by Thomas King
I’m not the Indian you had in mind I’ve seen him Oh, I’ve seen him ride, a rush of wind, a darkening tide with Wolf and Eagle by his side his buttocks firm and well defined my god, he looks good from behind But I’m not the Indian you had in mind. I’m not the Indian you had in mind I’ve heard him Oh, I’ve heard him roar, the warrior wild, the video store the movies that we all adore the clichés that we can’t rewind, But I’m not the Indian you had in mind. I’m not the Indian you had in mind I’ve known him Oh, I’ve known him well, the bear-greased hair, the pungent smell the piercing eye, the startling yell thank God that he’s the friendly kind, But I’m not the Indian you had in mind. I’m that other one. The one who lives just down the street. the one you’re disinclined to meet the Oka guy, remember me? Ipperwash? Wounded Knee? That other Indian. the one who runs the local bar the CEO, the movie star, the elder with her bingo tales the activist alone in jail That other Indian. The doctor, the homeless bum the boys who sing around the drum the relative I cannot bear my father who was never there he must have hated me, I guess my best friend’s kid with FAS the single mum who drives the bus I’m all of these and they are us. So damn you for the lies you’ve told and damn me for not being bold enough to stand my ground and say that what you’ve done is not our way But, in the end the land won’t care which one was rabbit, which one was bear who did the deed and who did not who did the shooting, who got shot who told the truth, who told the lie who drained the lakes and rivers dry who made us laugh, who made us sad who made the world Monsanto mad whose appetites consumed the earth, it wasn’t me, for what it’s worth. Or maybe it was. But hey, let’s not get too distressed it’s not as bad as it might sound hell, we didn’t make this mess. It was given us and when we’re gone as our parents did we’ll pass it on. You see? I’ve learned your lessons well what to buy, what to sell what’s commodity, what’s trash what discount you can get for cash And Indians, well, we’ll still be here the Real One and the rest of us we’ve got no other place to go don’t worry, we won’t make a fuss Well, not much. Though sometimes, sometimes late at night when all the world is warm and dead I wonder how things might have been had you followed, had we led. So consider as you live your days that we live ours under the gaze of generations watching us of generations still intact of generations still to be seven forward, seven back. Yeah, it’s not easy. Course you can always go ask that brave you like so much the Indian you idolize perhaps that’s wisdom on his face compassion sparkling in his eyes. He may well have a secret song a dance he’ll share, a long-lost chant ask him to help you save the world to save yourselves. Don’t look at me. I’m not the Indian you had in mind. I can’t. I can’t. Connection Questions
by Kaylan Wang
Author's Statement I faced many adversities growing up as a women of colour. As the descendant of Chinese immigrant, I often found myself fascinated by my roots yet afraid to share my discovers. The few times I was able to gather my courage and express my passion for my roots, I am mocked. How un-Canadian of me they said. Thankfully I received many support from my Asian-Canadian Community. As I grew to embrace the Chinese side of myself, my Squamish roots remained untouched. Non-indigenous communities claim that I am just Chinese. First Nation communities view me as Métis. Métis communities often do not see me as one of them. In this country, we draw lines to divide cultures and race. Within the Indigenous, walls still exist. I express this in the first stanza. In the second stanza, I use metaphors to show the dying Indigenous languages and cultures. That still does not necessarily mean all Indigenous cultures are helping each other out as the concept of “their problem is not my problem still exists”. In the third stanza, I convey we are all linked. It doesn’t matter if our entire family has been living on this land since the beginning of time or half our family is composed of newcomers. We are Canadians and we share an Indigenous ancestry.Borders should not divide people in this county. I am Métis. I do not expect to be accepted immediately, but I am patient and will wait. Borders Within Borders Our country is made of lines and divisions. Every map is a nesting place for boundaries - this one's home, that one's a culture, this is us, and that is them. Borders come to us too easily, I think, and with each new one we draw, we distance ourselves a little further. Our houses and belts widen, and we draw more borders. Colours, vibrant and full of life, become just another reason we can abuse and injure and turn a blind eye to our fellow man, from clothes with varying shades to skin of another hue. We love our borders, and so when the way they speak, or worship, or live do not match our ways - it makes it easy to say this is us, and that is them. Even if the difference is slight. Those that have a little bit of more than one vivid story cannot belong. They are nowhere- no one. It makes it easy to see their houses crumble and their families shatter, and when they beg for refuge we convince ourselves that their lives are just folklore, their deaths are statistics. There are too many barriers separating us from them, so many that we convince ourselves that they must not be real, their blood must not be red, their dreams must not be meaningful. From our screens we see them weep, we feel a brief, passing sorrow and soon after we revert to this is us, and that is them. Our world should not have lines, nor divisions. There is only one World after all, whether a one is born as the First or the Mixed, They are born free and equal in dignity. There will be no borders between them and their rights. nor between us. For now, however, we still cling onto the borders within borders. I am young, and perhaps in my old age I will hear "This is us, that is us, and the country is our home." by David Groulx
