@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix dc: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts, Faculty of"@en, "Geography, Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Clark, Melanie Ann Jones"@en ; dcterms:issued "2008-09-05T16:43:07Z"@en, "1993"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """This thesis examines the pre-1900 relationship between the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a French order of Roman Catholic priests, and the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley. It considers the effects of the strict and inflexible Oblate system on the Sto:lo. Primary sources for this study were found at the Oblate Archives, the Archives of the Sisters of St. Ann, and from various oral testimonies. Under a regime called the "Durieu System", the Oblates encouraged the creation of segregated, self-sufficient agricultural villages on Sto:lo reserves. Ecclesiastically appointed watchmen recorded the names of transgressors against the Oblate "norms" of behaviour. No deviation was tolerated under this regime of surveillance and segregation. The thesis focuses on the Sto:lo children sent to the residential school at St. Mary's Mission; Sister Mary Lumena's diaries and the reminisces of a Metis student, Cornelius Kelleher, were the main sources of information. There were two schools on the site; the boys' under Oblate control, the girls' under the supervision of the Sisters of St.Ann. The schools were residential because the Oblates sought to isolate the children from Sto:lo elders who adhered to the "old ways". At school, children spoke only English and learned by rote-recitation. Sto:lo cosmology was replaced with the Roman Catholic religion. To prevent "immorality", the Oblates segregated the pupils from outsiders and the opposite sex; even their parent's visits were supervised. The school was self-sufficient so as to keep contact with the outside world at a minimum. The Oblates held a utopian vision of a docile, pious, capable, Roman Catholic peasantry. They hoped former pupils would return to their village and educate others or settle in agricultural villages under Oblate control. However, as this study shows, most pupils were orphans or Metis and did not have much influence in their village. This thesis suggests that the small numbers who attended St. Mary's found the transition between the Oblate and Sto:lo worlds difficult to make. Present-day informants described their reactions (which ranged from negative to ambivalent) to the residential school system and the effects of cultural confusion on their lives."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/1634?expand=metadata"@en ; dcterms:extent "5141338 bytes"@en ; dc:format "application/pdf"@en ; skos:note "SAINT MARY'S MISSION,(MISSION CITY, BRITISH COLUMBIA)1861 TO 1900byMELANIE ANN JONES CLARKB.A., The University of British Columbia, 1988A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF ARTSinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES(Department of Geography)We accept this thesis as conforming to theTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIASeptember 1993© Melanie Ann Jones Clark, 1993In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanceddegree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make itfreely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensivecopying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of mydepartment or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying orpublication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission.(Signature) Department of qe070/317/The University of British ColumbiaVancouver, CanadaDate *-leirit-tr DE-6 (2/88)ABSTRACTThis thesis examines the pre-1900 relationship betweenthe Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a French order of RomanCatholic priests, and the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley. Itconsiders the effects of the strict and inflexible Oblatesystem on the Sto:lo. Primary sources for this study werefound at the Oblate Archives, the Archives of the Sisters ofSt. Ann, and from various oral testimonies.Under a regime called the \"Durieu System\", the Oblatesencouraged the creation of segregated, self-sufficientagricultural villages on Sto:lo reserves. Ecclesiasticallyappointed watchmen recorded the names of transgressorsagainst the Oblate \"norms\" of behaviour. No deviation wastolerated under this regime of surveillance and segregation.The thesis focuses on the Sto:lo children sent to theresidential school at St. Mary's Mission; Sister Mary Lume-na's diaries and the reminisces of a Metis student, Corneli-us Kelleher, were the main sources of information. Therewere two schools on the site; the boys' under Oblate con-trol, the girls' under the supervision of the Sisters of St.Ann. The schools were residential because the Oblatessought to isolate the children from Sto:lo elders who ad-hered to the \"old ways\". At school, children spoke onlyEnglish and learned by rote-recitation. Sto:lo cosmologywas replaced with the Roman Catholic religion. To preventii\"immorality\", the Oblates segregated the pupils from outsid-ers and the opposite sex; even their parent's visits weresupervised. The school was self-sufficient so as to keepcontact with the outside world at a minimum.The Oblates held a utopian vision of a docile, pious,capable, Roman Catholic peasantry. They hoped former pupilswould return to their village and educate others or settlein agricultural villages under Oblate control. However, asthis study shows, most pupils were orphans or Metis and didnot have much influence in their village.This thesis suggests that the small numbers who attend-ed St. Mary's found the transition between the Oblate andSto:lo worlds difficult to make. Present-day informantsdescribed their reactions (which ranged from negative toambivalent) to the residential school system and the effectsof cultural confusion on their lives.iiiTABLE OF CONTENTSAbstract^ iiTable of Contents^ ivList of Tables viList of Maps^ viiAcknowledgements viiiChapter One^Introduction^ 1Chapter Two^The Oblate System 13Initial Contact: Conversion throughBaptism and Preaching, and the Changingof Native Religious, Inheritance andCeremonial Practices^ 17The Establishment of an EcclesiasticallyControlled Political Hierarchy^23The Creation of an IndependentAgricultural Economy^ 26The Intervention of the Priest in allJudicial, Medical, Political andEducational Matters^ 27The Education of Native Children^29Chapter Three The Lifeworld of the Sto:lo Child^36Chapter Four^St. Mary's Mission: O.M.I. MissionaryActivities in the Fraser Valley^56Chapter Five School Days^ 77Chapter Six^Influences and Legacies^ 105References Cited 122Appendix 1^Oblates of Mary Immaculate inBritish Columbia, 1895^ 128ivAppendix 2^Roman Catholic Clergy AssociatedWith St. Mary's Mission^ 130Appendix 3^Oblates Performing Baptisms in theFraser Valley 1861-1900 132Appendix 4^Oblate Graveyard at Mission, B.C.