When is it art?
Neil Diamond co-directed So Surreal: Behind the Masks, a documentary that investigates how Indigenous ceremonial masks from the west coast of Turtle Island (North America) made it into the hands of European Surrealists.
The pieces influenced the work and world view of some of the most well-known modern artists and writers, including Max Ernst, André Breton, Roberto Matta and Joan Miró.
I'm Neil Diamond. The youngest of 11 children, I was born in Waskaganish, a small Cree village in northern Quebec.
My siblings and I attended residential school, several hundred kilometres north of my birthplace, from 1969 until 1976. It was the tail end of residential schools, and luckily, our supervisors and a few teachers were Cree, and we were able to keep our mother tongue.
I was blessed with parents who were master storytellers. My earliest memories are of them telling legends and old, old stories, amusingly correcting each other as they went on.
Telling legends in summer is taboo in Cree culture, but given that my siblings and I were mostly away at school and only lived with our parents for fewer than three months of the year, they must have figured the spirits would forgive them.
My mother would get drowsy as her tales progressed, and I would nudge her to continue. Long after my brothers and sisters had fallen asleep, I would shake my mother awake again and again, demanding to hear what happened next — even if I knew the story by heart.
As I grew older and learned more about the world around me, I heard about the stories of other Indigenous nations, and I noticed parallels with the stories I knew. I grew more interested. I wanted to experience their worlds.
My love of storytelling led to a career as a filmmaker. And my latest documentary, So Surreal: Behind the Masks, looks at how Indigenous masks had a profound impact on Surrealist artists and writers.
In the film, the story begins when I read about a century-old Yup'ik mask selling at an art fair in New York. It set me on a quest to trace the journey of this mask: how did it end up for sale alongside works of modern art?
The Surrealists and the masks
In the early 20th century, museum collectors visited Alaska and B.C. to trade and purchase ceremonial masks under the guise of salvaging artifacts of "the Vanishing Indian." Many of the masks had been stolen, seized by the government or sold by people who didn't have the right to sell them.
The Surrealists stumbled upon a collection of masks that had ended up in an antique store in New York. Today, many of the masks remain in museums and private collections and in some cases, there is no response to the community's requests for their return.
Many of the masks' creators did not consider them art
While making So Surreal, I learned about the Yup'ik tradition of masked shamans.
"The masks were worn so that shamans can explain to the people what they saw on the other side," explained carver John McIntyre. "And they were able to use them also on our side, like a prayer to ask for abundance, to ask for help from the spirit world."
This tradition is similar to Cree spiritual practices although we don't use masks. Cree shamans or mideo used drums and a type of shelter called a shaking tent to commune with the supernatural.
The Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw in B.C. used masks during their potlatches, traditional ceremonies to mark events like marriages, births, deaths and the naming of children. After, these family treasures would be put away until the next potlatch.
But over the years, I've learned many of the creators of those beautiful masks, totem poles, chests and everyday objects did not consider them art. I've asked Indigenous artists if they have a word for art in their language. Many would pause and think and, with a surprised look, answer, "No, I guess we don't."
Perhaps it was a question that had never entered their minds. I don't know of a word for "art" or "artist" in the Cree language. Rather, the closest I have found defines it as to live creatively, to be creative, to create beauty — maahtawatsiiuun, maahtaauuiihtuu, maahtauusiiuu. This is how Cree shamans were often described.
In 1885, under the influence of the missionaries, the Canadian government banned Indigenous ceremonies and dances, so the Yup'ik and Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw could no longer freely use their masks — and the same went for our Cree drums and shaking tents. It followed a similar ban in the U.S. two years earlier. The missionaries told us we couldn't pass through the gates of paradise if we continued our customs.
Our ceremonies went underground. I was an infant when the last shaking tent ceremony took place in Waskaganish. Other ceremonies were held deep in the bush, away from the disapproving eyes of the church.
But what was forbidden then is slowly coming back. Young people are relearning what it means to be Cree.
My father, the carver
My father carved tools, and they were beautiful. Cree carvers would chant as they fashioned the tools they needed for survival. They believed this instilled in them the power and spirit of the Creator. I wouldn't have called them art, and still, people offered to buy — and sometimes stole — them.
We were sitting on the floor of our cabin after a hunt one evening, when my father asked if I wanted to see what he played with as a child. He picked up a thin length of kindling and, with a few deft movements of his knife, revealed a herd of highly stylized caribou. I was amazed.
In the dim light of our fire, my father's creation could have been on display in a Parisian gallery. This was surely Surrealism! But before I could do anything, he gathered his herd and cast it into the fire.
Inspired by spiritual beliefs
So much of art throughout history has been created to inspire awe and reverence in the followers of different religions. The same is true of Indigenous "artists," who were just as inspired by their spiritual beliefs as artists worlds away.
I can understand the desire, wonder and fascination that these masks and other objects ignited in so many people, including the Surrealists. Their work has both a literal and a spiritual connection to the masks they collected.
Shamans would see the masks in trances and in their dreams and then describe them to carvers and craftsmen to recreate. A renowned Cree shaman once told me that before he made a drum, carved a pair of snowshoes or built a sled, a tree would appear to him in a dream. It would tell him where it stood and that it had always been there waiting for him.
The Surrealists also used their dreams to realize their art. Some would reportedly communicate with the masks that hung in their homes as if they were living entities. One child of a Surrealist I spoke to remembered being afraid to be alone with the masks and their "grotesque" features. A Canadian collector and patron of northwest carvers told me he's had conversations with a mask in his living room.
The Indian agents and others who bought, confiscated and stole these objects saw their value. Maybe they felt the power that resided in them.
I can understand — and almost forgive — why others would want to steal them and refuse to return them to their rightful homes.
Watch So Surreal: Behind the Masks on CBC Gem and the CBC Docs YouTube channel.
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