Looks Like Daylight

by Deborah Ellis

  My sister loves to fix hair. Mom got her a model doll’s head with real hair and she practices doing hairstyles on it. Mom taught her how to do a French braid. She wants to be a hair stylist when she gets older. I want to open up a spa where you can get a massage and get your nails done.

  We belong to the Three Affiliated Tribes — the Arikara, the Hidatsa and the Mandan. By the casino where we go swimming with the Boys and Girls Club there’s a museum that will tell you all about it. They have things there like old baskets and rattles and ceremonial clothes and old weapons.

  We do so much with the Boys and Girls Club. In the summer there’s a culture camp at Earth Lodge Village by New Town on the reservation. We go to the earth lodges, these round buildings like where our ancestors used to live. We have Amazing Races up the hills. We have an activity room at the center where we can play Twister or chess or do homework. They take us horseback riding, to play golf and sometimes we go bowling. Sometimes we just flop down on the cushy red sofa and read or talk.

  There’s a list of rules on the wall, like Be nice, Ask before leaving the room, Clean up after yourself, No bullying. And there’s a big fish tank in there too.

  Journey and I also dance at powwows and at Zumba. Journey dances traditional and I dance Fancy Shawl.

  It’s been scary here since all the oil workers started coming. It used to be just us. It was really quiet, no cars on the road. But now it’s noisy all the time.

  All these strange men are here now. They live in big Man Camps full of trailers and in motels, all these white men. We don’t know who they are. They drink and they fight. It makes us scared to be outside.

  Traditional roundhouse,

  Fort Berthold Reservation

  I’m scared of them. Some of them like to steal little kids. One time Journey and her friend were headed down the street. I was following along behind them. I was looking at my hand because I had a cut on my hand. I sort of saw this guy sitting and watching us, and when I passed him he reached out and tried to grab at me. I ran away. We all ran home. Another time my grandpa came and banged on our door. He told us to stay inside, that there was some guy going around looking for kids.

  I don’t know if that guy was caught or if he just went away.

  Big trucks come through here all the time now, really big ones. And all the highways are torn up to make them bigger so they can bring in even more trucks. The trucks go really fast. So fast that little kids can’t always get out of the way. A bunch of kids have been killed that way.

  Our brother was killed because of one of those trucks.

  His name was Jordy and he loved to play basketball and frisbee. He had a frisbee that lighted up when it got dark out. He was twenty-one.

  He was a really good brother, not mean or anything. Everybody liked him. He used to have a dog that died, named Kimber. He was so sad when Kimber died that he kept Kimber’s collar on his keychain.

  He died on March 4, just a few months ago. I remember because I was at my friend’s birthday party and someone came to pick me up and tell me what happened. Now I’ll never be able to go to my friend’s birthday party again because Jordy’s memorial will always be on the same day.

  We will probably stay here because our brother is buried here. You have to love the place where your family is buried. We won’t want to leave because then Jordy will be alone.

  Tyrone, 13

  Rossbrook House in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was started in 1976 as a safe drop-in center for kids in the inner city. It is open every day from eight in the morning until midnight and twenty-four hours a day during school holidays and weekends. Five thousand people a year use its services. In addition to the drop-in center, where there is food, clothing, counseling and recreation, Rossbrook House runs schools for First Nations and Métis kids not able to make it in the mixed public system. Eagles’ Circle is a school for older kids.

  I met Tyrone at Eagles’ Circle.

  My parents come from Berens River, Manitoba. You can only get there by flying in most of the year. In the winter there’s an ice road that goes down to Bloodvein First Nation.

  Kids at this school belong to a lot of different reserves — Ebb and Flow, Hollow Water, Pine Creek, God’s Lake. They’re Ojibwe, Cree, Dene.

  The good thing about Winnipeg is that the hospitals are close by. There’s lots of recreation, lots of houses and lots of friends and family.

  The hard thing is that there are a lot of gangs — Native gangs, white gangs, black gangs. There’s violence, lots of drugs. I’ve seen both things — people doing drugs and selling drugs, and people beating each other up. It’s hard not to see it. A friend of mine was jacked for his bike. He’d saved up for it and just bought it. It cost $130. A group of white kids came up to him. They had a can of bear mace. They sprayed it in his face and took his bike.

  It stings. Lots of kids I know have had people spray them with it. Another kid here knows of a gang that attacks people with machetes. There are a lot of different gangs.

  The north end of Winnipeg is the baddest place. My friend Ronald — he’s an Ojibwe from the Ebb and Flow reserve — he lives in the safer part of the north end. Well, it’s supposed to be safer, but some white guy pulled a knife on him and told him to hand over his backpack. But he swung the pack at the guy instead, knocked him off his bike and got away.

  In my house I have one brother, one sister, nephew, niece, Mom and me.

  My other brother, Ramsay, is in jail. He’s twenty-four. They’re saying he did second-degree murder at a bus stop over in Portage. He’s been in jail for three months. My mother goes to visit him and says it’s really hard to see him there. I haven’t gone yet. I miss him, but Mom says he told her he doesn’t want me to see him cry. He doesn’t want to see me cry either.