A black and white picture The sun is shining through a window behind you Your hair black short Your small brown hands folded neatly on a tiny wooden desk Some of the girls in the picture are smiling You are not Your eyes staring into the camera Seem a million miles away That stare I will see seldom and one day understand that storms begin millions of miles away David Groulx, “On Seeing a Photograph of My Mother at St. Joseph Residential School for Girls” from Wabigoon River Poems. Copyright © 2015 by David Groulx. Reprinted by permission of Kegedonce Press. Source: Wabigoon River Poems (Kegedonce Press, 2015) BY LANA ŠLEZIĆ
AMID ALL the testimony and grappling with the past, the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prompts us to consider what physical traces remain of Indian residential schools. St. Paul’s. Shubenacadie. Edmonton. La Tuque. St. Michael’s. Muscowequan. Yellowknife. St. Anne’s. Spanish. Elkhorn. Birtle. MacKay. Camperville. Portage la Prairie. More than 140 existed, from coast to coast to coast. These were real buildings that stood in real places. Consider your own early moments, which carry smells, sounds, and images. Visceral memories rise to the surface when you return to a familiar place. For many, residential school sites call up an entire childhood, bound in commanding institutional architecture that smells of chalk and disinfectant. Between 1883 and 1996, 150,000 children were forced to attend these schools, which were typically structured with a central chapel and separate areas for boys and girls. Some buildings have been destroyed—intentionally by the community, accidentally through fire, angrily in some act of vandalism. In many cases, people have gathered to mourn, to celebrate, to heal, to cleanse. To leave these places behind. Other buildings are succumbing to the gradual process of decay. Abandoned and derelict, their slow ruin mirrors the slow work of exposing what happened and recovering from it. Some argue their presence is essential. How else can we prove what happened? These sites are the proof. They are places we can visit, places to hear the stories. Places to figure out how we will go forward from here. Still other buildings have been transformed. They host band offices or educational programs; they reclaim traumatic histories for the benefit of the community. In the former Assiniboia Indian Residential School in Winnipeg, for example, an agency works to protect the well-being of children. The former Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario, houses a cultural centre that co-presents the world’s largest multidisciplinary Indigenous arts festival. In one remarkable case, a girl who attended Shingwauk Indian Residential School in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, is now the chancellor of Algoma University—established on that very site. At first glance, a few bricks might be mistaken for a set of books. Either seems out of place in a vast expanse of windswept prairie. They are all that is left of a supposed place of learning. But they are also remnants of something larger. A loop of rope hangs from a tree in Alert Bay, British Columbia. It’s part of an old swing, worn down by the weight of children moving back and forth, enjoying a little escape. But it is also an unexplained, ominous evocation of death—of young students in care, of adults who could no longer carry the darkness, of their children who were forced to shoulder the burden of pain, shame, and isolation. A window frames a cloudy sky. The view is punctured by ragged glass, damage caused by a bullet or rock or some other projectile. A former student and a late-night drive-by. An afternoon stunt by some passing teenagers. Vandalism that’s not senseless, but rather a symbolic ejection of anger that broods like an unwelcome stranger. A crooked shed stands against the sky in Birtle, Manitoba, warped by wind and age. The reclaimed earth is suffused with a sense of abandonment, but children once worked these fields. Atop twisted planks, the shed’s roof seems insupportable, poised for an imminent collapse. But collapse is also a kind of release—tension escaping a rotten structure. Handprints and a small footprint appear on the back door of Muscowequan Indian Residential School in Lestock, Saskatchewan. Someone actively refused to be passively marked by this place. It’s an act that speaks to the strength and resilience of those who continue onward even as these buildings deteriorate. There is something reassuring about these crumbling, disintegrating sites. Time passes. Things change. Can the paternalism that built these buildings also wear away and make room for new beginnings? There’s a dilemma, of course. If the memories of what happened wither away, maybe it will mean things have gotten better. Or it will mean that people have forgotten, and that they are capable of making the same mistakes again. Forgetting helps some people heal. Remembering helps others learn. Challenges remain