Broken Circle by Theodore Fontaine

Author:Theodore Fontaine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Indian Residential Schools
ISBN: 978-1-926936-06-2
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

MY LANGUAGE IS OJIBWAY

In my years of self-examination and therapy, I’ve discovered that confronting my early experiences has corrected some malfunctions in me. Thankfully, one thing that no longer plagues me is a fear of darkness. For about 40 years I was unable to sleep or be in complete darkness. I’d have to have light filtering through a door or a blind. This reaction stemmed from my earliest days at residential school.

Once when we were all in the playroom, I was playing on the floor with several friends, reliving a picture show we’d seen at movie night and using small objects like stones and pieces of wood to act as the cowboys. I was startled when Sister S., the supervisor that day, almost knocked me on my back as she wrapped her powerful, bony arm around mine. I’d inadvertently said something in Ojibway. She’d assumed I was referring to her when a couple of the boys laughed at my comment. She yelled that she’d wash out my mouth with soap but instead dragged me to where she’d been sitting. I was shoved into a closet behind her chair. It was under the stairs leading to the second floor and was used to store brooms and other cleaning materials.

I don’t remember how long I was in there, but it seemed like an eternity. I was desperate. I tried to sit up but banged my head on the overhead stairs. I tried to see the light under the door. Hearing the sounds of play outside the closet at least made me feel closer to my classmates. I clenched my eyes to visualize my cousin Dee and me frolicking at Treaty Point. I stretched my legs—which rattled a pail in the closet and then upset it. Sister S. hissed at me to be quiet. At least her crackly voice reassured me that someone was nearby. I sobbed for a while, to no avail. Eventually she let me out. Her first word was “Tiens! (Take that!)” followed by a warning not to speak my “savage” language.

That is the experience that for years made it impossible for me to be without some light. Initially my counsellor and I thought my fear had been caused by a predator perhaps having wandered around the dormitory at night. That was true, too, but it was the closet experience that scarred me. I can now sleep in complete darkness.

As a young boy I spoke only Ojibway. I did know certain things in English from hearing them said by others; I remember taking great pleasure in calling one of the big boys, a cousin of mine, a “son of a bitch.” I now pray that his mother and mine understood my ignorance at the time and forgave me. I’d probably have left him alone if he hadn’t reacted and chased me and growled that his mother wasn’t a dog. I didn’t know what that meant, but I delighted in the chase and his reaction. He occasionally caught me and slapped the back of my head, without much force.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.