The Survivors Speak

Student victimization of students • 171
children, get on your knees,’ they said. So we got on our knees, I didn’t know what was
going to happen. They said, ‘Pray for them, they’re going to hell.’” 634
In some cases, students were able to overcome these barriers. Martina Therese Fisher
went to the Assiniboia residence in Winnipeg in the 1970s. She was the only student from
the Bloodvein Reserve at the school.
I was harassed by these students from up north; they were from God’s Lake. And they
said, “You’re not going to, you won’t be able to stay here one year.” And I said, “Why?”
And they said, “We chased all the Saulteaux girls away before you came.” But because
they said that to me I made up my mind, ‘I’m going to stick it out here this year.’
She did and, eventually, she and the other girls became friends. 635
Noel Starblanket said that at the Qu’Appelle school, he and his friends would have to
“give this bully our bread, or our butter, or whatever, that, that was our payment to him for
not bullying us, and, and then we’d eat whatever we had left then.” 636 Dorothy Ross said
that at the Presbyterian school in Kenora in the 1960s, the older students “would take our
candies, whatever you had, food, candies, chocolate bars. We weren’t allowed. We had to
pass them on to the bigger, the older. Or if you had money, they would take that money
from you.” 637
Lydia Ross recalled being bullied by older students at the Cross Lake, Manitoba, school.
She said the bullies would “take everything away. They’d hit you on your back as you were
walking.” If a student did not obey them, “you’d get hit, anyway, or pull your hair, or taking
your belongings, your barrettes, or from your petticoat pocket. So, they were mean older
girls that were there.” 638
Some bullies demanded money, rather than food. Isaac Daniels said that at the Prince
Albert school, an older boy robbed him of money that was intended for his sick brother.
“He said, ‘You got any money?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Let me see it,’ he said. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t have
no money.’ Well, he beat the heck out of me, threw me down right in the washroom there,
took my wallet, took all my money.” 639
In other cases, students sought protection from bullies by giving treats to older boys.
Gordon Keewatin, who attended schools in Manitoba, turned over his oranges in exchange
for such protection. 640
At the Beauval, Saskatchewan, school, an older boy was assigned by the school to help
Albert Fiddler adapt to the school. However, the boy soon insisted that Albert give him his
dessert at dinner.
So, I had to go out there, and sneak, and give him my, my sweet stuff, yeah, that’s how
I was paying him for that. That’s how they were, they were doing that I guess. They
had this little racket going on that they were, they get all the dessert from the small
boys, or otherwise they will, like, it was more of a, they’re gonna protect us, or whatever.