Home To Me
N’we Jinan Artists
Home To Me, produced by the N’we Jinan Artist group, is a story of a home and the devastating event that has poisoned it. N’we Jinan creative studios is a group that connects young indigenous people with professional musicians and music producers for in-school or community based programs. Their mission is to give the youth a voice through creative art and musical expression.
Home To Me was inspired and performed by the Cree Indigenous people of Grassy Narrows, an area of Forested land in northwestern Ontario. In the mid 20th century, Grassy Narrows was struck by one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history when an industrial spill contaminated the river with huge amounts of mercury. A chemical plant at the Reed Paper mill dumped 9,000 kg of Mercury into the English-Wabigon River. This poisoned the fish in the river, which the people of Grassy Narrows rely on for food. This contamination has effected 90% of the population of around 1000 residents of this indigenous community. Worse still, the effects have been felt by over three generations of this community, thus receiving the name, the children of the poisoned river. This is due to mercury’s bioaccumulating characteristic. Unlike other chemicals that disperse over time, once ingested, mercury passes on from one generation to the next, from mother to child, through the placenta.
The effects of mercury poisoning are severe. It is physically debilitating and makes people incredibly weak and unable to swallow food properly. Neither of the paper companies whose actions were responsible for the contamination, the government, nor the disability board have ever admitted that anyone at Grassy Narrows were poisoned due to this. As a result, any compensation that is granted is scarce and for only very few residents. Moreover, the criteria for compensation has not been updated in decades, despite the thirty years of research recently published by Japanese scientists.
The song itself is a cry for help as well as an expression of their profound connection and love for their homeland. They want to restore the land and preserve it for future generations. The song conveys a sense of community and unity despite incredible tragedy. Overall, it tells a story of the hardships of the Indigenous people of Grassy Narrows, but also seeks to tell the listener of their immense pride of where they come from.
The song “Home to Me” by the N’we Jinan Artist group highlights the harsh reality that many Indigenous communities like the Cree people of Grassy Narrows face. The industrial oil spill that was addressed in the song is just one example of many that Indigenous Peoples face. These phenomena have devastating consequences that will be felt across many generations. While the oil spill was an environmental crisis, Indigenous Peoples (particularly Arctic Indigenous Peoples) also bear an unequal burden of the consequences of the climate crisis where they are feeling the effects of it at a much faster rate than the rest of the world. The support and interconnectedness of the Cree people with their homeland, despite such a devastating event, is seen in the song, which truly emphasizes their resilience and determination to preserve and restore their land for the future. It seems like many Indigenous artists use music to preserve their culture or hope that it brings awareness in helping to restore/preserve their culture. Aasiva, the artist I wrote about, uses music as a way to preserve her Inuit culture and heritage, which is similar to what this group is trying to do.