Karen Whetung is Anishinaabe and mixed European ancestry and currently lives and works in Victoria, B.C., as an Indigenous Mentor and Storyteller in the local school districts. She believes that through sharing stories we can heal our communities, celebrate our diversity, and create a world where we all belong. She can be seen at the festival participating in the panel Writing for the Next Generation: The Importance of Indigenous Children’s Books.
Four Fallen Eagles is a picture book about belonging. When a storm plucks four eaglets from their nest to the forest floor, the displaced eaglets proceed on a journey across Turtle Island to rediscover where they belong. One by one, the eaglets encounter communities of creatures who claim them. The story is a powerful allegory. Each animal the eaglets encounter speaks to historical and ongoing aspects of oppression of Indigenous Peoples in North America.
Interviewed by Isabel Jones
Isabel Jones (IJ): Four Fallen Eagles can be read on many levels. At its simplest it’s a story about lost birds looking for a home. Can you talk about further meanings readers might discover in their journey?
Karen Whetung (KW): The story was a gift to the students I worked with in an Indigenous grad program. It was complex and they had made a choice to come there. However, we didn’t always have choices. There is power in choice and in knowing that we’re all heroes of our own narrative and we’re all supporting characters of someone else’s. So, at its simplest, the eagles’ story represents looking for the right fit, considering how something that came before us has impacted how we move through the world. When I was moving the story into written form, these messages were an allegory for my students.
When it came to the dark cloud in which the eagles’ story begins, I thought of how many times I’d heard on the news about the dark chapter of our history, and I decided to extend that metaphor. This dark cloud formed in our country’s capital, in this region, in my traditional territory. And it spread. And as the dark cloud spread, it changed and became its own thing and continued to do so right up until my time. That is not my story, but I have family members whose story was residential school or a foster home, or another country. I started with something that was very clear.
In the squirrels’ part of the story, we can think of residential schools which in a way were also a place of inviting. How do we go into an experience like that while pulling from the dark cloud? What was that like for people? I think about how they coped with ‘where are we, what do we do now?’ I loved the idea of describing the squirrels so viciously, how scary they could seem but then there’s some subversion. I didn’t want to write a story where there’s a good and bad choice. It was intentional to always leave an eagle in each culture they visited, but not to judge their choices. I’ve met people in different places in conversation about reconciliation and proximity to this. The first thing they say is, I met somebody, and they had a great experience, and I say, I’ve met people who have not, and since neither one of us have had the experience, maybe it’s not for us to talk about. People have had very tumultuous or varied experiences, and as we move along, we evaluate them over time. Who’s to say? Every single story is the right one. That was the right choice. So that’s where my story started. The succinct statement of wanting to belong can be hard, and walking away can be even harder. We want to belong, all of us humans. I believe we are more alike than we are different. That’s the paradox.
When the eagles move to the crows, I was thinking about how many people run away or get released and end up in urban centres and how they may find family and nationhood there. I’m an urban, Indigenous person, growing up outside of my territory. It took me a long time to figure out how to fit in. I grew up in the eighties with lighter skin, in a territory where most of the people are darker, so I was told a lot of my life what I was not. It was those who found likeness that helped me find my way. I think about when displaced people leave these urban centres, when we’re searching, a lot of us end up going to school and that’s where the ravens come in. Education doesn’t tell you who you are, it tells you what it knows. I always tell people, oh, you pay to learn—doesn’t matter what school you go to. If you go to the school of ‘hard knocks’, or you go to university, you’re paying tuition of some kind. Believe me, it will cost you. But how much do you value it? Indigenous academics write about this and say if you’re really looking for this element of culture, this belonging piece, you may find a lot of it in institutions, but it can’t only come from there as it’s colonially governed. Reality is what you must work with at any point in time for yourself.
IJ: One at a time, the eaglets choose to grow their lives within a new animal community even though they recognize they are not the same beings. They are bravely willing to accept a different culture and live with those differences. Are they staying because it’s a known rather than facing more unknowns? Do you think they will be successful at finding some form of belonging or do we sadly recognize they will always feel alien in that situation?
KW: When they stay behind, they think they’ll be successful at finding some sort of belonging. Or do they? I think I leave it open to the reader to decide. I like to leave parts where people may turn and say, “Why would you stay? Why would you go?” When we’re looking at who we are, not just as Indigenous people, but our gifts, our comfort—what feels right for us, we have the right to decide for ourselves. Somebody has a right to stay. They have a right to leave. That’s part of the respect or the human rights of choice, to ask those questions. The wise eagle says, “I can’t know who you are without hearing your story.” It’s important to think about what makes us different. What don’t I know? Why don’t I understand their choice? Versus, they made the wrong choice.
