Interviewed by J. Plourde and grade 10 students from Northern Lights Secondary School, in Moosonee, Ontario.
Speaking in her second language. Clarifications provided by her niece, Annie.
Everything is very different. Everything’s different.
The young people, the way the people hunt. The weather changed: especially the winter time: it’s late. The weather is one of the changes in our environment; it’s very late, the winter. The language: they don’t speak Cree. Their parents, when they talk in in Cree, the young people when they answer, they are always answering in English. I don’t know why they don’t want to learn Cree. Even the small ones, the babies … That’s what happened to the young people. It’s too bad, though. Their own language is Cree, eh. They don’t want to learn it, they don’t want to talk it, they don’t want to listen.
First of all I was born in Attawapiskat, in a wigwam. And I stayed in the wigwam until I was maybe 10 or 11. And my mother was a Cree and my father was a Scottish. My father worked for Hudson Bay - he was a Scottish and my mother was Cree, pure Cree. But she learned to live with the English because my dad couldn’t speak Cree.
“But your dad learned a little bit.”
A little bit, yeah. I’m the oldest one, Annie’s father (my brother)’s [in the middle], George and Gabby, the youngest. We were staying with my parents until I was 6 years old, when my mother died. When I was 6 years old, my mother died.
When I was living with my parents, I used to go with my mother, go hunting. I used to follow her hunting. Hunt for partridge, fish, rabbit, fishing. [My mother] used to work hard. I used to go with her in the canoe to check her fishing nets, used to go paddling. She was so fast, setting rabbit snares, and I used to be far behind. I was crying because I couldn’t follow and then she heard me crying, she came back. I was waiting, I was tired, so she gave me water with her hands, she gave me some drink. I used to follow her all over because my father, a white man, he can’t do any Indian hunting. He was a white man, so my mother always did everything for us. We were so poor I remember. We didn’t have anything like blankets, anything warm. Used to take me sometimes hours to go to bed without heating. I was so poor, so my mother went hunting to get us something to eat.
The other thing too, before I went school, I stayed in that Old Post in Fort Albany. That’s where we were staying. The Anglican people were staying on that side too and Catholic people were staying on the other side. We were staying at the Catholic side. There was always flooding in the summer time, in the spring. So Father decided to move the other place called Lake St. Anne. So that's what he did, he moved to the other place. So my parents helped him cutting branches [clearing the land], so our parents helped, especially my mom. Lots of families were helping to make a new village [because] he was scared that there would be another flood. I seen that when there was flooding, because I was in school that time, I was about six years old. I think I saw that place and I have a picture, the house were on water because the ice come on the ground. There was water all over, all over the houses, the Old Post, they built a new one, they build a big school.
“Her mom and the other women helped clear the land and they even had “tiginagans” [cradle boards worn on their back] with the baby in there. Her mother did that too, chopping-”
She was a good worker, strong woman.
“But she died of TB”
I was six years old, the baby was 2 years old, the other was 4-years old.
“She was pregnant too at that time, 7 months. They had a hard life.”
Very hard life.
“Harsh life. That’s around the depression too, eh. That’s why they were hungry.”
And then when they built a built school, it wasn’t even finished ... and the hospital was there, together, everything was there in that big building. I have those pictures, that time, that happened. And then, that’s when my mother died, in that school they built it. The father built it to help us with food because our parents were working. They help us for food.
There was only maybe three buildings that were there at that time, the others were staying in tents, wigwams. I was born in a wigwam.
Advice
They should help people in the future. Help them to respect their parents, to respect their teachers. To respect them, to help them. Try hard. To learn [to] hunt. To try to talk their own language.
Try their best to respect people, old people, like us, to help them or to talk to them, counsel them, counseling we need that.
“She saying that the elders are not being taken care of well - the elders need to talk about their problems too, or their needs.”
The people always travel [with] sleighs and dogs, eh, in the winter, in the summertime they only use canoe and paddle. When I was in the bush, we left in the fall to go in the bush, we just used paddle. I was small at that time, just 9 or 10. I used to be lazy to paddle. We carried the water. We used to go down the bank to get water. They used to kill lots of Waveys [Snow Geese] and [Canada] geese and they used to carry them with us. Every time when we stop camping, we take another day to arrive at our destination. It was far, I don’t know how far it was in the bush we were going. They used to get all those foods, the Waveys and geese, they used to save them: salt them and have them smoked, so they would have enough for the winter. They never throw anything, they kept everything. They smoked it and kept it all winter. They use salt too to conserve.
“We kept the feathers for pillows. The wings, we used them for sweeping. We used everything.”
The rabbit, when they kill rabbit, they keep the skin and they used them to make a blanket.
“The other thing with rabbit skin, they put it on the other side where the skin it would be all dry, eh, it would act like a plastic, (especially in the spring). You put it over your feet and then you put your moccasins on and that way your feet don’t get wet. You use it on the outer side, where it acts like a plastic. The warm part, the fur part, is inside you, it’s warm. [You] don’t get cold or wet.”
They use moss for the Pampers.
“If you use it all night, it’s good for the night, you don’t have to change it. The baby will never have rash.”
You carried, you pick up those things in the summer time, eh. Those are the bags you put in the moss for the winter.
“You pick the moss and dry it where the stumps are or in the branches. You dry it and go back again between August, September, they would be all dry by then, and put it in the bag…. You have to go quite a ways, to walk, to go get it, save enough for winter. And just about before you go to use it, you pick out all the debris, the twigs. And then you put it in some kind of a cloth diaper and the baby is good for the night, you don’t have to change during the night. And then you put the baby in the moss bag.”
In the one year when I was in the bush… I was about 9 or 10 years old, the priest led me to live in the bush because I wasn’t too healthy, I was weak, so he had me live in the bush.
We used to do everything in a wigwam, to make a camp. When we were staying in the staying in the wigwam, sometimes there were one family on that side and another family on that side: there were two families in the wigwam. And there was, in the middle, an open fire. We weren’t cold at all, even in the winter. It was a big open area, eh, on the top.
“We could see the stars… the moon, [through] the top opening of the wigwam.”
We keep the fire all night, We use the [hard] wood to keep it burning longer. You know what we used for a mattress? Straw wrapped with cotton that’s what we used for a mattress, that’s what we were using.
“In my generation it was down, goose down, all goose feathers, but theirs was straw - they were very poor at that time”
The people who looked after me were so religious. They work during the week. On Sunday they don’t do anything, just to pray. Very religious people, they used to pray every night and morning. When we used to eat, we used to pray before. We were not allowed to do anything on Sundays. They were so religious, those people. They used to carry the [balsam fir branches for the floor] they used to change it on Saturdays, because tomorrow is Sunday.
I went to residential school for twelve years. I played the organ too; I was twelve years old when I started. That old Fort Albany, that’s where I learn my language, Cree. There were three teachers, three woman, Cree teachers that learn me how to write how to read. I learn fast. The three woman helped me for that. After I learned how to read, how to write, how to say in English, like our father. I used to say prayer by myself for them. I learned fast that Cree language. I used to translate in Cree. Sometimes, I always translate it too. I used to type in Cree too, like the bible or some other prayers. I still use those books that I translated into [Cree].
One year I did a prayer book that thick. I did that one year because the bishop asked me to do that one year. My kids were kept in Fort Albany for that-
“In the residential school. She typed all in syllabics - an old typewriter with the Cree syllabics.”
Now it’s in the computer.
Now nobody wants to talk Cree. I don’t know why. Even the small kids, even young people don’t want to talk cree - it’s very important. The Cree is very important. It’s our own oral language, it’s what gave us this language. So I’m very proud to talk in Cree.
