The Flora on My Floora

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of  “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg and chances are the rest of the song has the same chords.

            I washed another section of my bedroom floor and that makes about three quarters of the unfurnished part of the bedroom floor clean now. Afterwards I mixed some more wood soap and tried out the new mop to go over all the reachable areas that I’ve already washed. Mopping a floor uses back muscles I haven’t used in a while. It’s funny how that is. I bend and twist my back every which way during yoga but swinging a mop from side to side made me ache a bit.

            I had a chicken drumstick and some yogourt for lunch.

            I gathered together all my old journal entries relating to the revisions I made to my book of poems, “Paranoiac Utopia” based on Albert Moritz’s suggestions. I’ve made arrangements to send the edited manuscript back for him to look at again but he wanted me to let him know what I’d changed. I worked on my notes for part of the day and had them half done by 16:00.

            I did my afternoon exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish finds out that Sapphire’s brother Leroy is coming to visit. He says he doesn’t want Leroy to stay in his house. Sapphire says, “Your house? It isn’t any more your house than it is mine!” Kingfish says, “Then who does the landlord send the eviction notices to?” Kingfish tries to convince Andy to take Leroy in as a roommate by telling him that the government just passed the new “Double-up Law”, which says that nobody is allowed to live alone anymore. He said he’s surprised Andy hadn’t heard of it since they made a big announcement last night. Andy said he was listening on his little portable radio but he didn’t hear anything about it. Kingfish explains that it’s such big news that they didn’t broadcast it to the small radios. He says they’re applying the law to penitentiaries too and putting two prisoners in solitary confinement from now on. Andy doesn’t buy it. Then Kingfish intercepts a letter to Leroy from a lock company that says they looked at his design for a lock and they are interested in buying it from him. This touches off a new scheme, as Kingfish wants to try to get the patent for the lock from Leroy. He tells him that he could go to jail because of his invention like the guy that invented the steamboat. The guy that invented the boat and the guy that invented steam teamed up and sued him. Leroy sells Kingfish the lock for $50. The lock company arranges to come and see it and Kingfish asks Andy to pretend to represent a rival lock company in order to make the bid higher. When Andy tells the other company rep about his experience he says he just came back from South America where he was fixing the locks on the Panama Canal. He made two keys for them because he can’t keep going down to South America. The lock has been installed on a door across the hall and Kingfish opens it with the key Leroy gave him. Inside of the room he finds Leroy sleeping. He asks how he got in since he’d given Kingfish the only key. Leroy explains that is what’s special about his lock. It can be opened with a pin.

            Technically, since the Panama Canal is the line between North and South America it’s not in either place.

            I finished the notes on my revisions to my poetry manuscript and sent the manuscript and the notes in two attachments to Albert Moritz. Albert will be featuring in Shab-e She’r at The Tranzac on December 16 but sadly I can’t go because I’ve been told that I’m no longer welcome at Shab-e She’r.

            I had oven heated potato wedges, my last two drumsticks and gravy for dinner while watching Zorro.

            This story begins with a bear having wandered into the courtyard outside the fort. Sgt Garcia and some of the men take muskets outside the gate to kill the bear but their guns do not fire. They discover that their gunpowder has been replaced with charcoal. Garcia tries to investigate but finds the only boxes that left the pueblo were those belonging to Raquel. When asked she says that they are her husband, the commandant’s effects which she put into storage in the basement of the inn. Quintana and Enrique decide they must kill Garcia. Zorro sneaks into the basement to look for the gunpowder but is caught at gunpoint by Raquel. He easily overpowers her and finds out about the plot to kill Garcia. Quintana and Enrique take Garcia to the mountains under the pretence of helping him find the gunpowder. Quintana is about to shoot Garcia in the back when Zorro uses his whip to yank the gun from his hands. Garcia does not realize he is being rescued and tries to capture Zorro. Quintana accidentally kills Enrique. Garcia is about to sneak up behind Zorro but Zorro is about to club Quintana and when he swings backwards he knocks out Garcia too. 

Mop

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg and started looking for the chords. I doubted however that anyone has posted the chords for this song.

            Now that school is over for a month I can return to my floor-cleaning project. I washed, brushed and scraped the plaster and paint from a section of west side of my bedroom floor.

            Just after noon I rode down to Freshco where I bought three bags of black grapes, a half pint of raspberries, a loaf of Bavarian sandwich bread, a brick of cheap cheddar for cooking, some soft cream cheese, some Greek yogourt that was cheaper than I’ve ever seen it, perhaps because the containers are dented and finally I got a jug of vinegar.

            On the way home I stopped at Home Hardware to look at mops. I’ve found that now that we have winter weather I’ve been tracking dirt all over the sections of my floors that I’ve meticulously cleaned on my hands and knees. Since I can't get out of the habit of keeping my boots on for the first few minutes when I come home I need to start quickly mopping my floor to keep it clean in between scrub sessions. I bought a couple of old fashioned cotton mops, one for mopping and one for drying. The store calls them yacht mops. We called them mops. They are the cheapest kind and I got both for under $15.