I have family members and know Indigenous community members who are Christians. Why would one want to reject one world or the other? I embrace it when people ask me ‘why’ questions. At times, I still feel alien. I still come into spaces where I’m like, oh, I use English differently, or I see this is not going to be forever. But every time we go into those spaces, we really hope it will be. I hope this is the last job I apply for. I hope this is the last home I ever own. I hope this is the best community. Let me go in that way. There is also a disheartening place where it’s not a complete fit. Or something might be a great fit but then we change over time, the situation changes and it doesn’t necessarily stay that way. That’s the same for the eaglets, right? Things change whether they had intended it or not. I didn’t want to be heavy because this is a children’s book and a family’s book, so I wanted to let the oral story telling allow that reader, that community member to have their own perception of choice. There is space in the book then for talking and for thinking.
IJ: The squirrel and crow see similarities between themselves and the eaglets and jump to the conclusion that they are alike and so can live the same way- suggesting assimilation. Only the raven says if you want to find out who you are you must keep seeking. The last eaglet finds his kind and stays to teach the ‘eagle way’. This seems to reflect the difficulties that people feel when trying to maintain their cultural identity in a multi-cultural world. How do people best develop their cultural identity in our complex world?
KW: I think when we’re thinking about our cultural identity with that eagle way, we need to think about the time in which we are living- for the last hundred years, say. For instance, Indigenous people only got the vote in the sixties, right? It’s a very complex thing for people to be their best. We have layers: I am a Canadian. I am a woman, I’m a mother. I’m an indigenous person. I’m a visitor. Our cultural identity is about coming back into ourselves. One of the things my dad would say is that the loss of language wasn’t about speaking in this physical world. It was about being able to call and be called by our ancestors. We became cut off from that world. Who do we want to see us deeply? And can they? My dad would say they need to recognize you. I promise you they’re not looking at your skin, and they’re not speaking English. I had to discover how will my grandmother recognize me? How will ten generations from now recognise me? How do we recognize each other? Our language does change, and our bodies do change, and our clothing changes. But there’s a thread that should feel like it’s there every single time. That’s the congruence we seek. In a complex world it needs to be inclusive. There is no one way. All those eagles engage in eagle culture. Because they are eagles. So, every single way, is the eagle way.
A lot of indigenous literature in the 1990’s and early 2000’s focussed on native people returning home, going to the reserve. And that’s the end of the story. It teaches the narrative that you just need to go back. A lot of us all around this world, not just indigenous people can’t go back. Or if we do, we’re still visitors. Is it going back? Because it’s not the same home. It didn’t stay the same. We still must find the place that feels right. That’s where I can identify with the final eagle. We get comfortable being visitors, and we’re okay with that. It’s informed by the freedom of impermanence, that things will keep changing. Storms do pass. And we will find our spirit in our way. For me, the eagle way was that place of asking questions. How do people best develop their cultural identity in our complex world? By asking questions, by remembering that we’re all human in a complex narrative.
IJ: The illustrations in Four Fallen Eagles are done in striking black and white with bold touches of orange. Did you have a voice in the design of the book and do the illustrations capture your vision of the story?
KW: When Teddy at Medicine Wheel Publishing first heard my story, he envisioned grey scale art with one additional colour. I thought, that looks interesting; I love it! I had seen Eden’s art, and I liked it so – sure. We did a table reading and the manuscript was broken up into spreads, so we kind of knew where we would be artistically. I read the lines, and we talked about what we saw and felt, and it was beautiful. I felt very comfortable right away. It took us almost half a year, I think, before we decided on the colour. We knew we needed one other colour, but at the first session we thought, let’s just leave it. It’s too big. It’s too early. We thought about different ways we could go with symbolism. With the black, white, and grey scale we realized it’s a bit cold so we couldn’t choose a colour that would make it any colder but nothing too bright, right? How do we warm the book? We didn’t want to be cliché by just using orange, because now that has its own meaning. We really thought about this, because I didn’t want to bite on something or take from something but connect to something. A friend suggested something gritty like a burnt orange, and I was like, oh, really! That moment! Yes! And Eden went with it and knew what to do, and so, when I saw it, I was over the moon.
IJ: Your picture book was inspired by students and communities you have worked with. While oral storytelling is responsive and resonates in a special way, it is wonderful to have your written story in hand so it can be shared with many. Can we expect more published stories from you?
KW: I hope so. Part of this story, and many others, is the resurgence of oral storytelling. It occurred to me in my mid-twenties that everybody is afraid to do it, that we are out of practice, but storytelling is such a natural process and we need to continue to story ourselves. We tell our historical story so that resurgence and reclamation and breathing our ancestors forward to now can happen. How do we restore ourselves? How do we make ourselves a whole generation? We can make a third space through metaphor where we’re safe to be heroes, safe to be victims, safe to be. I have many stories to tell and I’m working on a manuscript right now about a girl who comes to realize the power of her voice. Hopefully, they will be published.