Beyond Being Silenced: Gyaa Isdlaa

Charles Wilkinson

2022 / 23 minutes
Canada / Canada
English

Famous Haida artist Robert Davidson was born in Hydaburg, Alaska, at a time when the traditional law-giving social ceremony of the North Coast Native culture, the potlatch, had been outlawed by governments anxious to prevent Indigenous inhabitants from asserting title to their ancestral lands. Years later, the ban was lifted, but irrevocable damage had been done to younger generations of Haida and their connection to their heritage. Then, in 1969, a young Davidson carved a totem pole for the village of Masset in Haida Gwaii, BC, sparking a rebirth of coastal Indigenous culture. Fifty years later, Davidson became aware that a number of the clans from his birth home in Alaska had lost their tribal crests — totems which are a fundamental part of a clan's identity. He decided to recreate these crests with other Indigenous artists and gift them to his brother clans at a special potlatch celebration organized by the Davidson family. Beyond Being Silenced: Gyaa Isdlaa offers viewers an immersive look at that potlatch, a jubilant gathering that finds the members of many Haida clans celebrating the revitalization of their cultural traditions and affirming the clans' social cohesion and responsibilities as caretakers of the land.