Shane McLeod is an Indigenous man with a great deal of knowledge and wisdom from the Anishinaabe Nation. He is known as a knowledge carrier and a traditional teacher who generously shares his wisdom with others and stresses the importance of understanding your identity.
Please tell me about your role as a knowledge carrier and traditional teacher.
I’m Shane McLeod and I’m Anishinaabe from the Anishinaabe community from Nipissing and my clan is the Crane Clan. My role, I would say or my responsibility as a knowledge carrier and traditional teacher is pretty much keeping things or doing things right so its very important for me to see that if something is contradicting in some of the teachings that we see, I’m there to say, “no” – its not been done that way. I do the corrections, if you want to say, of certain other knowledge keepers or carriers. In case somebody is doing something, they don’t know about, or how to do it, I would go into the schools or colleges and show them how to do it. I teach them about the knowledge, the history, the language and most important for me is identity of the person.
Identity for me, is how I introduce myself. When I speak in my language, I speak to the Creator. I’m showing that I’m here – confirming that I am here, Creator, they know me by name so that’s another thing. We have that spirit name from before we’re born. That’s part of my identity that’s half of it. The other half is knowing who you are and what you do – your clan, the roles they have so your clan tells you your character traits. If you are not doing them, you might be doing them in a different way like doing them the same way as an animal, but you still have those traits.
An example would be, for me, Crane Clan. Before I started doing all these things and really gravitating to it and understanding it, a friend of mine mentioned to me about reading and I was like, I’m not a good reader. “Yes, you are”. “But I barely read any books”. And, he says, “You read people very well”. That’s when I realized, the crane sits in the river and watches everything, everybody, people, animals, birds, fish. They just stand there, and they eat food themselves and they are watching everything. If something moves in the woods, they move, they look, they see, and they watch it. Its like they are studying everything in the woods and the river. That’s when I realized that’s what he was saying to me. That’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid, not knowing who I am, what my culture is, what it does and eventually, like I said, when I gravitated to it, I realized what it really means. That’s part of knowing who you are. You just can’t really just go out there and say a bird does that and that’s it. You have to study what that bird does, how it eats, how it gathers – its all the same things that we do as a person in this life and as human beings.
From your knowledge and perspective, what do you think life was like in Ontario for Indigenous peoples, prior to colonialism?
This is interesting because I’ve always said that we never had so many problems in our community before contact. Yes, there was some kinds of problems – it wasn’t always the best or good. Of course, there were negatives things with different tribes fighting so it wasn’t like we were all just good. There was bad to – its part of being balanced. There are bad people and good people in the world – bad decisions and good decisions.
When I go back and think about that, it reminds me of how I go back to the language and learn if that existed. So, even food, they’ll say this is how you make this recipe like when my cousin will give me this recipe. It will have some chicken eggs and I say, “This is not our ancestor’s recipe. We never had chickens so how do you put chicken eggs in the food for that recipe?” To me, it doesn’t fit. So, I’ll take the eggs out and do what I think would be a replacement. We had many things here on this land before we needed anything else that was here. We never needed eggs, we had different eggs maybe, but it wasn’t a “go to”. When I think about that question you just asked, I would say there were less problems because we didn’t have all these things that caused or created more problems. We got along easier.
In our long house, we all had different roles. Everybody was on point – everybody was on track. Remember when I was talking about language about “maybe and ifs, would or should”, well we never had that in our language so there was nobody saying “if”, “maybe I’m going to do that” or “that could be done” – there was nothing like that. It was “yes, I’m doing that,” “yes, I will”, because it was an important part of responsibility for everybody in that community. So, it ran smoothly. Even for healing, we had medicines. We had a medicine man or medicine woman who knew what medicines that were out there that would heal you or take away whatever it was – pain, a cold, the flu which we never had before. We had other stuff that made people sick or tired. We knew how to fix it before the modern medicine.
Tell me about traditional roles.