  Maybe I could write to him. I don’t know what I’d say, but I want him to know I haven’t forgotten him. He’s a really good brother. He loves to cook. He’ll make these great meals for us, then we eat together and it’s really fun. He plays games with me too. He doesn’t ignore me because I’m younger.

  My dad passed away when I was eight. He drank a lot. He was a good dad though. He bought us candy and a computer game, but it wasn’t good to see him drinking. It was hard to know how to be around him because you never knew what would make him angry.

  Sometimes he’d come by and you could tell he’d been drinking so Mom didn’t want him in the house. She wouldn’t answer the door. He’d be banging on it and calling to us but she wouldn’t let him in. She said we needed to be safe more than he needed to see us.

  My sister is fourteen. She’s sort of bossy. She’s in high school now. She’s smart. And she’s strong like my mother.

  My oldest sister lives somewhere else with her boyfriend. She just had a new baby. Her other children live with us. My nephew is only four and he can already use a computer. He learned when he was only three! He was born with teeth. I wonder if that means he’s special or smart in some way.

  Berens River — Pukatawagan — I’ve been up there with my mom. She wanted to go back and I wanted to see it. It’s quiet up there and beautiful, but there’s lots of violence.

  Before I was born, there were people driving around in their boats one night. They had rifles and were shooting at houses. Mom said everyone turned their lights out so the shooters couldn’t find anything to shoot at. She doesn’t know why they were shooting or who they were. She thinks they were probably drunk. They may have been from the reserve. They might also have been white men who go there to hunt and fish. They’ve bothered our people before. You have to stay away from them because they think it’s far away from everything and they can just do what they want.

  Violence has happened at my house here too. My brother Ramsay got into some stuff with a gang, and then these guys — not his friends, some other guys — broke our window and pointed guns at us. They were mad about something
.

  When my nephew was only one year old, my sister was sitting with him in her lap. Someone threw a rock through the window, then sprayed mace inside. Some of it got my little nephew. I think it was also done by people who were angry at my brother. If you get in with a gang and you don’t do exactly what they say, they get mad at you and do these terrible things to your family.

  Ramsay calls us from jail sometimes. He says that he misses everybody. He asks me about school. He says I should study hard and stay away from gangs.

  We’re still in the same neighborhood, in the same house. It’s been quiet there since my brother was arrested.

  My mother works for CFS — Child and Family Services — helping kids get into foster homes and group homes. She’s a social worker.

  We once took in a foster kid named Sammy. He was with us for a year, a Native kid. A great guy, older than me. I liked him a lot. He’s in jail now.

  I go to sweat lodges out of town. They help me get cleansed. I’m tired when I come out of a sweat, like I’ve been away on a long trip. Seven to nineteen rocks are put into a fire to get hot. A sweat is about being in a big circle. It’s like Mother Earth’s womb. When you go in, you are going back — back in time, back to your culture, back to the core of what’s important, back to the Creator, back to the earth. When you come out you feel warm and happy.

  I go to a Sun Dance too. It’s held near Selkirk. They have this circle. On the first day you feast and dance. On the second day you do a fruit and vegetable feast, that’s all, and you dance. You’re woken up at seven, go to the sweat lodge, rest, then start dancing at nine. Boys put a cloth around their waist. Girls wear dresses. This goes on for four days. The third day is a fast. Kids can exit out of the circle at any time and go to a tepee and eat. After we dance, we rest.

  On the fourth day, we dance until noon. Then we take the circle apart and take down the tree of life and take down our tents. Then we eat.

  It makes me feel good because this year I actually completed it. On the second day it was really hard. The weather was hot and I felt like quitting. But I found the strength to keep going and I completed it.

  I like being who I am and being from where I’m from. It’s special.

  My advice to other Native kids is to keep on going to cultural things. Even if you don’t see the point right away. The culture will keep you clean and safe. It will give you something to do that’s important, with people who really want you to do well. Not like gangs, who only want to use you.

  Brittany, 17

  The use of Indigenous names and caricatures in sports teams is an on-going issue. Some sports fans are adamant about their right to do the “tomahawk chop” and wear feathered headdresses to games. When Native Americans protested the name Cleveland Indians and the baseball team’s logo, Chief Wahoo, they were met by folks who spat on them and pelted them with beer cans.

  The Washington Redskins football team has been sued to get it to change its name. “Redskin” was first used to refer to the bloodied scalps of Native Americans taken by white men to be exchanged for bounty payment. The 1755 Phips Proclamation gave permission to the settlers to kill all the Penobscot Indians. It laid out how much money the government would pay for each dead Indian — fifty pounds sterling for adult male scalps, twenty pounds for each child.

  People are becoming aware of how insulting these names and caricatures are to Indigenous people, and are starting to change things. Boards of education in Oregon, Wisconsin, Maine and other states have voted to ban Native American mascots in state schools.

  Brittany is a young athlete from Ontario who has received support and encouragement from her Ojibwe community.

