Brick Books
This book is dedicated to my children,
Usne Josiah Butt and Omeasoo Wahpasiw
as well as my grandsons
Josiah kesic Butt (left) and Alistair aski Butt (right).
In the middle is my mother, Madeliene Waskewitch (Half, Moyah).
Mom and Dad’s wedding, November 4, 1939.
The Truth and Reconciliation process opened the door to sharing that dark history. Truth is hard to find however. Hard to share, hard to hear. At times those stories are understandably sanitized: for the teller, for the audience, safe for polite company or church basements. These stories attempt to go deeper, but never fully plumb the depths. They are intended to share yet more of that truth. Think of all the children, and weep. Children fed to pedophile priests and nuns. Children whipped and starved. Families and communities destroyed. Generation upon generation, courtesy of the Canadian Government. Courtesy of the Canadian public.
Now we seek to define reconciliation. We must first know the deeper truth however. Celebrate the survivors and extend kindness to the lost. Understand the way forward. At the very least get out of the way. We will survive as a people. Rise up and be proud. Reoccupy our land. And live.
When I was asked to write the foreword to Cree poet Louise B. Halfe – Sky Dancer’s fourth book of poetry, I accepted with some trepidation. How could I do justice to these poems that invoke such a powerful mix of feelings: anger, shame, despair, confusion, love, joy, and hope? With a deep sense of humility, I am honoured to write these few words. As author of Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada, and through my work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, I have reflected deeply on the incredibly rich and generous gift that Canadians have been given by those who survived the Indian residential school system. They have shared their life memories with each other and with all of us so that together we will learn, understand, and remember. They do so in the hope that we will take action to change things so that their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have better lives. This is the hard work and promise of reconciliation; it involves decolonizing ourselves, our families, our communities, our workplaces, and our country. It is everyone’s work.
Reconciliation has many pathways; writing poetry is one. Louise’s poems are teachings. She writes hard truths about what she and her parents suffered at the hands of the nuns and priests at residential school. She writes about secrets that haunt and silences kept, and about finding the strength to persevere. Sky Dancer’s poems are teachings. She writes about her nôhkom and nimosôm, her Cree grandparents, who knew the old ways — the medicines, the pipe, the sweat lodge — and enjoyed the wealth and dignity that came from living and working on their own land. Louise – Sky Dancer’s writing is both a courageous act of resistance and a reclaiming of culture, language, and the blood memory of her ancestors that, despite the ravages of colonialism, is still written on her heart.
Her poems remind us that sometimes childhood memories comfort us as we recall our home, our family, our culture. These teach us about who we are and where we belong. We remember the places, sights, sounds, and smells of our childhood. We treasure those special times we shared with grandparents or parents as they lovingly taught us how to walk in the world. For many residential school surivivors, there are other memories too; of adults who abused them and spewed racial hatred that made them feel ashamed, confused, lonely and unloved. Memories of loss, disconnection and an unrelenting longing for the ties of family and community that have been damaged and may never be repaired. Memories of unsafe homes where the lessons of violence learned by great-grandparents, grandparents and parents in the residential schools were then inflicted on new generations of children. Survivors’ life stories hold all of these memories.
These poems are testimonies of truth, justice, and healing. These poems are gifts. I invite you, the reader, to read and reflect upon them with open minds and humble hearts. Then share them with others. They unsettle us in a good way. They inspire us. They give us hope.
Paulette Regan, 2016
Pete Waskewitch, Kakakon (Wilfred Chocan’s grandmother), and Charlie Waskewitch. Pete and Charlie are brothers.
ahâw,
ôta ka-wîhtamâtin âcimisowin
I will share these stories
but I will not share
those from which I will never crawl.
It is best that way.
I forget to laugh sometimes,
though in these forty years
my life has been filled
with towering mornings,
northern lights.
Sit by the kotawân — the fire place.
Drink muskeg and mint tea.
Hold your soul
but do not weep.
Not for me, not for you.
Weep for those who haven’t yet sung.
Weep for those who will never sing.
I cannot say for sure what happened
to my mother and father.
The story said,
she went to St. Anthony’s Residential School
and he went to Blue Quills.
They slept on straw mattresses and
attended classes for half a day.
Mother worked as a seamstress,
a kitchen helper, a dining room servant,
or laboured in the laundry room.
Father carried feed for the pigs,
cut hay for the cattle and
toiled in the massive garden.
That little story is bigger than I can tell.
Before them were nôhkom and nimosôm.
She was a medicine woman
whose sweat lodge was hidden away,
wore prayer beads
and always had a pipe dangling
from her mouth.
nimosôm had his own car
back in the fifties
and he plowed his own land.
He was a wealthy man because
they lived in a house while we had a cabin.
He lifted the sweat rocks
for nôhkom.
That is as far back
as I can take you.
All the Old Man said is that
I have nothing to weep about,
compared to them.
I know now where the confusion began.
She was a tough mistress, that confusion.
We were all caught in her web.
Her history is covered in blisters, welts
and open sores. You already know that part.
We came later.
We were the children
that mother and father tried
yes, tried to raise.
How scared nimosôm and nôhkom were.
They knew what the priests, and nuns,
supervisors did at those schools.
We all left, all of us.
Confusion was in our wind.
We no longer knew
where to turn.
That is where my footsteps began
where my footprints
appear in snow, in grass.
I don’t like walking backwards.
Old ones haunt my thoughts
tiny spirits that brush
the colour off my wings.
I need them now
to help others understand what happened.
It wasn’t their fault.
It wasn’t our fault.
Confusion was the ultimate glutton.
He came from far away
wore black robes and carried a crucifix.
He was armed with laws, blankets
and guns.
He fixed us with a treaty
that he soon forgot.
Sometimes the end is told before the beginning.
One must walk backwards on footprints
that walked forward
for the story to be told.
I will try this backward walk.
I found myself released from residential school yet
the four walls slithered everywhere I went.
I had no regimented call
to wake up,