Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Black Robe-- Canadian Film

This was a film shown at Castellani House while I was in exam panic mode and luckily got a copy to view.

It is a beautifully shot film showing off the wonderful scenery of Canada-- wide open spaces and lakes.
The film itself referred to the Jesuits- the Blackrobes- whose mission it was to 'save' the souls of the Indians -- it was very satisfying that a few of them got butchered by the savages, although the native (Amer)indian viewing the film with me was appalled at the violence and it was with difficulty I persuaded her that our local Caribs were just as bad-- she was relieved that her Arawak tribe wasn't so bad.
She and I were interested about the belief in dreams and I paused the DVD to tell her about Segu (http://gtobserver.blogspot.com/2012/08/segu-by-maryse-conde.html) where the African tribes also intuitively believed that dreams were omens and needed an experienced shaman to interpret them. I also told her that her ancestors originally came from Africa-- went up to eastern Europe, crossed over by Alaska and then made their way down to Guyana - so maybe the belief in dreams was a traditional thing that got wiped out with the 'scientific' Europeans who 'won' and wiped out everybody else's belief?
It was interesting that the tribe that interacted the most with the white men got wiped out and the leader/father says sadly at the end that he was just as stupid and greedy as the white men - and that they got dependent on the white men to provide 'things' - we had an interesting discussion about the relevance of that statement to today's Guyanese-- or maybe I was doing most of the mouthing off?
Sex doggie-style seemed to preferred way.

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