            As I was unlocking my bike a woman said hi to me and it was poet and dancer Naomi, who I used to see a lot at The Yellow Door open stage and sometimes at Fat Albert’s. She said she was going to the Common Sort second hand clothing store. She reminded me that Fat Albert’s would be having its potluck dinner on December 19. I told her that I would start going out to perform again once I’ve published my book.

            I had a chicken drumstick and some yogourt for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire is upset about Kingfish not having a job and never looking for one. They go on a radio show for couples with marital problems but the argument they have on the air makes Sapphire decide it's over. They also both say that Andy Brown is a bum on the radio and so Andy wants to sue Kingfish until he finds out that it wasn’t a national broadcast and he’s okay with just being a local bum. They try a marriage vacation and Sapphire even tells Kingfish he can go on dates with other women so as to learn to appreciate her. Kingfish can't get a date from many of his old girlfriends and doesn’t want one with other s when he finds out one has a son bigger than him now. Andy tells Kingfish about a marriage counsellor by mail named Professor Hotchkiss and he gives him the post office box. A few days later Andy is at the Stevens household for dinner and the atmosphere is peaceful and happy. Sapphire confesses that she found the address of Professor Hotchkiss in Kingfish’s pocket and wrote to him. Everything has been fine since she took his advice. Kingfish confesses that he let the address in his pocket because he knew Sapphire was going to find it. Andy confesses that he is Professor Hotchkiss. 

            The Delta Rhythm Boys sang “Managua Nicaragua”.

                                       

            I got caught up on my journal.

            When I started making dinner I realized that I’d forgotten to buy potatoes at the supermarket but I had some frozen potato wedges and so I had a few of those with two drumsticks and gravy while watching Zorro.

            This story begins with Raquel going to the inn and presenting an eagle feather to Quintana. She tells him that from now on he will be taking orders from her. She asks for the whereabouts of the gunpowder that was smuggled into the pueblo. Quintano confesses that it was intercepted and stolen by Zorro. She convinces Sgt Garcia to comb the hills looking for Zorro without telling him about the gunpowder. Zorro and Bernardo are just hiding the kegs in the bushes when they see the soldiers. Zorro instructs his horse Tornado to lead Garcia away. Garcia captures Tornado and brings him back to the pueblo. Don Diego comes to chat with Garcia and when he is not looking gives Tornado some hand signals to instruct him to not behave as if he knows him. But from the window of the commandant’s office Enrique, the bartender at the inn and another Eagle agent, sees Diego using the hand gestures. Raquel is at her husband’s desk going through his records to try to figure out who Zorro could be. She dismisses Enrique’s suggestion that Don Diego might be Zorro. She agrees on a plan however to use Diego to capture Zorro and if Zorro does not come then Diego must be him. Diego is knocked out, dressed in a bad Zorro costume and put in a cell. The soldiers are on the roof waiting for Zorro to arrive. Garcia is guarding the cell but has fallen asleep. Diego calls for Tornado and instructs him to lift the keys from Garcia’s belt and pass them to him. Diego puts on the Zorro costume, takes Garcia’s swords and then wakes him up from behind with the sword poking his back. He tells him that he has already released Diego and now instructs Garcia to open the gate for him. But a soldier lassos him from the roof and only Tornado gets out through the gate. Zorro has to fight his way to the roof and then go over the wall. 

Joan Plowright

            On Wednesday morning I had the chords for the first verse of  “Le complainte du progrès" by Boris Vian worked out. I also had memorized all but the last verse of “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg.  

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal.

            In the afternoon I rode to my last Aesthetic and Decadence Movements class.

            Rhonda, Elizabeth and Marco, the students closest to my age, some older and some younger were already there. Rhonda commented that the old students are always there early. I said I prefer “ripe”.

            Elizabeth asked if anyone had seen “The Importance of Being Earnest" film before. I said I'd seen the play at Stratford and read it several times and had written an essay on it during Academic Bridging. Elizabeth said she’d taken the play in Academic Bridging as well. I asked if she’d had Theresa Moritz for an instructor but hers had been Barbara Rose, who is also very nice.

            Professor Li arrived earlier than usual and wondered if we all always come this early. I said that I come early for everything and might have gotten the habit because my mother was a schoolteacher and I used to ride to school early with her rather than take the school bus.

            I asked her if she teaches other courses. She said that teaches a four-year graduate course on Victorian Literature.

            She is also writing a book on Ethos as a moral concept. Elizabeth said it’s cool that she’s writing a book but Professor Li said that writing books is what one is required to do as an academic.

            Professor Li brought two boxes of donuts for us. She said she usually takes students out somewhere after the movie but she knows we’re busy. I think she means she found it too expensive.

            We watched the made for TV adaptation from 1986 that Professor Li says is closest to the play.

            I wrote down several choice lines:

Not a quote but an observation. Bunbury is to the country what Earnest is to the city.

            “If the lower orders don’t set us a moral example, what on Earth is the use of them?”

            “Girls never marry men they flirt with.”

            “The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous."

            “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."

            “The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

            “Behaving very well and feeling very well rarely go together.”

