John Janvier- Not Allowed to Speak Our Language
We were not allowed to speak our language. If we were… if some staff member overheard us, they would report us, and we would go to court or whatever he [likely referring to the principal] called it, because we were not allowed to speak our language. We were supposed to lose our language, and we made sure that we didn’t speak it within earshot of the staff members.
During Sundays, there was the only time, the boys play ball, and the girls would come to the boys’ playground. There was one, one, well, she was a girl then, she’s probably around…
I’m not going to mention her name, but she was from the same community, and she could see that I was lonesome, I guess and she used to take me aside. Somewheres with me, and then she would speak Dene with me. You know we’d have a little conversation in Dene, and that made me feel better. That made me feel good, in in my language, yes.
So that was one of, I always regarded her as a big sister, today, because she used to do that for me. Anyway, we’re not even allowed to speak to our siblings, I had, had a sister that’s two years older than me. We were not allowed to speak to each other.
I don’t know what the thing was there. But anyways, that’s part of the training, or I don’t know what a lot of term is, I’m not a very good English speaker.
I’ve lost a lot of teeth. They used to take me to a dentist in town and drill holes my teeth, and say the fill it up with something, I don’t know what they filled it with. Over the years I haven’t lost all my teeth because they used to drill in there. So, I can’t really speak good English, and I can’t even, swear very well in English, so I don’t swear.
But anyway, that’s part of the story.
– John Janvier
Notes:
John Janvier Testimony. SC142_part03. Shared at Alberta National Event (ABNE) Sharing Circle. March 28, 2014. National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation holds copyright. https://archives.nctr.ca/SC142_part03
