First, there are few minutes of stillness on the Okanagan landscape — with nothing but the sounds of crickets and bird chirps filling the air.

Then, the singing of Aimee Baptiste slowly rises from the distance, her voice seamlessly blending with the chorus of the land’s natural melodies.

With the help of Francis Baptiste, her rendition of Charles Kruger’s “Eagle Song” is what opens a new 15-minute immersive film called Whispers of the Trickster at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos (sw?iw?s).

Honouring elements of the syilx Nation’s oral stories (captík??), people and history, the film uses computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation to tell an original story that reflects on a time where humans lived in harmony with the land and with their animal relatives — and how all that began to change following settler colonialism.

In the film, three Animal People — coyote (snk?lip), black bear (skmxist) and golden eagle (mlqnups) — gather out on the land, where they talk amongst themselves about the changes they’ve observed over time. Throughout the film, they even address the audience, calling upon all humans living in syilx territory to do their part in taking care of all living things (tmix?) and the land (tmx?ulax?).

Whispers of the Trickster was unveiled to the public on Aug. 20, while a special screening and ceremony with the community was held two days prior. cnúk Jenna Bower of Osoyoos Indian Band, who is the executive director of the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, explained the idea behind the film.

“We wanted to talk about the impacts of colonialism,” said Bower.

“Just reflecting on, ‘How can I help other people?’ And how can I help the land, take care of it and advocate for it?”

With deep consultation with community members — from syilx Elders, to nsyilxcn language speakers, knowledge keepers, elected leaders and the centre’s board members — Bower wrote the film’s script with q???q??cw?íya? Taylor Baptiste-Sparrow, an artist from the Osoyoos Indian Band who’s the cultural coordinator at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre.

The film is displayed across a long, nine-foot tall screen that is curved to nearly 360 degrees, inviting viewers to let their eyes wander across the panned landscape.

The animation in the theatre’s ground is just as lively as it is on screen, thanks to the theatre’s motion sensors. Animated rain-drops pelt the floor and create ripples, while rattlesnakes slither through feet below, depending on where a viewer steps. At one point in the film, the sensors track the viewer and add a glowing effect around them.

Plans for the film began one year ago, after receiving a grant from the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association. Whispers of the Trickster replaces a previous film that had been screened at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre for nearly 20 years, which explored the captík?? of snk?lip breaking a dam to bring salmon to the people.

Bower said that challenge was creating a story where people felt impacted and called to make a difference in the fight against pollution and climate change.

At the same time, she said it was important to not cast any blame on anyone in particular for the harmful role that colonialism has had on desecrating the environment and fuelling climate change.

“A big thing that we’re facing is global warming and pollution. Everyone is saying we’re in a state of emergency, but no one is doing anything about it. All we’re doing is talking about it,” said Bower.

“I just hope that people will actually connect with it, and realize they can actually do something themselves that will help. Just to look within themselves — what’s something I can do today?”

‘There’s something different about you’

In the film, as nightfall ushers in, Aimee Baptiste’s singing sets with the sun. Soon enough, snk?lip emerges on screen from the darkness, accompanied by the sound of drumming.

Standing atop a rock, nearly camouflaged in the night and surrounding bush, snk?lip addresses the viewer — who appears to be no stranger to him.

“way? (Hello)! It’s about time you got here. You remember me? snk?lip!” he says to the audience. “I know you. But there’s something different about you. I’ll call the others.”

After howling for his friends, snk?lip — voiced by syilx artist and fluent nsyilxcn speaker Q?yq??ayáx?n (Levi Bent) — is joined by mlqnups and skmxist, who are voiced by fellow syilx Nation members Aimee Baptiste and knowledge keeper Herman Edward.

Edward played a crucial role in shaping the script, where he shared different captik?l with Bower and Baptiste-Sparrow across various consulting sessions.

“In more meetings with him, we’d read the new version [of the script] to him and he’d share a couple more captík??. We’d sit with it, do a couple more things, come back, do it again. That was really great,” said Bower.

“Bringing it to other Elders, too. Trying to get their take on it, making sure we’re doing it in a good way.”

After snk?lip calls for mlqnups and skmxist, the three animals — now all surrounded by a glowing aura — gather and reflect on the varying relations that different humans, past and present, have had on the tmix? and the tmx?ulax?.

