ÊTRE KANAK _ Comment préserver une culture ancestrale _ ⎮Nouvelle Calédonie ⎮ Documentaire - TM

New Caledonia Here I go for New Caledonia, at 16,758 km from France, at the other end of the globe, between Australia and New Zealand, at the heart of Oceania, a French land for 160 years. No territory, no overseas department, New Caledonia is something else. It is sui generis, which means, in Latin, of its own kind. From 2014, its inhabitants will choose what independence they want for their country. This archipelago, made up of a large land of 400 km long, is surrounded by islands. The most important are Uvea, Lifu and Maré. On the place of the Numea cockatiels, I cross everything that New Caledonia offers as a population. Descendants of Banyar, Metropolitans, Asians, Walisians, Futunians, but first and foremost, the Kanaks. After a 5-hour drive from Numea, we find Yengen and its famous hen coop in black limestone. In this region, the inhabitants are mostly Kanaks. Since the 19th century and the arrival of the first settlers, and until the 1980s, this northern commune has been called In Fuani language, Yengen means crying while walking. For the Kanaks, Yengen is also the land of a figure, of a former priest who became a politician, Jean-Marie Chibaou, president of the FLNKS, assassinated in 1989 on the island of Uvea. 23 years after his death, Chibaou remains a reference. At every meeting, his name and his words will be mentioned as those of a spiritual guide. We are at the cultural center of Yengen, created 30 years ago by Jean-Marie Chibaou so that the Kanaks reveal themselves to themselves and finally become aware of their own heritage. Edou, a famous singer but also current director of the center, guides us on this journey to try to define what is the Kanak culture, complex, multiple, oral and often impalpable. Kanak of the island of Ifu, Edou is not from the mainland, he does not speak the language. He arrived here with the mission to continue to gather the two chiefs of the region so that the heritage and the collective memory of a people continues to live. He therefore inherits a moral responsibility towards his elders. It is from Jean-Marie Chibaou that there was this awakening that we realized that we really have a richness through our culture and that we really needed to demonstrate it, to have a house to be able to express all our culture. In the turbulent times of the 80s, the center had been built as a cultural but also political tool. When I arrive in Yengen, it is closed. It will reopen larger and more modern. What I discover here is that behind each tribe of the region there is a cultural center, as if each gesture and each word were a home of the Kanak culture. Edou told me to come to attend a general assembly of the center, not to listen to the results of the past year, but to come and see all the men of the tribe of the region who gather there. There will be tribe leaders, speeches, we will eat deer hunted in the morning, and vegetables from the country. I also discover for the first time what the Kanaks do when they meet. They make a custom. To make the custom is to make a social act, it is to make a gesture and a gift that shows one's respect for the other, where speech and listening take on a sacred dimension. We then give a piece of fabric, a little tobacco, a bank note, a yin-yang. We also give a speech. In exchange, we receive a fabric and welcoming words. Here, a tribe receives on its land the other tribes of the commune. There are therefore guests and hosts, but we also speak several different languages, despite the few kilometers that separate the tribes from each other. We apologize. We will ask you to come out so that we can all sit here to speak with the chief to ask permission to sit here. The men on the seashore speak the Fwain, the men on the mountain speak the Nemu. Then, in his speech, Joseph will mix the two languages to symbolize unity. How are you? Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. I would like to ask you a question. I am from Kamo. I was born in the valley and I was raised here. I was born in Katoot. I was born in Kamo. In Katoot, my father was a Samaritan. He was 86 years old. He was a Samaritan, but he was born in Katoot. He was from Katoot. So, where do you live? You were born in Katoot. I have a daughter and her husband lives in Lake Wadahau. So, where do you live? In Katoot. Where do you live? On the other hand, this is taro. There is taro, yam, mountain taro, manioc, sweet potato. Sweet potato, yes. Yes, that's the sweet potato. That's the sweet potato. Everyone brings what they can. This human chain represents the relationships between men, in exchange for words and food. Everyone is a link. Edou told me that often the tribes on the seaside bring fish, and the tribes on the mountains bring meat. Here, the land provides everything, and could almost allow people to live outside of the monetary system. We have land. Indeed, we have land, where we can easily build a house, go fishing, and go to the fields. We can easily cultivate to live. If there had not been globalization, the problem of globalization would have been to catch us at home, to govern us, even here, where you have your fish. The fish is here, you can catch it, but no, you will catch the box of sardines, which is in a box, while the fish is just there. It's the same as planting, it's just behind. You can catch yams or manioc to eat, but it's the rice that attracts you. So why all these questions? 