“Person to Person” Show on CJAV Radio, March 3 1987. 93.3 The Peak, Formerly CJAV. Courtesy of Community Arts Council of the Alberni Valley.
George Clutesi recorded this interview when he was 82 years of age for a local daily radio program out of Port Alberni titled, “Person to Person.” He reflects on his life as a fisherman, pile driver, artist, writer, and actor.
“I’ve been reading books nearly all my life, particularly about our own people, the Indians of the west coast of B.C. And the more I read, the more unhappy I got. I got the idea long ago that we must write our own stories, our own life, if we want to present it properly.
I offered 9-10 of our folklore tales to CBC, and they had me on their program for nine or 10 weeks. I’d go there once a week and tell one story. It was an absolute flop. Not one response came in. I decided I was too far ahead of myself. So instead of giving up, I began speaking to people. I began speaking to small groups, I began speaking to schools. And finally, I found myself in the universities. Both universities in the very outset were very much interested in what the Indian had to offer.
…As a matter of fact the stories in Son of Raven, Son of Deer were those that were put on the air at CBC in 1944, which were a complete loss. And it took me 22 years to have it published. I never gave up. Instead of giving up I believed that I should educate the public. Right from scratch as it was about our thinking, our philosophies.”
Interviewer: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Person to Person program on AV Radio for Tuesday afternoon. Bill sitting in for Guy Wilton, who’s away on a week’s skiing holiday.
It’s our privilege to have in the studio with us this afternoon George Clutesi, a native of the community of Port Alberni, but who has made his mark in both Canadian and North American society over the past 80 years, I would think, George, because you date back over 80 years of age now, and we thought it would be interesting to have you on the program to discuss some of your biographical details, and in addition to that, talk about some of the books that you have written, specifically a book called Son of Raven, Son of Deer.
But before we talk to George, we’d like to just go to the Canadiana book, and this is how they describe George Clutesi: “He’s an artist, author, folklorist, a member of the family of Nootka chiefs of Tseshaht on Vancouver Island. His publications and public activities were among the first in the post-World War II period to gain recognition for Indian culture as interpreted by Indians themselves. A fisherman and pile driver for 21 years, Clutesi broke his back in the 1940s, and during his convalescence, he began to record, reproduce, and teach the stories, songs, dances, and art of his people. His books, though conventional in language, are rich in engaging human and technical details. Clutesi painted one of the murals of the Indians of Canada Pavillion at Expo ‘67. He’s the author of Son of Raven, Son of Deer, Fables of the Tse-shaht People, and Potlatch.”
And that’s what the Canadiana book says about you, George. Perhaps, first of all, we could ask you to go back and tell us how it all began. It says here you started as a fisherman.
George Clutesi: Well, Bill, I fished for 10, I fished for 16 years, as a matter of fact, on seine boats. And I didn’t like fishing that much, so I quit fishing and went back home and started working day by day. I got on a pile driver, and I liked that work so much that I stayed with it for 21 years.
Interviewer: And after, according to your biography, because of a serious back injury, you were then forced into quite a period of convalescence. And during that time, the art, if we can use that word, surfaced.
George Clutesi: Yeah, I broke my back in 1943. I squashed three discs, and when they healed, my back was fused so that the doctors had to break it again. And during my getting well, I started painting. In Vancouver, I lived in Vancouver for eight and a half, nine months, getting well. And during that time, the right people in Vancouver, for instance, people from the university, heard of my efforts and began to help me. And my drawings were accepted from the very first time. And I’m always very, very grateful for that. As a matter of fact, the University of Vancouver bought my first collection, which I painted in Vancouver, in a little room, no more than eight by ten.
Interviewer: I gather during this period, too, George, it was at that time that you got a renewed interest in putting down in black and white some of the folklore of your people.
George Clutesi: Yes, that’s right. As a matter of fact, at that time, too, I offered nine, ten of our folklore tales to CBC, and they had me on their program for nine weeks. Nine or ten weeks. I’d go there once a week and tell one story, and it was an absolute flop. Not one response came. So I decided I was too far ahead of myself. So instead of giving up, I began speaking to people. I began speaking to small groups. I began speaking to schools. And finally, I found myself in the universities, both universities, in the very outset, because they were very much interested in what the Indian had to offer.
