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.[1]
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.
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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 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.[2]
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.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Martha Loon, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Thunder Bay, Ontario, 25 November 2010, Statement Number 01-ON-24NOV10-021.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Richard Hall, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia, 18 September 2013, Statement Number: 2011-1852.
