Category: ancestry

“Red Night, Black Night” – Martha Batiz

the red coat_szente-szabo akos

The last thing I saw — Mother, torch in hand, racing back home at the skirts of the volcano.

The sky was dark and grey—an impenetrable shade of grey, darker than night yet cruel enough to let you see as if through a veil, fight for breath, scampering for your life.

I watched her leave me. Begged her to stop, to run away with me. The gods had made the earth tremble. Made the volcano spit out its burning-hot entrails. We’d been trained to read the signals in the sky and below our feet; we’d been taught to fear the gods’ wrath—to be ready.

Nothing prepared us for what happened.

It had all started many moons before, I was a child, yet I remember. When they arrived—foreigners with tall, four-legged beasts, wearing clothes stronger than obsidian knives and bones—we took them in. We admired their skin, rosy as a seashell, their hair like threads of gold, and the weapons they called “swords,” which we had never seen before.

You cannot carve anything that long out of stone.

We thought they’d been sent by the Feathered Snake, Quetzalcóatl, our long-lost god who promised to return bringing blessings.

We were wrong.

They brought sickness and pain; the urge to take away, to dispossess. Forced us to give up our land, our freedom, and our beliefs.

It was too late when we discovered they were not gods, because our gods had appreciated the gift of fresh beating hearts. Our gods had given us rain and sunshine; crops grew and we were satisfied. But, those creatures had skin that blistered up and turned red and vulnerable under our sun; they pushed us to the ground, took our bodies, and then despised us; they were thieves who dug holes in our land and took everything precious, offering nothing in return.

So, it was time for war. Our men fought while we danced. And we prayed for forgiveness, for we had been forced to betray everything we had been, everything we had believed in. Then, our rivers turned red, and so did the sky.

We were not absolved.

Smoke opened an endless night as the earth trembled. As I saw her leave me, torch in hand. Me and my red dress—made in advance to mark our victory—were left alone. Alone, and drowning in the dust of loss.

these words by Martha Batiz were inspired by the work of Akos Szente-Szabó

“Cut From the Same Cloth” – Tristen Sutherland

Heart_Of_Darkness

Mrs. Anita Thomas loved her rocking chair. For hours, she would sit, rocking back and forth, humming to herself, blanket tucked neatly in her lap. Sometimes, I would watch her from across the street, as I toted my schoolbag home. She was a creature of habit. Always in the same spot. Staring at her blanket, like a statue.

On a day when I was feeling particularly brave, I crossed the street to get a closer look at Mrs. Anita Thomas. I peeked at her porch from behind one of her neighbour’s bushes, when she spotted me and called me over. Sheepishly, I approached, eyes downcast. Her face was hard and her brows were furrowed. I prepared myself for the reprimanding, keeping eyes on my scuffed shoes. Then, there was laughter? I looked up at Mrs. Anita Thomas, who was wiping a tear from her eye. Her face was soft, her smile seemed to disappear into a sea of welcoming wrinkles. I smiled weakly, not understanding the joke.

“I’m sorry,” she said, composing herself a little. “I couldn’t help myself. What’s your name, little girl?”

I told her and the next thing I knew, I was sitting alongside her nibbling an almond biscuit. It was strange to see her up close. She wasn’t a statue at all. As she spoke, she gesticulated, her chair rocking more severely when she was impassioned. I watched her as she spoke, transfixed by her whole demeanour. That was the day I became a part of Mrs. Anita Thomas’s routine.

Every day after school the scene would be the same: Me, sitting next to Mrs. Anita Thomas, her in her rocker and me on my chair, her weaving together a tale. Every story began the same way. I would take a bite of my biscuit, and Mrs. Anita Thomas would point a dark root-like finger towards the green and red blanket on her lap. Each day, her knobby finger would point to a new section of the blanket. Once settled, she would begin: “This is a story of our ancestors, and it begins with this piece of cloth…” Every time she said this, I would marvel at her use of our. It implied that we were one in the same, cut from the same cloth somehow. That was always my favourite part.