50 kilometers from the seaside, in the mountain range, we find one of the most isolated tribes in the town of Yengen. It's Wayaget. The modern world has come this far with the installation of solar panels and mobile phone relays. Thanks to this, the tribe can live autonomously, being less cut off from the world. Only bad roads continue to make the exchanges complicated for the 250 inhabitants. IN THE WEST OF THE CENTRE Jacqui, the driver of the cultural centre, belongs to this tribe. He said he would take me to meet someone. I met him in France, I filmed him there. We have to go far away to find a good place to live. We don't live from the fishing. We do it for work. But fishing is just for consumption on Sundays. We are all in the community. On Saturdays, we go fishing. It's just for personal consumption. We go to the tribe. If we want money, we go far away. We go to Nouméa to look for work, to pay the toll. Otherwise, if we stay here, we stay like this. We go to small markets. Small markets where you can earn 2,000 or 1,500 francs. It's just for the needs. So you don't need a lot of money? Yes. We have everything. We have banana trees. It's cool. It's a bit dirty here. This is maillot. Maillot. It's just like that. This is not the season. We don't grow it. There is a tunnel that will grow. They hit us. We never tried it. But now you have grown it. This is maillot. This is igneous. Igneous, we know it well. Igneous, we don't dig before. After May 10th. After May 10th, we can dig. Yes, we can dig. The chiefs of Clon have already bathed the first seeds. Because the tuber that will grow is the tuber of the year. The first tuber. We just bathe it. Then we give it green. Everyone digs. There are six varieties. There are many. With a field like this, you can eat for your personal consumption for a year? Yes. For a year. And without counting the customs. Customs, there is always igneous in it. And everyone has a field of igneous here? Yes, everyone has a field of igneous. It's not mandatory for us. It's a matter of now. There are people who have left a little igneous. It's for us, the black people. It's a bit like that. If you leave a little igneous, you don't have anything. You don't have value. But when I arrive in the city, I always see people running to catch this and that. But ****. That's why I said, maybe it's better. And as I stay, I see the result. It's free. Everything. If you start to stay in the city, you have forgotten the real life. The real life is the tribe. It's to always keep this link to the land. If you start to stay for a month, two months, you lose the tradition. That's it. The bricks, did you make them? Yes, that's us. We have to look for how to go to Prédimier or to Yengen. It's a bit too far for us. We have to look for it. We have to make expenses, but we don't have any income. We have to find a way to find our material right there. For the construction of prisons. So they don't have to go to our mothers. They have to stay in their own houses. They made them. If we name one, we'll fix it. Maybe it's from the base, from their tribe. The big brothers or the totem. They can try to do it. That's the price. Who taught you to make a cell? How do you know how to build it? It's from father to son. Generation to generation. Symbol of the Kanak culture, the cell has nothing folkloric. Each family has its cell to sleep in, and each chief has its big cell to get together. A cell, apart from its function of being a place of residence, is also symbolically a representation of society. Society is based on a common trunk, which is the word that unites, which is the president of an entire assembly. We'll always start with the central point. The central trunk is placed before the others. All around that, we'll find the trunks. The distance between the trunks and the central trunk is invariable. My position as an individual in a society and the central trunk representing authority is invariable between me and my neighbor. There is no hierarchy. Each trunk is linked to the others by a piece of wood, which are themselves consolidated by the link, because the link is the word. These links give meaning, because meaning is found in the way we make the knot. The first level of the link, of the relationship linking the individuals to each other, goes around completely. Concerning this trunk, there is a first level, a second level, and a third level. In a society, there are levels of discussion, because it's always the word with the link. It's always the word. These are levels of discussion from the individual, which will always evolve from the bottom to the top. At the top of the trunk, there is this bundle of link that we see above, at the top of which the fetish arrow visible from the outside The fetish arrow is not the result of the central pole. It's an added piece, because it's the leader, and it's a local democracy, because the leader is there, but he can be replaced by someone else. A leader is never an element to himself alone. He is also the fruit of a work carried out by the whole society. To build a box is to remember how the whole Canaanite society is constituted. To democracy! In each tribe, the sculptures are the emblems of the big box of the chiefdom. The fetish arrow, the sculpted poles, the chambrands are the only material witnesses of a past culture, contrary to the immateriality of what is transmitted orally and customarily. They belong to the community of ancestral spirits. The nose has a very fragrant meaning. In the conception of the life of death, the Canaanites do not die. It's just a passage to another place, and we come back. This nose is very imposing, it is to say that he is there, because this spirit of man, when he is no longer alive, we break his nose. We break his nose. It is not reincarnation. We simply come back through this baby who is reborn, who becomes man again. But it is true that all these skills that he has acquired in his consciousness, they remain in his consciousness. I