Maggie Hodgson - Speaking My Truth

who attended residential schools. Taking away these and other ceremonies
meant taking away the ideas, values, and principles basic to community
mental health. With the ceremonies went security, identity, ideology, rituals,
belonging, reciprocity, and beliefs along with responsibility for actions,
access to resources, time together, healing, and justice. The destruction of
ceremonies was the core of the Canadian government’s genocidal policies.
It served as a knife cutting into the heart of our culture. These policies
were reinforced by the four main churches’ position within the residential
schools. They believed that ceremonies were pagan and of the devil. Because
the majority of Canadians were of Christian origin, they supported anything
that would ensure the extinguishment of pagan ways. While they believed
what they were doing was right, the disrespect for our spiritual beliefs was a
big mistake.
Assimilation efforts served to confuse the sense of identity and the sense of
personal worth of those affected. Ceremony teaches personal responsibility
for one’s words and actions and reciprocity, or giving and taking. When
ceremony was outlawed, 2 they removed the very resource needed to heal
from the abuse experienced by some of the people who attended residential
schools. Individuals who have a spiritual foundation or who live the values
and principles of the ceremonies we participate in have been most successful
in reconciling with the effects of these social policies. While this sounds like
a quick fix, it is not: there are many valleys and hills in our journey toward
accepting that it is our choice if we stay in that pain or do the work necessary
to move forward. In my case, it has been a thirty-seven-year journey and I
still need to reflect on my choices when I become angry, scared, or hurt. In
the words of Elder Abe Burnstick, “It’s up to you! We don’t get something … for
nothing, we gotta earn it!”
The people and communities who have continued to move toward a place
of spiritual peace—or reconciliation—have understood that while Canada
took these things away from us, it is our personal responsibility to strengthen
ceremony within our families, communities, and society. Traditional and/
or Christian ceremony is critical to reconciliation. The Bible and traditional
ceremony each teaches with different words and rituals, but with similar
living principles. The core of those two ways teaches us “To love your
neighbour as yourself.” Or in our way, it is the well-being of the collective that
is core, and we must work to co-exist with others in a good way.
One teaching included in ceremony is the power of wind spirit. The wind
spirit brings us to a place of change—change in seasons, in our lives, and
in our daily choices. Our wind spirit is one of the strongest because it gives
us the capacity to speak when we use our breath or wind spirit. When we
362 | Maggie Hodgson