I remember asking my mum where we were from and her responding, without looking up from the newspaper, “Halifax, sweetie.” But that was not the answer I was searching for.

Mrs. Anita Thomas’s stories were always about our ancestors. She spoke of complicated plots involving star-crossed lovers, with mahogany skin and dueling families and traditions that I never heard of. When I pressed my mother further about our family’s origins, citing Mrs. Anita Thomas’s stories, she would assure me that those were just stories. As far as my mother knew, our family was from Halifax. We were Canadian through and through.

Despite my mum’s insistence on our Canadianness, I believed in Mrs. Anita Thomas’s blanket. I imagined our ancestors weaving together the cloth, infusing it with their stories. Knowing the stories of our ancestors made me feel strong. There was an our.

Mrs. Anita Thomas passed and left her blanket to me. I was 12 at the time, still clinging to my childhood, still clinging to her stories. I was shattered when I discovered the “Made in China” tag on the underside of the blanket. In that moment, I accepted my Canadianness like a bitter pill. There was no our.

When my daughter walks in, to see me in tears holding an old red-and-green blanket, I don’t know what to say. She stands in the doorway, peering at me, eyebrows implying an air of concern. After a moment, I spread the blanket on the floor and invite my young daughter to sit on my lap. I take a breath and point to a section of the blanket. I begin: “This is a story of our ancestors, and it begins with this piece of cloth…”

 

these words by Tristen Sutherland were inspired by the work of Nick Liefhebber

“Diaspora Blues” – Nailah King

SHANNA STRAUSS_ Hadithi Njoo_ Mixed media on wood_ 24in x 30''

“Where are you from?”

He was asked this often and the answer was always difficult. What they needed to understand was his journey didn’t start here but a place miles and miles away among lush earth and under a coral sun. Massive ships sailed to the shoreline taking whoever couldn’t escape, headed to the unknown. Those they captured cruised through seas and oceans but many died along the way.

He imagined that his ancestors made a break for it and ended up in the Caribbean. Warm shores, tropical fruit, sun, sand, but far from home.

Some of his friends talked about creating family trees on the internet, talked about their families. Uncle John is married to Auntie Lynn. They met in university in the ’80s. How nice to have an ancestry so clear and defined, despite having robbed others of the same.

He often thought about them.

It made him angry to think about a known point in his bloodline where the stories stopped. He couldn’t get stories about any time before his great-grandparents. Even those stories were limited. His parents couldn’t even remember their names.

They talked about carnival, Kadooment days of the past, in great detail. The costumes, the music and the food. Who they saw and who they danced with. They didn’t want to think about that dark history; about who before them could have been slaves.

What he knew of any place was a story. Even in Canada.

He’d never been to Whistler—or even Banff. He remembers the Rockies from a train ride they took when he was very young. His mother told him that the mountains were beautiful and breathtaking. He just remembered a flash of brown and grey rock and wanting to use the bathroom.

Sometimes, he remembers the beaches. The smell of the sea and the sound of his grandmother’s voice.

He wondered, did she think about them, his ancestors?

His friends often questioned him about his heritage. “There’s no information earlier than your great-grandparents?” they’d ask him.

Depending on his mood, sometimes he understood their incredulity. With modern technology like ancestry.ca, and 23andme, he should have been able to make inroads, progress.

Still, he didn’t want simply names. He wanted their stories.

He wanted to know what Africa was like, what life was like before lives were taken. Before histories were skewed, erased or lost.

It was good enough for them to have their meaningless anecdotes about how their uncles, aunts and whoever else got together. He wanted more.

Each year, a new patch of information came to the fore through old photographs, family connections or new stories.

Still, he wondered about them.

Who did they love, or lose? Did they know it was the last time they’d see their lands and what would happen to the generations that followed? Did they have hope they’d return?

“Dude, you totally drifted off.”

“Oh, I’m from Vancouver.

 

these words by Nailah King were inspired by the work of Shanna Strauss