“The same glow that’s around the animals — throughout the film, if you look around your feet, there’s a sensor in the room, so it’ll put that glow around your feet on the floor,” said Baptiste-Sparrow.

That glow, Bower said, is to represent the power that syilx people have, particularly in their ability to communicate with the Animal People.

“We believe that they walked and talked just like we do,” said Bower.

“Eventually, they became what they are, and then now we are what we are. There’s not that connection … So now, we’ve transported into a time of when we did communicate with the Animal People like that.”

In one of the syilx Nation’s captík??, “How Food Was Given,” skmxist — the Chief of the four-legged Animal People — declared that the lives of the four-leggeds would be laid down as food for the people-to-be — the people-to-be being humans.

“What do they want now?” skmxist asks in the film, referring to the humans.

mlqnups urges skmxist to give the people another chance. In his response, he points to a dried up river.

“I remember when it ran red with salmon. And then they straightened and dammed the river. Taking the water, as if it would never run out,” says skmxist, with a river full of salmon now flowing through the theatre room and into the screen.

“Why do they continue to take more than they need? Leaving us with nothing?”

mlqnups, agreeing with skmxist, said that the tmix? have not been respected like they were in the past — before colonialism — when the only humans found to be roaming the land were sqilx’w (Indigenous).

“They were guided by their captik?l to live in balance with us,” says mlqnups.

skmxist then points out that he doesn’t hear prayers or feel ceremonies anymore.

“Where are they now? They have forgotten our ways,” he says.

But mlqnups reminded skmxist that there are still people who understand captik?l, respect the tmix?, and continue to honour songs and ceremonies.

“They are still here. Open your heart and you’ll hear them, too,” says mlqnups.

But skmxist says he can’t — “so much has happened on this land since then.”

“Polluting our waters, poisoning the people with drugs and alcohol. Stripping our culture, stripping our language. Stolen land! Stolen children!” he says, his voice rising in anger.

Suddenly, a dark cloud with fiery eyes appears, spreading flames across the land and smoke around the room, blanketing the ground with darkness below the audience’s feet.

Initially, skmxist and mlqnups believe that the dark cloud is snk?lip’s doing. But snk?lip explains that the figure is actually n?alna?sqilx?tn — a people-eating-monster found in different captík??.

“They have been feeding on the minds and bodies of our people, since the world began,” snk?lip says.

“I’ve seen them in many forms. But this one is different. I first discovered this one sometime around — hmmm — 1492.”

The year 1492 is recorded as the time that Christopher Columbus stumbled upon “the Americas,” marking the beginning of colonial rule imposed upon hundreds of Indigenous nations.

While consulting with Edward on the film, Bower said that n?alna?sqilx?tn was brought up quite often.

“It’s today we’re living in n?alna?sqilx?tn — the pollution, drugs, alcohol, the fires happening everywhere, climate change,” said Bower. “All of that is n?alna?sqilx?tn, currently.”

Bower said that in one captík??, when snk?lip was preparing the world for the people-to-be, he was transforming different forms of n?alna?sqilx?tn into various entities that are known as companions today — one of them being snk?ca?sqax?a? (horse), an integral animal in syilx culture.

“We’re horse people and we’ve always had horses, whereas people say that horses were actually introduced here,” said Bower. “We’ve always stood by the fact that we have captík?? that say it.”

She pointed to the Western archaeology’s finding of the equus giganteus – or giant horse – which was a species of horse found in “North America” that went extinct around 10,000 years ago. This type of horse was more than six feet tall, and weighed up to 3,000 pounds.

“Our captík?? has literally described this horse, then it transformed into what we have today. That’s what our captík?? says,” said Bower.

The giant horse is just one example of n?alna?sqilx?tn taking form.

“Anything that eats away at your mind, body, spirit, heart can be n?alna?sqilx?tn,” Baptiste-Sparrow added.

‘We are not separate’

In Whispers of The Trickster, snk?lip explains that n?alna?sqilx?tn is no simple monster that can be easily defeated.

“If we can’t defeat it with force, maybe, we can transform it by changing our actions,” mlqnups said.

But skmxist reminds mlqnups that the Animal People had already sacrificed and given so much of themselves for the people-to-be.

“In return, they promised to protect us, the tmix?,” he says.

mlqnups then asks if “the newcomers will make that same promise.”

