The Survivors Speak

10 • Truth & Reconciliation Commission
about the beaver, and I always used to wonder why my mom would every time she
was skinning beaver, she’d always set aside the, the kneecaps separately. She’d put
those aside. And then afterwards she’d go, she’d go, either paddle out to the water
somewhere, like a deep part, and that’s where she threw them in. And, and I always
know, wondered why she would do that. I’ve never questioned. It wasn’t until I was
older I asked her, like, “Why do you do that?” She says, you know, “This is what we’re
supposed to do, to respect and honour the beaver, to thank the beaver for giving its
life so that we could eat it, use its pelt. This is what the beaver wants us to do.” The
same thing as you treat a duck, a duck, the duck bones a certain way. You know all
that’s got, got purpose and a reason for it. 18
Grandparents played an important role in raising children in many communities.
Richard Hall, who went to the Alberni, British Columbia, school, recalled with deep affection
his pre-residential school upbringing and the role that his grandparents played.
And my grandmother she taught us to be orderly.
She taught us to go to church. She dressed us to go
to church. She loved the church. My playground
was my friends, with my friends was the mountains,
streams, the ocean, and we’re raised in the
ocean because we went fishing all summer long
and we travelled to the communities, the fishing
grounds because at the mountains where … the
places where we spend our days, times, the rivers,
from in playing in the river, no fear and that was
normal. With my grandfather, he took me with him
at the young age, he took me, he taught me to work
in the boats with him. He taught me how to repair Richard Hall.
boats. He will take me to talk to his friends and all
I did was to speak their language and speak their Native tongue while they prepared
fish around the fire. He took me wherever he went and I later learned that he was my
lifeline. He helped me and guided me the best he could. 19
Before going to the Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, school, Noel Starblanket was raised by
his grandparents.
I attended ceremonies, I went to Sun Dances. I picked medicines with them. We did
medicine ceremonies. We did pipe ceremonies. We did feasts. We did all of those
things with my grandparents, and I spent time with my grandfather in those ceremonies,
and I worked with my grandfather. He made me work at a very tender age. I was
cutting wood, cutting pickets, cutting hay, hauling hay, all of that kind of stuff, looking
after animals, horses and cattle. So, I spent a lot of good times with my grandparents,
my, and the love that I had from them, and the kindness, and the very deep spirituality
that they had. And so my formative years were with them.