            “Her hair has turned quite gold from grief" is a line in both this play and in Dorian Gray.

            “If one plays good music people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

            On smoking: “A man should always have an occupation.”

            “A man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing ... I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance."

            “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

            “To be bred in a handbag reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”

            “She is a monster without being a myth, which is rather unfair."

            “Hearing my relations abused is the only thing that makes me put up with them."

            “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his."

            “The truth isn’t the sort of thing one would not tell to a nice, sweet, refined girl."

            “Women only call each other sister when they have called each other a lot of other things first."

            “The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."

            “I’d sooner die than go to Australia.”

            “I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about."

            “A desire to be buried in Paris hardly points to any very serious state of mind.”

            “No gentleman ever has any money."

            “If I am occasionally overdressed I make up for it by being always immensely overeducated."

            “A man much talked about is always very attractive."

            “Half of the chaps who get into the bankruptcy court are called Algernon."

            “He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows."

            “I don’t quite like women who are interested in philanthropic work. I think it is so forward of them.”

            “Once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate."

            “Whenever one has anything unpleasant to say one should always be quite candid."

            “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”

            “When I see a spade I call it a spade" "I am glad to say I have never seen a spade".

            “My first impressions of people are invariably right.” This line is funny because Gwendolyn said it twice about two opposite first impressions of Cecily.

            “One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement."

            “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing."

            “Where questions of self sacrifice are concerned men are infinitely beyond us."

            “Three addresses always inspire confidence.”

            “Only people who can’t get into society speak disrespectfully of it.”

            “I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character.”

            “No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.”

            “The idea of being baptized as an adult is irreligious.”

            “If you are not too long I will wait here for you all my life.”

            “It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking the truth.”

            I noticed that Earnest was played by Paul McGann, who was in “Withnail and I”, one of my favourite movies and he was also the eighth Doctor in Doctor Who.

            Lady Bracknell was played by Joan Plowright and Professor Li pointed out that she was Lawrence Olivier’s second wife.

            We got our essays back and first off made the mistake of not putting the name of the authors or the works in my clever title of “The Artist is an Outlaw”. She noted that one of my paragraphs had not been developed to clarity. But she liked my transition between paragraphs about Satan and about Lord Henry as a satanic figure.  She thought I took one paragraph a little too far when I declared that Dorian Grey was the father of humankind. But she thought that my final line, stating that, “Dorian becomes the very thing that outlaw artists like Baudelaire and Wilde need to kill” was an excellent conclusion. I had been worried that she might find that too harsh. In my citations I guess I didn’t cite my own translations properly. Her final comment was, “Excellent work! Highly thoughtful, full of good points here and there. I was particularly impressed with the ending conclusion of the essay. Well done!” I got an A on my paper!

            I told professor Li how much I enjoyed the course and told her that she was a very good monitor for seminars and should be in the United Nations. She said she enjoyed having me in the class and she learned a lot. She admitted that I had been right when I corrected her about the name of a painting by William Morris. I said that’s what I like about literature courses. The professors like to learn from their students. I told her about being pushed down for asking questions in Indigenous Studies.

            I stopped at Loblaws on the way home where I bought a couple of bags of grapes. The cashiers are older and far more ethnically diverse at the Queen Street West Loblaws compared to Freshco in Parkdale and No Frills at Lansdowne and Dundas, which has almost all young women of Portuguese descent.

            I had a late lunch of a salami and cheese sandwich.

            I had taken a siesta in the late morning but I felt very sleepy around 19:00 and went to sleep until 20:00.

            I had beans and toast with a beer for dinner and watched Zorro.

            In this story we finally see the Eagle, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Eagle Feather. The Eagle’s headquarters is in Monterrey and he holds a meeting there of his agents. He announces that he has removed the gunpowder from almost all of the pueblos in California, leaving all but Los Angeles defenceless. Commandant Toledano is called away to San Diego to help protect it. He leaves his wife behind in Los Angeles and puts Sgt Garcia in charge of intercepting the gunpowder. It turns out that Raquel is also an agent of the Eagle and she writes a fake letter commanding Garcia that the gunpowder is no longer a problem. Don Diego hears this from Garcia and is suspicious and so as Zorro he watches the road leading to Los Angeles. He intercepts a load of hay that suspiciously has an armed guard. He stops the wagon and finds the gunpowder but suddenly the soldiers arrive and Zorro escapes. Garcia is told by the driver of the wagon, Salvador Quintana that the barrels under hay are kegs of wine and that he is the new owner of the in n. Of course that endears Quintana to Garcia and he escorts him to Los Angeles. Quintana’s plan is to store the gunpowder in the wine cellar but Zorro had anticipated this. He knocks out Quintana’s man in the basement and as each keg of gunpowder is slid down the stairs Zorro intercepts it and passes it out the window to Bernardo.

Sentenced to the Electric Couch

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the second verse of “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I worked some more transcribing my Indigenous Studies lecture notes.

            I needed milk so I rode down to No Frills where I got a bag of three bags. I also got an almost empty bag of black grapes.

