♪♪♪ -(Danika): Here in Bella Coola, lots of traditions were lost because we were focused on just surviving and keeping our people alive.

Tattooing is a medium that I like to use because it marks a time and a place.

Wearing your crest on your body and having it on you, it's really important to know who you are and where you come from.

(theme music) -(narrator): In the heart of Great Bear rainforest is a small First Nation called Bella Coola of the Nuxalk Nation.

It's situated approximately 1000 km north of Vancouver, in British Columbia.

Today, we will meet an educator and artist named Danika Naccarella, who is the first traditional tattoo artist in her community.

Her objective is to revitalize family crest symbols because she believes it will be instrumental to reclaim lost traditions.

♪♪♪ -My name is Danika Naccarella.

I'm from Bella Coola, BC, Nuxalk nation, on my mother's side.

Our people have been here since the beginning of time, and it really shows in our villages and our stories and our masks.

It's all connected to the land.

Because of the assimilation due to smallpox, our people were brought down to less than 300 people from thousands of Nuxalk people.

And so, with that, lots of traditions were lost.

I studied my Nuxalk culture in my designs, what was left behind and what was preserved.

It's not my knowledge that I'm holding.

It's not for me, it's for the generations to come, and I want to make sure it's strong and it's carried on.

(soft splashing) For my mom, she is half Norwegian and half Nuxalk.

So, she grew up on... on either end of the valley here.

And my mom never really felt like she fit in, and that was something that I even struggled with, as a teenager.

I didn't really have a place.

And so, my mom really helped me navigate that.

Originally, like the village of Q'um'kuts is across the river.

So right now, we're over here, but we were moved here because of the flood.

The waters came so high that the village was like, almost wiped out.

-There's also been a bridge.

-Yeah.

-Running across the river here from this side to old town.

-There's old photos of along this riverbank here of longhouses that used to sit, and you know it's here, cause you can see the same exact mountains in the background.

Yeah, it's... it's crazy to think that that far in the past and to be here in the present that we live here still.

-(Rita Pauline): You wanna sit with Mama?

Come on, there.

So big now, Kusu.

Danika is my daughter.

She's adopted, but she's mine.

-So, my mom adopted me when I was first born, and I was given to her.

And so, her and my adopted father were together until I was about two years old.

Then they split, and I was living with my dad for about 10 years.

And my mom was in a really rough spot in her life.

So, she wasn't involved in my childhood, and my dad was an alcoholic.

And so, I was passed around from family homes, cousins, friends, and family.

And when I was finally 12 years old, I moved with my mom.

-I don't have words... for how proud I am.

And she was 16 when she graduated high school.

'Cause she was bored.

Whatever you pass her she takes it and runs to the next level.

And I have no words to express the pride I feel in what she's done.

-(narrator): Danika has studied under some of the countries leading tattoo artists, but she's embracing her role as a trailblazer by creating her own brand that embodies her people's way of life.

-So, I got into tattooing, I was referred to the Earthline Tattoo program.

So, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.

I just kind of filled out the application and I was one of the six participants.

And so, I travelled down to Kelowna and so I felt that bringing my knowledge of Northwest coast art form line would transfer well into the tattooing.

I adapted into my new style.

And so, with the hand poke, I do have more of a new contemporary form line design.

-(narrator): Danika is preparing to tattoo her colleague and lifelong friend.

Hello!

-Hi!

-How's it going?

-Good.

-You wanna get a cedar bough?

-Yeah.

-Oftentimes I tattoo nature, things like cedars and mountains.

When you turn your body, it kind of has that natural curve to it... Kind of like that.

-Yeah.

-Cool, I'll get it drawn up.

-Ah!

-The tattoo is cedar bough branches.

And those really are fun, not only because of how they are but just for reasons that people get them there.

It's a healing medicine and our culture utilizes their cedar trees so much.

And it's really important to us.

♪♪♪ (indistinct chatter) Tattooing is a really healing process, especially with the hand poke, there's this unspoken connection that happens.

And it's a really beautiful, like, I can feel people's energy when I'm tattooing them.

(picking sound) -(Victoria): It's kind of like the tree of life for, like, most coastal First Nations.

It means, like, purifying the energy and, like, cleansing the aura.

-When I tattoo, I like to stretch the skin and keep it taut because our skin is naturally mushy.

And when you push into it, the needles can enter into the dermis right away, and I can get a cleaner line.

And that's how you can oftentimes hear the picking sound a lot more.

Okay, I'll give it away, put some green soap.

See what it looks like.

Alright, go take a look.

-My third tattoo from Danika.

I love it.

I can't wait till my next one.

I already have it planned and she's already working on it.

So... Thank you!

-You're welcome.

(fire crackling) ♪♪♪ -(narrator): Danika plays a strong role as an artist and educator to the youth of the Nuxalk Nation, and the school holds a special place in her heart.

-So, we're currently at Acwsalcta School.

I'm a graduate of this school and I graduated in 2014.

I went to college for two years and I came back and I've been working here at Acwsalcta school since 2017.

