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Linda Slough
Depriving a person of their mother tongue is a crime comparable with isolating them from their history, culture and spirituality. The following article touches on the sensitive issue of the United Church of Canada's involvement in the Indian Residential School system and the pain and suffering it caused. It calls for reflection on the issues raised as people of faith continue to travel ‘the difficult road of repentance, reconciliation and healing.’
‘The most terrible result of my residential school experience was they took away my ability to hold my children. They took that from me, the ability to hold my children.’ - Inez Deiter, in From our Mothers’ Arms, written by her daughter, Constance Deiter.
When the WACC Central Committee met in Cape Town, South Africa in June 1999, we heard and saw the evidence of the long struggle with apartheid and the efforts of the people of South Africa to now find reconciliation and healing. For me, the stories and discussion made real connections to the history of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Currently, my church, The United Church of Canada, is just coming to terms with its part in this history as it becomes more and more aware of the damage done by a system of removing Aboriginal children from their homes and placing them in residential schools.
The practice of sending First Nations children away to school began in the 1840’s, often with the support of First Nations leaders. By the 1860s, resistance mounted when the practice became more widespread and, from the perspective of First Nations communities, more coercive and paternalistic. Prior to the western treaties, the official Canadian policy was to protect, civilize, and assimilate the Indian.1 The Gradual Civilization Act, passed in 1857, called for the eventual assimilation of Indians into Canadian society. In 1876, the Parliament of Canada passed the Indian Act, which effectively rendered all Aboriginal people children before the law, legal wards of the Crown. An Indian Affairs department was created in 1889, and Indian agents placed across the country. As the local authority, which dispensed the money promised to First Nations peoples in treaties, the Indian agent could threaten to withhold the money from increasingly destitute Aboriginal parents if they did not send their children away to school.
The term ‘residential school’ only came into formal use during the 1920s; prior to then such institutions were officially called ‘industrial’ or ‘boarding’ schools. At these schools, in all areas of their lives – eating, sleeping, playing, working, speaking – the children were isolated from the traditions, culture and language of their home Nations. Separation time varied, but it was not uncommon for children to be away from their parents and villages for years, except for a brief period of time in summer vacation.
The United Church of Canada was one of the churches that, on behalf of the federal government, administered the residential school system. In part, the Indian work, as it was known, arose out of a desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and a deep sense of compassion and commitment to justice.
The church, and its predecessors, the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, had long demonstrated the belief that education should be available to all children. Access to education for children of low-income families was an important strategy in the struggle to secure greater justice. As the traditional economies of First Nations peoples came under heavy pressure, with the killing of the buffalo and the creation of reserves, many in the church felt the best way to assist First Nations was to provide means to educate the young in new economic systems and trade, hence industrial schools. The Moderator’s Taskgroup on Residential Schools (1991) notes that the residential schools were seen by the churches not only as a vehicle for converting Native people to the Christian faith, but also as a way of equipping the younger generation of Native people to survive in a world where the old ways had either been destroyed or were considered unworkable or unworthy or both.
‘The problem was that the church required Native people to repent of being Native people if they wished to follow the Christian way’ said the Moderator’s Taskgroup on Residential Schools (1991)
The residential schools were built on a racist understanding of the superiority of European civilization and the inferiority of Aboriginal societies. Natives were considered ‘savages’ and as British Columbia Indian Commissioner I. W. Powell noted: ‘Barbarism can only be cured by education.’ This racist premise was reinforced by the churches in their theology and their attitudes toward Native spirituality.
Denying language
Different cultures have different ways of transmitting their culture. Institutions, like schools and churches, played a major role in European based cultures. The traditional native way was heavily dependent upon oral traditions. Removal from their home Nation and denial of language, a prime carrier of culture, meant many people had no sense of history or home – they did not know who they were. While residential schools removed the basis for a native identity, they were not able to construct a new white identity. The result was that many left residential school unsure of who they were and where they belonged. A Saulteaux Nation friend told me that the people from her reserve spoke of the returnees from residential school as the ‘crazy ones, good for nothing’. They didn’t know their own people’s ways and language and could not fit in to their own society.
The most eloquent descriptions of the pain and the courage and the resourcefulness of First Nations children come from these stories told by First Nations people themselves.
From the book Bridges in Spirituality, First Nations Christian Women Tell Their Stories, published jointly by the United Church Publishing House (UCPH) and the Anglican Book Centre, Gladys Taylor Cook’s story:
“I was four when I went away to residential school. I’ll always remember—I didn’t want to leave my mother. My grandmother made me a beautiful string of beads when I left. She tied them around my neck saying, ‘This is so you’ll know you’re loved. Always remember this, no matter how far away you are.’
When they took us away, I looked back and saw my mother crying. When I got to residential school, they took off all our clothes, and then they cut our hair, and they cut the string of beads from my neck, the beads my grandmother gave me. I cried in my own language, ‘No! No! Don’t do that! That’s from my granny.’ I scrambled to try to pick them up; I was crawling on the floor clutching them, trying to get as many as I could. ‘Put them in the garbage,’ the woman yelled, and she hit me on the hand with a ruler to make me let them go. I managed to keep one by hiding it in my mouth. I was afraid to lose the tie with my grandmother. I kept that bead for a very long time. I didn’t tell my grandmother what had happened. To tell her what had happened would have hurt her, so I carried that pain.