            When I was unlocking my building door the bent over woman that's often panhandling in the area approached me. I apologized and told her I couldn’t help her. She asked me to confirm that it was Tuesday December 3. I notice that she has a beard now. Later I heard her shouting while begging that she was going to kill herself, but she says that fairly often.

            I had oven fries for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire insists that Kingfish takes her on a vacation. The last trip they took was their honeymoon to Niagara Falls where Kingfish got her a job as a chambermaid. Kingfish sells his car to Andy so he can afford to take his wife on a holiday. But then Sapphire tells him that a friend of hers is lending them her cabin in Canada and so all they have to do is drive up there. So now he needs to get Andy to drive them to Canada and goes to see his lawyer Laguardia to find an angle on how to do that. While there he finds out that his lawyer was recently visiting a client at Sing Sing. Kingfish asks if the electric chair is busy these days. Laguardia says they’ve had to put in an electric couch. The advice is to tell Andy's girlfriend that Andy is dying so she'll let him go to Canada and so he tells her that Andy has hereditary hydrophobia. In the end the trip is cancelled because Sapphire’s friend’s daughter has a boyfriend with hereditary hydrophobia and he's going to stay at the cabin to be cured.

            I grilled chicken drumsticks and had two for dinner with a potato and gravy while watching Zorro.

            In this story the two men that were caught stealing the gunpowder are in a cell. The magistrate is worried that they will talk and so he orders Figueroa, one of the corrupt soldiers to let them escape. However, just as they are climbing the wall to get out, Sgt Garcia is climbing the wall to get in. He captures them. But later they die of poisoning in their cell. Meanwhile the commandant, Captain Toledano is examining the eagle feathers found on the two men, and like Zorro he is figuring out that they are coded messages. The Magistrate wants to figure out how to get rid of the captain. Zorro sneaks into Toledano’s quarters and binds and gags him so he can tell him about the Brotherhood of the Eagle Feather. There is a knock on the door and when Zorro hears it’s Figueroa he lets him in. Figueroa has wine for the captain but Zorro pokes him with his sword and tells him to drink it. Figueroa refuses and breaks the glass. Just then the other soldiers arrive and Zorro escapes. Figueroa also gets away and when Garcia unties Toledano he tells him to forget about Zorro and go after Figueroa. Figueroa tries to ride away but Zorro captures him out in the desert.  The magistrate organizes a meeting of dons, including Don Alejandro, who is Zorro’s father. In it he tries to claim that Toledano is the leader of the organization that is trying to take over Los Angeles. Just then Zorro arrives with Figueroa, who exposes the magistrate. The magistrate shoots Figueroa. There is a sword fight between Don Alejandro and the magistrate while Toledaro and Zorro take on several of the magistrate’s men. The fake blind beggar tries to stab Don Alejandro in the back but they rotate suddenly while fighting and the magistrate is killed. Toledano’s sword breaks but Zorro tosses him his sword. At the end when all the bad guys are dead Zorro asks for his sword back. Toledano hesitates but smiles and returns it.

Stop Asking Questions and Let Me Teach the Class!

            On Monday morning after yoga a practiced one verse of one song in French to keep it in my memory and then I started the final push of working on my Indigenous Studies essay. From time to time I checked my email because I was hoping for a message from U of T that classes would be cancelled because of the snow storm that was still going on outside. But I received no email and the snow eased off. My paper was mostly done except for the conclusion and harmonizing a few elements in the body. The essay was finished in plenty of time to get armoured up for my first real winter bike ride of the school year.

            I put on my very worn old pair of sweat pants for long underwear and an extra shirt. I pulled on three pairs of socks including the big wool ones and slipped my Kodiaks on top. I had been dreading the ride to campus because I thought for sure it would be dangerous but I was surprised to find it was far less treacherous than I’d expected. Only on Maple Grove did I have to ride on top of slippery hard snow. The riding was fairly smooth all the way to Huron and then it got nasty. It hadn’t been ploughed at all and riding up to Willcocks was a severe balancing act. The next time after a snowfall I'll just ride up St George, which is sooner cleared.

            Associate Professor White admitted that that he bungled the first part of the term in not being fully prepared to teach a full course. Down in the states he had only instructed half courses.

            That being said he continued to teach another US centric class with occasional gratuitous mentions of Canada.

            The desperate salvaging of Indigenous knowledge took place from the 1870s to the 1930s at the same time that there was a push to wipe Native culture from every young mind.

            He said that when people ask his nationality he tells them Mohawk.

            The effort to give a European education to Indigenous people goes back to colonial times.

            He said that the western method of education compared to Indigenous Americans is that the west starts with the big picture and work back while Indigenous people begin with observation.

            He said Japan does zero testing before the fourth grade. It didn’t take much research for me to discover that the professor was perpetuating another myth. Japanese students don’t have national standardized tests before the sixth grade but they are tested by their teachers pretty much continuously from the beginning of school.

            Both day schools and residential schools had the goal of removing the Indian from the child. New territories always wanted to deal with the Indian problem.