Our school focuses a lot on Nuxalk culture, like our masks, dance and song, our art, our carving and our traditional foods, as well as living off of the land.

The ways that we used to do things before contact.

-Start off with the ovoid and the U-shape.

-Do that and now add that eye line in there.

So, the eye on the top plate, it's a little bit close.

So, I'm currently the art teacher assistant at the school.

So, I assist Lyle in the art room teaching the older kids.

Nuxalk art is a combination of carving and form line of Northwest coast art.

West coast art is found along the coast, from Vancouver Island all the way up to Alaska.

We kind of have our own distinct style and distinct colours.

So, we teach those to the kids, as well as the shapes, like the ovoids and the U-shapes, and we combine those to create designs, like crest designs and animals that tell stories of who we are and where we come from.

I think it's important for the kids to have a foundation to know who they are and where they come from because sometimes kids grow up lost and they don't know their roots.

And it's important to give the kids the tools that they need to identify themselves.

(machines buzzing) (indistinct chatter) Did you get all of it?

It feels like you did.

-(student): Did I?

-It all feels the same.

Feel it.

So, I help James Mack here.

He's the head carver.

And we do teach the kids knife skills, drawing, and painting.

♪♪♪ So, they're learning their carving skills and their painting skills, and then they can move on to more advanced carvings, such as masks and other things like that.

So, once it's dry, you can sand it again.

The kids are so inquisitive.

Watching them learn and watching them grow brings me so much joy.

They're so much fun to be around.

Everybody cares for each other.

It's really a great place to be.

♪♪♪ It's really hard for our people to be healthy because we don't rely on the land as much as we were because we lost our traditions, when the white people came and they introduced sugar and all of these artificial ingredients that are in our foods.

Our people have diabetes and we're more susceptible to cancers and stuff like that.

We're gonna do some rod fishing in slumped river here.

It's really a good little hole for some Coho or some trout.

We're a river people, so, our food and our highway came from the river.

And so, it was really important for us to keep the rivers clean, respect the waters, and that the food that comes from the river is the most nutrients you could get.

And so, it's really important that we eat what was our traditional meals, and they've lost their ways of living off the land.

And so, it really affects their health.

Oh!

(laughing) No!

Lose my fish!

Oh no!

It's really great for the kids as young as they are to be able to practice and learn how to cast a rod or even fish on the river with a net and learn how to row and learn how to manage those waters.

Because they are pretty swift, but you have a respect for the water because the water feeds us, and it gives us everything we need.

-(narrator): After a very long day, Danika goes back to her roots and shows us where her love for the arts began.

She attributes her desire to become a tattooist from learning the essentials of Nuxalk artistry.

-We're here in my home with my fiancé.

So, we're in Ses' carving shop right now.

Ses and Skip are two peas in a pod.

They are exactly the same.

So, Ses has been a carver for almost all of his life.

His father's a carver, his grandfather was a carver.

So, it runs in the family.

They help each other out with carvings or ideas, getting wood and just, they'd like to do lots of things together.

-This is a red cedar mask, Kimsquit style.

You can tell in the way it's shaped that is from our area.

It's meant to be a crest mask used for, you know, doing the crest dance and stuff like that, yeah.

This is a bear mask.

This, I've been working on for like two years.

Some pieces just sit around.

-At all times, we have at least 12 of these pieces going at once.

-Some pieces you can't rush.

It's just the way it is.

-(Danika): Skip really has a knowledge to share with everybody.

-When she first came to Bella Coola, she, you know, she started working in our school.

And then I watched her grow up, you know, in her art.

You know, the tattooing part, you know, I watched that.

You get rid of your tattoo guns, but you get poke and stick.

And I watched the Aboriginals on Nat Geo and stuff like that and I thought: "Wow, that'd be neat if somebody was doing that."

It was always this.

Artwork.

That's what bound us together.

We're carpenters, we're not just carvers.

We do everything.

That means draw, paint, carve, right?

-(Danika): Painting has always been my passion and my favourite medium.

So this is a raven mask that Ses is carving and painting for a gallery commission and so, Ses will carve pieces, and oftentimes he's really busy and he's got lots of projects on the go, so I can give him a hand with my painting.

It's all really connected when... when I really think about it because masks aren't a flat surface to paint and your body isn't a flat area to tattoo.

You... you have to learn the curves of the body and how things move.

It comes from the practice and that muscle memory and that intuition.

♪♪♪ (fire crackling) Holy man, that's a huge fish!

(laughing) Today, we are going to barbecue a spring salmon to share with everybody, and so, Ses is going to cut it up.

Ses, he's a fisherman.

He fishes on the river with the boat.

Sometimes, like, in a day he can catch 90 Coho, and that's a Coho run, but a spring salmon run is a little bit lower.

Spring salmon is like the top king salmon.

And so, it's very, very heavy in oil and it's a very big fish.

Ses has a very large family and community members he feeds.

And he also sometimes fishes for the school.

So, we do lots of... lots of work to feed our family.

♪♪♪ (fire crackling) ♪♪♪ -(Skip): The figures in the pole represent our family crest, right?