for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children. Failure rates, dropout rates, and suicide rates all are too high. This is the legacy of Indian residential schools: these buildings still loom in many communities. Twenty-first-century classrooms need to foster—not assault—Indigenous communities, individuals, cultures, languages, and knowledge. All Canadians need to look for what cannot be seen in these pictures alone. People’s lives were touched, scorched by these places. Tuberculosis killed too many children. Others were punished with electric shocks, or strapped in public with their pants down. In 1937, four young boys froze to death trying to run away from the Lejac Residential School. There are many stories like theirs, and these images remind us that we need to hear them. Civilization. Assimilation. Integration. Reconciliation. Evolving rhetoric. Aggression. Violence. Racism. Legislation. Repression. Omission. Oppression. Colonialism. Cultural genocide. What terms are you comfortable using? Education can give us hope, and we are hopeful educators. Hopeful for today’s and tomorrow’s First Nations, Metis, and Inuit students. Hopeful that all children will learn about Indigenous histories and perspectives, because testimony is more than an individual responsibility. It is a collective one. Hopeful that all Canadians—young and old, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, in school and out—will acknowledge the physical remains of residential schools as powerful sites of memory and remembering, and will work to build something better. —Aubrey Jean Hanson and D. Lyn Daniels BY WAB KINEW
Last December, I witnessed a small miracle. Cancer had relegated my father to a bed in a darkened room where only his closest friends and family came to visit. On this day, he was surrounded by my mother, my sisters, and me, as well as James Weisgerber, the Archbishop of Winnipeg. There was a long time when a man of the cloth would not have been welcome in my dad’s home. He attended a Catholic-run Indian residential school as a child and was angry for many years after. He was one of the more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children taken away from their families. He lived through all of the horror stories you’ve heard, and his school was among those recently revealed by historian Ian Mosby to have conducted nutritional experiments on children, in which vitamin and mineral supplements were manipulated, causing anemia among many of them. My father was likely part of these experiments. He was badly scarred from the attempt to “kill the Indian in the child,” and he spent decades sorting through the trauma. In time, he found personal salvation through the traditional Sun Dance ceremony. Still, he yearned for reconciliation, with the Church, but internally as well. He needed to bridge the competing forces Catholicism had spawned within him. The Church was responsible for so many of his inner demons, but his years in residential school had also indelibly imprinted his relationship with God. My father was in the House of Commons on June 11, 2008, to hear Stephen Harper apologize to the survivors of residential schools, the first formal apology from a prime minister for the federally funded program. That era caused so much pain for so many that no apology will ever be enough for all who were affected. And many people, myself included, wonder how sincere the apology was: the government, for instance, has yet to turn over all relevant documents to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. For my father, however, the apology helped him continue his healing journey. The following year, he travelled to the Vatican to hear Pope Benedict XVI express his sorrow over residential schools. Around this time, my dad befriended Weisgerber and persuaded him to participate in the Sun Dance. Eventually, my dad adopted the archbishop as his brother in a public ceremony. In our tradition, an adoption is all about peacemaking, where we commit to a rapprochement by forging the unbreakable bond of kinship. In October 2012, my father returned to the Vatican, for the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous saint from North America. Seeing “our little sister” raised to such heights put a huge grin on his face, though he was already very ill. Which brings me back to that day last December. My father’s strength had left him, his breathing was haunted by a wheeze, and he was no longer speaking. There would be no recovery. The archbishop prayed for my dad, then said to him, “Pray for me, too.” The tone in Weisgerber’s voice told me he did not expect my father to oblige. Yet as the archbishop stood to leave, my dad reached out to grasp his hand. I looked on in shock as my dad spoke, eyes closed: “Aho kaa’anishinaa nimishomis, kizhawaynimin…” After praying, my father relaxed, his eyes still closed. I had seen an apology. Now I had also seen forgiveness. by Katherena Vermette
