Healing and Reconciliation: Siksika

Times Jr Reporter

 

Siksika Nation celebrated the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation on June 11, a celebration that is anticipated to become a yearly event. The day’s significance was to begin a recovery process to overcome the brutalities that members of the Siksika Nation have endured while attending past residential schools. 

The day’s events started at 10 a.m. at the Old Sun College, from where members of the nation walked, ran and biked to the Siksika Powwow Arbour to continue events until to 6 p.m. The opening ceremonies included a prayer followed by the youth runners who performed an opening dance, followed by speeches from individuals who introduced and spoke about the meaning of the event, including Donnie Yellow Fly, who has first personally experienced many of the hardships of attending the residential schools.

Beginning at a residential school at the age of 5 and continuing on for a total 13 years, Yellow Fly recollects his experiences, stating that the bad memories stand out to be the most prominent.

“The policies at that time were to civilize and to ‘Christianize’ us,” said Yellow Fly. “It wasn’t so much the religion itself that was responsible for the brutalities; it was more the people who were waving the religious flags.”

In an attempt to ‘civilize’ those attending the residential schools, Yellow Fly emphasizes that their policies were enforced through physical and, unfortunately in some cases, sexual abuse. Yellow Fly states that physical abuse was mostly what he had encountered. The schools weekly ‘pay days’ still stand out in his mind. 

“They used to take some of the older members of our school to document throughout the week how many times they caught us speaking our language,” he said. “They would gather us, and would take girls on one side and boys on the other, and would call out our names; who was going to get whipped on the buttocks. You would literally have to pull your pants down in front of everybody; consider the humiliation of that experience.” 

Yellow Fly remembers the thought of, “I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry,” because he did not want to let them “beat him at the game” so to speak. He believes the suppression of emotion was what contributed to the eventual psychological damages and emerging addictions which he personally acquired, as did many other residential students. 

Consequential to his drug and alcohol addictions, which were his biggest sources of comfort, Yellow Fly was sent to prison for several years, and recalls that experience to be life-saving. He states that if he had not gone to prison, he currently would be buried six feet under the ground. After his release, Yellow Fly became an addictions counsellor and is currently working for the land claims department.

“I have moved on. Because of my experiences, I’m embracing the healing journey,” he said. “I know our history, I’ve experienced our history and the need for this healing to begin. I think it will not only benefit the populace here, but our interactions with the broader society.”

To symbolically begin the healing process, a tree planting ceremony took place where four trees were to be planted in the four corners of the Arbour. Chief Fred Rabbit Carrier states that the trees are significant because they begin as a small seed and take many years to grow, like the healing journey. He laughs that the trees will also beautify the area because, “there are no trees!”

In letting go of the past, a balloon releasing ceremony took place as well, along with a Candle Light Memorial, and the closing activity of the Round dance, a friendship and healing dance which put a close to the day’s events. 

Chief Fred Rabbit Carrier emphasizes that the day’s games and events would not have been possible if it were not for the many helping hands of the volunteers, with a special thank you to Marsha Wolf Collar for spearheading the event.