Whitesand siblings explore Indigenous stories in horror-themed podcast

By Rick Garrick

VANCOUVER ISLAND — Indigenous languages from across the country are featured in the Historical Natives horror-themed podcasts created by two Indigenous siblings from Victoria, B.C., who wanted to learn more about their culture. Whitesand citizens Mackenzie Taylor, creative director, producer, co-host and co-writer, and Josef Stafford, co-host/writer, launched the podcasts beginning last year at www.thehistoricalnatives.ca through mentoring and financing from B.C.’s 3C Challenge Indigenous Entrepreneurial Training program.

“A lot of the languages are becoming extinct so I feel it is important if we’re talking about them, that we need to bring awareness to that as well,” Taylor says. “So we kind of have the word of the episode to bring awareness to that. We just really want to give back and we also want to learn.”

Taylor says the word of the episode for their latest episode, Sabawaelnu, was Weju’sƗk, which means ‘It’s windy’ in the Mi’kmaq language, mik’mawi’simk.

“Of the Eastern Algonquian languages, it is the one with the greatest chance of survival,” Stafford says during the episode. “However, with only an estimated 8,870 speakers in Canada in 2017, mik’mawi’simk remains at serious risk of language death.”

Taylor says they have developed a database of beings that they choose from for their podcasts.

“Lately, we’ve been asking our listeners which being they want us to cover next so it’s easier for us,” Stafford says. “Initially, we’ll just start researching the being and peoples in any which way we can, and we’ll begin story-writing and finishing the creature. It usually takes us one to two weeks, and then we’ll start reading the script and recording, and we publish it.”

Taylor says they decided to focus on horror-themed podcasts because they “loved” the horror genre.

“But we wanted it to involve culture and a way for us to get back into our culture, so we decided to focus on Indigenous lore,” Taylor says. “We wanted to also learn about the people and share about the people. It was important to give back to that community as well.”

The first season featured seven episodes: Wechuge from the Dane-zaa; Sasquatch from the Coast Salish; Wendigo from the Algonquin; Sharp Elbows and the Grattan Massacre from the Lakota Sioux; Walking Sam from the Oglala Sioux; Stick Indians from the Coast Salish; and the Introduction episode.

The second season features two episodes as of June 24: Little People from the Cree and Sabawaelnu from the Mi’kmaq.

“We’re more designers so the writing process can be chaotic at times,” Stafford says. “Usually we just start with us designing the characters and their traits and characteristics and then we make a skeleton of the story events we want to happen.”

Taylor says they begin the podcasts with information about the Indigenous people featured in the episode before introducing the being.

“We dive more into the people, their history, their language, their culture and after that we start talking about the being and their characteristics, what they might look like and sound like,” Taylor says. “And then once that’s talked about, we give you an original story written by Josef.”

Taylor creates the artwork for the podcasts using the Procreate app and the Apple Pencil on her iPad.

“It’s definitely a lot easier to do it on the iPad or on a computer rather than drawing it by hand,” Taylor says. “It’s a lot faster, too.”

Taylor and Stafford are aiming to build their group of patrons and produce more merchandise for sale to sustain the business and increase their creative output.