The Miseducation of Canada's First Nations (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

The Miseducation of Canada's First Nations

Am Johal
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29904

ALERT BAY, Canada, Aug 15 (IPS) - In the small island community of Alert
Bay near northern Vancouver Island, hundreds of survivors of St.
Michael's Residential School stood on the idyllic shoreline near the
U'mista Cultural Centre around ten in the morning. It was misty as the
fog rolled in and perched on the calm water.

It was an enchanting setting, as canoes carrying some of former students
arrived at the school for a bittersweet reunion on Aug. 12. As they came
closer, one of the chiefs stood up from the canoe and asked for
permission to come to shore.

Chief Bill Cranmer from the Namgis First Nation welcomed them in. They
paddled the canoe in backwards as a gesture of friendship, rather than
one of aggression, as is symbolised by paddling in from the front.

In an age when ceremony is largely dead, they brought blankets to share.

St. Michael's Residential School was open from 1929 to 1975. Over the
weekend, more than 250 First Nations from all over British Columbia
representing some 18 bands came to attend the healing ceremony.

>From the mid-1800s until the late 1960s, the Canadian government
enforced an "assimilation" policy on native peoples. Aboriginal
children were removed from their families and communities, taken to
these schools and forbidden to speak their native tongue or carry out
some aspects of their culture, such as the potlatch.

Potlatches were held as celebrations and mourning, and brought different
villages and tribes together. The events could last several days and
involved the exchange of gifts.

Altogether, about 160,000 native students passed through the school
system. About 91,000 claim that they were physically and/or sexually
abused.

At many schools, students were expected to convert to Christianity.
Some, like St. Michael's, continued to operate into the 1970s.

As the former students made their way to the Big House, a traditional
Kwakwaka'wakw structure which serves as the site of the world's tallest
totem pole, a fire roared in the middle of the room, making it smoky.
The Big House, which had burned down years earlier, still has the
distinctive support beams made of totem poles of wild women, bears and
thunderbirds.

The parallel support beam holding up the Big House is an immaculate
Sisuitl, a Zen-like symbol of balance with two separate serpentine
flickering tongues. The central portion is a face with human features.
Here, they say that its glare can cause a man to die by turning him to
stone, and that one must have balance in one's life in order to stare
the Sisuitl in the eye and live to tell the story. It made for a
powerful backdrop as the ceremony began.

"We used to be beaten for speaking our own language. We were removed
from our own communities...we need to remove the trauma, so we can
develop in the way we want to," said Chief Cranmer as he addressed the
former students.

"We need to move forward and we hope you share with us the notion that
this shouldn't have happened to us or our children. The future belongs
to us. We need to rebuild our history."

Some had attended the school in the 1940s and shared memories of being
taken from their villages by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Some
remembered coming in on a union steamship.

Students who attended the school came from places like Bella Coola,
Bella Bella, from the Haida Gwai, and all along the northern British
Columbia coast and interior. Joe Gosnell, a former student, went on to
negotiate the first modern land claims treaty with the Nisga'a nation
in the Nass Valley in 1997.

As the Coast Salish dancers began preparations for their healing dance,
Chief Cranmer said, "We have come to look past what's happened to you.
We have come here for our ancestors. We can find time to move to a
better place."

As a line formed inside the school, the hallways and classrooms brought
back memories that had many people bent over and sobbing with tears.
Some needed to be physically supported. Relatives and friends clung to
one another.

Back at the Big House, another speaker said, "It is time for healing and
reconciliation. The colonisers brought an oppression which made us
oppress ourselves."

Chief Cranmer once again addressed the gathering. "We used to line up to
pray to a God we didn't believe in. Our role models weren't positive. We
suffered from diseases brought in by colonisation, the residential
school system which hurt our culture and the potlatch prohibition.They
took away our humanity," he said.

In the evening, the crowd stood still in the Big House as Anglican
Bishop James Cowan, dressed in formal pink regalia, said that although
a formal apology was issued in August 1993, he was there once again to
apologise on behalf of the Church for the students who suffered
"physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally."

"How many times do we have to apologise?" he asked. "As many times as it
takes for you to find justice, reconciliation and healing. We will do it
as long as necessary until you feel it in your hearts. The apology has
to be uttered as long as you need to hear it, even if certain members
of the Church do not feel that it is necessary."

As Bishop Cowan returned a staff made by former students back to Chief
Cranmer as a sign of collateral for that forgiveness, the Chief said,
"We do not know if we are yet ready to accept your apology. It may take
my people two generations to recover what has been taken away."

Andrea Cranmer, the organiser of the student gathering, said, "The
weekend was about healing our First Nations people from the trauma. We
wanted the people here to be together and move forward from there."

Still, she was disappointed that the federal and provincial governments
did not send representatives and said that they "missed an opportunity
to bridge the gap."

Gloria Cranmer Webster, an anthropologist and a former director of the
U'mista Cultural Centre, who did not attend the school, noted that,
"Some bad things happened to some people, but some good things happened
too. We can't just sit around crying."

Cranmer Webster was involved in repatriating artifacts seized in 1922 as
part of the Potlatch Prohibition. They eventually found their way to the
Canadian Museum of Man, the predecessor to the Canadian Museum of
Civilisation, and now are part of the permanent exhibit at the U'mista
Cultural Centre.

Cranmer Webster also led landmark efforts to revive the Kwak'wala
language.

Earlier last week, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell called for a
new relationship with First Nations with a view to building a ten-year
plan with other premiers and the federal government.

Although many in the First Nations community viewed his call for a
referendum on the issue a few years ago as highly inflammatory, there
now seems to be a greater willingness to cooperate.

One of the plans for the St. Michael's site is for teaching the
Kwak'wala language and building an extension for the Cultural Centre.
Cranmer Webster says, "It could be successful if it is managed properly
with a long-term vision." (END/2005)