Honouring the Strength of Indian Women

Plays, Stories, Poetry

Vera Manuel, Michelle Coupal, Deanna Reder, Joanne Arnott, Emalene Manuel, Michelle Coupal, Deanna Reder, Joanne Arnott, Emalene Manuel

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780887555749
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Drama
• Index: Literature

This critical edition delivers a unique and comprehensive collection of the works of Ktunaxa-Secwepemc writer and educator Vera Manuel, daughter of prominent Indigenous leaders Marceline Paul and George Manuel. A vibrant force in the burgeoning Indigenous theatre scene, Vera was at the forefront of residential school writing and did groundbreaking work as a dramatherapist and healer. Long before mainstream Canada understood and discussed the impact and devastating legacy of Canada's Indian residential schools, Vera Manuel wrote about it as part of her personal and community healing. She became a grassroots leader addressing the need to bring to light the stories of survivors, their journeys of healing, and the therapeutic value of writing and performing arts.

A collaboration by four Indigenous writers and scholars steeped in values of Indigenous ethics and editing practices, the volume features Manuel's most famous play, Strength of Indian Women —first performed in 1992 and still one of the most important literary works to deal with the trauma of residential schools—along with an assemblage of plays, written between the late 1980s until Manuel's untimely passing in 2010, that were performed but never before published. The volume also includes three previously unpublished short stories written in 1988, poetry written over three decades in a variety of venues, and a 1987 college essay that draws on family and community interviews on the effects of residential schools.

EVERY WARRIOR’S SONG

SCENE 1: WHEN THE CIRCLE WAS STRONG (1900)

The stage is dark with the silhouettes of Indian people sitting in a circle. The characters are dressed in black, but each is wearing something traditional that is representative of the time period. The backstage acts as a screen for a film (or slides) that depict Aboriginal people the way they once were when the circle was strong, prior to the residential school experience.

As each of the scenes play, the characters come to life creating a vision of what life was like with their body and movement. The important themes are as follows: family interaction, childhood freedom, nature, spirituality, community, sense of wholeness.

The final scene is about death, a traditional burial which symbolizes loss. After the death scene, the lights dim and there is the sound of wind in a storm. People try to hold on to one another, but they are pushed here and there by the wind. As each character is tossed about, they cover their face with a neutral emotionless mask.

The next scenes on the screen are scenes of oppression: residential schools across the nation, the church, government, children in residential schools, alcohol abuse, violence.

Once again, the characters use the masks and movement to depict the losses that people are experiencing. The music is loud, but becomes quieter as Regina moves to centre stage. When she removes her mask, everything is silent. The other characters are frozen in their disconnectedness and isolation.

REGINA: I was a little girl living in the mountains with my brother and my grandmother when they took us away. All we did was play and pick berries. My granny loved us. She never knew how to scold or get angry. My brother and I, we’d sit on top of the mountain and eat all our berries and kye7e would say, “you’re gonna get diarrhea.” We’d laugh and she’d laugh too. She never knew how to say unkind words or to be mean. When we did wrong, she’d just give us a look and say this one word in our language and we’d behave. She had no reason to hit us or yell or call us names. When I was a child in the mountains, all I knew was love.

Regina moves from centre stage to stage right, and Joe moves to centre stage. He removes his mask.

JOE: They picked us up in cattle trucks. They weren’t even clean. They smelled bad. They herded us up like animals and took us off to residential school. Kids were crying. Nobody prepared us, but I could tell by the look in my sla7a’s and kye7e’s eyes that they didn’t want us to go. I wanted to be strong for them and the little ones, so I wouldn’t cry. As we drove away, I watched them, that small group of parents and grandparents waving. They grew smaller and smaller until they disappeared, and still I wouldn’t cry. Every September, when the season changed, it was like that.

Joe moves to stage left. He stands silently holding his mask.

REGINA: A big car came, and it had Indian Affairs written on it. I knew that because I could read some English by then. My grandmother got on in the front seat, and we jumped in the back. We weren’t used to seeing cars like that, and we thought it was an adventure. We thought we were going berry-picking with that white lady. They took us to this building in town, and they told us to wait. My grandmother had to sign some papers. Then they put my brother in a taxi. They said he was going to Tranquille Hospital because he was mentally handicapped. I never knew what that meant back then. He was just my brother who liked to play. My granny took me in another cab to residential school. As soon as we knew we were going to be separated, we held on to each other. They had to pry us apart. I was just screaming and so was he.

Regina is silenced by her grief.

JOE: As soon as I got there, they cut my hair and took my clothes away. They took my protection bundle that I wore around my neck. They made fun of it and burned it with my clothes. They left me naked, and when I got into the barber chair, other boys started calling me names and making fun of me too. It hurt my feelings, but I knew not to cry. At first, I learned to fight. I was a real scrapper, until I realized that’s exactly what they wanted us to do. They turned us on each other in vicious ways.

REGINA: They put me in this tub because they said I was dirty, and that I had to wash all the fleas off. Then I sat on this tall stool. My hair was really long then, and they just started chopping it off until it was real short. They gave me a number. I still remember that number t...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Editors’ Note
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PLAYS
• Strength of Indian Women
• Song of the Circle
• Journey Through the Past to the Future
• Echoes of Our Mothers’ Past
• Every Warrior’s Song
• STORIES
• That Grey Building
• Theresa
• The Letter
• The Abyss
• POETRY
• The Storm
• Woman Without a Tongue
• Ghosts & Predators
• L.A. Obsession Song
• Addictions
• Lies
• Life Abuse of Girls
• The Woman I Could Be
• Fools
• Loneliness
• Abused Mothers, Wounded Fathers
• Hunger
• The Catholic Church
• Deadly Legacy
• Keeping Secrets
• Forgiveness
• When I First Came to Know Myself
• When My Sister & I Dance
• The Girl Who Could Catch Fish With Her Hands
• Two Brothers
• La Guerra
• Keepers in the Dark
• Inheritance
• For The Child Who Knew
• Never Ever Tell
• Ottawa
• The Truth About Colonization
• Justice
• Beric
• Christmas Inside of Me
• Spring Fever
• Megcenetkwe
• Dying
• AFTERWORDS
• Narrative Acts of Truth and Reconciliation: Teaching the Healing Plays of Vera Manuel
• Embedded Teachings: Vera Manuel’s Recovered Short Stories
• “Through Poetry a Community Is Brought Together”: Vera Manuel’s Poetry, Poetry Activism, and Poetics
• APPENDIX
• Indians and Residential School: A Study of the Breakdown of a Culture
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Photos