produce my tracks. Also, I get bored really fast with working with the same process over and over, so I tend to switch things up quite a bit in the way I make and my perform my music.

Adams: Your use of voice clips suggests a kind of slippage into spoken word. Does narrative play a role in your work? Your Ten Little Indians video is obviously narrative-based. Is this a direction you plan to explore further?

2bears: Typically my audio work tends to be anti-narrative by nature, in the sense that my music maintains a free-form quality and in performance I improvise alot. I don't often write songs, that is, music that has a definite beginning and an end. I suppose I have been heavily influenced by club-culture in this way. I tend to compose fragments of music in the studio that are then rearranged and blended together in a performative context, where I am as much following the crowd’s response to a sound as I am my own intuition.

I sometimes work with an internal narrative, and design a performance that revolves around a certain theme. These types of internal narratives are usually disjunctive in nature, and are typically only useful to me as a performer. The vocal clips you spoke of operate more like sound fragments, made up of little bits of information inscribed on the surface of the record. Often, when you are working with previously recorded music as I do with vinyl, you tend to see everything in terms of sonic data: the recorded voice becomes like another instrument when using it in this way.

I do however occasionally make an entirely narrative-driven piece, such as the Ten Little Indians video, but tend not to use these in performances. This video project grew out of a series of live sets where I would scratch in fragments of the Mother Goose tune, mostly for effect, in an attempt to explore how the song might impact on people. I will likely make another narrative piece in the future, though I can't say exactly what that will be.

Jackson 2bears is a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) installation and performance artist currently based in Victoria, BC, Canada. His training as a visual artist and musician fuse, creating a dynamic combination of rhythmic and immersive compositions that are a product of the surrounding environment. From 1998-2002, Jackson scored several independent film projects, including the Urbannation film bloodriver, and co-founded LiminaL projects, an interdisciplinary artist collective. In 2002, 2bears moved to Victoria, BC, to complete a Masters Degree in Digital Media Arts, a two-year journey that resulted in the production of several site-specific, telematic, and web-based installation projects. Jackson’s installation works have been exhibited nationally, in both artist-run centres and alternative public spaces. Currently, Jackson is the production assistant at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, sponsored by Dr. Arthur Kroker's Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory. http://www.jackson2bears.net

Editor’s note: The Government of Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Communications Branch, defines Métis as people “of mixed First Nation and European ancestry who identify themselves as Métis, as distinct from First Nations people …” The term Métis comes from an old French word meaning "mixed." My own ancestry includes a portion of Cree blood. This article is the first of two articles that explore Métis and First Nations in cyberspace. Mike Patterson's Ph.D. Dissertation for the Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Carleton University provides some interesting (and cautionary) clues into how Information Technology (IT) and cyberspace affect First Nations people.

Links

Jackson 2bears:
http://www.jackson2bears.net/

Ten Little Indians (remix):
http://www.jackson2bears.net/10LittleIndians/index.html

The Turntable, by Charles Mudede (ctheory.net):
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=382

Wasase - Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom:
http://www.wasase.org/home/index.htm

Unforking the Speech of Chief Seattle, by Randy Adams:
http://www.runran.net/blog/seattle.html

Mrs. Flanagan's Kindergarten, Pfeiffer Elementary School (2001 – 2005):
http://www.littlegiraffes.com/indians.html

trAce links

St Labre Indian Catholic School - Kids on the Net:
http://kotn.ntu.ac.uk/allabout/stlabre.cfm

Strategies for Media Activism, by Geert Lovink (frAme1):
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame/text/lovink.html

With Liberty and Justice for All, by Carmin Karasic (frAme2):
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame2/articles/carmin/index.htm

Politics, Profit and Rock'n'roll get Wired, by Andy Oldfield (frAme2):
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame2/oldfield.htm

Interactive Audio on the Web, by Jim Andrews:
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?article=80

Documentary Websites, by Edward Picot:
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Opinion/index.cfm?article=97