side a: 1. 18 and Life her friend takes her to the guidance counselor she doesn’t see the point but her friend won’t go without her 2. Patience the dining room table stacked with papers her brother’s face on all of them like labels on cans of soup 3. Long Cold Winter his football team organizes a search party scruffy boys in orange jerseys climb snow banks along the river north all the way to lockport 4. Without You she is as still as silence jolts every time the phone rings 5. More than Words the family sliced into wedges like pie 6. Don’t Know What You Got the cold wet quiet when everyone else leaves side b: 7. Nothing Else Matters the family goes to two psychics and an elder 8. Every Rose has Its Thorn one says he will call soon one says he is dead one says he is traveling north 9. What You Give words evaporate condense in the air drip down walls 10. Don’t Cry her stepfather tells everyone his son is dead and he isn’t going to look anymore 11. Home Sweet Home her mother moves wide and slow almost imperceptible limbs floating as if in water 12. November Rain the girl walks under winter naked elms such a cold november a season warmer than her house Katherena Vermette, “mixed tape” from from North End Love Songs. Copyright © 2012 by Katherena Vermette. Reprinted by permission of the author. Source: North End Love Songs (The Muses Company, 2012) Dive in: 1. How does the structure of a mixed tape work to tell this poem’s story? 2. How does “side a” differ in tone from “side b”? 3. What images does the poet use to capture the cold atmosphere following the brother’s disappearance? 4. How are the relationships among the family members described? 5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you voice its short lines? Where and for how long would you pause? 6. Write a poem using song titles to tell a story. Useful Links Check out Katherena Vermette’s website: http://www.katherenavermette.com/ Watch Katherena Vermette talk about her poetry after her first book won the Governor General’s Award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyNJSfpkkBQ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
i am writing to tell you that yes, indeed, we have noticed you have a new big pink eraser we are well aware you are trying to use it. erasing indians is a good idea of course the bleeding-heart liberals and communists can stop feeling bad for the stealing and raping and murdering and we can all move on we can be reconciled except, i am graffiti. except, mistakes were made. she painted three white Xs on the wall of the grocery store. one. two. three. then they were erased. except, i am graffiti. except, mistakes were made. the Xs were made out of milk because they took our food. one. two. three. then we were erased. except, i am graffiti. except, mistakes were made. we are the singing remnants left over after the bomb went off in slow motion over a century instead of a fractionated second it’s too much to process, so we make things instead we are the singing remnants left over after the costumes have been made collected up put in a plastic bag, full of intentions for another time another project. except, i am graffiti. and mistakes were made. Leanne Simpson’s “i am graffiti” first appeared in the July/August 2015 issue of The Walrus Dive in:
HELPFUL LINKS Check out Leanne Simpson’s personal website here. http://leannesimpson.ca/ Watch Leanne Simpson give a lecture on Restoring Nationhood at Simon Fraser University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH1QZQIUJIo Watch the music video for her poem-song “Leaks,” which is a response to the first time her young daughter experienced racism: http://leannesimpson.ca/leaks-music-video/ See this video introducing Leanne Simpson as the first winner of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86vxM6kIsR0 A profile page on Leanne Simpson at cbc.ca http://www.cbc.ca/books/2014/08/leanne-simpson.html Naomi Klein speaks to Leanne Simpson: http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/dancing-the-world-into-being-a-conversation-with-idle-no-more-leanne-simpson Dive In written by: Damian Rogers War
In my body flows the blood of Gallic Bastille stormers and the soft, gentle ways of Salish/Cree womanhood. Deep throated base tones dissipate, swallowed by the earth; uproarious laughter sears, mutilates my voice. Child of the earth-tear of west coast rain; dew drop sparkling in the crisp, clear sun of my home. Warm woman of the Mediterranean sunscape, bleaching rough cotton-sweatshop anniversary. Thunderous, rude earthquakes that split my spirit within. Tiny grapes of wine console me. Can I deny a heritage blackened by the toil of billions, conceived in rape, plunder and butchery? In the veins, that fight to root themselves in the wondrous breadth of my homeland, races the blood of base humanity. European thief; liar, bloodsucker. I deny you not. I fear you not. Your reality and mine no longer rankles me. I am moved by my love for human life; by the firm conviction that all the world must stop the butchery, stop the slaughter. I am moved by my scars, by my own filth to re-write history with my body to shed the blood of those who betray themselves To life, world humanity I ascribe To my people… my history… I address my vision. Lee Maracle, “War” from Bent Box. Copyright © 2000 by Lee Maracle. Reprinted by permission of the author. ORIGINAL ESSAY
