Some boys began to develop the notion during World War II that Father Mackey might even be in league with the Nazis. Andrew Julian became convinced that Father Mackey was “part German” and he recalls: “During the war, we listened to the German news by Gabriel Heeter on the square radio hanging from the ceiling in the recreation hall. When France was freed, we didn’t listen. But we listened to the Max Schmelling and Joe Louis championship fight. When Max Schmelling won by a knockout … Father Mackey was step dancing on the boys’ side. He was a good dancer. Sister Adrian served him tea and sandwiches which he ate in front of the boys.” Although there seems to be no evidence that Father Mackey was “part German,” it is not so surprising that the young Mi’kmaw boys would develop that belief at the sight of the priest dancing with glee at the defeat of a famous black boxer.
Peter Julian was another of the unfortunate students in the dilemma of facing in the boxing ring the priest he had been taught to respect:
I found the punishments extremely severe. I got punishments and I got beatings. One day I got into a fight with another boy and Father Mackey put boxing gloves on both of us and when I won Father Mackey told me, “You think you’re tough,” and I said, “No, I don’t think I’m tough.” I was fourteen years old at the time. Then he put on a pair of boxing gloves and I had no choice. It was either that or a strapping. He was a big man and I was only a small boy for my age. Besides I had respect for him and wouldn’t hit him, but he made me angry and I hit him. Then he got mad and knocked me right over the benches and up against the pillar…. It dazed me a little bit but it didn’t knock me out. Then I told the priest, “I’ve had enough.” But he forced me to get back in the ring and again I felt that I had no choice. I went this far with him and ended up with a lucky punch and hit him in the face. He then ordered the fight stopped and took off his boxing gloves. “Come with me,” he said and we went up to his parlour, “and we’ll find out how tough you really are. Unbuckle your belt and drop your pants and underpants.” I did what he told me to do and then he ordered, “Grasp your ankles.” After which he warned me, “You’re going to get ten straps right across your bum.” He had a strap about three or four inches wide. He wrapped that around his hand a couple of times and asked me to bend over. I bent over and that’s when I got it, eh? I spent about three days nursing my ass because it was so sore and I had a lot of bruises. I received many serious beatings after that because if I did something wrong I was sent directly to Father Mackey.
Being hit in the face with the priest’s fist was not reserved for punishing boys, as Rita Howe recalls:
I was at the school in 1949 when Father Mackey was Principal. Barbara Paul was not liked by the Sisters and she was severely punished for saying the word “sow.” It was just slang to her and she really didn’t mean anything or point to any particular person when she said it that day. We were washing the walls in the hallway and Barbara was standing on a ladder reaching high when her wash rag fell out of her hands. She said, “Oh sow,” and Sister heard her and told her not to repeat it again. The following day Father Mackey came into the classroom looking for Barbara and when she went to the front of the class, he asked her if she had said the word “sow,” and she answered “Yes.” She explained that it was an accident and that she was sorry and promised not to say it again. Then he hauled off and smashed her in the face, not with an open hand, but with a fist. She fell down and he told her to get up. She got up again and he smashed her again with both fists this time. She went down again and he ordered her up again. He even pushed some of the desks back to get at her. I think she tried to crawl away, but her nose and mouth were bleeding and he smashed her again and she went down again but didn’t get up. She tried to sit up half way. He looked at her and walked out. And it frightened every kid in the school. I was looking at the windows and thinking about jumping out to get away. The classroom was grade five and every kid was screaming and crying while the Sister just stood there with her arms folded. She didn’t do anything. I swear to God, she enjoyed it. Afterward, the Sister took Barbara out. I don’t know where she took her but the rest of the day, she wasn’t in class.
I can see that chubby fist of Father Mackey’s yet. His hands were fat. They looked like they had a ball of fat on top of them.