What I heard before was that most of the men did the hunting but not all tribes or all cultures did that. Some of the other cultures had women who were the hunters. That reminds me of lions and a lioness. The lioness is the hunter. The big king of the jungle isn’t the hunter. Its important in different cultures about who brings the food home, who brings the water and takes care of the water. It was important for every different tribe. People had their roles and responsibilities and there was no lacking or “maybe I’ll get to it”. They were all strong, they were all healthy. They had no problem of doing it because its part of their living – everyday normal things. Like if you wanted to eat, you do your chores and that’s part of everybody eating and getting whatever food you had to gather or whoever had to get the wood to make the fire for the cooking or whatever it was, everybody knew it was important to do this. We all stayed healthy and strong.
As you said before, there were some fighting between groups or conflicts. How did Indigenous peoples resolve conflict?
Its way different. Now, in modern times, they either go to war with different countries and all that and once again, its very important about understanding because even like people in my family or my community, they don’t know how to do it the same way or don’t look at it in the same way. They have different perspectives. For me, I think its very important to stay in that lane and the lane for me would be, if anything was going wrong, stick to your grandmother or grandfather teachings. Those are inside of us.
When something goes wrong, those are the things that are being hurt. You can’t go and give conflict back. Some of our community don’t really realize this like they can’t talk to me like that or you shouldn’t say that and again, its those words that we never used. For me, personally, I don’t have anything that I want to say back to them because its against the teachings. Its against the grandmothers teaching and the grandfathers’ teachings so I don’t want to do it. So, that’s how I would resolve any kind of conflict.
Let’s say for instance, there would two students in the school and they are fighting. He did this and he did that – back and forth. I would sit both of them down and go through it with those teachings and explain the teachings first and show them. And then, talk to them about their incident or whatever the conflict was and then I would point out which one they were going against. Then they would realize, “I did something wrong too.” Its not that they didn’t do something wrong or went back to hurt somebody else, you’re hurting yourself too. Those things you are going against is going against yourself. Its hurting their spirit.
That’s how I resolve conflict in my community and that’s the same thing as if it was on a bigger scale. We would call the chief or whoever’s the leader in that community to come over to talk it out. There would be no war or fighting or bad words. It would be more of a conversation and a celebration. I believe its because of past confusion over generation after generation and everybody is learning something else to defend themselves so they wouldn’t be hurt. That’s what I see. Over generations of time, the kids are saying, my mom taught me this and my mom says that person can’t talk to me like that but realistically, you don’t have any control over that person’s mouth. The Creator gave them the mouth to speak and how to speak and it’s up to them. So, you shouldn’t be mad at them or get hurt by them because they are confused. So, if anything, you need to reach out to them and help them.
I’ll tell you this story that’s proof of this and it’s with my own children. One of my sons was having a bad day. Whatever it was, it was totally negative, mad, angry. He asked me a question and didn’t like what he heard from my answer, so he was telling me everything – ‘I hate you, you’re no good, you’re this, you’re that. You don’t know what you’re talking about’. He was screaming and crying and looking like he wanted to fight and I’m like, I’m not going to fight here – come on, you’re my child. I’m not doing that and its not going that far anyway. I said, “I can’t talk to you right now and I’ll come talk to you after”. I walked out.
Another person’s son called me at that very moment – funny how connections happen. I walked up the road and he said, “So what’s going on – what’s happening, what are you doing today, lets get together. But I said I was just dealing with some things with my son. “Well, that’s what the grandfather’s teachings are for – its all part of learning and understanding – that’s what we use to teach our kids”. I said, “Yeah, I know but I’m trying to figure out which one to use”. So, I went back and walked into my room, sitting down and thinking – which one should I use and then it pops into my head. What is the opposite of what I’m getting here, what is opposite of hate and anger? I thought – love. Love is caring, love is the opposite of that. I just said, okay, let me try something and this is the first time I ever did this.
It was like how I explained it with the kids at school, I use it differently but this way, it was totally like let’s see what happens when I do this. I turned around and I said to myself, I’m going to open that door and the first words I’m going to say is, I love you. So, that’s what I did. My son got up, came over, hugged me – the biggest hug - and he said he was sorry. I said, don’t worry, I understand you’re angry. You don’t understand what’s happening – you don’t like it and you don’t have the tools, yet. You still have to practice getting this understanding. I totally understand – I just know that we’re not going to ever fight and just basically said that I love you and this is the way we should be all the time.
