By: Petra Chase, Arts and Culture Editor
There Are Hierarchies of Grief plunges into the way grief suddenly swallows you. The five-minute short film is part of the CBC Gem series, How to Lose Everything, which features five short films about loss. There Are Hierarchies of Grief was a collaborative project centred around Smokii Sumac’s poem, with the help of Indigenous creatives and elders with translation, music, and animation.
Sumac’s spoken word poem begins with drawings fading in and out of blue hues, notebook lines, and a gentle guitar riff. Backed by a hopeful heartbeat, Sumac’s words and anecdotes tug on deeply universal experiences, like “the kitchen is the best place to cry.” The poem tackles the complexity and spectrum of grief with resilience, love, and acceptance.
Sumac is a trans two-spirit author and poet from the Ktunaxa Nation, which has resided in southeastern BC for more than 10,000 years. He’s currently pursuing a PHD at Trent University in the area of Indigenous studies. He’s also an SFU alumnus, having majored in English and minored in Indigenous studies. We chatted over Zoom about their latest project.
While Sumac honours all forms of grief, which can range from moving, to divorce, to a pet dying, there are some griefs that are “unimaginable.” There Are Hierarchies of Grief is dedicated to “mothers who lost children,” holding “space for the power and weight of that grief.”
Narrated by Indigenous poets, each film in the CBC Gem series is also spoken by the author in their Indigenous language. Sumac hopes that non-Indigenous people also listen to the Indigenous language versions of each film to “experience something new.”
A Cree translator who worked on one of the films, How to Lose Everything: A Field Guide, spoke on how when speaking or listening to a language, “there’s a spirit of that language and it grows,” Smokii recalled.
Ya·qaqa’ki na ’a·kinmiyit. is the name of Sumac’s film in Ktunaxa, which is a cultural isolate language, meaning it has no genetic link to other languages. It’s also “critically endangered.”
“In Ktunaxa, we say there’s no word for extinct in our language, so let’s keep it that way,” he said. It took two years of consulting with around 20 elders to produce the final product, many of them mothers who’ve lost children. Getting to work with them and make them proud was a “gift,” said Sumac. “Many of them still have fluency, but there’s not one authority on the language.”
The animation was made by self-taught Atikamekw artist, Meky Ottawa, and the instrumentals were produced by Juno award-winning Anishinaabe and Métis musician, G. R. Gritt, each bringing their own creative touch. Sumac sent them the poem, leaving it up for their interpretation. He emphasized the trust involved in this process, saying, “As a writer, it’s a very solo kind of career [ . . . ] To bring my work into this process was, at first, really nerve wracking.”
“The first few times I saw the images I was overwhelmed with gratitude at my work being honoured in this way,” they said. “It created a whole new piece really; the poem, when you read it on the page, versus when you witness it in this way, there’s so much more happening and I think the visual allows for different audiences as well.” As for the instruments, Sumac said hearing those first bars brought tears to his eyes.
There was one particular moment in the film that felt deeply personal: Ottawa animated a polaroid photo of Sumac and their younger cousin, who passed away when they were young, swimming outside with mountains in the backdrop. It was an important moment for their family members to see. The sound of children laughing that accompanies the scene demonstrates the happiness that they felt in the moment. “Every time that comes on the screen, I feel like I’m honouring him,” they said.
It’s easy to dwell on the tragedy of grief and let it consume you. There Are Hierarchies of Grief reminded me of the importance of appreciating the good times, too. It showed me that happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive; grief wouldn’t sting the way it does without love and joy.
“I know from experience that when we’re in grief, we can feel very alone,” they said. “And I hope that [the film] helps people who are in grief, that something touches them and allows them to recognize that they’re not alone.”
Watch There Are Hierarchies of Grief in English and Ktunaxa for free on CBC Gem’s website, where you can also watch the full series. Follow Smokii on Instagram at @smokiisumac and check out their website. Stay tuned for their upcoming podcast, ?asqanaki, which will feature other Indigenous creatives.
