I was acknowledging and thanking you for this great, although very sad, moment for you to call a special session where we can recognize and uplift the spirit of the child's life, which in our culture is very important.
[Witness spoke in Cree as follows:]
Mahikan Pimohtêw nisihkason. Maskwacîs ohci.
[Cree text translated as follows:]
My name is Walking Wolf. I am from Hobbema.
[English]
My name is Walking Wolf, from the Maskwacis Cree territory, and I want to thank you again, first of all, for calling this special session.
I want to draw us right back to the first report that the commission made. We concluded very early, from the stories we were hearing, that this was a direct assault. The indigenous residential school policy or the Indian residential school policy was an assault on our languages, on our families, on our communities and, very importantly, on our spirituality. I want to talk about that in terms of the impact of this finding on families and communities from the perspective of not only our traditional laws, our customary laws, but also our sacred laws, especially in terms of our practice when we lose someone in our community.
I want to begin with a story about my own grandfather, Mahihgan Pimoteyw, whose name I bear now. In a epidemic, when he was a chief, he had to bury 33 members of the Ermineskin Cree Nation in one day. That obligation was passed down to my mother, and then now to me, to help our community at times of grief and mourning like we have today.
Also, I wanted to remind us that in our history we saw many gravesites, during our journey as a commission, that were outside the graveyard, because the person may have been a young person from the school who had committed suicide, and they were not allowed to be buried within the graveyard. I want to point that out also, because when I was in residential school—three of them for over 14 years—when I was 10 and 12 I lost both of my grandparents, who actually were the ones who raised me, but I was not allowed to go to their funeral. I didn't have a chance to say farewell to my grandmother or my grandfather. Now I do, through this opportunity.
The other thing I want to point out is as a commission we always had an empty seat beside us, and I have an empty seat beside me now. We would call in the child's spirit to come and join us at the hearing, to guide us, to pray with us and just to be with us to support us. Then, after the hearing, we will send the spirit free again, back to the place of forever happiness, as our old people often call it.
I want to also reflect on our own repatriation here of 17 bodies from a residential school. All that was marked on the coffin was “nine-year-old girl” or “12-year-old boy”. There was one particular one that had “6-year-old boy”, and I chose to carry that coffin to the graveyard after our ceremonies, because that's how old I was when I was taken to residential school.
We had a traditional ceremony. By that I mean we had a wake. We sang our 16 travelling songs. We had our pipe ceremony. We had our elders speak to us during the wake, and also we had our last giveaway feast. These are traditional ceremonies that are not only ceremonies but a part of our laws. We need to do this as indigenous people when we lose someone from our community. The hardest one is always when you lose a child. We were able to do that. After that, we had a memorial for four years after the burial, on the day of the burial.
I wanted to mention that this was lost to these families of 215 children and more. In my own community, there were the 17 I mentioned. Also, there were four little skeletons that were found in the old school when it was being taken down, so it hits home for me, because our school at one time was also the largest in Canada, with over 500 students from all different parts of the province.
I want to thank the leaders here in my community—the elders who had a memorial service. We've been having prayer ceremonies every day since we heard this news, because one of the Mayan prophecies is that spirituality has to come back to leadership. I mention that one of the four prophecies they made recently.
I want to thank Deputy Minister Quan-Watson, because I know the previous witness, and he follows this with respect, the teaching, in his work.
In conclusion, I want to remind us of the sacred teachings, and in this case the one I want to reflect on is one about respect. I heard it earlier in the session that this must be community led. Yesterday I was engaged with the United Nations conference on the coming decade for indigenous languages. As you know, that was one of the ones that was assaulted as well.
In saying that, the suggestion was made that this not be indigenous led but indigenous driven, because the difference between the two words is that if it's indigenous driven, then you have a hand in it and can shape the outcomes that you desire in a good way. We need to respect that teaching, as well.
[Witness spoke in Cree as follows:]
So, âhkamêyimok.
[Cree text translated as follows:]
So, persevere.
[English]
Continue the good work you are doing, and as I did in our community, I ask for everyone who is listening to pause for a moment and say a prayer for these children who now have a bright path going back to the sacred place of the ancestors.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. That's all I wanted to present at this point.