still remember my parents when I made mistakes. My mother said, but what was he before? What was he before this one? Why was he dead? What was he before? How was he before this one? In our conception, we were a man at the beginning who went to live in an invisible world and who comes back again. We are very young, and we ask ourselves, why did he say what I was before? I just started my life. Christian religion has managed to establish itself in the Canaanite culture. The religious message has been compatible with a mystical culture. I was surprised. A man told me that this alliance was natural. This is called inculturation, a process of adaptation of the Christian religion that conforms to the practices of the people it converts. Some practices are perfectly assimilated, others are more difficult. When the missionaries arrived in Caledonia, some of the objects were distributed to the missionaries in France, but their speech was to say, it's over. Now you have a new religion, you have this new belief. All the old beliefs are pretty bad. You have to reject all of this. You have to stop, banish all of this. Some of the sacred objects that belong to everyday life, all those that belong to these objects, they hid them. A year later, they gave them away. For us, it's no longer beautiful. It was the spirit of that time, but a bit by the Catholic missionaries. Maybe the Protestants too, but like us, we are Catholic. So we had this language, it's the devil. You can't keep that. It's the devil's objects. The missionaries arrived with the Gospel, and here in Danone, the Gospel arrived in 1901. So they distributed the Catholicism and we were given the Protestantism. The old people here were only 2 or 3, but they were called to come and do the work. So from there, the cultures arrived, but the basis of the tribe is the Gospel. We preach the word, we open the word, we read, we explain, we follow, with the faith we have. We try to share our knowledge, to tell the children to do what needs to be done, and they manage to catch up with those up there. What we must not forget is that we are Kana, we have our culture to preserve, to consolidate. We must at all costs make sure that the next generation doesn't forget that we have our culture, our way of doing things, our customs, we respect the elders, we respect our elders, we must respect them. You must meet the old Salomon, says Edou. Only Joseph will help you to speak to him. I don't speak his language. I don't know him. Salomon is an old man, a respected man. Within his tribe, he has a very precise function, to sing the hayai, the traditional Kanaque song. When the elders sing this song, it is really during special events, events related to life, on the occasion of a custom, a marriage, a birth, a mourning. This song is like speaking, it is telling what we have seen or what we know, in the way of a tale or even a newspaper. Tales are the beginning of speech, they are used to explain, they help to better understand the community. There are two kinds of songs, a warrior song, the mountain song, and the hayai. For the hayai, it is a man who tells what he has seen, he tells it like a journalist would. For example, if you see someone do something wrong, you memorize it to be able to tell it later. There is only one who knows, who has recorded everything, like with a camera, like a journalist. At the time of the celebration, when everyone is gathered, the one who serves counts everything in his field. Today, the transmission is difficult because the world has evolved. So the hayai begins to disappear. To accept to take it, young people almost ask to be paid. But still, they find it beautiful. In the past, it was easy. In the evening, the old people tell stories, legends. So the old people who have the hayai in the evening, they sit with their son and he shows them inside the house how to sing. These are exercises, it is learning in this way. But today, it's a bit difficult because most of the time, our children are not with us because of today's school. They don't stay with us so much at home. Most of the time, the children with whom we learn things, that is, from a certain age, are outside the house. That is, they are in the internment. It's rare that they come. They just come on weekends because life has changed so much. The old man becomes old when he doesn't do it anymore. The old man doesn't go up on the box to put the straw. As long as you can put the straw on the box, it's your place. While you're still at work, you can't be considered an old man. And the old man really has his place. The old man has nothing to say. He holds all the know-how. He is in a very specific place. His job is to talk, to give the words. Often, when young people get the first recipe, they come and cook. They come in the morning to hear the words. It's a bit of an exchange. I give a little piece, the best part of the recipe, I give it to the old man and the old man gives me words. It's all an exchange. But the old man can no longer look for the recipe. The old man no longer goes to look for the recipe. He just has the words to give. It's the place of wisdom. Each generation has its own working time. When you're young, your job is to listen. You're the ear. You're not the mouth. You're not the eyes. You just have to listen. You do what you have to do. At some point, you start to be the eyes. You look. Then you become the mouth. You start to say, do this, do that. The mouth is the last thing. As soon as the mouth starts to speak, it means that the hands and the feet can no longer move. Then you arrive in the frame of the elders. Today, there's TV. There's TV, there's recording, there's the Internet. So you manage to bank all the know-how. You don't need