Interviewer: I gather that was CBC Radio that you did your first…
George Clutesi: Yes, I did my first stint in CBC Radio, and it was a complete, absolute flop. Not one response came.
Interviewer: How did you make the transition from that initial series on CBC Radio to both CBC Television and also eventually to Hollywood and the movie sets?
George Clutesi: Well, it was… it’s a long, drawn-out story. I wasn’t that much involved in acting at all. I wasn’t involved in acting at all. I was once included in a film with Emily Carr, and that woke up my desire to do a little more acting. So, I got in one or two films with CBC and CTV, and it went out so well. It went… It was so well received that it eventually went coast to coast, both films of my life.
Interviewer: Now, as far as your television career is concerned, you’re still involved in it, even at 81 years of age.
George Clutesi: I’m 82.
Interviewer: You’re 82?
George Clutesi: Uh-huh.
Interviewer: At 82 years of age, you’re still doing some television work.
George Clutesi: I do a little bit. It’s getting too hard for me, but I want to do it. Because I want to… I’m still trying to portray the best of my people’s life.
Interviewer: You were telling me before we went on the air that you have a couple of dates in Thunder Bay this coming summer.
George Clutesi: Yes, I’ve been going to Thunder Bay for the last three or four summers and doing two pictures per summer. And I hope I’ll be there again this summer. Because they have indicated that there will be another one.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about your Hollywood situation for just a moment. Because I would imagine that, well, even for anyone going from Port Alberni, regardless of who they are, landing up in Hollywood and working there would have to be one tremendous experience and a tremendous change of scene.
George Clutesi: Our first trip to Hollywood, they found me in Alaska. We were doing a film in Alaska. And how they found me, I don’t know. That’s their business, they said. They’ve got everything under control. Anyway, they invited me to come and do a film when I was finished in Alaska. And they got me over. They treated me very well in the beginning. And I found myself in one big film. I’ve forgotten the name. Prophecy.
Interviewer: Prophe-cet
George Clutesi: Prophecy.
Interviewer: Ah, Prophecy.
George Clutesi: Yeah. Right. And I lived in, we lived in my wife and I lived in Hollywood for nine months that summer. We did two big films in Hollywood: The Prophecy and the Nightwing. Both big films. But you’d never, never recognize me because I was always made up as an extremely old man. Ninety-four, ninety-six years old.
Interviewer: Those films that you did, George, did they conflict with your philosophy and ideas of what a Native person was?
George Clutesi: No. I refused absolutely to do anything that conflicts with that. The roles I accept are always bringing forth our best. We have read so much of the badness and the evilness of the Indian that from the very outset I was determined to tell the real side of our philosophy. And this is what I’ve been doing throughout the years in film. I refused to drink, I refused to smoke, I refused to swear on the films. And they, they are willing to change their, their scripts.
Interviewer: Is that right? At one point you’re described as saying that, that you were treated like a king in Hollywood.
George Clutesi: Yes, they treat me extremely well in Hollywood. I always have a personal limousine with a driver. And a couple of women puts us to bed every night. You know, things like that, that we don’t experience in Canada.
Interviewer: Trying to remember the name of the film now that you were, it was a fairly large part for you and also in the film was Raquel Welch.
George Clutesi: Uh, Walks for a Woman.
Interviewer: Is that what it was?
George Clutesi: Yes. I was, I was made up to be an extremely old man too at that time, nearly 100 years old. And I enjoyed making that film very much. Raquel Welch was extremely kind to me. By the way, Raquel Welch worked so hard on that film that she had two bad over-exhaustion periods. I had one by working so hard. Working in films is extremely, extremely hard.
Interviewer: I guess the days are very long and I guess it’s very taxing on the nerves.
George Clutesi: It’s very taxing that the hardest part in acting is waiting for your own part. Lots and lots of times you’re, you’re away one hour’s drive from your hotel and you stay there all day from 7 in the morning to 11:30 at night and they never reach you.
Interviewer: These, uh, major film stars, George, that we hear so much about, are they nice people to rub shoulders with?
