History 101 – a poem
This devastating poem by my friend and fellow alum Mihku Paul is about her grandfather, a residential school survivor who helped raise Mihku. Their family was “deeply impacted by what happened to Gramp.”
Native American Boarding Schools (also known as Indian Boarding Schools) were established by the U.S. government in the late 19th century as part of an “enforced” civilization of Indigenous youth into mainstream American culture through education. In Canada, the Residential School System was a part of how settler colonialism took shape in Canada. This included the reserve pass system, the banning of ceremonies, forced relocations, gender-based violence.
Native students were neglected and faced many forms of abuse including physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual. They were beaten, coerced into performing heavy labor. Their daily regimen consisted of several hours of marching and recreational time consisted of watching disturbing Cowboys and Indians films. Food and medical attention were scarce.
Residential School Survivor
HISTORY 101
I
In 1920, Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott said, “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.”
In 1920, under Scott’s direction, it became mandatory for all native children between the ages of seven and fifteen to attend one of Canada’s Residential Schools.In1920 my grandfather was an 8 year old Maliseet boy.
II
“Church people put me on a train, made me leave my family. After that, I only saw my mother once or twice a year. They cut my hair and I couldn’t speak my own language, even.”
“The nuns’ll beat you, they don’t like you talking Indian. They’ll lock you in a closet all day, and leave you hungry. I didn’t speak English but I learned quick enough.”
“I kept running away, only got to 9th grade. The last time I ran, I was fifteen, they didn’t come after me no more. Went to Woodstock for awhile, stayed with my cousins. I was lucky, a lot of those kids got TB and died right there at Mount Elgin. I still test positive for exposure.”
“Our language is beautiful. I remember the sound of the women talking at dusk, voices rising and falling like bird-music, I tell you. They sounded just like birds.”
III
Caged, children remember the mother’s warm breath rising,
lifting those hollowed bones into weightless flight.
The old words echo still, in empty classrooms,
where bird-talk was gouged out, buried with them in the cemetery
at Mount Elgin Indian Residential School, far from the home
where they first learned to raise their wings.
Lost, their tongues split, they travel a barren land,
seeking the shelter of story.
It is everything and nothing, and all we have to offer;
words, and the telling, rising up like song,
into the night, and to the stars our kin, bearing witness.
My grandfather called me Dues.
A pet name, my mother said, until the day I asked for the meaning
and she answered, ‘It’s Indian for sweetheart.
’‘What’s Indian?’ I asked.
Mihku Paul is a poet, writer and visual artist, and an enrolled member of Kingsclear First Nations, N.B., Canada. She holds a BA in Human Development and Communication and an MFA from the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.
She is author of the poetry chapbook, 20th Century PowWow Playland, published by Greenfield Review Press in 2012. Her poetry has appeared in various journals, both in print and online. She presently teaches creative writing workshops at the Maine Women Writers Collection. Other work includes a collection of short stories set in Maine. A contemporary artist with traditional roots, Paul uses her art and poetry to support diversity projects and events in her community, and to educate non-Native people about the condition of Waponahki people in the Northeast. She has worked with children in the Portland school district for over 20 years, providing curriculum enrichment on Waponahki culture and storytelling services. In October of 2009, Paul mounted a multi-media installation at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine. The exhibit, “Look Twice: The Waponahki in Image & Verse,” is a collection of twelve panels that combine archival images of Waponahki history and culture with original poems, colorful medicine wheels and abstract water shapes.
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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
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