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[children singing] ♪ One little,[br]two little, three little Indians ♪

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♪ Four little, five little,[br]six little Indians ♪

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♪ Seven little, eight little,[br]nine little Indians ♪

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♪ Ten little Indian boys. ♪

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♪ Ten little, nine little,[br]eight little Indians ♪

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♪Four little, five little,[br]six little Indians ♪

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♪ Seven little, eight little,[br]nine little Indians ♪

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♪ One little Indian boy. ♪

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♪ Jump around, ten little Indians ♪

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♪ Jump around,[br]ten little Indians ♪

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♪ Jump around, ten little Indians ♪

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♪ One little Indian boy. ♪

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♪ One little, two little,[br]three little Indians ♪

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♪ Four little, five little,[br]six little Indians ♪

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♪ Seven little, eight little,[br]nine little Indians ♪

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♪ Ten little Indian boys. ♪

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♪ Ten little, nine little,[br]eight little Indians... ♪♪

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[singing fades out]

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(speaker 1)[br]"Ten Little Indians."

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That's a song[br]that was counting dead Indians

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back on the trails[br]when they would kill Indians.

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-We'd see all these little kids [br]in uniform,

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and we'd be wondering[br]how come they're like that.

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We weren't dressed like that,[br]but these little kids were.

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-I remember being younger,

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growing up on the reservation,[br]and being told,

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"Don't trust white people; [br]don't listen to them."

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Never told why.

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(recording) The government schools [br]are constantly being built,

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and hospitals added.

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We bring them in,[br]clean them up,

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and start them on their way[br]to civilization.

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-So I would ask social services [br]and human services audience,

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"How many people know [br]about residential boarding schools?"

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How many people here do?

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This never makes it[br]into the history books.

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This is never talked about.

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-Why did those schools get started, [br]and who started them,

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and what was the rationale behind it?

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-The first general policy was

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"the only good Indian[br]was a dead Indian,"

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that we needed to be killed, [br]exterminated, eradicated.

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Once they realized that's[br]a little bit more difficult to do,

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is to have mass genocide [br]of a population,

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then the policies changed,[br]from killing,

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to killing the Indian [br]and saving the man.

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There's a General Pratt [br]who is well famous and documented

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for using those words, [br]"to kill the Indian and save the man,"

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and that we are subhuman,[br]and that our ways are savage,

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and we needed to be civilized.

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Well, the governments in Canada [br]and the United States

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followed that policy up until the 1980s,[br]in one form or another.

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(survivor 1)[br]There is a boarding school far, far away,

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where we get mush and milk[br]three times a day.

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[singing] ♪ Oh, how the huskies run,[br]when they hear their dinner bell. ♪

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♪ Oh, how the huskies run,[br]three times a day. ♪

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Like I say, I went to the Mush Hole [br]when I was four years old.

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I was there for nine years.

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And once in a while, [br]we'd come home in summertime,

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but not all the time.

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When the counselors came[br]and told my dad

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that he couldn't raise us properly,

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we were at the Mush Hole one week,[br]and our heads were full of bugs.

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(survivor 2) There was a lot of sad times,[br]but I mean, like,

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I didn't get, like, angry [br]and have any resentment

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till after I got out.

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'Cause I didn't know,[br]from just five-and-a-half to sixteen,

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I thought it was just, [br]like, a normal upbringing,

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like, to not have no parents[br]and stuff like that [chuckling].

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So that's, uh--

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And after I got out, [br]and then they thought,

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well, this is the way[br]they were supposed to be treating us.

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(survivor 3) I think my mother [br]couldn't take care of us

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because our father was into alcohol.

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Me and my sister, [br]we started there

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in 1945.

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I was five years old at the time.

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-We had all our hair cut off.

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We were made baldies;[br]we were really bald.

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And that wasn't [br]a very good feeling to have.

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And they used to call us[br]"Mush Hole baldies."

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That's what the kids [br]on the reserve used to call us.

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-Well, we can go in now.

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I mean, this is going [br]to take like, all day, eh?

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[laughing][br]-Looks like it.

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-We were taken to the hospital

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to get checked out for nits [br]and whatever,

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I guess that was,[br]you know.

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Well, they checked us out, you know.

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Then they split us.

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The school was split in age group,

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and by boys and girls.

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Boys were on one side,[br]the girls were on one side.

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And they went from the lower age[br]up to high school level.

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-My ma was gonna walk out here [br]and go to the store,

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and, at five-and-a-half,[br]my sister tells me that

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I grabbed my ma's leg,

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and of course we were all just crying.

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The whole four of us were just crying.

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Like, you know, 'cause my ma [br]was going to leave us here.

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So I grabbed my ma's leg

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and, well, crying and that,

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and just kinda like, hollering,[br]like, "Ma don't leave me."

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"Don't leave me," like, you know.[br]So...

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But anyway,[br]while that was going on,

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a supervisor came over [br]and just kinda grabbed me,

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and took me off my ma's leg,[br]and uh...

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And then my ma just walked out,

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and I never seen her.

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For those ten years,[br]I don't see her.

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She never come to see me once.[br]I don't know why.

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-They took my brother away

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to where he was supposed to stay.

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And my sister, [br]she just went on her own.

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I was with most of the four- [br]and five-year-olds.

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We didn't go to school[br]'cause we were too young.

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-Yet, to the agencies [br]of the government,

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they are being rapidly brought [br]from their state

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of comparative savagery and barbarism [br]to one of civilization.

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-When we used our language-- [br]at that young age, too,

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we were just learning, so...

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They used to wash [br]our mouth out with soap.

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They would take [br]the whole bunch of us

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and march us to the shower--[br]cold shower--

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and they'd throw us in there,[br]and beat us along the way.

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That was a routine thing, I guess. [br]I don't know.

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But...[br]that taught us, you know.

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-They'd throw us [br]in this dark press room

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where they kept [br]all our Sunday "go to meeting'" clothes.

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And they'd throw Rosemary [br]and I in there,

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and tell us the rats [br]were going to get us.

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But I didn't know then [br]why I was being thrown in there,

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and I used to wonder,[br]what did I do?

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And I would cry,[br]and Rosemary would cry,

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and we cried and cried [br]for hours in there,

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not knowing why we were in there.

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And they'd take us out.

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And when I did get to learn [br]a little bit of English,

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I knew then [br]they were throwing us in there

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because we wouldn't speak English.

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And... I must have been stubborn [br]right from the day I was born,

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because I thought to myself,[br]"I'll never speak English, either."

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"You want me to speak English?[br]I won't speak English."

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So I didn't speak at all [br]for two whole years,

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because I figured if I spoke Indian [br]I'd get a lickin',

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and if I spoke English,

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then it would be against everything [br]that I stood for,

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and so I didn't speak at all.

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-But today,[br]they all speak English,

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and some have taken business courses,

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home economics, [br]and other higher training.

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-Took us into another room down there,[br]and maybe down in the play room,

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we took all our clothes off[br]and we put the clothes of the school on.

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And they give us a number.

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So my number was like, 48.

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And my brother was 36.

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My family was the state-run institute.

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And the nickname [br]for the Thomas Indian School is "Salem".

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And Salem was derived from "asylum".

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And you now what an asylum is;[br]it's for crazy people.

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So we were thought of [br]as being crazy, I guess.

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They were just considered bad people,[br]bad children,

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but they weren't bad children, okay?

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They were placed there [br]for so many different reasons,

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But not because of any kind [br]of delinquency on their part.