Kids at the Island Discovery Learning Community have been studying local First Nations’ culture. Last week Alice Gus from the Squamish Nation came to share some of her art, games, and tradition with both those in the classroom program as well as full-time homelearners. She played a beautiful drum which her brother had painted, and led a lively game of Slahal, wherein competitors attempt to guess which opponent’s hand holds the tiny shin-bone of a deer. As simple as this old gambling game sounds, it can be a pretty raucous event! Alice’s face lit up with joy as she led the song and game.
The kids had opportunity to sing and to share thoughts with a talking stick, and even to create goat-hide drums. The process of soaking the skins and then slowly coaxing them into a tightly-strung drum is a complex activity, requiring patience as well as both strength and gentleness. This work, of course, makes the resulting drums even more precious to the owners.
Because more drumming is always a good thing, Cynthia Fairbank, IDLC’s music and homelearning support teacher, has started a bucket-drumming group. If I thought the game of Slahal was lively, this was even more so – I sat in for part of the inaugural session of this group, and it was fabulous! We all learn so much from exploration, and Cynthia expertly allowed the kids to explore with sound, while inserting regular group experiments and ideas. It was lovely to see how the kids became attuned to the sounds of the other drummers, and slowly picked up on auditory cues from Cynthia, the acoustics of the room, and each other.
