Raymond Mason - Spirit of the Grassroots People

SPIRIT OF THE GRASSROOTS PEOPLE

SPIRIT OF THE GRASSROOTS PEOPLE

Seeking Justice for Indigenous Survivors of Canadas Colonial Education System

RAYMOND MASON

Edited by Jackson Pind and Theodore Michael Christou

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2020

ISBN 978-0-2280-0351-9 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0485-1 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0486-8 (ePUB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2020

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free
(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Spirit of the grassroots people : seeking justice for indigenous survivors of Canadas colonial education system / Raymond Mason ; edited by Jackson Pind and Theodore Michael Christou.

Names: Mason, Raymond, 1946 author. | Pind, Jackson, 1993 editor. | Christou, Theodore Michael, editor.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200266322 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200266543 | ISBN 9780228003519 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228004851 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228004868 (ePUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Mason, Raymond, 1946 | LCSH: Ojibwa IndiansManitobaBiography. | LCSH: Adult child abuse victimsManitobaBiography. | CSH: Indians of North AmericaCanadaResidential schools. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC E99.C6 M36 2020 | DDC 371.829/97071dc23

Set in 10/14 Radiata, Opinion Pro Light, and Cyntho Pro

Book design & typesetting by Garet Markvoort, zijn digital

CONTENTS

THEODORE MICHAEL CHRISTOU AND JACKSON PIND

JACKSON PIND AND THEODORE MICHAEL CHRISTOU

PREFACE: TWO-EYED SEEING AND STORYTELLING

This is Raymond Masons story. Raymond, an Elder from the Peguis First Nation, is a Survivor of the Indian residential schools and an advocate for fellow Survivors. He has been a boxer, a military private, an entrepreneur, a husband, a father, a friend, a sibling, a son. Like each of us, Raymond has lived multiple lives and various existences. Raymonds story touches on each of these. His story is a link to that of other residential school Survivors and it is inimitably unique.

What you encounter here is presented in a manner that limits our interference in the story. We have curated the story. We have never told it. We are allies and friends; editors and transcribers; curators.

You may read this at multiple levels. If you do not wish to encounter us at all, forsake the remainder of this preface, the afterword, and the notes. These all exist because Raymond has brought them into existence by weaving us into his story in a curatorial, editorial role. We are linked to the story as stagehands in a play, except that we have moved punctuation rather than props.

Raymond decided that his story should reflect the premises of two-eyed seeing, wherein both Indigenous and Western ways of telling exist, intertwined, offering support. The oral history tells Raymonds experience. His story is truth. We have transcribed this and added notes that help to contextualize the story; we are supplementing, rather than supporting, Raymonds story.

Shawn Wilsons Research Is Ceremony notes, Indigenous people in Canada recognize that it is important for storytellers to impart their own life and experience in to the telling. They also recognize that listeners will filter the story being told through their own experience and thus adapt the information to make it relevant and specific to their life. When listeners know where the storyteller is coming from and how the story fits into the storytellers life, it makes the absorption of the knowledge that much easier.

As researchers situated in the territory of the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe at Queens University, we engage in a method of storytelling that will allow you to hear Raymonds story even as we help to underline the broader historical narrative. Rays story is like others stories and part of the fabric of a larger history, and yet it is entirely unique and sufficient in its own right.

Theodore Michael Christou and Jackson Pind, 2020

CHRONOLOGY OF RAYMOND MASONS LIFE

Map of southern Manitoba showing points of interest in Raymond Masons life. Created by Jackson Pind with ArcGlS software.

SPIRIT OF THE GRASSROOTS PEOPLE

1 INTRODUCTION: THE BEGINNING

Do I tell the truth and disturb the contentment and feelings of the people who think that they did their best for the Survivors of the Indian residential schools?

Do I tell Canada and those people about the many disappointments, the hard work behind the scenes that was never revealed? Do I tell them that our efforts went unnoticed and that people were ungrateful? And that we were never given any credit for our hard work and lobbying for so many Survivors, for years before the political leadership of the Assembly of First Nations signed an agreement that excluded many of us Survivors.