I’ll never forget the first time I was caught speaking my own language. We were playing tag, a whole group of us, laughing and running around outside. One of the children was ‘it’, and I tagged her. Being ‘it’, she was now a ‘monkey’ until she tagged someone else. Then she would tag her to be whatever she wanted to call her, and so we were having our fun. When I called in my language ‘monkey! monkey!’ to warn the other children, I didn’t even see the teacher standing close by, partly hidden by the side of a building on the girls’ side.
She asked me what I said, and I told her, laughing. But she grabbed hold of me, took me to the bathroom and told me to open my mouth and shoved a bar of soap in my mouth. It was the old-fashioned strong soap we used to have. It just made me gag. I felt so sick. I tried to brush my teeth again and again. It took so long to get the taste of that soap out of my mouth. Sometimes I can still taste it.”
In the book, From Our Mothers’ Arms, The Intergenerational Impact of Residential Schools in Saskatchewan, published by UCPH, author Constance Deiter describes the development of sign language:
“While no doubt there were other forms of resistance used by the children, one of the most interesting was sign language. The language was developed in response to the need for children to communicate; not unlike the start of sign language for deaf children. For the children at the schools, not talking was the norm. The Victorian ideal ‘children are to be seen and not heard’ was carried to the extreme. In addition, children were forbidden to speak their native language. As well, children from different tribal groups were often placed together, which discouraged use of a common native language. All of these reasons contributed to the start of some silent means of communication—a sign language.
There has not been anything written about this silent form of communication used at the schools. To my knowledge, this will be the first. I knew about the language as a young girl. My father and mother would use the sign language when they did not want my siblings and me to know what they were communicating. I forgot about their use of the language until many years later. My father had passed away, and my younger sister’s daughter was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. I asked my mother if my niece could use the sign language that she and my father used when we were children. She said no, that that was the sign language they used at residential school.
As a student of anthropology at the University of Alberta, I found the sign language fascinating. First of all, it was children who devised a standardized sign language that was used across western Canada. I believe it was standardized in that my father and my mother understood each other. Yet my father was sixteen years older than my mother and had attended the File Hills residential school and the Birtle school in Brandon, while my mother attended the Roman Catholic schools and Anglican residential school at a much later date…
The sign language consisted of a two-handed letter system and body gestures. As an adult, Inez Deiter attended an American sign language course for her granddaughter. She showed the instructor the sign language she used at residential school. The instructor informed her that the language she used was the British form of signing. This particular form is no longer in use in the Americas, indicating that whoever introduced the sign language into the residential school did so before American sign language became the norm for the deaf community.
While there needs to be further research done on the introduction of this sign language, to me its very existence puts a new perspective on the residential school experience. The idea that these children, despite the hardships, found a means of communicating with one another is remarkable. The method in which the language was taught to newcomers is very much like any other language instruction. Inez Deiter said it took her a year to learn all the signs and gestures. The fact that this language endured over several generations is even more astounding and more language-like. Mel H. buffalo attended the Edmonton residential school during the 1960s where he says the gestures were still in use—for example, a pulled ear meant a supervisor was coming.”
These children were denied the basic right to speak, let alone the right to speak in their own language so they developed a language they could use. This language should be a testament to the intelligence, spirit, and resourcefulness of First Nations children.
In 1986, the highest governing body of The United Church of Canada, the General Council, issued the following apology to its First Nations brothers and sisters.
‘Long before my people journeyed to this land, your people were here, and you received from your elders understanding of creation and mystery that surrounds us all, that was deep and to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the values of your spirituality. We confused western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you like us and in doing so we helped destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result you and we are poorer. And the image of the creator in us is twisted and blurred and we are not what we are meant to be. We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the spirit of Christ so that our people may be blessed and God’s creation held.’
Robert S. Smith, Moderator of The United Church of Canada, Sudbury, 1986.
And on 27 October 1998, twelve years later, after the Executive of General Council spent two days reflecting on the meaning of repentance, the Moderator of the United Church, the Right Reverend Bill Phipps said:
‘I am here today as Moderator of The United Church of Canada to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of Canada I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry.
To those individuals who were physically, sexually and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused. We pray that you will hear the sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living out of this apology in our actions in the future.
We know that many within our church will still not understand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this horrendous period in Canadian history. But the truth is we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors, and therefore we must also bear their burdens. We must now seek ways of healing ourselves, as well as our relationships with First Nations peoples. This apology is not an end in itself. We are in the midst of a long and painful journey. A journey that began with the United Church’s Apology of 1986, to our Statement of Repentance in 1997 and now moving to this apology with regard to Indian Residential Schools. As Moderator of The United Church of Canada I urge each and every member of the church, to reflect on these issues and to join us as we travel this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation and healing.’
The journey continues.
Linda Slough received her teaching accreditation through the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, took further classes at the University of Regina and worked for 16 years as an elementary school teacher in Regina. She expanded her interest in learning of all kinds and in 1994 received a Dip[loma in Adult Education from St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. For many years she worked as a volunteer in the United Church of Canada (UCC), chairing the Saskatchewan Division of Mission 1982-85 and working with the Saskatchewan Programme Staff Team 1987-96. In March 1996 she moved to Toronto to become General Secretary of the UCC’s General Council Division of Communication.
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