            Professor White told us the story about his sister. She has a daughter who had a learning disability and could not speak until she was five. When she was pregnant with her second child a teacher said to her, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink with this one.”

            Schools for Indigenous people tended to prepare them for work as labourers.

            Richard Pratt's philosophy for educating Indigenous people was, "Kill the Indian and save the man." He found that Geronimo's warriors were willing to cut their hair. Cutting hair demonstrates grief or is a way of shaming. He farmed Indigenous children; sometimes taken from home until they were sixteen, out for labour.

            For decades the Mohawk Institute was a respected school. Carlisle started in 1877. There were nutrition experiments conducted. Treaty rations were withheld to force parents to send their children to boarding school. I see that there were also experiments in feeding extra supplements instead of full meals to some children and an experimental flour mixture that was illegal in the rest of Canada in two residential schools.

            He said that residential schools started in Canada in the 1820s but I think one should distinguish between schools that were entirely conceived of and run by churches and the later government sanctioned schools.

            The government took the control of residential schools away from the churches in 1969 and the last residential school closed in 1996.

            In 1971 Blue Quills University became the first Native owned and operated school in Canada. As far as I've been able to find out the United States didn't give Natives the right to run their own schools until 1975, so we win again.

            In the residential schools there was criminal and sexual abuse.

            Sterilization without informed consent after giving birth has been performed as recently as 2018 in Saskatchewan.

            The Catholic, the Presbyterian, the Anglican and the United churches carved up the population of Native children in Canada. In the United States it was the Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Unitarian, Lutheran and Quaker churches. Churches stole Indians from each other.

            He asked us to name what we know about Abraham Lincoln. I said he wore a stovepipe hat. He said that Lincoln is not remembered fondly by Indigenous Americans. Four hundred Sioux were sentenced to hang. Lincoln spared most of them but still had to make a show and so 38 were hung and it was the largest public hanging in US history.

            Ely Parker was a Seneca US army officer, attorney, engineer and diplomat. He had one foot in a canoe and one in a boat.

            He said in the 1850s residential schools were compulsory for children between eight and fifteen. Actually they weren’t technically compulsory until 1920 but between 1894 and 1920 Indian agents had the power to decide if a child should be sent to a residential school. Until the 1940s there were more children in Indian Affairs day schools than in residential schools. The first year that residential school enrolment exceeded that of day school was 1944. The percentage of all First Nations children attending residential schools that year was about 33%. They were supposed to eventually pay for themselves but when they didn’t by 1951 the government, finding day schools cheaper, began working with the provinces to integrate all Native children into public schools.

            In the states there were Indian agents that cut blankets meant for Indians in half and sold half.

            Merrill Gates was a scholar of Indigenous studies but also believed in reforming Indians.

            The Hawthorn Report of n1966 was a survey of contemporary Indians of Canada. It recommended that all forced assimilation programs be abolished.

            He said that Trudeau said that the recommended reparations for residential schools were too high. I shot back that he didn’t actually say that. Trudeau is not disputing the compensation but they need more time to study how to properly deliver the compensation.

            The compared Trudeau’s very public apology to the paper apology that was filed with no fanfare in the United States. A couple of students started ranting about how there is no difference between the two and one woman said Trudeau’s “mealy mouthed” apology was nothing without action. Obviously a public apology is better because the government will be called on it. In his first term Trudeau halved the number of long-term water advisories on reserves.

            Luther Standing Bear was a Lakota chief and Gertrude Bonnin was a Sioux writer. They were at the forefront of the progressive movement to change government policy toward Native Americans.

            Plenty Horses was a Carlisle school survivor who killed a soldier and said he did so to redeem himself as a warrior among his people upon being hanged. But he was acquitted.

            The Indigenous suicide rate in Canada is three times higher than for non-Indigenous people. It’s more than 3.5% higher in the United States.

            There were only five of us in tutorial. Safia told us that she has seasonal affective disorder.

            She and I had an argument because I told her that she had given us incorrect t information about residential schools. She had said that every Indigenous child went to residential schools from 1920 to 1951. I told her that there were no residential schools in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland. I said that the biggest year for residential schools was 1931 when there were 17000 students enrolled. There couldn’t possibly have been only 17000 school age Native children in Canada in 1931. She was indignant about being contradicted and reminded me that she has taught this course for years. She said she wouldn’t debate with me there but if I emailed her she would set me straight.

            She said in 1884 European leaders met for the Berlin Conference and divided up Africa. She said the south is where the resources are and the north is where they go.

            The Sixties Scoop involved Native kids being forced into foster homes from the late 50s to the 80s. It happened to my ex-girlfriend’s kids in the 80s. I don’t think it was federal though but rather provincial, since federal government passed the control of Native social services over to the provinces in the 1950s. .

            John A. MacDonald started the residential school system.

            The Indian Act supposedly made residential schools mandatory in 1920, but I’ve downloaded the 1927 amendment to the Indian Act and the actual wording is that "Every Indian child between the ages of seven and fifteen years shall attend such day, industrial or boarding school as may be designated by the Superintendent General.” So what was mandatory was attending school. It wasn’t technically mandatory for Indigenous children to attend residential schools unless the superintendent general said so.