George Clutesi: Well, not really. Some of them are, but they tend to keep to themselves. And I think it’s because they’re under that tension all the time.
Interviewer: I gather from what you say that you yourself never did get caught up in the Hollywood extravaganza as far as the life after work is concerned.
George Clutesi: No. Although we stayed there for eight, nine months, I never made one friend outside of the people I was acting with.
Interviewer: So your average day would be basically just work, eat, and sleep?
George Clutesi: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewer: When was the last time you were in Hollywood?
George Clutesi: Quite a number of years ago. Quite a number of years ago. And when I came home from Hollywood, I found enough work in Canada to stay here. And I want to stay in Canada. I want to do work in Canada. Well, I did want to. Now that my career is over, I’m glad that I did not stay in Hollywood.
Interviewer: George, I’d like to reminisce about this part of your life for a lot longer, but our time is limited. And I would like to get to the book, specifically, Son of Raven, Son of Deer, because I think there are some very interesting points to be made. And we’ll get back to our special guest, George Clutesi, in the studio with us this afternoon on Person to Person in just a moment. [Ad break]
Interviewer: Fourteen minutes to one o’clock on Person to Person this afternoon. Our very special guest in the studio with us today is George Clutesi, who is well-known, not only in Canada, but also in the United States, the North American continent, as the result of working in Hollywood and making a number of motion pictures over the year, over the years, rather. George, you wrote a book, I think it was back in 1967 that it came out, called Son of Raven, Son of Deer. And as a first question, as we discuss the book, I’d like to find out what the thinking was that went into making the decision to write this book.
George Clutesi: I’ve been reading books for nearly all my life, particularly about our own people, the Indians of the West Coast of B.C. And the more I read, the more unhappy I got. I got the idea long ago that we must write our own stories, our own life, if we want to present it properly. And I think this is why I began writing the, our tales. I knew them, I grew up with them. My father and my uncles would tell us this every night throughout our boyhood days. And as a matter of fact, Bill, the stories in Son of Raven, Son of Deer was those that were put on the air at CBC in 1944, which were a complete loss. And it took me 22 years to have it published. I never gave up. Instead of giving up, I believed that I should educate the public, right from scratch, as it were, about our life, our thinking, our philosophies. And there was a period when I started teaching in night classes. I taught night classes in Victoria for three years, three winters, Nanaimo for two, three winters, and right here in Port Alberni for three winters. And during that time, my students found a publisher for me, because they had heard I used the stories from Son of Raven, Son of Deer in parts of my evening classes. And they loved it so much that they were determined to have it published. So it was really them that published the book.
Interviewer: Are you really afraid that the culture and the heritage of the West Coast Indian will be forgotten?
George Clutesi: I’m so very much. We’re forgetting it very, very fast. We’re going through a period now where we’re doing everything to bring it back. We’ve brought back the potlatches, we’ve brought back the dancing, we’ve brought back the singing, but we forget that there are laws attached to all these. And we do not practice the laws.
Interviewer: How you describe the life of the West Coast Indian in the introduction to the Raven-Deer book, you describe it as a rich and cultured society, carefree, happy, singing people, but a very proud people. It very much sounds to me as it was, what one might call, a very simple form of existence.
George Clutesi: It was a very simple form of existence, but no one, but no one went ever hungry. Because our philosophy included that your next neighbour, the other person was part of you, and you must give them assistance when needed. And this is what the West Coast people practiced throughout the ages.
Interviewer: Also in the introduction to the book, George, you make a very strong point that man has to be in very close harmony with both the other animals on the planet.
George Clutesi: We believed that very, very strongly a long time ago. And we’re beginning to look at it again, although most of us don’t believe it now.
Interviewer: That one should live in harmony.
George Clutesi: That one should live in harmony regarding animals and the forest, grass, everything that grows, even rocks. You will never understand this, Bill, because you don’t know what it means unless you read the Bible and practice what it teaches.
Interviewer: Is it possible, George, with the complex society that we have today, for people to live within this society, in that way?
George Clutesi: What is the question?
