Dane Wajich - Dane-zaa Stories an Songs: Dreamers and the Land
Produced by the Doig River First Nation (2007)
Co-curated, co-produced by Amber Ridington and Kate Hennessy
Funded by the Virtual Museum of Canada
Dane Wajich: Dane-zaa Stories and Songs–Dreamers and the Land is a collaboratively produced exhibit of Dane-zaa oral traditions from the Doig River First Nation. Dane Wajich was honored with the Jean Rouch Award in Visual Anthropology by the Society for Visual Anthropology (2008). Amber Ridington and Kate Hennessy were the project co-curators and co-producers. The project was directed by the Doig River First Nation. See the complete Project Credits.
From the exhibition “about” page: “Our Doig River First Nation elders, youth, and leaders worked collaboratively with ethnographers, linguists, and web-designers to create this exhibit. Over a one-month period in the summer of 2005 our elders brought the documentary team to eight places in our territory.
At these places we shared oral histories about the stories, songs, people, and experiences that connect us to the land. The stories and songs presented here introduce you to a long line of Dane-zaa Dreamers who have provided spiritual and practical guidance for our people for hundreds of years. You will also learn about some key places within our territory and how we have been reclaiming them from the effects of colonialism and development.
The theme for this exhibit, Dreamers and the Land, was inspired by the return of a Dreamer's drum to the community. The drum is now part of our collection in our museum.
Our youth team was trained in video documentation to record the stories that you see here.Through this documentary work, our young people have made a major contribution towards strengthening our Dane-zaa language and traditions.
This online exhibit was developed in partnership with the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) at virtualmuseum.ca, an initiative of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Contributing Partners include: The Doig River First Nation; The North East Native Advancing Society (funding youth training); The North Peace School District #60, First Nations Education Program (preparation of accompanying teachers' resources); Volkswagen Foundation: Documentation of Endangered Languages Funding Initiative (Dane-zaa / Beaver language translation and transcription).
Publications
2012 Kate Hennessy. Cultural Heritage on the Web: Applied Digital Visual Anthropology and Local Cultural Property Rights Discourse. International Journal of Cultural Property (19, Special Issue: Intangible Property at the Periphery: Expanding Enclosure in the 21st Century):345-369. [PDF: Hennessy2012_IJCP]
2012 Kate Hennessy. From Intangible Expression to Digital Cultural Heritage. In Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. Michelle Stefano, Peter Davis, Gerard Corsane, eds. Pp. 33-46. Heritage Matters Series. Woodbridge and Rochester: Boydell and Brewer.
2011 Robin Ridington, Jillian Ridington, Patrick Moore, Kate Hennessy, and Amber Ridington. Ethnopoetic Translation in Relation to Audio, Video, and New Media Representations. In Born in the Blood: On Native American Translation. Brian Swann, ed. Pp. 211-241. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. [more info here]
2010 Kate Hennessy. Repatriation, Digital Technology, and Culture in a Northern Athapaskan Community. PhD Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. [Download here]
2009 Kate Hennessy. Virtual Repatriation and Digital Cultural Heritage: The Ethics of Managing Online Collections. Anthropology News (April 2009):5-6.
2008 Amber Ridington and Kate Hennessy. Building Indigenous Agency Through Web-Based Exhibition: Dane-Wajich – Dane-zaa Stories and Songs: Dreamers and the Land. in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2008: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2008 at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/ridington/ridington.html