Because punishment was often meted out based on hearsay evidence, “ratting” on other students, particularly on the boys’ side, became a way of working off old scores. One student in the late 1950s recalls that someone telling the nun in charge that you’d been heard speaking Mi’kmaw was a way to ensure that “you’d get the shit beat out of you.” Older boys would also intimidate younger ones, “You had to pay for protection. You had to watch your bed — they’d piss in your bed to get you in trouble. In the morning you’d get the blame and you’d have to wear the sheet on your head and parade around.” Another cruel trick which some of the boys would play was to loosen the top of the salt shaker so that the next boy who tried to salt his food would have it covered in salt. Not only was his food spoiled, but everyone knew that the nun would force him to eat the whole plateful even if he gagged or vomited.
Many students remember the systematic humiliations which they suffered at least as vividly as the physical pain. More than three decades after the school’s closing many students still feel a sense of violation and shame. One woman recalls that some forms of humiliation were worse than the physical pain of beatings:
One day, the girls were climbing on the door onto the roof and sliding down the wall and I followed them. We were playing Follow the Leader. When I was halfway up, the nun caught me. I was afraid of heights but I was even more afraid of what was going to happen to me when I came down — what the nun was going to do. The Sister had a bat. I saw the bat in her hands. When I was hanging onto the door she hit me on the bottom with the bat and I fell to the ground. She hit me again on the arm. The pain was so bad but I didn’t cry. She hit me more than once. I was gritting my teeth fighting back the crying but my tears were flowing. It was fear.
The most degrading experience in my life was when the Sister in charge of the girls lined us up and made us hold our panties in our hands for examination. We used to wash the stains quickly and wear our underwear wet. We didn’t know why we were afraid. We were afraid of the unknown. Everything to them was a sin.
Nora Bernard recalls that same humiliating inspection of underwear:
I don’t know what Sister Wejipsetamite’w’s [the sniffer] problem was, for instance, she used to have us girls form a line and take the crotch of our panties and spread them on the palm of our hands as we all walked by her so she could see if they were dirty. She told us that she didn’t want us going to church smelly but why didn’t she just have all of us take a bath or shower before church?
Rita Howe remembers the nightly sense of dread as she awaited the inevitable humiliation:
I just dreaded going to bed because I knew she was going to do that. When we got ready for bed, Wejipsetamite’w would be watching us. Certain time to get our nightdresses on and certain time to get into bed. While the kids were crawling into bed, she’d watch who was taking their underwear off then she’d go and peek inside of them. We had to take our panties and place them over our clothes at the foot of the bed. Wejipsetamite’w would come to the bottom of the bed and she’d take our underwear and she’d look inside of it then she’d put it back down. She’d go to the next bed, open up the bloomers and do that about twenty-six times which was the number of girls in that dorm. I’d be lying in bed so embarrassed, watching her coming closer and waiting till she got to my bed. It was so humiliating that she was invading my privacy. It seemed that we were being punished for something that was never explained… I don’t know if she got a kick from looking at all the girls’ underwear or was this to embarrass or degrade or make us ashamed.
During the 1950s the nun in charge of the girls’ side decided that the girls would no longer be provided with sanitary towels at night. Only those with exceptionally light pe
riods were able to avoid bleeding onto the sheets. Every morning the sheets had to be held up for inspection. Some girls remember being sent to wash out the bloodstains. Others were beaten as well. For some girls, being beaten four days out of every month became a routine event.
Many of the punishments had a sexual character or association. One former student remembers all the boys being treated for something, perhaps scabies, that “was going around.” “They got some white medicine in a bottle that they used to spread on our genitals. They would line us up in the bathroom. We could have put it on for ourselves, but they preferred to do it. You’ve got boys nine, ten, eleven — some of them would get erections and then the nuns would get mad and beat them.” Another student recalls being beaten because he resisted sexual interference. Apparently he was ill and had blacked out in church. He woke up back in the dormitory: “A nun was sponge bathing me and she proceeded to go a little too far with her sponge bathing. So I pushed her hand away. She held my legs apart while she strapped the inside of my thighs. I never stopped her again.” The same student recalls that other students taught him a form of meditation technique so that he was able to mentally remove himself from what was happening to his body.