It turned him from anger, crying, hate and all that just went away. One of the teachings when I teach about love is what’s an example of love and they tell me. Usually, its all about family and I ask, do you love anybody else or do you show any love or caring or those things that relate to love? Then they think and its like “no” – they all say no. But then I ask, do you ever hold the door open for somebody you don’t know, and they say yes, so that’s caring, that’s respecting, that’s part of love. Not that you are in love with the person, but you are showing them caring and that’s all part of it. That’s all part of it.
Basically, I’m still not seeing the reconciliation. The news say this and that but its not coming together in my head because I work in that system. Another example would be that those from the residential schools are still being affected right now, including people who weren’t even in the schools. This is what I learned within the past ten years.
I have a friend who didn’t go to residential school, I didn’t go to residential school, so my friend was just living and growing up as we go along. His parents went to residential school. One of my parents went to residential schools who I didn’t grow up with so often, so I didn’t see him; I didn’t get that full abuse, but there was some. My friend had more abuse in his family. His grandparents went to residential school. They abused my friend’s parents, so my friend’s parents weren’t even in the residential school, but they were being abused in the same way as from their own parents. Here’s where it keeps going.
Even though they are not in residential school, fast forward another ten years, it’s the drugs, the alcohol, not going to school, not educated, no drive to be educated, not even in their own culture. They don’t know what that feeling is of ‘what is my responsibility’, ‘what is my purpose’. They don’t feel that and what’s going to happen to their kids. It’s a generational affect from the residential schools. I got attached to my culture before my friend, so I was less touched than my friend was and even then, they became addicted to drugs, abused their kids and lost their kids as well. It keeps going on even though they did not go to residential school.
The government has set up a system of taking your kids away. They say they are there to help and yes, they do help, the native child for instance, but then there are other stories that I know where they do not help, they set it up to take them away. For example, with my cousin, they had enough on their plate already and children’s aid added to their plate, so there would be more pressure and knew that she would fall. They put more pressure on her and when she fell, she had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no knowledge to say, “What is my human right”.
They tell you, they outright lie to them and say, “you have to do this, and you have to do that”. They give them ultimatums. When you are not clear minded and you don’t know your culture, you don’t know who you are, you are not going to make the right decision, or both could be the wrong decision, but its what they want – the system. So, they have to sign the paper, they are convinced that this is the best thing, and its not. They are separating family, separating kids and there is family out there that can help, can teach them and they are not reaching out or connected to them. They are separated somehow after the drinking, the fighting – the families and nobody is talking anymore. The elders will tell governments how to change systems, but they won’t do it.
When we see this time and time again, generation after generation – still the same story, you know that they don’t really want to help. We’re telling them this is what we really want, and they come to ask us again what we want or need, so we tell them, and they don’t do it. For instance, me in the school board, and elders too, are telling them this is what we need to do for our kids – not for you to have a job, not for you to do this and that. Its for the kids to be going on their way, thinking, evolving, learning about their culture, their purpose of themselves, their identity. This is what they need. I see the least amount of that being done. We should have the same amount of Anishinaabe teachers teaching the language to our kids as they do with the French language.
The first language teacher I was working with, where my kids were attending school, every nationality was welcome, and you wouldn’t believe how many good things come from that. African people, Jamaican people – cultures from all over the world would be saying, this is how our culture is too, these things we follow, I want my kids to learn this and learn the language. Some of the kids were learning better than me at the time – they were learning more language than me. These kids were catching on like that and asking me questions about my own language that I didn’t even know yet. They were so proud to show me this – some of these kids made me cry, seeing their happiness made me proud.
Can you please tell me more about the differences in language and culture between the early settlers and the First Nation peoples, for example the use of words?
