Drew Hayden Taylor - Me Sexy

B UT I WANT to know more about your people, how they love and make love.

Her creamy white bosom rose and fell a little more quickly as she asked this daring question. Her eyes, lit by the campfire, could not or would not find his in the evening darkness.

You might not like what you find, he finally answered, his voice as hard as his body. It is a privilege we reserve for a select few. Are you strong enough for such a journey?

The flames danced off his naked torso as he fed more wood onto the fire. Part of her was afraid of the passion this aboriginal man aroused in her, but another part craved what he could teach her.

But she was no child. She was a woman. And he was a man. Her voice quavered as she answered.

Teach me.

And he did.

Compiled & Edited by
Drew Hayden Taylor

AN EXPLORATION
OF NATIVE SEX
AND SEXUALITY

Me Sexy

Douglas & McIntyre
VANCOUVER/TORONTO/BERKELEY

Introduction and this collection 2008 by Otter Communications Inc.
Individual essays 2008 by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Joseph Boyden, Nancy Cooper, Marissa Crazytrain, Drew Hayden Taylor, Tomson Highway, Daniel Heath Justice, Makka Kleist, Lee Maracle, Michelle McGeough, Gregory Scofield, Marius P. Tungilik and Norman Vorano
Works by Norval Morrisseau copyright Gabe Vadas
Works copyright Canadian Museum of Civilization

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V5T 4S7
www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-276-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-926685-73-1 (ebook)

Editing by Scott Steedman and Iva Cheung
Copy editing by Iva Cheung
Cover design by Peter Cocking
Cover illustration by Ryan Heshka
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

CONTENTS

JOSEPH BOYDEN

MAKKA KLEIST

(minus Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy)

DREW HAYDEN TAYLOR

TOMSON HIGHWAY

NANCY COOPER

MARIUS P. TUNGILIK

MICHELLE MCGEOUGH

DANIEL HEATH JUSTICE

KATERI AKIWENZIE-DAMM

Certain Indecencies
That Need Not Here Be Mentioned

NORMAN VORANO

MARISSA CRAZYTRAIN

GREGORY SCOFIELD

LEE MARACLE

W HEN I TOLD people I was thinking about putting together a book about the world of Native sexuality, the two comments I got back most often were: (1) That will be a short book and (2) Isnt that a contradiction in terms? Usually these comments were said with a knowing smile, but I knew there was a grain of social belief buried deep within. And I thought, If only they knew

Welcome to what could be called a textbook about some of the most private issues in Native culture. It has been said that how a people makes love or expresses love says more about who they are than all their political, social and economic writings. Once, when I was at a powwow, a vice-chief from the Assembly of First Nations approached me. He had read some of my essays and found them less than serious or effective. Have you ever thought about writing about something important, like self-government? he said.

At that time, in a precursor to this book, I had been working on an essay detailing the dominant cultures perception of Native sexuality. So, at this powwow, I went around and asked ten people which they would be more interested in reading or thought was more relevant to their lives: an essay on self-government or an essay on Native sexuality. I dont think I have to tell you which answer I got.

In 2006 I compiled and edited a book exploring and deconstructing the world of Aboriginal humour. It was called MeFunny. My original reason for tackling that subject was a wish to educate the dominant culture about the many varied and colourful (no pun intended) aspects of Aboriginal life. Society and its media machines have often painted us as being stoic, tragic, alcoholic and basically oppressed, depressed and suppressed. To a lesser extent, a lot of our own literature has done the same thing. If you believed what you read, we were a sad, sad people.

But experience had taught me that this was not the case, and other people across Canada needed to know it. So I decided that part of my journey in life would be to show the public how wonderfully developed, highly refined and downright hilarious our sense of humour really is. Thus the book Me Funny, which got an excellent response. The word was getting out.

After it came out, though, I started thinkinga potentially dangerous activity for an unemployed writer. I started to wonder what other misinformation or erroneous beliefs existed out there regarding the Aboriginal peoples of this country. Then it came to me. Romance. Passion. Sex. Erotica. Playing the snake-and-hollow-log game. All that fun stuff. Since that fabled age known as Time Immemorial, we, the First Nations people of this country, have all been intimately familiar with our delightful practices of passion, but for reasons unknown, members of the dominant culture have other perceptions about said topics. They have a different frame of reference. For instance, they think of the Latin lover, the French lover, the Italian lover, and so on. You never hear about the studly Salish lover or witness sly knowing glances when mentioning the Naskapi lover or shudder at breathless sighs brought on by the thought of an Ojibway lover. What a travesty, and not just for the Salish, the Naskapi and the Ojibway. The general public did not know what it was missing.

Most often, Canadians hear about Native sexuality in their media in a more negative context. Sexual abuse in residential schools. Native hookers being killed. AIDS rates reaching epidemic proportions in many First Nations communities. Et cetera. Although many of these stories are unfortunately true, they are only a minuscule portion of the stories out there that reflect the vast ocean of Aboriginal sexuality. There needed to be some reeducation. Someone needed to float a boat on that ocean. And on a more personal note, I felt a book on the topic could quite probably be just as much fun as, if not more fun than, Me Funny. Thus was born Me Sexy.

Start paddling.

Within these pages you will read about topics as varied as erotic Inuit theatre, how sensual and sexy the Cree language can be, what our art has to say about how we bump uglies and where we fit in amid todays complex sexual society. Its a potpourri of information in thirteen interesting essays. Think of it as a How to make love to a First Nations person without sexually appropriating them type of book. It will inform you. It will shock you. It may make you laugh. It may even make you blush.