“They better! There’s not much time,” says snk?lip.

“Will you look within your spu?ús, your heart, and think of the heartbeat of the land? We are not separate.”

mlqnups builds on this train of thought, saying that “to care for the land, you must take better care of yourself — your mind, your body, your spirit and your heart.”

She then acknowledges that syilx people are still doing ceremony, conservation and restoration of the tmx?ulax?, “but they can’t do it alone.”

skmxist expresses fear that the land cannot survive at the pace of human impact on it, with mlqnups saying that each of us has a job to do in protecting the land.

The audience is asked if they will stand with the animal-people and those fighting for the betterment of the land.

“púti? k?u alá? — we are still here,” the three Animal People say.

“ni??ayp kus ala?x — and we have always been here,” says mlqnups.

Honouring the ancestors

From the inclusion of siya bushes to ponderosa pine trees, attention to detail was crucial for Bower and Baptiste-Sparrow. Not only did they write the script and screenplay, but they were co-producers in making sure that the film was authentic to syilx culture and territory.

Collaborating with Panther Creative, IX Labs and their partners, they worked closely with the animation team, directing them on painstaking details such as how the grass should move; the depiction of pinecones; when the animals should glow; and how the land’s particles should flow.

“Every little detail. Every little particle,” said Bower.

Baptiste-Sparrow had also contributed to the design of the film’s Animal People. She informed the animation team about specific characteristics, including skmxist’s proportion and the colour of his fur; snk?lip’s slenderness and mlqnups’s beak.

She envisioned the Animal People to resemble their designs in drawings by Thi-tha-Kay Johnnie Stelkia, which were made sometime around the 1930s and 1940s, when he was at the Inkameep Day School.

In those drawings, four-legged Animal People dance and walk bipedally — just as humans do —and are adorned in buckskin and different regalia.

To pay homage to these designs in the film, Baptiste-Sparrow created a medicine pouch for snk?lip to wear; fringe cuffs above mlqnups’s claws and legs; and a necklace for skmxist.

At the end of the film, Stelkia’s drawings are blown-up to life-size figures on screen. The animated Animal People are joined by Stelkia’s life-size drawings.

“We hold so much value and big feelings around our relationship with the Animal People. To see them life-size, in relation to us, and having them surround you — that’s the most powerful moment for me in the film,” said Baptiste-Sparrow.

“They were drawn by our ancestors. They carry our stories and they tell who we are as syilx, sqilx’w people.”

Viewers are invited to step on sensors on the ground, and once they do, it unlocks various information panels on screen.

The panels highlight different historical and contemporary aspects of the syilx Nation. This includes syilx people’s documentation of their way of life and culture through artwork, oral tradition, pictographs and Inkameep Day School drawings.

There’s a panel dedicated to nsyilxcn, a language that “lives in the land — etched in mountains, sung by the waters, carried by animals and whispered by the wind through plants.”

The work around bringing salmon back to waterways across syilx homelands is also honoured, as well as the syilx Nation’s deep relationship with snk?ca?sqax?a?.

“It talks about modern day, current, past and future of our community. Where we came from, where we are and where we’re going to go,” said Bower.

During the film’s opening ceremony with the community on Aug. 18, they also celebrated the return home of a painting by Baptiste-Sparrow’s late grandfather, sis-hu-lk Francis Jim Baptiste.

The painting, made sometime between 1938 to 1942, was repatriated to the community just days before Whispers of The Trickster was screened. It was placed in a frame, surrounded by juniper branches that Baptiste-Sparrow and her brother had harvested near their grandfather’s old studio.

At the screening, Baptiste-Sparrow’s father, along with seven of his siblings, were reunited with their dad’s painting on stage at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre.

“It’s just like welcoming part of him back home,” said Baptiste-Sparrow.

A former student of the Inkameep Day School, sis-hu-lk also attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Much of sis-hu-lk’s work can be found at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre.

The Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre’s archive repository is a class A, meaning that “belongings from all over the world can make their way back home here,” said Bower.

Whispers of the Trickster will be on display indefinitely, and its installation marks the beginning of the museum’s phase four expansion. In the near future, the hope is to have the centre’s gallery space grow, and a new exhibit hall developed as well.

— This article was originally published by IndigiNews