by Terese Mailhot Heart Berries: A Memoir is the book I wrote from pain. For most of my life, I tried to tell the truth of my experiences and make people see me. My story was maltreated, every time. As a child, I told my mother the way she spoke to me hurt. She always thought it was an unfair indictment. She’d counter by telling me the reasons why she wasn’t who I needed her to be. She’d talk about all the men who had abandoned us to fend for ourselves, how hard it was to be a mother, and it left me feeling resigned. It left her feeling resigned as well. I was a reminder of her failings, because she neglected me, rejected me, and it was written in my face. Every time she tried to reach out to hold me, I wanted to remind her that I wasn’t only her child when it was convenient. When I became a woman, men would often ask me to tell them about myself, and they were never prepared for the truth. They wanted a soundbite I couldn’t provide, one that encapsulated me so fully that they knew what kind of girl they were dealing with. They either heard about the small Indian reservation I came from and saw poverty, or they heard I was a single mother and saw drama –– or I was bold enough to say I was profoundly lonely, and often too busy raising my boy to think of what I wanted for myself, and they took advantage of that vulnerability. My story was maltreated. I decided my work would save me, nothing else. I couldn’t rely on my mother, who passed away before I could accept her for the profoundly striking and faulty woman she was. I couldn’t rely on men to save me, because they were wholly incapable of understanding the art of my being. They often reduced me down to nothing. They didn’t regard me as intelligent. I started to write what I thought would be a novel about a protagonist who didn’t care about being gluttonous, or sexually explicit –– and she didn’t care how men received her or how they tried to hurt her. She took what she wanted from the world, and, if men exploited her, she exploited them worse. Wielding the story of someone brighter and harder than I could ever be empowered me. The first story from that work was published in Carve Magazine, a story titled, “Heart Berries.” The closer I came to rendering art from my pain, the more powerful I felt. I started writing these stories, and people were struck by their brutality. I heard people call my work “raw” and “powerful.” Often, people had never seen a Native woman write like that, with such guilelessness. The stories themselves were morally ambiguous, and there was always a dark thought or image at the end of them, where I couldn’t identify why the protagonist was so broken — and so unwilling to state explicitly what happened to her. And then I was holding a cup in Starbucks and remembered something I had held in the recesses of my mind. The memory was visceral; it sickened me. I staggered outside and couldn’t breathe, and I could barely speak. I was broken by something I had been willing myself to forget for years: My father had molested me. For so long I had convinced myself I was the only one he never touched. I slowly began to write the truth of that experience. My ability to write a protagonist full of bravado was gone. My work didn’t fail because of it, but every word seemed to support some larger thesis: I had survived the things my family couldn’t talk about, and I wanted to talk about them. I began writing my way out of that pain, and the more I articulated the truth of what happened to me, the more fulfilled I felt. I loved deeper once I learned to live with the truth, and the closer I came to rendering art from my pain, the more powerful I felt. Everyone should do this. Whether it’s crafting something that expresses your nature, or writing in a journal to articulate things that have been hidden for so long, or literally just crying openly about a thing that won’t be contained any longer — everyone should have that. It’s what I believe in. It saved me. And now, I look at my book in hardback: the truth of my life is written in its pages. I knew that writing it would change the trajectory of my life, even if nobody read it. Speaking my story saved me. There is something profound in the idea that the only person who could witness me, truly, and see me, articulate me, and behold me was me. Everyone should have this, I think. Before I really became an author, I searched blogs, magazines, and books for someone like myself, who was profoundly neglected by the world, exploited whenever she was vulnerable. I know that there is someone reading this who needs to hear that there is a power in vulnerability. There will be a time when you must speak your story, or ply your craft –– something solely for yourself, for the sake of its creation –– because we all have a true power. And I will say that there is no power like truth — it makes the world fall away, whether it’s allowing yourself to remember something you hid away, or realizing that your mother truly loved you, as much as she could know love. I only hope that everyone has a moment like this, where the world falls away, and nothing matters except that you’ve done something for yourself, finally. I don’t miss the fictionalized version of my story — the girl with bravado, who took what she wanted from the world. I’ve cultivated something from my pain that feels more honest and powerful than anything I have ever felt before, living in the lie that I was not broken. Somehow, writing about the things that broke me let me see the pain for what it was, and pull together a self who is ultimately stronger, more self-aware, and self-reliant. How many times can I say, everyone should have this? Terese Marie Mailhot graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA in fiction. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Carve Magazine, The Offing, The Toast, Yellow Medicine Review, and elsewhere. The recipient of several fellowships — SWAIA Discovery Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, Writing by Writers Fellowship, and the Elk Writer's Workshop Fellowship — she was recently named the Tecumseh Postdoctoral Fellow at Purdue University. Heart Berries is her first book. |
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