It’s a very interesting question about how they even started using those words because we adapted for some reason. To this day, some elders I talk to will not use those words (if, maybe, but) because they know they are the active words or after-contact words or how they label them. They don’t use them. Then there are some who will use them. For me, what we were talking before about understanding, if I want to see – like I really think about those words – if, would, should, could, maybe. I thought about those words and I’m thinking, let me check with the language person or teacher if these words exist. That’s how I stumbled across it because I realized that these words - everybody has their own meaning or their own percentage towards like “maybe”. Some percentage they have is 50/50, some will have more of a 60/40 if I’m coming or going to show up. Then a lot of people here maybe they say, no, they’re not going to show up because its not reliable. Its not concrete, not solid. Its not like the roots in the tree holding that tree up – its not solid. That’s where it clicked into me to ask the teacher – do these words exist and then when they came to tell me, “no” they didn’t, I was so surprised – I found another clue to my culture and why my people didn’t have these issues because they never said those words.
If those words were never said, you can’t do the action. No maybe’s, or if this happens – there is no talk of that. There is no “if that happens in the future”, there was nothing like that. They knew what was going to happen then because they knew they were going to do what they said. They would get to that point and its not like seeing the future, its just seeing yourself. A clear example would be my friends saying “maybe” we’ll sell the house, “maybe” – you don’t see the For Sale on their house yet, they’re still saying it two years later. Its very important for language - what you say and how you say it because its for the spirit. Even when I was learning about those things myself, I was testing this on myself first so I would catch myself saying “Oh, maybe I can do that,” instead of “Yes, I will do that”. I started catching myself and repeating the word with a “will” and I realized after I started doing that those things started to get done. All those things I put a “will” to, got done. Every time I put a “maybe” or an “if”, a “possibly” and a “should be” or “could be”, it never happens.
What do we need to be mindful of when speaking to Indigenous peoples?
Similarly, to what I was saying at the beginning, talking about the who you are, understanding or the identity, I don’t see the ignorance that way because of the way I teach or the way I see my teachings. Not all of our community are like that, so I understand what you are saying about feeling ignorance, but its not, it’s the people around you. Some feel you shouldn’t say that and once again, you hear the word I said, “shouldn’t”. So, all of my family that I see use those words. The more they use them, the more issues they have, the more obstacles they have in their life, more hardships in their life and that’s because of those words, in my opinion. I stopped using those words and better things began to happen in my life. I started doing, I started teaching, I started learning more and I became a teacher in my own community and recognized as a leader.
It was about being who you are and that was one of the things - some of the meetings I went to and saying, “I don’t know what this meetings about,” but they told me I should be there, that it was very important for me to be there so I just went. I wasn’t nervous about what I was going to say or do, all I said to myself was in question about not knowing what you are going to, kind of like, should I go or not or is it worth it or whatever. For me it wasn’t anything like that – for me it was just, I have to go. Just be who you are. Every time I went to those meetings and not knowing what to do or say, I would just say, “be who you are,” because that’s what helped me all the other times – be who you are. That’s how you got to be where you are, is being who you are and that’s all I did. I don’t even have anything written down about what to say, its just being who I am, explain the understanding of how I understood it and of how my family understood it in different ways.
When I knew, I felt I had purpose, and I would say those things – that I know I have purpose. I know I have purpose; I know I have to find out, all before I found out. Then everything came into place – it was like a sign. Everything was a sign that I followed. There was nobody telling me, and I was saying that last time, no one can tell me to go there or do that unless I know its something that I know is part of my purpose. Even those things were happening. Like a paper would come in my kid’s bag saying ‘Lunchroom Supervisor Wanted.’ And I would say, “Is that for me?” I’d leave it for a bit and a couple weeks later, it pops back up in my face and I would be like, “okay, I think that’s a sign – let me check it.” I took that paper into the school, not even fill it out, just show the paper to the principal or vice principal and ask, “Can I apply for this?” They just jumped up right away – eyes bright…. “you are perfect for this. We need someone like you to come help the kids.” I signed the papers and I had a job. It wasn’t me going to the school for a job – it was a sign for me to follow.