the old man to give you advice. You press on the Wikipedia and you get the answer to your questions. Often, young people become the ears. They take the place of the mouth when they're there to look, to listen. Each generation has to stay in its place. Now, it's about respecting my view, respecting our view. Here, I'm talking about my generation. Obeying, respecting, listening. There's no more of that. Obeying, respecting, listening. There's no more of that. Obeying, respecting, There's no more of that. Obeying, respecting, It's about the future of our creator. This is a pastor. This is my grandfather. He was a pastor. He speaks of the future of Jesus, the name of Jesus. He's our creator. In Yengen, twice a week, there's a small market. It's the rallying point of all the communities to buy what the community doesn't provide. We go to the doctor, to the town hall, to the pharmacy. We come together before going back to work. I brought fish and he gave me wild pigs. As usual, it's a trade. It's a trade between the plateau and the valley. We came to see the market, but there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people. My father isn't here. I'm happy. Be careful. I've never cut. We don't say never. Maybe one day I'll cut myself. I'm not just a coin maker. I'm a mother and I work in the field. I have my field. Here we have a coin in the shape of a rosette. All these scissors have been cut and I've put them on. Each coin has its own function. To announce bad news or good news. To reserve the hand of a girl. To make a vow. Each coin has its own function. Everything on the coin is symbolic. It symbolizes something. Here, this braid represents man. These plants are pine, pine and ignam, which represent man. Here, the bones are separated by wool. These are pines, like in summer, fall, and winter. We have pines. At home, we have time to make fields and roofing, to go fishing. During this time, This boy grew up and matured. One day he grew up and became strong. He built a house, which is represented here by this braid. I braided the coconut fibers to represent the house with the two rooms at the entrance. One day he grew up and matured well. He found a woman who was represented here by a seed. The seed is the woman and her plants are the taro and the coconut tree. These are the two plants of the woman. Then they had children. They lived together in the house, which is the traditional house. They had children, small children, great-grandchildren. Here it is only the generation, the generations after. Then I close it with a braid to say that I stop my work. It's my work, it's not the story, I stop the work. With the thread with which I put all this, it's the thread of life. In this country, there are so many languages, even though we are so small. I think that Monica Nat also, at some point, she was the means of communication through all these barriers of language. The seed is really through these exchanges and these blends that are woven. It is this seed that symbolizes the whole relational part of the individual, the conception. Creation is on the seed. As soon as it is born, it is on the seed. As soon as it is married, it is on the seed. And as soon as it dies, it is on the seed. The whole conception of being until its end, it is the seed. In our country, our bond is symbolized by the seed. Because we are like that, we are all bound. We are all bound. Even if it is a person in a coma, we will always find the way to get to him. And the way, sometimes we say it is the way of blood. It is the way of mountains. It is the way of exchanges. And it is always the woman who makes these paths. In our country, it is always the woman who makes the bonds. Because a woman will be sent there, but one day, the family there will always send a boy to us to say that he will replace the mother in our country. So that the currency circulates between these two clans. When the currency no longer circulates in it, we say that the road is closed. And now there are a lot of closed roads, there are a lot of trafficked roads, maybe because of the bulldozer. Here I am in Nouméa, the largest French-speaking city in the ocean. Here I feel like in a European city, which mixes all its ethnicities. Traveling Nouméa-la-Blanche, as the independence activists said in the 80s, I feel like I have changed country. Yengen and the northern province are far away. Here I find cruise ships, luxury hotels, and bottled avenues. The presence of the Kanak culture seems to have been completely absorbed by the city. In the center, on a parking lot in the city, I happen to discover a kind of tribe. A few dozen Kanaks from all regions have settled here. They are here to remind vigorously that Nouméa is still a Kanak land. In this city, we only see concrete. Why not restore the Kanak culture to the center of the city? That's what we want. To put a tribe in the city to make the Kanak culture, the Kanak identity, be discovered. The system ends up destroying the cultures little by little. So we raise our culture to preserve our culture. And to teach our children the history of the country. And when we talk to a child, do you know your history? No, I don't know my history. But I know the history of France. I know the history of Marie Antoinette. I know the history of Louis XVI. And it's a shame to hear that when a Kanak child doesn't know his own history. But that's how the police did it. And now we're trying to catch up with all this time. So now we're rebelling. A rebellion against non-violence. Because our rebellion is non-violent. This illegal settlement has ended up making them unpopular, both on the side of the Kanaks and the political authorities. Despite everything, the question they raise remains the basis of