Historical Trauma in ____ Parts
Part I, November 1954
Browning Montana
November 10, 1954
Dear Sir,
Could you please kindly send two of my girl home. I send one of them their money to come home on, Thats is Irene Wall. And later on this week I’ll get the other one money I’ll send to her too. But I send Irene Wall money now and you send her home this week.
From
Mr and Mrs Francis Wall
Above is a letter from my great grandparents, Annie and Francis Wall, to Chemawa Indian School—an assimilationist boarding school for Native children in Oregon—asking that my grandma and her older sister be sent home. The principal, Mrs. Nell V. Brannon, sent this in response:
Chemawa, Oregon
November 13, 1954
We have received your letter requesting us to send your two daughters home, Irene at once and Angeline as soon as money is sent for her fare home. We are at a loss to understand just what your intention is in the matter. Irene was free to leave Friday evening but she did not wish to do so and so she will leave Monday afternoon and should arrive home Tuesday evening.
We assume that you intend that they shall drop from Chemawa and have the girls take all of their belongings.
Part II, meeting my grandma
When I was in middle school, we had to interview our grandparents about their experiences in school for an assignment. My grandma and her siblings were the third generation in our family to attend boarding school; I’m the second generation to not. I asked my grandma if there was a school bully. My grandma said she was the school bully, because she always talked back to teachers and spoke Blackfeet. She said she frequently was punished, and was forced to stand in the outhouse or have soap in her mouth. Soap was a common punishment; Native students in the U.S. and Canada died of lye poisoning. Every boarding school grounds I’ve visited has a cemetery.
I wonder what the white kids asked their grandparents about.
Part III, “what it means to be Indian,” or, teachings from my elders1
Always greet elders. Go around and kiss their cheeks or shake their hands as soon as you walk in a room.
Serve elders. Elders eat first. When food service begins, like at a funeral or community event, go to every elder and ask them if you can get food for them. Bring them coffee or tea. Check in on them and refill their plate and mug.
Introduce yourself by asking where someone is from. This is a question about their tribe and their family, not necessarily the town they live in. This is a way to figure out how you’re related to each other. I almost always find connections.
At some point, every Indian has felt ashamed of being Indian. We shouldn’t shame each other. Don’t make fun of someone who doesn’t know their language or cultural teachings. We get enough of that shit from white people.
You’re not really Indian if you don’t like maple donut bars.2
“Indian Time” means something different for different generations. Today, it often means arriving late or starting late. To people who went to boarding school, whose lives were dictated and abused by the bell, it means arriving uncomfortably early.
Part IV, at a community meeting
At a Native community meeting I once attended, a younger man said we needed to bring elders to the table. Everyone at the meeting was in their mid-40s or younger, most were in their 20s. He said that in order to truly understand the health needs of the community, we needed our culture keepers. Another man, a bit older, said that with all due respect, he didn’t know any elders who fit that bill. He said the elders he knew had toxic relationships, didn’t live by traditional teachings, and were just as messed up as the rest of us. After a brief pause, the facilitator said: “We have all been impacted by historical trauma.”
Part V, an introduction to the subject
When I think about unresolved grief in Indian Country, I think about three things: loss of land, loss of culture, and loss of community. These losses are woven throughout our history since colonization. Boarding schools brought all three. Native children were frequently taken far from their homes, sometimes hundreds of miles away. They were far from the landscape they and their ancestors knew. Far from their medicines, their creation stories, their ceremonial sites, their language, their parents and grandparents loving embrace.
Part VI, a fictive ending
I wrote this in a pop-up class on genre experimentation hosted by Ari Tison. It’s an alternative ending to the letters sent by my great-grandparents to my grandma and great-aunts boarding school highlighted in Part I; imagining them going home on the train and greeting their parents.
The prairies, which we have so longed to see, whoosh and whirl past. It’s that one week in Montana when the grass is vibrant green. Pops of yellow balsam root cover the hillsides, blurring together, in a patchwork of bold pastel across the rolling hills. By next week, this will all be a crackly, drying yellow. We round the corner, our faces pressed against the train window. Mom and daddy stand on the train platform, smiles so wide their eyes disappear. Their letters have finally worked. The nuns finally gave in. We are home.
Important Links
Interactive Digital Map of Indian Boarding Schools by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
Information on S.1723, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act
"Truth as healing: How one state is confronting Native American child removal," Winter 2019 issue, Yes! Magazine (article by me)
Please note that every Blackfeet family has slightly different teachings. Some of these teachings are cultural and have been passed down for generations. Some of these teachings are just the personal opinions of people in my life. If you grew up with different teachings, that doesn’t make yours wrong or mine wrong. People remember different things from their elders and relatives.
This was told to me as a joke, but I agree.
mmm maple bars ❤️