Some of the other kids told me the secret of how to deal with that was to run away to the pipes. When we finished showering — they’d powder you — and sometimes they’d powder your genitals a little too long … One of the kids that was with me used to tell me, “Run along to the pipes.” In the shower room there used to be pipes and he told me to pretend that I’m up there on that pipe. Really think about it. You’re crawling down to the end — and then there’s dust — and then you meet the joint — the elbow — one pipe would be too hot — so you don’t go down there — you go down the other one. By the time you’d finished travelling the pipes — usually the act is over. That’s how I learned to cope with it — by running away to the pipes …
Offering more definite resistance was riskier. One student recalls a priest or a brother invoking religion to try to persuade him to perform oral sex.
I was only a nine-year-old kid. I didn’t know whether he was a priest or a brother. He had on a black gown — that outfit that they wear. He told me that he works for God, that God is his friend, and if I did things for him then God would take me to heaven. I remember he opened a drawer — he was standing next to his desk — and he opened a drawer and put his leg up there. He had nothing on underneath — I could see his face — his hairy legs … I wouldn’t — so he strapped me and told me that I was going to Hell.
Most of those who were students at the school have exceptionally vivid memories of the instruments of punishment, as well as the particular incidents when they were used. Nora Bernard describes the main instrument of punishment during the forties as “a strap made out of leather which was about two or three inches wide and a little over two feet long.” Yvette Toney, who was a pupil in the late fifties, remembers that the strap during those years was a piece cut from the rubber mat on the floor leading to the back door. It was about four inches wide and eighteen inches long. The noticeable gap in the mat served as a constant reminder every time children went out and came in from play of the potential punishment that constantly awaited them.
Other straps made of different materials seem to have been in use earlier on. One man recalls:
I was ordered to polish floors and Sister Superior opened the closet where the polisher was kept. The strap was hanging on a hook behind the door. I touched it and it had a good grip — a wooden handle. It was about four inches wide and about sixteen inches long and a little thicker than my belt and it was cut into strips. It looked like a piece from a conveyor belt from a lumber mill and it was used by Mr. McLeod [the school handyman] and Father Mackey when they lashed the boys.
Another man recalls being ordered to destroy one of the straps immediately before a visit from the school inspectors:
I was a furnace-hand and Sister Superior came down with a brown paper bag tucked under her cape. She told me that the inspectors came from Ottawa and would I please burn this paper bag and its contents. When I took the bag from her, she turned around right quick and started going up the stairs leading to the laundry. Then she stopped and looked at me and said, “Don’t look in the bag, just burn it.” As soon as she got out of sight, I peeked in the bag and there were three whips in it. They were cut into strips with a knot tied at the ends — the kind you can send away for in a farmer’s catalogue.
In the classroom, the ever-present instrument of punishment was the pointer. Every time the Sister came beside me, I ducked, because I was afraid she was going to hit me with the pointer. Nancy Marble, who became a student a year after the school was founded, was hit on the head with the pointer so frequently that by the time she was fourteen she had lost her hearing. Betsey Paul’s memories are similar:
How many times did I get hit over the head with that pointer? That was Skite’kmuj’s class where she hit me so hard she even broke the pointer. And oh my God, my head used to be so sore. And I couldn’t communicate with anyone in the outside world because our letters telling about the mistreatment were read and we were told, “How dare you complain to anyone about this school and how you are treated here. Some of you are lucky you have a roof over your head.”
Even when they had nothing in their hands, those in charge had ways of physically punishing children which are still bitterly remembered. Ears were a favourite target. One man remembers the intense pain: “Jesus! I used to hate them earpulls — your ear would feel like it was going to pop off — it would hurt right in the centre core. They used to like to pull ears and twist.” I remember that a number of children used to have nearly permanent sores at the top and bottom of their ears as a result of this technique of pulling and twisting ears. It seemed that the nuns’ hands could flash out with amazing speed and grasp a handful of hair from behind, jerking the child’s head back in a quick whiplash, or fingers could grab a piece of loose skin on the face or throat and startle the victim with the sudden intense pain of pinching and twisting. Another form of punishment was to be locked alone in a room. One girl became so tired of being locked in the bathroom day after day that she managed to take off the door hinges and even swallowed the screws in a desperate attempt to prevent the door being replaced and her punishment repeated.