            All of the churches involved but the Catholic Church have apologized.

            We discussed the idea of the “empty” apology and Safia said that it’s empty if it is not followed by action. I asked if there wasn’t some action and suddenly Safia expressed dissatisfaction with the way I “push back”. She said, “Questions are good but it’s the way you do it!”

            Lump sums of compensation don’t help when people are damaged and need healing.

            What kind of education are Indigenous students getting now? There are a very small number of Indigenous students at U of T.

            Integration versus assimilation. Safia said, “You all know the difference.” I said, “Not really.” Someone said that assimilation is forced. Assimilation is fully adopting another culture whereas integration is entering a society as part of a different group but as an equal. The dictionary says to assimilate is to become the same. To integrate is to become part of the whole.

            She told the story of a friend of hers who was a teacher. There was a Native student in her class that knew the whole alphabet except for the letter “G”. On the last day of class he presented her with a piece of artwork with a big letter “G” on it, proving that he had understood that letter but had left it out to maintain control.

            We got back our Finding Place essays and I got an A minus with a note that she would have liked me to talk about my relationship with the sites and how researching them changed that relationship. I’m okay with the mark. I couldn't think of myself having any personal involvement with these places.

            After tutorial I said to Safia that I have never had a teacher tell me not to ask questions. She admitted that maybe it was her fault because of being overworked, sleep and light deprived and she apologized. I asked her if she wanted a hug and she opened her arms and we embraced.

            After class I went to the Help Desk at Robarts Library because I wasn't able to access U of T Webmail. I don't normally use it because all mail addressed to my U of T email address just gets channelled to my gmail account. But I’d sent a writing sample to Smaro Kamboureli as an audition for the Jack McLelland Writer in Residence Seminar starting in January and Smaro told me I needed to re-send it from my U of T email address. When I tried to do that however my password was rejected. At the Help Desk it took them five minutes to fix the glitch. Somehow I had opted out of Webmail and so I just had to opt back in.

            I hopped back on my bike and headed home. I stopped at Loblaws and bought grapes. There was only one nearly empty bag of black grapes and so I also got an expensive pack of scarlotta grapes.

            I had a late lunch of pork ribs and yogourt.

            I started typing my lecture notes.

            I had a potato, my last three pork ribs and some gravy for dinner while watching Zorro.

            This was the most intriguing story of the first season. Bernardo observes a blind beggar in the pueblo begging from the soldiers and the magistrate. But when they put money into his hat they also take out a note. Meanwhile the magistrate is organizing a horse race with an obstacle course and a large prize. When Zorro follows the blind man he is led to a meeting between the magistrate and other members of the Eagle Feather Brotherhood. He overhears that they are plotting to use the distraction of the horserace to steal gunpowder from the armoury for their overthrow of Los Angeles. As the commandant and all but a few soldiers are in the race, Zorro enters the race, beats the commandant to the halfway point and then calls for him to follow him. He and his men give chase to capture Zorro but he leads them into the pueblo just in time for them to catch the men stealing the gunpowder.  

Sour Treaties and Bad Acts

                         The powerful are skilful in colouring over their enterprises – Emer Vattel 

                                                        Sour Treaties and Bad Acts

The execution of the Indian Act was illegal under international law. It became law while the government of Canada was negotiating treaties with various nations that were not made aware that the act would be imposed upon them. The wording of the act does not acknowledge separate nations in Canada (The Indian Act, 1876), but the very process of signing treaties with other nations is recognition of their sovereignty (Vattel, Book II, Chapter XII). In acknowledging the separate nations with the treaties while at the same time enforcing the Indian Act as if those nations did not exist, the government of Canada was engaged in contradictory policies.

I will focus on Treaty Six but its similarities with the other ten numbered treaties are sufficient to show their common standing in international law and how The Indian Act was a breach of those agreements. The nations of Treaty Six did not give up sovereignty but they did offer to share their hunting land with settlers in exchange for reserves to live on and assistance towards prosperity. Canada did not fully honour its Treaty Six agreements and in many ways used the Indian Act as a vehicle of that betrayal. This was especially true in the later implementation of residential schools (Beyond Treaty Six). If Canada had simply fulfilled its end of the treaties there would have been no need for the Indian Act and the question of “What is an Indian?” would have been irrelevant.

Treaties are agreements that result from conference between nations and therefore they are formed under international law (Vattel, Book II, Chapter XII). The numbered treaties are several that were the consequence of consultations between the Canadian nation and many others. In the case of Treaty Six there were scores of nations involved (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6).

While Treaty Six resulted from international diplomacy there was no consultation with the nations over which the Indian Act became law. The legality of the Indian Act is questionable because it was not preceded by treaties of submission or agreements to give up sovereignty on the part of the other nations within the boundaries of the Canadian nation (Vattel, Chapter XVI, s. 193).  Treaty Six makes no mention of the giving up of sovereignty or nationhood. The signatories of Treaty Six agreed to “conduct and behave themselves as good and loyal subjects of her majesty the queen”. This would not entail the giving up of sovereignty, as there were many distinctly sovereign nations within the British Commonwealth, including the Canadian nation, whose citizens were required to be loyal subjects of the monarchy (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6).