The sign for the kid’s language teacher – that was a sign as well. I advocated for my kids, the sign came home with them a week or so later and a language teacher was in the school. All the pieces started to click together. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even know what was going to happen the next day, I just know when the sign is for me and it all starts with understanding your identity. If I explain this to someone else in my community, like my family or as they would say, a full-blooded native, I would be like they don’t understand it. I explain to them, they won’t get it. They are attached to what they see outside in the world, they don’t get it about “this” or about “that”, “but”, so there is not “but this” or “but that”. Its like a deflection.
There are many other people from other cultures who I talk to and now they are great friends, becoming closer friends to me than friends I grew up with for 20 or 30 years because of that connection. I’ll tell you a story. I walked out of my house and walked down my street and saw my African friend and I know his brothers, so we talk and got to know each other. As we were getting to know each other, one day, he seen me and said, “Hey Shane, come over”. So, I went over and started talking to him. “Shane, I don’t know if you are going to understand what I’m going to say to you, but I’m going to say it.” I knew what he was going to say – not knowing exactly what he would say but I knew it was a spiritual thing, an identity thing. He told me he see’s my aura and he told me I had a big aura – very nice, very good and colourful, very positive. He said, “No matter what happens to you, I see things very positive and you don’t fall into those negative things or get pulled into it”. So, he goes, “What do you do?” And, I started talking more about what I do, workwise and about identity and how its important for me to show my culture, my family and even kids about my identity, whether they are Indigenous or not. It very important for their identity to know who they are and their purpose. He says, “We live like this too, in Africa and I heard stories about us meeting a long time ago – our ancestors met a very long time ago.”
People don’t know that we actually travelled across the sea to Africa many, many years ago. That was another story from an older elder and he showed me the stories from an African story book that showed a Native person in the background. They know about us because there are pictures in their book. They were the ones who gifted the drum. Our drum is not like theirs, their drum is on the ground, on Mother Earth and our drum is off the ground. Even when we play the big drums, they are sitting off the ground. That was a long time ago – that was their gift and we share it together with Africans. He starts telling me more about the teachings that they follow and its pretty much the same teachings, so he told me he was going to send me a book they follow, the teachings they follow from their ancestors to this day. That’s why he says, “Me and you are gifted people”. We’re all gifted when you understand, you learn more about yourself, you get to know your tools – your own gifts. Everything that I know can’t help every single person and that’s why its important for every person, as an individual to get that understanding. You can’t force it, but you can show it and that person will get it.
That’s another thing I used to do. The language teacher would start teaching language. For me it was important for the kids to see the words of the grandfather’s teachings because even if they see it, it goes inside them – in their mind, in their feelings, their spirit. Their spirit can see it if they don’t really understand it. Even if it takes a year or two, even if they are around it and seeing it all the time, it helps them with their path, their understanding of who they are.
In your view, how do you think reconciliation can happen? Or, is something else needed to repair the damage done to Indigenous people, e.g. land return.
With giving back the land, when I hear that from my own people sometimes – they took our land. And its like, so where is your reserve? So, with my own in Nipissing, its up there, its my reserve. That’s where your ancestors lived and grew their food and everything. That’s where our ancestors lived their whole life so what land did they take? They’re like, “What about all the other land?” But you weren’t even on that land, so it wasn’t yours. You weren’t even there. Your ancestors were right where your reserve is, right now.
They (government) put a border around a reserve. For my reserve, they made a mistake on the measurement. It took them over twenty years, and we got our land claim lawsuit and we won for the amount of land that they were supposed to put that border around which was where our ancestors were. My cousins are on the next reserve so there was nothing taken. The reserves are still the same as they were in the 1400’s, the 1600’s, the same places. That land is sacred right there. The reserves are more sacred to our ancestors from where they were, where they are and where we are. So, they didn’t take our land. But they put their system into it so we work with that. For instance, Toronto – they didn’t take the land here. They did sell land – they sold it off without Indigenous people knowing about the worth of the land, which are different mistakes from the past, from our ancestors not knowing. In some cases, Indigenous peoples left the land, they’re gone, and you even can’t say that people coming after them took their land. For me, when I hear the words “left the land” its not their land in the first place, its Mother Earth. We’re not taking that land back to the spirit world. Everything on this earth is for human beings to share and to survive – that’s how I feel and understand it.
