HI Cheryl,

Thanks so much for the lovely pictures. The kids are so cute.

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Amnesty Magazine

Soul Wound:
The Legacy of Native American Schools

U.S. and Canadian authorities took Native children from their homes and tried to school, and sometimes beat, the Indian out them. Now Native Americans are fighting the theft of language, of culture, and of childhood itself.

BY ANDREA SMITH
Andrea Smith (Cherokee) is interim coordinator for the Boarding School Healing Project and a Bunche Fellow coordinating AIUSA's research project on Sexual Violence and American Indian women.

A little while ago, I was supposed to attend a Halloween party. I decided to dress as a nun because nuns were the scariest things I ever saw,” says Willetta Dolphus, 54, a Cheyenne River Lakota. The source of her fear, still vivid decades later, was her childhood experience at American Indian boarding schools in South Dakota.

	Boys pray before bedtime with Father Keyes, St. Mary's Mission School, Omak. (© Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture/Eastern Washington State Historical Society, Spokane, WA)

Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations.

More here

Hugs,

Myrna

Hi Luis,

It is always good whatever you post. I do agree I think it goes well with this forum
Oh God! Thou art the Giver of Life,
Remover of pain and sorrow,
The Bestower of happiness,
Oh! Creator of the Universe,
May we receive thy supreme sin-destroying light,
May Thou guide our intellect in the right direction.

Here is a neat legend about light

Origin of Light

Inuit

In the early times, there was only darkness; there was no light at all. At the edge of the sea a woman lived with her father. One time she went out to get some water. As she was scraping the snow, she saw a feather floating toward her. She opened her mouth and the feather floated in and she swallowed it.

From that time she was pregnant. Then she had a baby. It's mouth was a raven's bill. The woman tried hard to find toys for her child. In her father's house was hanging a bladder that was blown up. This belonged to the woman's father. Now the baby, whose name was tulugaak (Raven), pointed at it and cried for it. The woman did not wish to give it to him but he cried and cried. At last she gave in and took the bladder down from the wall and let the baby play with it. But in playing with it, he broke it. Immediately, it began to get light. Now there was light in the world, and darkness, too.

When the woman's father came home, he scolded his daughter for taking the bladder down from the wall and giving it to the child. And when it was light, tulugaak had disappeared.

Hugs, Myrna

Wisdom Keepers Great Information

Myrna, your forum is so loaded with information, lovely graphics and videos, I would need to spend days just going through some of it! A very nice tribute to Native Americans.

Thank you for your friendship and support of our forum.