Treaty Six is essentially a land for protection treaty (Vattel, Book I, Chapter XVI).  Probably without full understanding that they were giving up land (Venne 6), the nations that signed the treaty ceded about 200,000 square kilometres and promised to obey the law (Vattel, Book II, Chapter XVII). The nations were promised in return 640 acres per family of five on reserves, farm items, hunting and fishing tools, seed, livestock, money, medicine, a school on every reserve and the promise of relief during times of famine and pestilence (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6).

The government got what it wanted from Treaty Six but it did not fully honour its own promises. While families of five did receive 640 acres and individuals received 160 acres for farming, much of the reserve land was not conducive to agricultural pursuits. The farm tools were grossly inadequate and many people willing to work had nothing with which to till the soil (McQuillan 389-390). There was not sufficient livestock, the widespread medical assistance, nor schools on each reserve as promised (Beardy’s and Okemasis, 117). Finally, there was starvation following the treaties and pestilence in the form of a widespread outbreak of tuberculosis. The government’s response to these problems was inadequate and often indignant (Daschuk).

The greatest breach of treaty promises came about when the government implemented the residential schools program (Beyond Treaty Six). Treaty Six clearly states that there would be a school on every reserve: “Her majesty agrees to maintain schools for instruction … whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.” With the specification of “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it” the treaty puts the power of the choice of education in the hands of the nation on the reserve. The responsibility of the government of Canada was to provide the nations with the education that was so important to them that they gave up land for it. The removal of children to attend school elsewhere was a severe betrayal of Treaty Six.

Since many of the promises of the government in Treaty Six were broken, according to of The Laws of Nations whatever nations signed the treaty should be able to reclaim their sovereignty, land and nationhood (Vattel Book I Chapter XVI). Further, “If the more powerful nation should assume a greater authority over the weaker one than the treaty of submission or protection allows, the latter may consider the treaty as broken (Vattel Book I Chapter XVI).” This was clearly the case with the enactment of The Indian Act.

Part two of the preamble of the Indian Act declares that a Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs would be in charge of “control and management of the reserves, lands, moneys and properties of Indians in Canada” (The Indian Act, 1876). As Treaty Six and each of the other numbered treaties contained an agreement to obey the laws of Canada there was no need to impose separate laws on Canada’s Indigenous people (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6).  Certainly a Department of Indian Affairs would have been useful is a ministry responsible exclusively for fulfilling the government’s treaty obligations rather than for governing reserves. As these Indigenous nations already had their own traditional governments they should have required no more micromanagement by the government than any municipality in Canada.

Before signing Treaty Six each of the various nations were trusted to have

decided which men and women were members of their nations. The authorities of the various chiefs and headmen were respected enough by the government of Canada to let them determine the geographical fate of the thousands of members in their care by signing over to Canada an area of land the size of the British Isles. As there is no wording in Treaty Six that diminishes the authority of those chiefs and headmen over their people (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6), they should have continued to maintain the power to decide their own membership rather than the Canadian government making such determinations, as in Term three of the Indian Act (The Indian Act, 1876).

Sections 86 to 93 of the Indian Act imposed the strange and pernicious laws of enfranchisement, which cancelled all treaty rights enjoyed by any member of a reserve that became an educated holder of an academic degree such as a doctor, lawyer or Christian priest. Even more horrendously, in the Indian Act women are considered as less than any male above the age of fourteen. In section 3 (3. c and d) of the Indian Act the removal of treaty rights was imposed upon any woman who married someone outside of her treaty (The Indian Act, 1876). The removal of treaty rights based on criteria not delineated by that treaty is illegal under international law (The International Origins of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights).

Treaty Six has some of the language of a marriage ceremony as if the chiefs were the fathers of the bride of the land being wedded to the British monarch "to have and to hold" (Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6). The idea of Treaty Six as a giving away of the bride of the land by the Indigenous nations works as an analogy for how the marriage should have come to be, without the need for the Indian Act. The spouse does not take possession of the bride and the parents-in-law but merely has the bride to hold while the parents-in-law continue to enjoy a close relationship with their daughter, the land.

Works Cited

“Beardy's & Okemasis Band #96 and #97 v. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada."

Specific Claims Tribunal Canada, 6 May 2015,

decisia.lexum.com/sct/rod/en/item/231041/index.do#_Toc521398077. Accessed

20 November 2019.

“Beyond Treaty Six.” treaty6education.lskysd.ca/book/export/html/45.html.

Accessed 22 November 2019.

Daschuk, James. “Old Tomorrow’s Bicentennial: Don't Think Motivation, Think Law."

Active History, 9 January 2015, activehistory.ca/2015/01/dont-think-of-

macdonalds-motivation-think-about-the-law. Accessed 21 November 2019.

McQuillan, D. Aidan. “Creation of Indian Reserves on the Canadian Prairies 1870-1895.”

