Day 3,
Hello everyone. Yesterday at school there was a special guest. She is a member of Canada’s First Nations people, and taught us about different songs and dances used in their ceremonies. We also made a dream catcher.
One other interesting thing was the connection between Japan and Canada’s west coast. Japan has a long written history, while First Nation’s people have a long oral history of telling stories. These two histories often match. For example, there is a story from the Huu-ay-aht First Nation about a night that “the land shook”. The time of that story matches the time recorded in Japan of a tsunami with no earthquake in the Genroku era. Japanese people knew that tsunamis followed earthquakes, but this tsunami had no quake. In fact, the earthquake had happened in Canada, and sent a wave all the way to Japan.
Today we will have more special guests, and then the students will spend the weekend with their host families. The weather looks rainy, but hopefully it is not too bad. See you Monday!
A welcome song with a drum.
Making the dream catchers.
Starting with the small beads.
Finished! Nice colours.
After the dream catchers, we went outside to learn to sing and dance.
Some students were drummers, and some were dancers.
The dancers each had an animal. Here are some eagles.
And here are some bears.
We sang and danced a traditional welcome song.
Communication takes on many forms.
Even our class buddies joined the fun.
See you after the weekend!