Fourth Indigenous Leaders stamp issue honours Inuit, First Nations and Métis leaders

Launched in 2022, the Indigenous Leaders stamp series highlights the contributions of modern-day leaders who have dedicated their lives to preserving their culture and improving the quality of life of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.  

We spoke with this year’s honourees and their loved ones about the importance of language preservation and protection.   

Julia Haogak Ogina: Linguist, author, drum dancer  

Witnessing the erosion of her Inuit heritage spurred Ogina to devote her life to revitalizing the culture and languages of her ancestors. An accomplished author and drum dance teacher, she has helped to retrieve and preserve drum dance songs – which she sees as a critical conduit for traditional knowledge. In nearly two decades with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, she has contributed to the creation of a regional language framework and programs promoting oral learning and knowledge transfer.  

What is drum dance?  

It’s a lot of things. First, it’s a celebration, a way of expressing the experiences that Inuit have. It tells the stories of the land, the animals, the travels, and the emotional state of humans. Drum dancing strengthens identity, empowers people, it grounds people. It’s a time to visit with one another.   

Historically, people gathered for drum dancing when there was an abundance. When hunters get together after being on the land, the hunters would visit with each other, and they shared experiences. That becomes their story, their song.   

Some of the stories that are told are so old, we don’t know who the song creators are. And the stories that are in the songs, they’re a window to a time that doesn’t exist today.  

Drum dancing describes a lot of feelings, it describes hardships and getting through the hardships. It tells a lot of stories of who we are, how we are. And it uses language to describe emotion, to describe the season, to describe where they’re at, be it on the ocean ice in the winter, be it on the land in the spring and summer, inland or on the coast. It’s really descriptive, the language.  

Historically, while they’re waiting for other hunters to arrive, they’re singing old songs, songs that have been shared before. When all the hunting groups have arrived, that’s when they share new songs, new stories, to express feelings, connect values and beliefs with the animals and with the environment around them. 

  The terminology used in those drum dances is not used in everyday language, just in the songs, and that’s how language was kept alive. That was their platform for sharing, when they had drum dance gatherings.   

Who taught you drum dance?  

I grew up in drum dance. My great grandmother, my grandparents, my mother, my dad, they were all story tellers. They all sang songs; they all visited each other, then songs would start, and drumming would start. That was my childhood, my teenage hood.  

I have a drum at home. I still sing. My granddaughters sing with me, and I have friends that come over and sing with me.  

What is the connection between drum dance and language preservation?  

Without the stories, there’s no dance. Without song leaders, there’s no stories.   

Knowing the language lets you continue to tell the stories as accurately as the original storyteller told them.   

Why did you want to re-introduce drum dance to your community?  

The most important thing to me was how rich these stories were and that there was a gap from the elders to the middle generation to the youth and the children. There was a gap of people who didn’t understand that [the richness of the stories].    

Elders, when they sing their songs, they tend to close their eyes and go right into the song and the rhythm. I used to wonder why they did that. And it’s them watching their story unfold, their experiences unfold as they sing the song.   

I can connect to that because I can understand the majority of the song. But there were some terms that I didn’t understand, so if I didn’t understand them as an adult, then chances are the young people didn’t understand a whole lot more of the story and it just becomes a dance. It just becomes an old story they don’t understand.   

What caused that knowledge gap between generations?   

When we had the first contact with Inuit in our area, those expeditions in the late 1800s, early 1900s, missionaries were on board, and they brought the bible and that has its own values and belief system that’s not the same as what Inuit had as their values and belief system.   

Without fully understanding why Inuit people drum dance and what drum dance is about, the missionaries were telling our people they had to stop doing certain things because it’s not in the bible. So some of the songs from that time are not practiced or told anymore.  

The past two years, I’ve been doing leadership with my husband and at a community space where we do drum dancing once a week. We have the drums, we maintain the drums, and we sing and dance with the community. I have been teaching my daughter, along with my granddaughters, to lead. I’ve been stepping back to see who from the younger generation is going to step up.   

We’re at a point now where people are feeling stronger and wanting to share. And they’re learning more about reconnecting with the language maintainers or the maintainers of the songs. They’re still around. They are few, but they’re still around! And there’s a bigger generation that wants to connect to that. This generation that’s learning to lead is now desiring to create their own songs and stories.   

Preparing the next generation, that’s how our language is kept alive.