Article 8: A Search for Healing and Reconciliation

Taylor Flett

The following poems were inspired by my search for healing and reconciliation. They are expressions of the frustrating feelings of a young Indigenous woman who has dealt with the after-effects of colonialism, Christianity, and intergenerational trauma.

The product of my search did not come easy for any Indigenous peoples in North America, especially for a Cree woman like myself from Northern Manitoba. The search begins by first discovering the parts of one’s self responsible for causing harm to others and one in particular. I knew that I was carrying a trauma with me wherever I went, causing unnecessary conflict within. I grew up in a home where words like trauma, abuse, and hurt were considered taboo. These forbidden words only became part of my vocabulary when I started taking classes that spoke openly about colonialism, capitalism, Christianity, and intergenerational trauma. I took the classes while I was attending Bachelor of Arts at UCN, and they helped me crawl through the feelings and thoughts that I had been having for most of my life. I was also able to put words to the hurt which came with the traumatic feelings and thoughts.

For most of my life, I had experienced the lingering effects of Residential Schools. On my father’s side of the family, I am part of the first generation in his family who didn’t have to attend Residential Schools. On the other hand, on my mother’s side of the family, I am among the second generation of Residential School survivors, and I was lucky that I didn’t have to be sent away to such schools. However, it was still a scary thought just to think that as a child ,I would have been forced to leave the comfort of my home, and be sent to live in an unknown place for the sake of acquiring Western education, together with my brothers, sisters and cousins. Such was the scenario with the Residential School system.. My fear went deeper inside my soul and spirit, particularly when I was threatened by a family member who used to scare me by invoking the image of residential school as punishment for my misbehavior: “If you don’t  behave, we will send you to Residential School  where your hair will be cut off.” This horrible memory came back to haunt me once when I was reading a newspaper on the abuses the Residential School survivors experienced, especially having their hair cut.

My family carried a lot of hurt from their residential school experiences, and they passed on the hurt to others who in turn passed it on to other members in the family tree. It is an ongoing cycle, and I have to accept the fact that this hurt will never end unless we all face the truth of the hurt we carry from one generation to the next. My family is not the only family that have been greatly affected, directly and indirectly by the residential school experience. There are thousands upon thousands of Indigenous families in Canada who have to deal with intergenerational trauma and the need for constant healing. The healing process is difficult without governmental and social support to Indigenous communities. I wish that my own family on the reserve has access to healing support. This is why I chose to base my poems around the TRC Calls to Action, number. 61:

We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement, in collaboration with Survivors and representatives of Aboriginal organizations, to establish permanent funding to Aboriginal people for:

i. Community-controlled healing and reconciliation projects.

With Pope Francis’s visit to Canada, I believe that churches, including Catholic, Anglican, and other Christian denominations that participated in establishing and running residential schools  play a role in helping to develop Indigenous community healing projects. I also wish that the government would also play key role in the healing process. I feel that every Indigenous community that has been affected by colonialism should be given a a space for healing, and to unlearn the hurt, while accepting the past moving on to reconciliation. As an Indigenous person myself, I am not there yet when it comes to reconciling the past with the present and the future. I still have to deal with the frustration of the injustice my relatives faced and the intergenerational hurt which survivors and victims continue to live with. Meanwhile, I am making efforts to move on to reconciliation.

1. An Indian Girl’s Search

Searching and
reaching for
that elusive
Indian girl.
The girl with
shiny black hair,
maroon lips,
smooth honey
brown skin
and small hips.

The girl who speaks
her peoples’ words
eloquently
with a laugh
that is soft, coy
and quiet.

The girl who
can slip between
the worlds of white
and brown,
keeping her
tough tight,

• Our Hair

I used to cut my hair
In defiance of a man’s world.
A White Man’s world,
Who expected all to march
to the tune of the
Civilized world

I never knew the stories of our hair,
Each strand, a memory of blood and sinew
Threaded and woven by grandmothers,
Mothers, aunts and siblings.
Each strand is a memory of love and community

But our memories of our hair were taken,
Plucked, cut by selfless Christian saviours
Dressed in self-righteousness robes and martyrdom
Saving our pagan souls from their own
Depths of hell

Little did they know
We still whisper the story
Of our blood and sinew
In each strand of our children’s hair,
Threading and weaving
The next era of our Reconciliation
To echo our Sovereignty

• This Girl Called Hope

The girl waits in the early hours of the morning
Under a sky of violets, baby blues and magentas
With two heads resting on her lap, snoring gently
A round-faced little brother and a sister with frizzy dark hair,
All waiting for their parents’ celebration to end.

The girl waits for the sounds of silence from her home.
But it is still a crescendo of her parents’ music,
Her aunties’ loud thunderous peals of laughter,
Her uncles’ bumping into walls, tables, kitchen tops,
Her parents’ argument echoing from the kitchen,
Her grandfather banging his fists against doors,
And glass breaks like a cadence signaling the end of a song.

The girl tiptoes with her sleepy cubs in her arms across bodies and creaks,
Being careful not to break the deadly slumber of snaking hands,
And finally, she lays each child under wrinkled linen in their room,
Smoothing their hair from their foreheads, kissing their brows
And the girl allows herself to doze off into her chest,
Her back against the door but wakeful enough if an intruder came in

The girl wakes to sounds of the dead waking one by one
Crawling out of her home, To the safety of their own homes
Or to chase the next coin to fill their nights with fire water
And laughter and forgetfulness.
She feels for the spirits of their family, each a shadow of their past,
Each with stained grey hands placating their loved ones with their past
Handprint after hand print,
Loved one after loved one
It was a never-ending cycle of memories and buried truths.

The girl gambles her future on hope, not on lotto
And scratch tickets her grandmothers played.
A hope that one day the girl will find a tool,
She will learn this tool,
She will study this tool,
She will experiment with this tool.
She will share her knowledge of this tool.
She will wait patiently for her family to learn this tool.
She will wait patiently to watch her family blossom and bloom.
She will wait patiently to guide her family one by one to heal and rise together.

Hope is one way to heal.

Author Bio: Taylor Flett is a Cree woman from Tataskweyak Cree Nation. She has recently completed the Kenanow Bachelor of Education programme at the University College of the North. Previously, Taylor had also attained a degree in Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English, before attaining a degree in Education. She is an avid reader, and she enjoys collecting house plants.  She is looking for a job that will use her writing talents and educational training.

Instructor’s Remarks: Taylor Flett’s poems have been published in previous issues of MFTN. When I invited her to contribute to this special issue, she came up with three poems in which I am able to see that Taylor has created the Indian girl as a self-image.  At the 2022 UCN Thompson Convocation, Taylor’s valedictory speech impressed all the graduates and attendees. Congratulations on your academic achievements, Taylor! (Dr. Ying Kong)