What do any of you know about The Residential Homes?

   

My maternal great grandmother was in a Residential home. She was so thoroughly indoctrinated to be ashamed of being native and to hide it that her own daughter (my grandmother) only discovered the truth at her mother's death In some of the family our native heritage is obvious; in others it is less so. My great grandnother never spoke of it.

My own colouring is that of any caucasian who tans well; I inherited my father's hairline (shit!) and have a mid-Atlantic accent which makes me seem more of European stock.

I once had lunch with my cousin and another guy at a friend's restaurant. Afterward my friend said "so that's your cousin... who was the fuckin' indian with him?"

One of my relatives passed away some time after I married and my wife was amazed to see the reception filled with natives.

I am proud to say I descend from a Powless So while my mother's side identifies mostly as native I identify primary as of French descent. (My french forebears came in the 18th century. I am consider myself the Compleat Canadian - entitled to be here on both sides.

   

Do you know what age your great grandmother was when she left the home? Did she have any contact with her family while she was in the school? Do you know if it was a violent situation for her? Or others with her. Maybe if she kept it a secret you really haven'y heard any of this?

   

We know no details of her time at the School but there was no contact with her family. After the Residential School she married a white man and evermore hid her race, instead passing as white and integrating into "Canadian" society.

In latter years when her parents were ailing she would tell her children (my grandmother) and grandchildren (my mother among them) that she was going to visit a friend in Toronto; her destination was the reserve at Deseronto

   

They were successful in brainwashing her.. that's so sad.

   

That's how I feel about it too. I remember her only as this imperious thin woman who laughed. And strong bony hands. Vivacious. She danced to her grave and only upon her death did her 60-something boyfriend discover her true age.

When I was a child when I first saw my mother's brother in a head-dress. For years I thought it was only a really good costume. It was only at my grandmother's funeral that I began to realize it, among the others, was no mere costume but a sign of his place in the reserve community. It was an intricate and beautiful thing (but I thought ostentatious as hell. ) On the rest no emblem was needed to show their heritage or their pride. They, too, are fully integrated Canadians. But pride of family means that heritage could not be forgotten long. I sat feeling very very different , a few "white kids" in a room full of native cousins.

Though I am not personally connected to the Mohawk culture I respect my cousins who are.For a man off reserve to wear a braid is an act of defiance as much as an act of pride and courage.

I will venture the observation that wherever an ancester had the financial means (notably by marrying white) the next couple of generations would be fully integrated, often still recognizably native but not recognized as such because the expectation (bias) is that "h/she looks respectable ergo she's just got a nice tan, especially as the caucasian features tend to mask the mix. My sister is obviously of native extraction; I am not. My aunt is; my mother is not. How evident it is depends largely on fashion and style choices. Since I was a kid my mother has always dyed her hair blonde and was the quintessential officer's wife.

Any time she produces her first nation's PST exemption card she gets a double-take from the clerk.

.

   

Well,

I'm not Native but I am Metis. And my grandmother who is part Metis and part Indian was infact very racsist towards aboriginals -- because of these residential schools-- until her cousin Ovide (yes that is Ovide Mercredi) became Chief.

Residential schools are also the reason my grandmother no longer speaks Cree or French.

   

I'm part metis, but it's a small part.

   

if this is off the thread topic too much, excuse me. i'm not aware of the classifications and status and designations in our government (which means absolutely nothing to me in the first place) nor am i too clued in about the metis nation. why, from your perspective, is a metis not a native man/woman?

   

I have Native blood in me, but it is the native blood of the Incas...So, not North American Native.

   

Donny_Brascoe and factsofthematter. Saga may or may not be. I'm part Metis and still know some of the Cree language.

   

Metis is Native only too the White people, provided they look Native, as far as my experience has told me.

As for the Metis nation, well the Metis were the result of marriage on Indian grounds between les Courreur de bois and Cree women in what is now northern Manitoba and was then eastern Wood Cree territory. The children of these marriage, who were termed with the French word for "halfbreed" most often married eachother, and developped a culture wich is similar to that of their Indian mothers and French fathers, yet was also in many ways different from both. Often, back in the prime of the Metis culture, Metis were not at all sedentary and spoke several languages most usually including French and Cree. Gabriel Dumont could speak a total of seven languages.

We are aboriginal in the sense that we have been on the western prairies long since before the Canadian government came, but are not Indian as our culture is that of a mixe between White and Native.

   

thank you virgil that fills in some history. i still sense that you feel that you are not truly native! however we the whites have managed to educate the native blood and heritage from you, it doesn't do anyone any good to not be proud of one's people, culture, and history. metis, to me are as native as the land they grew up from. however their culture developed if you have native blood, half breed, quarter, one eighth, ad infinitum...it shouldn't matter what the government "status" cards say.

   

Virgil..Didn't Ovide go to school in The Pas? If he did I am sure he went to school with my brother..Didn't he also rip off the Moose Lake and Easterville bands as their lawyer?

   

not sure if he "ripped off" anyone, though he is a lawyer. I do however, somehow doubt that he would have been elected chief when he was if he had "ripped off" some other reserves. All the times I've spoke to him he has come off as being more devoted to the Nations and the Metis more so than himself. as for le pas, it sounds about right, rings a bell at least. I've actually only spoke to him a few times, lives in Vancouver now.