Killer whale, the raven, eagle, and the sun, right?

The bottom figure on the pole is Niixwankayc, which means "first light of the morning".

My dad did this pole.

He said: "When we do this, the name Niixwankayc will always follow the chieftainship Ximximlayc."

It was start of his re-entry into the art world.

He set up this gallery and everything in hopes that we... that we follow in his shoes and that's what we're doing now.

We're following in, you know, our family's shoes.

It was quite the ordeal putting this up.

And it was one of the first totem poles in... in the village in a long, long time.

And he put it in front of his house, which was really powerful.

(laughing) Yeah.

That was my dad.

Right?

Yeah.

This is where the magic happens.

This, originally, it was a woodshed and it was meant to hold wood and fishing nuts.

My father was a fisherman, right?

When I came home in 1995 and 96, I was just starting to carve.

And he said: "Well, we'll start fixing it into a shop."

And that's what we did.

He died in the process of carving this, right?

And he asked us to finish it.

We planned to finish it eventually one day, but it's kind of hard to do, you know, hold so many memories.

All these totem poles carry stories, eh?

My dad, he was very traditional.

It's my dad.

(indistinct chatter) (metal clanking) -Right now, we are in Gran's house.

Gran loves to have big family dinners and share a meal.

So, Skip thought it was a good idea to come in and bring everybody together here.

Everybody brought something to eat, eat the barbecued fish.

-(Ses): That's the best part right here.

One of our Nuxalk laws is to always share a meal.

And it's always make sure that you eat with who you're with and with spring salmon is one of our favourite meals, especially a barbecued salmon.

Hmm!

It's perfect!

Serve up, it's good.

Go eat, go eat!

-(man): Spring salmon!

(woman laughing) ♪♪♪ -(narrator): The work that Danika does to preserve her culture is cathartic for both her and the recipients of the tattoos she creates.

-So, today we're getting ready to tattoo Ista.

She's coming in for her first tattoo.

She's going to get her family's crest, the Mack crest, which is a double-headed sea serpent.

She's gonna get it on her chest and she's 16 years old.

So, it's pretty exciting.

Ista is very strongly involved in the culture.

She's very involved in the language revitalization, loves to be on the land, and it's very important to her and she feels very strongly about those things.

So, do you want it closer to your collarbone or a little bit lower?

-Yeah, a little closer, like right here... Just, like, fitting almost underneath.

Whenever I hear, like, tattoos, everyone's like: "Is that Danika?

Is she doing your tattoo?"

I'm like: "Yeah!"

(indistinct whispering) -How does that look?

You can go closer to the mirror.

-This is my crest, and I wanted to get it for many reasons, but I wanted to get it as a reminder to... you know, of myself.

-Do you like how high it is, like toward your collarbone?

Or do you wanna move it down a little bit?

-No, I like that, actually.

-Like that?

-Yeah.

It feels perfect.

I wanna do many things in my life.

And sometimes, I get sidetracked and my culture seems to ground me.

♪♪♪ -To be any artist, you need to be a master in a certain style.

Tattooing is a medium that I like to use because it's not a piece of paper.

It's living on somebody's skin.

And there's a connection that happens when I tattoo somebody.

(poking sound) Wearing your crest on your body and having it on you is really important, to know who you are and where you come from.

It's on us all of the time and it moves with us and it breathes with us.

-I wanted it to show, I didn't want it to have it hidden, you know, seasonally so I can show it, especially when I dance.

-Do you picture yourself working at the school?

-Me?

-Yeah.

-I have bigger plans.

-Yeah?

-For myself, anyways.

-What are you gonna go?

-First, I want to fully explore the inlet.

I want to inspire others to come with me, meet the other Nations around, make good connections with them.

At least begin to build a relationship with the land and the people again, you know, return back out there and what's happening out there.

A lot of logging, mistreatment of the land, and... Not as many people go out there.

So, we don't really have much of a relationship with the land as we did.

And I find that's upsetting.

-I'm very happy that Ista chose me to do her tattoo.

I know she's going to do good things and I'm really glad to share medicine with her and give her a piece that'll last a lifetime.

I'm just adding the last finishing touches.

These blue fine lines.

♪♪♪ (indistinct chatter) What do you think?

-It's beautiful.

-You like it?

-I love how the colour mixes in with it.

I... I love it.

I do.

This does mean a lot for me, and I'm thankful that I had Danika do it.

I really trust her work and her art.

-It's a really beautiful thing to be able to watch the tattoo go on and live its life and have a journey of its own and help some people heal and give people a sense of pride in who they are.

-(narrator): Despite the challenges Danika faced in her childhood, she found her place in the world and is making her mark by bringing many gifts to the community she now calls home.

-I'd love to see everyone be proud in who they are and not be ashamed of our culture and to know their crests and to carry it on their bodies.

I carry mine on my arm and it always reminds me when I'm working of who I am and what my purpose is.

It's important to know where you come from and who you are, but it's also good to move on and progress and keep evolving with the times because times are changing.

I'm just really excited to continue on and share my knowledge with everybody.

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