Respectfully, we begin by
acknowledging that we are in the ancestral and unceded Traditional Territory of
the Algonquin People.
We recognize the Algonquins as the stewards of these lands
and resources
– in the past, in the present and in the future.
Last July I led a worship service as part of the United Church summer ministry in Algonquin Park. Those of us who led from week to week included a recognition of the Indigenous land on which we had gathered. The words which I used were provided by the Algonquins of Ontario.
It seemed particularly important to do so given that the Algonquins of Ontario are in the final stages of a land claim settlement with the provincial government which will be the province's first modern-day constitutionally protected treaty. The area under negotiation includes virtually all of Algonquin Park and would result in a co-management relationship.
I was shaken a couple of days ago by the image above which comes from a lunchbox sold in Algonquin Park back in the late 1950s. It was found at a flea market by a member of a Cree community out West. It shows a Mountie in dress uniform pulling an Indigenous child (or a caricature of one) toward a one-room schoolhouse. There are other images on the lunch box which are equally offensive.
We are now well aware of the dark legacy of Residential Schools in this country with thousands of Indigenous children forcibly taken from their families to live in these schools where their culture and language was expunged and terrible abuses took place. A number of Christian denominations, including the the United Church, were complicit in this cultural genocide. While we have formally apologized and made reparations this is an indelible stain on our denominational history.
We are coming to grips with our racist past and we can only hope and pray that religious institutions and governments will acknowledge wrong-doing and endeavour to make it right.
2 comments:
Hello David. I too have recently come across this same horrific lunch box and I am not sure what to do with it. Would you have any suggestions ? My first thought was to burn it however I feel that it would only give weight to peoples denial that these monstrosities even existed. Just having it in my possession has troubled me deeply. Any suggestions ?
Wow. I can understand why the lunch box repulsed you. I wonder, though, if there is a place for it as an artifact from a time we shouldn't forget? I'm wracking my brain wondering who might use this effectively to tell the story of oppression of Indigenous peoples in this province.
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