As I mentioned earlier, reconciling is not happening – its little pieces at a time and its not helping. Let’s say we’re going to have this scone, but I can’t have the whole thing. I can only have the raisin in there. That’s what I see them doing. They have all of it there, but they are only giving me the raisins. That isn’t helping. If I feed the squirrel one nut, is he going to survive? He’s going to get lighter, weaker and then no longer be around or the squirrel is smart and he’s going to go somewhere else.
I don’t see reconciliation happening where, for example, we see our people in the institutions teaching now and you are only giving them a little crumb. An example would be the language teachers. There is over 500 schools in just the Toronto District School Board alone and not including the other school boards. In the office where I was working, they have maybe four language teachers that go out to the schools. They get to go to 1 or 2 schools a day – maybe 2 or 3 times a week. There are some full-time language teachers out there but it’s a small number. And, they make it tough for them.
For example, the first language teacher I worked with, we keep in contact. She’s wondering why people aren’t contacting her from her office. She’ll ask me because I worked there. I’m like, “I don’t know”. She says, “Its been 3 months and they haven’t come to help me with anything – can you help me?” And I say Yes, of course I can come and help you”. For them, it has to go through a system, through an email, get approved – all this stuff. They have this now in an institution where you work within their system or you’re out of your job.
I had a question a long time ago for an Executive Superintendent. Now he’s a friend of mine and he gave me a job. He’s not Anishinaabe, he’s from Greece. They made a change without asking if this was okay – should we do this? They just did their own thing – politics…whatever and did a bad move. They said it was done and we can’t fix it. The community got very mad, so they lost parts of our community – they don’t want to see them anymore. They don’t come back – they took their kids out of school and all that. So, one of my questions was, “If I went to Greece, would you have me try to restore your culture?” He said, nothing – he couldn’t say yes. I said the same thing to the trustees. They couldn’t say yes. Now I go, “How do you think it looks – you’re putting someone else in our leadership who is not indigenous. You guys are putting him there, not us. So, what does that look like? You guys are the boss, you guys do what you want to do – you don’t ask us what is best for this situation. We have principals too, doctors, people with B.A.’s, Masters but they choose not to choose them. They know Indigenous people will help a little more than what they are doing.
The Indigenous school was a “shut-down school”. It was like, “Give them an office in that school.” So, the First Nation school right now had their name changed back to Wandering Spirit which was the original name – they reclaimed their name which is good but the school they deal with in our community, and I don’t know who it was, the deal they made somehow came out to Eastern Commerce and one of the questions for me is why Eastern Commence? Or, why the other place they tore down now. It means to me that you guys already had that plan and it wasn’t a good enough school to have your students in so that’s why you are shutting it down. I looked in the history of Easter Commerce and they were also shut down for so many different reasons, maybe health reasons or not up to code reasons so that was the school they chose for a First Nation School. And, the people agreed. I personally would not have agreed. No, I would want a brand-new school or even an up-to-par school. Like how you guys have, like how you teach your kids, your subjects – I want to have a school the same way. But they don’t. That’s reconciliation to me. They give you a piece of something. While the school year started, they were still doing renovations to bring it up to par – putting wiring in, Wi-Fi in, new computer wires and new phone wires.
What can the average person do to help expedite or support reconciliation?
Its up to the Indigenous people to do this. Of course, we can look back and see we had help along the way but its still up to me to make that decision or for that sign to happen or me to say yes, this is right, this is part of my path. If there is any feeling whatsoever that its not part of my path, I won’t do it. That’s how I do it but not all my people are understanding like that. That’s how I feel when they have difficulties. If they have more difficulties in their life, those are the reasons why. Its their decision but they don’t see it – they don’t realize they don’t have to do this. You still have the decision to say no.
