What’s in a name?
One hundred and fifty-five years ago, the Canadian government initiated a program to mitigate what it described as its “Indian problem.” The plan called for the creation and operation of what became known as residential schools. Interestingly, the schools were run by faith-based organizations, like the United, Presbyterian, and Catholic Churches.
And they were brutal.
Native children were forcibly removed from their reserve homes and brought to remote locations, making escape a difficult proposition. They had their hair cut off, were soaked in kerosene to remove lice, and were forced to speak English, upon pain of physical beating if they didn’t or were caught speaking their indigenous languages. They were taught how to speak, write, and worship as a white person would, although at least two of those three were almost universal failures.
They were taught to eat properly, conduct themselves properly, and even walk properly. I know first-hand the story of a girl beaten by nuns for the sin of being “pigeon-footed.” That girl was five when taken from her parents. She returned home at age eighteen, both parents dead, other siblings dead, and caught in a wasted in-between, not being able to speak either English nor her indigenous language well enough to be considered fluent in either. She was lost, broken, traumatized, and alone.
But there was one thing she learned to do very well in the thirteen years that she passed in “custody.” She learned how to hate the people who put her there and kept her there. The people who did this to her.
She would never trust them for as long as she lived.
By the way, upon arrival at the “school,” children were subjected to myriad indignities all designed to chase the “savage” out of the child. Anything having anything to do with their past was scraped off, including something important, though not yet mentioned.
They were made to change their names. To white names.
Once, in Renfrew, there was a place called Ma-Te-Way.
Perhaps not the fairest introduction to my profound disappointment at an indigenous name getting taken down after over forty ears of existence. And replaced by a corporate name.
Did anyone involved understand optics? Or were the agendas so important that they couldn’t let something like a traditional name get in the way? Either way, it sucks. Maybe they just couldn’t see it because it was parked on the other side of their egos, hidden in the vast shadows cast.
I know I’d certainly like a better look at the mechanics and timeline behind this decision, but there’s no way short of a Freedom of Information request, which is convenient I suppose, at least until somebody applies for one, at a beauty rate of $7.50/15 minutes — I think that’s called $30/hour — for individual tasks like searching, retrieval, printing, talking to the guy the next desk over, consulting one’s Facebook, you know, all the essentials behind a FOI application. No oversight or accountability that I’m aware of as to how long the people tasked with finding out that information might take. It might take me a minute, likely less, but I keep records. I organize stuff.
But at a time where record-keeping wasn’t at a premium, perhaps such a search would take much longer.
One way or another, we’ll find out. We always do.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 