  I started running when I was in grade six. It was fun. It’s easy to do. How I do in a race depends only on me, not on what the rest of the team does. It’s gotten more intense as I’ve gotten into higher levels of competition, but it’s still fun.

  Running has taken me all over. Lots of in-Canada meets, of course, and I went to Italy in 2009 to the IAAF World Youth Championships in Bressanone.

  My best events are the 400 meters and the 400-meter hurdles. I got eleventh overall, and third place out of the other sixteen-year-olds. That means I was the third-fastest sixteen-year-old on the planet!

  There were young people there from all over the world — Kenya, Australia, everywhere. They allowed kids to compete in the way they felt most comfortable. Some ran all seven laps in their bare feet! Seven laps on hard track!

  It was my first time flying. My mom and grandma joined me there a couple of days after I went. I had to go early to get over jet lag and get used to the higher altitude. Bressanone is in the mountains. It was a bit of a challenge for me. I have a touch of asthma and had to use my puffer. It rained a lot too — thunder, lightning, everything.

  No one talked English in this little town except for us foreigners from English-speaking places. It was great being surrounded by so many different languages.

  All the Canadians stayed at the same hotel so that we could feel more like a team.

  We all had to pay our own way to Italy, and my family doesn’t have a lot of spare money. So the community took it on. There was a powwow on the reserve. First the chief made a speech honoring me and the other youth of the community. Then the Blanket Dance started. People danced and threw money on the blanket, and that’s how I was able to go to Italy with my family.

  The community didn’t just give me money. They also followed me on the internet and Facebook so I really felt backed up by everyone when I was on the other side of the world. It was like they were all over there with me.

  When the Olympic torch relay came through this area, the community chose me to carry the torch through the reserve. It was so exciting! Everyone was lined up along the street, cheering and waving. I felt so tall and proud running through all that.

  I haven’t had to deal with too much racism, probably because my skin is fairly pale and I could pass for white. Other students from my reserve have had a lot of stupid stuff thrown at them by white kids and adults. Because some people take me for white, white people will say racist things to me about other Natives. I usually challenge it. Sometimes I don’t have the energy.

  Even white people who know I’m Native can sometimes act like jerks. They’ll say, “Heading home to your tepee?” or go “Woo woo woo woo!” and pound their hands on their lips, doing some lame Hollywood version of a war dance.

  Others ask me questions, and some of the questions are fine. You can tell when people really want to know something in order to get to know you better. But some questions go too far. Like, because I’m Ojibwe they think I was born on some sort of different spiritual plane or something. All these white people who want to be Native because “Native culture is so beautiful.” It’s another way of not seeing me as human. It’s another way of being racist.

  A lot of First Nations kids struggle. They don’t think they can make it. They don’t think there is any place for them in the world. But the more of us who succeed, the more examples there will be for others.

  If the white world thinks Native kids are worthless, then the best answer we can give them is to become the best — the best athletes, the best scholars, the best lawyers, the best parents — whatever. Not for them. For ourselves. To protect ourselves from all those negative messages.

  Athletics has forced me to take school more seriously. I’m determined to get an athletic scholarship to university. Schools have already approached my coach about me — Florida State, Columbia University, University of Buffalo, University of Nebraska.

  My ultimate goal is the Olympics, of course. After that, some sort of police work. Aboriginal communities need good police officers who know them and won’t shoot them. And we can also use more women in the police.

  To other kids, Aboriginal or not, I’d say, Get out there and run! Remember what it was like to be a little kid, when we just
ran and ran because it was fun? You don’t have to lose that feeling forever. Get out and run around and feel that joy again.

  Jamie, 16

  American Indians have a higher percentage of enrollment in the armed services than any other group. The first Native American recipient of the Medal of Honor (1869) was Co-Rux-Te-Chod-Ish, or Co-Tux-A-Kah-Waddle, who served with the Indian Scouts. In World War I, a law was passed requiring all Native American men to register for the draft even though they were not considered citizens and could not vote. Many thousands voluntarily joined the military. Many others protested this law. In Utah, for instance, the protests were so vehement that the army was called in to stop them.

  More than 44,000 Native Americans served in World War II, where Navajo Code Talkers played a pivotal role. Ten thousand served in Korea and 42,000 in Vietnam. Ten thousand of those who have served have been women. Eighteen thousand have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. First Nations people in Canada have also served with great distinction.

  In Canada, Aboriginal veterans were for a long time not entitled to the same benefits granted to soldiers of European descent. Native veterans were told that since they were not considered Canadian citizens (First Nations people did not obtain the right to vote until 1960), they were not eligible for veterans’ benefits. And it wasn’t until 1992 that Aboriginal vets were allowed to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day.

  At powwows, veterans are treated with special respect, and a ceremonial dance is done in their honor. Jamie and his sister, Sheila (shown in the photo), live in Iqaluit.

  My sister is in grade nine. Her best subjects are math and science, and mine are math and English. I’m in grade ten. For a while, it looked like we were going to live in Coral Harbour. Mom started dating a guy from there a little while back, so we went and stayed there for a bit. It’s on the south shore of Southampton Island, which is in the northern part of Hudson Bay.