Geographical Review Vol. 70, No. 4, JSTOR, October 1980, pp. 389-390.

The Indian Act, 1876. Canada.

q.utoronto.ca/courses/113928/files/5161777?module_item_id=1033557. Accessed 18 November 2019. pdf.

“The International Origins of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights: Conclusion.” Chapter 5:

Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. The Justice System and Aboriginal People, The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission, ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter5.html#13. Accessed 23 November 2019.

Treaty Texts: Treaty No. 6. Canada.

q.utoronto.ca/courses/113928/files/5161781?module_item_id=1033568. Accessed

18 November 2019. pdf.

Vattel, Emer de. “Book I, Chapter XVI: Of the Protection sought by a Nation, and

its voluntary Submission to a foreign Power." The Law of Nations, edited by

Richard Whatmore and Béla Kapossy, Online Library of Liberty, 1797,

oll.libertyfund.org/titles/vattel-the-law-of-nations-lf-ed. Accessed 19 November

2019.

Vattel, Emer de. "Book II, Chapter XII: Of Treaties of Alliance, and other public

Treaties.” The Law of Nations, edited by Richard Whatmore and Béla Kapossy,

Online Library of Liberty, 1797, oll.libertyfund.org/titles/vattel-the-law-of-

nations-lf-ed. Accessed 19 November 2019.

Vattel, Emer de. "Book II, Chapter XVII: Of The Interpretation of Treaties.” The

Law of Nations, edited by Richard Whatmore and Béla Kapossy,

Online Library of Liberty, 1797, s. 271, oll.libertyfund.org/titles/vattel-the-law-

of-nations-lf-ed. Accessed 19 November 2019.

Venne, Sharon. “Introduction.” Honour Bound: Onion Lake and the Spirit of Treaty Six,

The International Validity of Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, 1997,

iwgia.org/images/publications/0143_Honour_bound.pdf. Accessed 21 November

2019.

Unboxing

            On Saturday morning I posted “Pamela Popo” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian's Translations blog. The next song I’ll learn is Gainsbourg’s “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Doll that makes Peepee), in which the speaker is either comparing his lover to a doll or has a doll for a lover.

            I worked a bit more on my Indigenous Studies essay with two days before the deadline.

            On my way to the supermarket I stopped at Freedom Mobile to pay for my December phone plan. There was one guy waiting ahead of me while a single clerk was selling a new iphone to a guy who was trading in his mint condition iphone. After ten minutes the guy ahead of me gave up and left. Buying an iphone seems to be a big production. The clerk asked the guy if he wanted to do the “unboxing". Another guy came in and said his phone had been stolen and he was wondering if he could get a new one under his plan. The clerk told him no because phones are expensive. After another ten minutes the clerk asked him to wait five minutes because his manager would be there to give him a good price in cash for the iphone. My transaction took one minute. Two places behind me there was a young guy who looked homeless and he was also waiting to pay his bill while kicked around one of their black Friday balloons.

            At No Frills I bought three bags of black grapes, a half pint each of blueberries and raspberries, three containers of Greek yogourt, a bottle of mouthwash and some dental floss. The only open cashier was the attractive young woman with the close-cropped hair and the weaponized eyelashes. Another cashier came up and told her that when she smiles it makes her very happy and that made my cashier happy.

            For lunch I had a cheese and salami sandwich.

            I worked on my essay for most of the day and didn’t do my afternoon exercises.

            I steamed some Pacific white shrimp and had them on pancit canton citrus flavoured noodles with a beer for dinner while watching Zorro.

            In this story the new commandant, Captain Toledano arrives in Los Angeles with his beautiful and very flirtatious wife Raquel. Although the captain as irritable and very jealous of men that attend to Raquel, he is a dedicated soldier and is not diverted by the criminal temptations that the magistrate had hoped he would be. But at the inn the magistrate sees Raquel and a local Don Juan named Lalo making eyes at one another. He has a note sent to Lalo that Lalo believes to be from Raquel, which asks him to serenade her under her balcony. The magistrate does this because he knows it will result in a duel between Lalo and the captain and Lalo is known to be a very good swordsman. But Don Diego has been watching from his table at the inn and when Lalo begins his serenade, Zorro stops him and warns him it’s a trap. Then Sergeant Garcia arrives with a guitar and serenades Raquel because he has also received a note to do so. Garcia’s note came from Zorro but he thinks the captain sent it. The captain bursts into the courtyard with his sword drawn, expecting to find Lalo, but when he sees Garcia he begins to laugh. Garcia explains that he was instructed to serenade Raquel on her saint’s day. The captain asks him to sing again and then invites him for a drink. Meanwhile Lalo decides to cash in on the reward for Zorro. They fight for a while until the soldiers attack. Zorro swings around evading them for a long chase until finally escaping. Captain Toledano comments that he understands now why people are writing songs about Zorro.

            Raquel is played by Canadian actor Suzanne Lloyd, who lived in Europe for many years and appeared on several British TV shows such as the Avengers and six episodes of The Saint. She also played Maya in the Twilight Zone tale, “Perchance to Dream”.