Much of the time children were being punished, not for deliberate naughtiness, but for behaviour they would have avoided if they could. Wetting the bed was considered a major crime. Besides the usual strappings, they were humiliated in front of everyone. Alice Paul remembers: “Dorothy was made to stand on the table while the nun asked her, ‘Does Sister like you?’ and when she answered, ‘No,’ the nun asked, ‘Why?’ and the little girl replied, ‘I peed the bed.’ Nora Bernard’s brother was systematically humiliated for bed wetting: “My brother had a problem of bed wetting. They forced him to put on a girl’s dress and parade in the refectory in front of all the children and me and my sisters had to sit there and watch his humiliation. I don’t know why I didn’t run away. Maybe it’s because I was the oldest in the family and had to look out for my brothers and sisters.”
The most enduring and unyielding law was the one that forbade the speaking of Mi’kmaw even during play. None of the nuns knew any Mi’kmaw or made any effort to learn it beyond two words — Pa’tlia’s [priest] and the term for nun, Aniap. [Aniap is a corruption of Aniapsit which means “to ask forgiveness” and Aniapsuinu’skw which means, “a woman who goes around asking for forgiveness,” while the word for priest has its roots in the French word, padre.] Mi’kmaw was the only language understood by nearly all the students when they first came to school. The few students who were not fluent in Mi’kmaw generally had non-Native mothers or had gone to white schools off the reserves. By the time they were discharged, most of the students had lost their language.
Nancy Marble says: “We weren’t allowed to talk Indian. Sister just told me that I wasn’t allowed, and when I told her I co
uldn’t speak English, she told me that I had to learn. After a while, I caught on I guess. But I even forgot my prayers in Indian. Some people still pray in Indian but not very many.” Joe Julian remembers:
I got tired of getting hit over the head so I thought I better stop talking Indian and learn English. I don’t know what they were. Were they prejudiced or sadists? They liked to inflict pain. They thought that we were savages from the wild and it took me a long while to find myself. I used to work with white people sailing on the great sea but still I can’t trust them. I still don’t, that’s just the way I feel.
One day during my first year, I came into the recreation hall to find Wikew slapping a little girl and yelling at her. The nun had the little girl backed up against the presses which were shelves where we kept shoes, mitts and our precious junk boxes. The little girl was looking in her junk box when the nun came up from behind her and swung her around and began beating her up. From where I was standing by the toilet door, I could see the nun’s back. Her arms were swinging. At first, the nun’s size obstructed my view but it also blocked the girl’s escape. When Wikew hit with her right hand, her black veil swung left and when she slapped with the right, the veil went in the opposite direction. I could see the girl’s feet. At first, she was standing with both feet on the floor, then the Sister pinched her cheeks and her lips were drawn taut across her teeth and her eyes wide with terror. I stood hypnotized with fear. I had never been so scared in my whole life before and I almost voided a puddle right there on the spot. Then the nun picked the little girl clear off the floor by the ears or hair and the girl stood on tiptoes with her feet dangling in the air so that one of her shoes fell off. The nun was yelling, “You bad, bad girl.” Then she let go with one hand and continued slapping her in the mouth until her nose bled. The little girl was still holding her junk box, while tears and drops of blood were falling in it. Wikew hit the box, and the girl’s precious possessions went flying in every direction onto the floor. Suddenly Wikew turned around and screeched at us who were standing paralyzed with fear. “Get out you little savages and don’t let me hear anyone else talking that mumbo jumbo again.” We all went scrambling up the cement steps that led into the yard. Out of nowhere came Susie. She pushed me gently and firmly out the door. I couldn’t even imagine what the little girl had done. When we got out of hearing from everyone else, she told me, “Don’t talk Mi’kmaw, Aniap has spies.” The next day, I saw the little girl. She had bruises on both cheeks and on her throat where Wikew had pinched her, and her lips were swollen with a cut on the upper one. When one of her little friends tried to comfort her, Wikew called out, “Get away from her, she’s a bad girl and if I see you near her again, I’ll give you the same thing.” When little children first arrived at the school we would see bruises on their throats and cheeks that told us that they had been caught speaking Mi’kmaw. Once we saw the bruises begin to fade, we knew they’d stopped talking.
The Mi'kmaq Anthology Page 16
