David Bouchard and Pam Aleekuk, with paintings by Leonard Paul, music by Buffy Sainte-Marie on audio CD in English and Mi’kmaq, and Mi’kmaq translation by Patsy Paul-Martin,
Long Powwow Nights
Red Deer Press, 2009.

Ages 9+

Long Powwow Nights is an ambitious book, a poetic elegy for a mother who danced at the Métis powwows until illness at age forty made it impossible for her to continue and led to her early death. The speaker of the poem is the woman’s child, and over the course of the book, the child grieves, recounts the dances of the powwows, and realizes that the mother’s spirit, “Iskewsis, sweet butterfly,” is still present and continues as the child’s guide in life.

To borrow from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is definitely the message in Long Powwow Nights. Leonard Paul’s superb paintings, printed full bleed, show in detail the dramatic black and white raven-like facial paint of the dancers as well as their full dance regalia and their exotic daily garb. We see the mother’s gentle face as well as her incarnation of the spirit she dances. David Bouchard and Pam Aleekuk tell the story in rhyming English stanzas with Mi’kmaq translation below. Every other page is a refrain:

“Meegwetch mystic dancers – dark Ravens you were…/ Tricksters – magicians – to most a mere blur/ To me you were everything I was to be/ Like my loving mother, I longed to be free.

“Iskewsis, sweet butterfly – you’re here in flight/ Your chin is still high; your eyes are still bright./ You lived all your dreams and you shined your own light/ Dancing your magic on long powwow nights.”

The central image in the book vividly conveys the spirit of the powwow. Along a black bottom border, Paul has created a line of silhouettes of the dancers. Taking up most of the double page above them is a close-up image of a face, feather headdress fanning out across the whole sky. The dancers are clearly conjuring the spirit of their people into being. On the enclosed CD, Buffy Sainte-Marie provides moving musical accompaniment to the spoken word, Bouchard reading the poem in English, and Aleekuk reading the Mi’kmaq.

Bouchard is the award-winning Métis author of The Drum Calls Softly and dozens of other best sellers. Both Aleekuk and Paul have been Governor General’s Award nominees. Musician and educator Sainte-Marie has devoted her life to the causes of Native peoples. Together these talented artists have created a stirring multi-media experience for readers young and old.

Charlotte Richardson
April 2010