I was telling you a story about with the medicine man who chose me to be part of the elder circle and I didn’t know exactly why he chose me. I’m happy with were I am, but I was just amazed, like I followed this sign and look what happened to me. I was welcomed into a circle of 40 elders and that was the beginning of one of the big steps for me in my life. I seen it happen and I was looking around at all these very highly respected elders for many years. I’m with them now and it was a big thing for me. I was taking it in, I was loving it.
The question for myself was “why did he really chose me” because all the people I see around me had way more years, like 20, 30 or 40 years, of experience. They know way more than me – why did they chose me? That was the question for me to answer or to figure out. Anyway, I was just going along with everything. Every elder meeting that we had, he would ask me questions and we would go out for dinner after. He would take us all out for dinner and I was always sitting beside him. He would ask my opinion about so and so and I would just say that I had no opinion about anybody. I read people yes, but I don’t really throw anything out there. And he’s like, “I was just wondering what you thought about that person”. Well, from what I see, from what I hear, he still has healing to do.
This was a 50 something year old elder and at the time, I was around 40 so he was older and he knew more stuff, went through more things, learned more things, taught more things, but he still had the healing to do. And he goes, “Why is that?” I said, “Because he’s not really telling the success of his path – he’s telling the hardships”. Those are different teachings or learnings that you get from that, plus when a lot of people hear the hardships, they get sad. They get sad, they cry, they get down. You don’t see or understand that way. You understand something else. A lot of people don’t get anything from that except to feel sad for him.
So, another meeting went on and he said, “what do you think about the other one over there”? I wondered, “Why is he asking me these questions?” After I caught on that he was testing me. All this was for a test. I read a book later and learning about it, about how we are chosen. It’s the medicine man or medicine woman in your community that choses you and knows when you are ready and knows if you are that teacher – the knowledge keeper or carrier. Its what kind of knowledge you have or what kind of role – that’s what they know before even some of us know. He was telling me all this stuff and I’m wondering why, why, why. Why is he picking me?
Years keep going on by and the circle kept getting smaller. So, that’s when I say, yah, I’m right about the test. Everyone is being tested. He’s letting them go and not calling them back. So, what’s happening now – basically its become a test for all of us. We started out with 40 and 3 or 4 years went by and there is only 4 or 5 of us now. I’m one of those 4 or 5 that hung in and survived the tests. That was the big answer.
So, we’re walking down the hall with the dean of one of the universities or colleges and he said, “This is why I picked this guy”. And, I still didn’t understand why and maybe I was going to hear the answer now. He’s talking to the dean and now I’m getting more excited because I’m going to get my answer now and the thing he said was, “This is why I picked him – because he’s untouched”. I’m like what does he mean by that – its another mystery!
I thought I was going to get my answer. It was sort of my answer, I just had to understand what it is he said. He’s like, “This is why he’s untouched, that’s why I like him, that’s why I chose him, that’s why he’s still here today”. So, what does he mean by “untouched”? Then it clicked in pretty quick – it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Untouched is meaning like nobody can tell me to just do that and I don’t know about what it is. I just do it and I just teach it. So, elders in our community would teach that person in the community or whatever part of their life. That person thinks that maybe they are a teacher one day but right then, its like oh wow, a teacher. So, they start teaching and spreading those things around, but they are not a teacher now, they weren’t chosen. That’s one of the issues we have. So, some of the elders have learned like that in our community in the past and they continue to teach like that or give that other person knowledge to say yes, you can do the same thing but they are not yet ready. So, that’s the thing we have to say to them.
Then you get people doing whatever they want at times. There is no regulation, there’s no guideline – there is and there isn’t. If you asked for the guidelines, I would go and pick out a couple of books and say this is a good guideline. But, all in all, the elders out there will not do that – they don’t feel that. So, I understand that what he meant by untouched was that I wasn’t taught by elder to elder and just do it. I teach what I teach from what I know, from what I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished. An example would be from the teachings – the grandfather teachings and the grandmother teachings.
