Daniel David Moses is a registered Delaware Indian from Six Nations lands on the Grand River. This multi-award winning playwright is also an author and a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His most recent publications include "Pursued by a Bear, Talks, Monologues, and Tales" and "Kyotopolis."
Cendrine Marrouat: Hello Daniel, thank you for answering my questions. I recently saw "Almighty Voice and His Wife" at the Rachel Browne Theatre in Winnipeg, and was very impressed. What triggered your desire to write a play based on real-life events?
Daniel David Moses: When I first came across the story — once upon a long time ago, I was just out of school — I was ignorant of the history of Saskatchewan. I probably still believed smugly, when compared to the U.S., that our West had been settled by a nice humane treaty process. I was so innocent, the story shocked and appalled me. This Cree kid goes out and kills a cow, gets in trouble with the Mounties, and ends up being killed by the army’s cannons. Is that what ‘overkill’ means? I had to find out how this could have happened.
CM: Why did you add the character of White Girl, Almighty Voice's wife?
DDM: As I researched the story, a couple versions I came across mentioned that there was a girl accompanying Almighty Voice when his confrontation with the Mountie occurred. She was already there in parts of the historical record. But I wondered why she was with him, out on the winter prairie, on the run from the authorities. Clearly, it was dangerous. Where I grew up on the Six Nations, the next obvious question is “Why did her mother let her do this?” A possible explanation came into my mind and a lot of the details of the story fell into place. I realized that I wasn’t telling a ‘renegade Indian story’ — what I had in my hands was a love story.
CM: In 19 years, have reactions to "Almighty Voice and His Wife" changed? And why?
DDM: The reactions of the critics seem more informed now both by a sense of history — APTN, Oka, ‘North of Sixty’, the Royal Commission, ‘A Fair Country’ and more have all become more shared in the common understanding in the last couple decades — and by a more sophisticated idea of what theatre can do. When we first did the play, its stylistic playfulness (let’s call it) puzzled and irritated the critics more than it entertained. I don’t remember it bothering the audience, though. It still is kinda thrilling.
CM: You have written a number of other plays, as well as poetry collections, essays and stories. Do they share a common theme?
DDM: I’m not sure. I tend to think more in terms of stories that intrigue me and questions I need to answer. Why did such a thing happen? How do I really feel about that? Of course, I do write out of a point of view centred in my own experience growing up on the Six Nations lands and having a life in cities. Maybe I could suggest that with six nations, not to mention us Delawares there, with all sorts of white folks in nearby Brantford, Caledonia, Hagersville, with various Ojibwa reserves within visiting distances, I grew up already accustomed to multicultural living. So maybe that means I’m interested in contemporary indigenous life in the global village. Are you old enough to remember the Global Village?
CM: What are some words/quotes you live by?
DDM: I found these words attributed to some elder but I’ve lost his name. It seemed to me when I found them to be the answer to those friends I had in school who believed they had to leave home and country (“You have to come to New York!”) if they were to grow up and succeed. “Where you are already is the centre of the world.” Why would you want to be anywhere else?
CM: What is next for you?
DDM: A friend noted, teasingly, that she could tell when a new decade had arrived, because I’d produce a new book of poems. By that reckoning, I should have had one out this year. I’m hoping to finish editing it soon.
CM: Any last words?
DDM: I heard it attributed to both T. S. Eliot and Picasso. “Art isn’t the Truth. It’s the Lie that brings the Truth back to mind.”
For more information on Daniel David Moses, visit his official Website.
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Cendrine Marrouat is a freelance writer/reviewer, published author and translator living in Canada. Official Website: http://www.cendrinemarrouat.com
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