Eukuan Nin Matshi-Manitu Innushkueu / I Am A Damn Savage And Tanite Nene Etutamin Nitassi? / What Have You Done To My Country? by Antane Kapesh

Abstract

Reviewed by: Eukuan Nin Matshi-Manitu Innushkueu / I Am A Damn Savage And Tanite Nene Etutamin Nitassi? / What Have You Done To My Country? by Antane Kapesh Valerie Henitiuk EUKUAN NIN MATSHI-MANITU INNUSHKUEU / I AM A DAMN SAVAGE and TANITE NENE ETUTAMIN NITASSI? / WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY COUNTRY?, by An Antane Kapesh. Translated from French by Sarah Henzi. Indigenous Studies. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020. 316 pp. $22.99 paperback. Astoundingly, foundational Innu writer An Antane Kapesh has never before appeared in English, and Sarah Henzi is thus to be commended for bringing her to a wider readership with the translations I Am a Damn Savage and What Have You Done to My Country? Originally published respectively in 1976 and 1979—bilingually in Innu-aimun and in French translations done collaboratively with the author by Innu linguist José Mailhot—these two classic texts contribute meaningfully to many of today's pressing issues such as Indigenous language revitalization, land protection, and anti-racism. Rather than a bilingual edition exactly, this is a dual language book, in that Henzi translated both works from French—source texts that appear nowhere in the volume. Instead her renditions are found alongside Kapesh's Innu-language originals (a language Henzi neither speaks nor reads). Relay or indirect translation can be a necessary crutch, especially with languages of lesser diffusion, a pragmatic choice without which the circulation of a text composed in an Indigenous language may remain limited. But it is a choice that must be made consciously, with real humility. [End Page 414] Where the challenges of working at one remove from an author's original conception are not fully grasped, there is a real risk of doing a disservice to readers, to literary history, as well as to the reputation of an Indigenous author.1 Henzi's approach here is for the most part quite sensitive. Unable to interview An Antane Kapesh (who died in 2004), Henzi did benefit from discussions with both Mailhot and Jérémie Ambroise, Innu Language Advisor with the Tshakapesh Institute (previously the Institut culturel et éducatif montagnais). Henzi takes steps to ensure the Indigenous perspective takes precedence over the "White voice" (p. 7); the original text comes before the English, and the facing pages' format keeps "the Innu language present throughout the reading," making it less likely that unilingual readers will simply ignore it (p. 292). Henzi's own commentary is provided at the back of the book rather than in a preface. The publication history of Kapesh's work is complex, revealing a range of motivations as well as impacts. The 1976 publication of Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu / Je suis une maudite sauvagesse (I Am a Damn Savage) signaled "the (re)beginnings of Indigenous writing in Quebec" and "radically changed literature and politics in Québec" (p. 278, back cover). Its appearance as an Innu-aimun/French bilingual publication was remarkable—such prominence was simply not accorded Indigenous languages in the 1970s. The initial appearance of Tanite nene etutamin nitassi? / Qu'as-tu fait de mon pays? (What Have You Done to My Country?) also involved both the original Innu-aimun and Mailhot's French renditions, albeit in separate volumes. In 1982, a French-only edition of Je suis une maudite sauvagesse was brought out in Paris; Kapesh and Mailhot also adapted it into a play (performed in Montreal in 1981). Both books have recently been brought back into public view; newly revised bilingual versions were published in 2015 by the Saguenay Native Friendship Centre (prompted by activist movements such as Idle No More), and Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu / Je suis une maudite sauvagesse again in 2019. One reason sometimes proposed for why an important text like Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu had remained so long out of print was negative response, although Henzi provides evidence that contemporary reviews had tended to be positive (for example, it was called "a true and hard book," p. 285). Importantly, despite its many brutally honest passages dealing with violence and overt racism, Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu was never censored (Henzi contrasts this with the treatment given Métis author Maria Campbell's 1973...