Wapna’kik: The People of the Dawn

The Mi’kmaw people have lived on the eastern coasts of Canada from New Brunswick to Newfoundland since time immemorial, fishing, hunting and gathering on some of the richest land in North America. However, a long legacy of cultural suppression and violence by the Canadian government has meant that the Mi’kmaw language, dialects and music have been in a state of serious decline and are now endangered. With the reissue of a seminal 1995 album, Wapna’kik, of Cape Breton Mi’kmaw songs by the group Sons of Membertou, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is putting some of the powerfully beautiful traditional songs of the Mi’kmaw back into circulation. Folkways is partnering with the current members of Sons of Membertou and the Centre for Sound Communities at Cape Breton University to reissue the album, albeit with three tracks removed and two new ones added. In the 90s, the album helped spark a cultural resurgence that we’re still seeing today, most notably from acclaimed young Cape Breton Mi’kmaw singer, songwriter and fiddler Morgan Toney who grew up with the original CD and sings a number of these songs on his albums. Toney’s the great hope now for Mi’kmaw music, as he’s able to unite the three strands of Mi’kmaw music that have historically been kept pretty separate: Cape Breton Mi’kmaw fiddle, traditional songs and pow wow-influenced songs.

For the Mi’kmaw in Cape Breton, as in every other cultural group on the island, the fiddle usually takes centre stage, and especially the Scottish-influenced fiddling that Scottish Highlanders brought to the island in great numbers. Lee Cremo for decades was one of the most recognised Cape Breton Mi’kmaw musicians, and he played pitch-perfect Scottish fiddle tunes with only the lightest influences from Native American music traditions. The fiddle is barely present on the Sons of Membertou recording, marking a major shift in how Canadians, and the rest of the world, saw Mi’kmaw music. Instead, songs take centre stage, most of them traditional in nature and some dating back centuries, like the lively and beloved ‘Ko’jua (Partridge Dance)’. The pan-North American traditions of pow wow drum and singing are also clearly a big influence on Mi’kmaw music both today in the songs of artists like Stoney Bear Singers and in this album, specifically on ‘Kepmite’tmnej (Mi’kmaq Honour Song)’. Not every influence is welcome, however. Strangely out-of-sync interludes of piano/keyboard and flute keep popping up, and one of the new tracks, ‘500 Years’, is a sung poem that feels a bit clunky. Still, the power of the traditional songs, sung in the Mi’kmaw language, is immutable, and the melodies are spirited and memorable. These songs deserve to live on for many more generations.