the problem to which every traditional culture is confronted. In Nouméa, the Kanaks find themselves facing the modernity of the city, which captures and appropriates all the fashions and all the trends like any capital in the world. However, this young Kanak, far from the tribes, seeks and finds a new identity. It is only in Nouméa that I discover another face of the Dous, that of a popular singer who plays popular music, the Kaneka. Originally, it's a mix of traditional rhythm, rock and reggae based on identity values. The mongolian, the Gokotian, all that. That's it. Yes, but it's... Speaking of that, at home we identified with... I was talking about Claude François. But all our parents, they had curly hair. Curly hair. But you had to make a line in the middle that looked like what they had in the metropolis. It was to make a small line. It was mandatory. The songs we learned at the beginning, when we were little, we already learned the Marseillaise. So we were really in that time where it was the songs from elsewhere, it was the look from there. So we had... We hadn't lost our identity, but we didn't think that our cultural identity, that is, everything artistic in our country, had a value. And when Jean-Marie made that awakening of the Canary people through his culture, we realized that we had wealth. And from there, we tried to develop it to try to do something with it. It was... We can't say it's a music that was invented, created like that. It was an idea that was launched by Jean-Marie Thibault who brought together all the best, the great artists there were at the time, and everyone went back to their home while thinking. And so everyone came with their own sound. Everyone appropriates it, and then tries to give a color that is specific to its place, under this rock, on this seashore, or above this mountain. Everyone tried to define their own music. And then, when we started to define Les Kanekas, we would say, well, it's a local music. What was good with Les Kanekas was that it allowed the language to circulate. In the beginning, people didn't sing in French. Now, there are a lot of French groups that started singing in French, but people sang in their own language. And that was important because it allowed the language to live. It's music that doesn't just have a musical story. There's a political and social story behind it. It's unique. In the world, I think it's quite unique as a story. I grew up here. I left Lifu two years ago to go to Yangon. It's the first time I've moved, but I've never moved from this side. I've always been here. I've been in Yangon for several years. It's a cultural center. Otherwise, I'm always here. Yes, I want to be here. I want to stay with the Grand Chef. We can talk about the future. What happened yesterday? How can we... It's all that. If the Grand Chef tells me to come back tomorrow, I'll come back. I'm not staying. It's true that Yangon is my work. But I'm here. If he tells me to come back, I'll come back. Even if I'm going to live to eat fish, I'll come back. In Lifu, when night falls, I discover with my friends in Edou the roe deer hunt. Originally, this big bat was captured with a spear. Unlike the mainland where it is protected, here this animal is hunted all year round. The roe deer is part of the traditional dishes that are prepared in all the cuisines of the Kanak families. Once again, we have to be patient. Yes, the eggs are eaten. Everything is eaten. In fact, everything is eaten. Except the bones. The bones are used in the mainland to make the Kanak money. The Kanak money. With the bones. In the mainland. But here... It's not used for the Kanak money. When I was younger, we woke up at four in the morning. Something was happening. The roe deer would come and eat. And from two o'clock, they were so big that they couldn't fly anymore. We would come, take the roe deer, we had hooks, like for fishing, we would hook the roe deer, we would pull the roe deer down and we would hit it with the stick. We would replace about forty or fifty roe deer. My uncle, who was there, what was he doing? He would quickly catch the roe deer and then he would poke its head. Damn, it was hard. He managed to put the roe deer's head in his teeth and then... He was crazy. We couldn't see the roe deer. We heard... And it was him who poked the roe deer's head. Here, there are others who pull, and there are others who build. The men are down there, the women are here, and when they finish the construction down there, they come and help us to take the leaves and bring them over there. We have a mission. I know that I have a function. People don't know what a function is. I know what my function is here. I know what I have to do. I know what my job is. And if no one does it, I come back quickly to do it. That's being a kanak. For me, that's it. That's being a kanak. Even today, even if you become president of the republic and then you have to put a name there, you have to do your job, because that's the very meaning of why you are here in this world. If the kanak arrives and then is no longer in its function, can we say that it is the kanak? Because normally, we live according to our function. And not because I am Paul. No, it's because I have the function of them. That's why I have an identity. It is there, it is there, my true identity. It is the fundamental question that the individual must live. It is where I come from and where I go. Here, in the cultural base where I am, it is the same as here, in the shepherdry. Everyone is important. Everyone has their own value. It is a social organization that has been developed by the elders, so that everyone finds themselves and everyone is not the last or the first. TORONTO 2015 PAN AM, PAN AM GAMES