Interviewer: Is it possible in the 1980s that we have the type of complex society that we do have with our means of transportation, our computers, all the technology which has been developed, is it possible for people to live in harmony with nature?
George Clutesi: No. No, our concept of living today is to grab and make more and more money. Nothing is sacred today, in my opinion.
Interviewer: And so there’s no way that the two cultures could live side by side?
George Clutesi: The trees are all gone. The minerals will be gone. The black gold will be gone in a few more years. There is no way we can live again like we did.
Interviewer: In your mind, George, I wonder what you see as possible solutions for people getting along and living together, helping each other.
George Clutesi: I have no answer to that at all, Bill, because things are going so fast and so furiously that one cannot begin to say stop. You’re not doing right. And most of us now, including myself, are wanting more and more of that money. But there’s one little consolation that has stayed with us Indians here, our Natives here, that we give a portion of what we make back to our own people. And this is called potlatch.
Interviewer: From what I understand from what you’re saying then, George, is that one would have to learn to live in today’s complex society, but please don’t forget the heritage.
George Clutesi: Yes. And the Church seems to be, in my opinion, losing the fight. The Church has the knowledge and the tools to teach the world that.
Interviewer: And they’re not doing the job, according to you?
George Clutesi: Well, they might be doing the job, but they’re not winning, in my opinion.
Interviewer: They’re losing the battle.
George Clutesi: Mm-hm.
Interviewer: If we can get back to your book for just a few minutes. What it appears to me, George, is a series of stories that all have at least one major point to help people live. Some of the stories have perhaps two or three major points. And I gather, if I correctly interpret it, these are the stories that the Elders in the Indian communities used to tell the children.
George Clutesi: These stories were really lessons to the children. You can do this, but the result will be this. And instead of saying, don’t do this, it is evil, they told us, or they taught us in that, parable type of thing. And the small child understands it. And those types of stories begin to stir the little child’s thinking and start asking questions.
Interviewer: One thing I learned in my research that perhaps will just add a little bit of a lighter note, although it’s a very serious topic, I would assume, is that to the West Coast Indian, the number four is a very magical number.
George Clutesi: Very much so. In fact, all Indians across the continent, I’ve learned in my travels.
Interviewer: Why number four?
George Clutesi: You have in your Bible number seven. Why number seven?
Interviewer: There’s no answer to it. [Interviewer and George Clutesi laugh]
Interviewer: It seems to be, though, and it’s a thread which does run through one or two of the stories in the book, the number four. It comes into play.
George Clutesi: Yes, yes. I imagine it was part of a… I cannot really answer that, although I believe it.
Interviewer: Which is your favorite story in the book, George?
George Clutesi: I think my favorite story in the book is “How the Indians Got the Fire.”
Interviewer: Oh, yeah, which is the first one.
George Clutesi: That’s a tremendous, tremendous piece of information.
Interviewer: Perhaps you could just paraphrase it for us in a moment or two.
George Clutesi: Oh, I can’t right now.
Interviewer: George, our time has just about come and gone on the program this afternoon. Is there something we’ve left out that you’d like to say before we conclude Person to Person today?
George Clutesi: I think more and more of our younger Indians should begin to plan way ahead of their time. We’re not doing that. We are not producing enough of our own people here in the Valley to be that useful to the community, both our Indian community and the community at large. You can do it. There is nothing to stop you once you make up your mind that you want to do something, that you want to be useful. And I want you to do it, you younger boys and girls. Make something of yourself. There is no one that can stop you.
Interviewer: I gather in your writings, George, just as a final comment, that you’re very positive about the young people.
George Clutesi: I’ve been kind of losing my enthusiasm within the past few years. More and more of our young people are dropping out of school, and I’m very unhappy about that. We’re coming back to our own schools, which I fought tooth and nail against in my time. We have to live with the outside world in order to survive. There are a lot of good people in the outside world that are waiting to make friends with us.
Interviewer: George, it’s been a privilege. Thank you very much for joining us on Person to Person today. George Clutesi, well-known author and personality in Canada and North America. And that’s all the time, unfortunately, we have for this afternoon. There’ll be another edition of Person to Person tomorrow at 12:30. You have an invitation to join us then. Bye for now. Have a good day.