At first, I didn’t realize what I was doing but I knew it was good. And then I realized that there was nothing bad coming from this as long as I keep doing it. I didn’t teach my kids those things until I did it first. Until I realized and understood what do these things do for me and how they help me – how am I going to teach them to my kids. I thought about all that stuff before I started teaching them. So, now I understood what he meant. It was the understanding – I could understand everything he was saying. Similar to what we were saying earlier about if I talk to someone else from a different culture like this, they will know what I’m saying – if they have that same understanding of themselves or their identity. If not, they don’t understand.
This all goes back to identity. If you know who you are, you know what you must do – you know what your responsibilities are, what your role is and you know what your path is and you don’t want to take what’s not for you. If you know who you are, you know your path, you know what’s for you and what’s not for you. If its not part of your path, you continue to find your path – its very important, very special. Not all of our community sees it that way. It’s a coincidence or it’s a cool thing and that’s it. They just go on with their life which is just living and surviving.
Any other comments?
When people think about these things, questions, or “how”, “what if” or “maybe”, how did this happen, how did it become like this and what can we do to help or to reconcile. Its pretty much like a tax card or status card. When I hear the comments, which are still out there, still going on, they said they are saving money – saving money on taxes. Whatever their comments, they don’t think about how many of us are in the jail system, how many of us are on Ontario Works, how many of our kids are in the juvenile system, how many of our kids are in the child welfare system and that’s just 4 groups that I’m mentioning. There’re more or other organizations for troubles in life. But there’s 4 organizations and if you look up the percentage of all 4 of those, you would be so surprised.
When you say you save money, when I hear that from other people, they are not saving money – they’re not even making money. $11,000 on OW isn’t surviving money – its barely surviving. I say, do the calculations in your head on $10,000 in tax a year. You can only be taxed on 15% of that so how much is that - $1,000, $1,500? You really think that’s a lot of money - $1,500 you have saved and in your pocket? In a year, that’s nothing. Even if you put it to $20,000, its better but still not a lot. What if they are in the jail system? They’ll be making less than $11,000 a year – they are not saving anything; they don’t even get to use their status card to buy something. What are they really buying? They are not buying high-end things – they can’t so even that kind of thing doesn’t really help. Some of our elders actually sell their card - they don’t want it.
Using the cards for kids going to university is troubling. You can’t just use your card. I tried it one day. I wanted to go back to college, and this is how I navigated that. I wanted to get some credits and upgrade my education. I went to sign up and I heard about all this stuff – your status card or reserve will pay for it. Okay, let me go. So, I went to the school, signed up, talked to the counsellor to set my courses up. I get all set up with a timetable and everything, including a start date. He gives me this other paper to sign and says that now I had to get this paper signed by your reserve. So, I can’t start next week because my reserve isn’t going to get back to me that quick. “Oh, so sorry, come back next semester”.
This is from my own community, my own people. Already, I’m coming up to a barrier thinking I can go and take a college course, no problem, but I can’t. I have to get recognition from my reserve. When I called my reserve, they told me straight up that they give it to more youth, so now you are older and have less chance of getting it, but you can try. It was my own cousins telling me about the system they put in place. Its not them themselves, but the government. Still, it’s a barrier and some of us don’t get to our reserve for years, like my cousins haven’t been up in 10 or 20 years. They have to go through a check system within our own community, too. You have to be approved for the money to pay for the course. Lots of us use it and abuse it. I was told that I could go to college for free when I was growing up, but its not free, it’s the reservations that have to pay for it. My decision as a person and knowing myself – all I said to myself was this reminds me of me waiting for someone to give me something in my hand and then I do it. I said, that’s not part of my path. So, I took that paper and I threw it out. Luckily, I was working and the next paycheck, I would pay for it and sign up for the course. So, I did. That’s how I accomplished it. Not everybody can do that, or even have a job that will let them do that.
One last thing, the most important thing I know and continue to teach is your identity and understanding. Both of them have to be hand in hand. Remember what I was saying about my spirit name. Its half of who I am, and the other half is my culture and my understanding. You can have one – you’ll survive - but when you get both, you’ll start walking your path. That’s the most important message, I would say.