^134LIST OF TABLESTable 1 Native Baptisms and Marriages performedin the Fraser Valley, 1863-1884^60Table 2 Father E. Peytavin's Mission to the FraserValley Natives, 1886^ 64viLIST of MAPSMap 1 The Sto:lo Villages Mentioned by Peytavin^65Map 2 Rough Sketch of St. Mary's Mission circa. 1880^78viiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSA thesis is never the product of any one person, andthus I would like to thank the following people who havecontributed their time and energy to this one.Father Thomas Lascelles and Sister H. Boutin at theOblate Archives and the Archives of the Sister's of SaintAnn respectively both helped me locate research materials onSt. Mary's Mission. Father Lascelles also spent time talk-ing to me about the Oblate point of view regarding residen-tial schools, which I found helpful in trying to produce abalanced study. Beverly Bird, Kate Greenall, Dorothy Robin-son, Deanna Nyce and Shirley Morven and the residents of NewAiyansh helped me \"get to know the face of the survivors\" ofthe schools. In particular, I would like to thank KateGreenall for being such a supportive friend; during verydifficult times for her, she talked to me about her experi-ences at school, and forgave all my unwitting Eurocentricblunders.I would also like to thank my husband Gordon for help-ing me with the thesis and for proof-reading chapters Icould no longer judge; my daughter Rowan for occasionallynapping when I needed her to; my mother Valerie for teachingme about Native cultures; my father David for flying me toVancouver and then struggling all night with an antiquatedversion of MS-DOS for me; and my \"office-mate\" Stacy Warrenwho put up with many a disturbance from me.Lastly, I wish to thank my supervisor, Dr. Cole Harris.I appreciate his accommodation of my choices to move to aremote community and to become a parent half-way through mythesis. I am sure that there were many times when hethought that I would never finish this thesis - and I amgrateful that he rarely let me see his doubts. Without hisbelief in me, this thesis would not have been completed.viiiCHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTIONIn 1861, on the banks of the Fraser River, thirty milesup-river from New Westminster, Father Leon Fouquet, a Frenchmissionary belonging to the order of the Oblates of MaryImmaculate, founded a mission that was to serve the reli-gious and secular needs of the Natives of the Fraser Valley.He named it \"St. Mary's\" after a reformed prostitute ofancient Egypt, the name a symbol of the Oblate's struggleagainst \"immorality\" in the Fraser Valley region. A chapeland priest's quarters were built on the site as well as twoschools: a boys' school in 1863 and a girls' school in 1868.The schools were intended to inculcate Native children witha utopian, Christian vision of Western agriculture. Educatedchildren could either return to their villages and teachothers, or settle on agricultural land across the river,south of the mission. Meanwhile, the school would removechildren from the pernicious influences of the immoralEuropeans.St. Mary's Mission was part of the much larger attemptof a handful of Oblate priests to superimpose a rigid systemof missionization on the Native settlements of BritishColumbia. Under the priests' guidance, and often withgovernment cooperation, new systems of law, marriage, reli-gion, inheritance, subsistence, education and settlementwere implemented in the Native villages. These systems weremaintained even in the absence of the priests by a hierarchy1of \"spies\" who watched the villagers and reported any misde-meanours to the priest during his next visit. Preachingduring the absence of the priest was done by members of thevillage; this \"informal\" missionizing was a major componentof a highly formalized plan to spread a web of religiouscontrol over the secular and spiritual lives of BritishColumbian Natives. In particular, the Oblates focussedtheir efforts on Native children; they were thought to belargely uninfluenced by village elders who clung to \"the oldways\" and thus to be prime candidates for a complete andsuccessful conversion to the Oblates' vision of a ChristianNative. Children could be removed from village life, placedin the unfamiliar world of the boarding school, and onlyreleased when they were considered to approximate the Oblateideal of a Native, Roman Catholic peasant. From St. Mary'sMission,and nearby St. Charles in New Westminster, priestsvisited and administered the reserves along the lower FraserRiver. Converted Natives responded by visiting St. Mary'sfor retreats and Passion Plays, and by sending their chil-dren there for an education.The Fraser Valley, St. Mary's Mission and the schoolsthus provide a setting for a study in miniature of theOblate agenda for the province as a whole. The Oblates, theSisters of St. Ann, who ran the girls' school, and theSto:lo (the Halkomelem-speaking Natives who lived in theregion), along with white settlers, various government2officials and rival Protestant missionaries, make up thecast of principal characters who acted out the clash ofcultures and lifeworlds on the extraordinary stage of thelower Fraser Valley in the late nineteenth century.Charles de Mazenod founded the Oblates of Mary Immacu-late in France in 1816 to \"stir up the faith that was dyingamong the poor,\" to improve the quality of the priesthood,and to reform morally unworthy priests (Whitehead 1988, 6).De Mazenod was searching for an elite group of men to serveunder him. These men, who all took a vow of poverty, chas-tity and obedience, had to be committed to de Mazenod'sconservative ideals, since De Mazenod did not believe thatthe role of the nineteenth century Roman Catholic church wasto come to terms with \"modern men and modern institutions\"(Whitehead 1988, 6). On February 17th, 1826, Pope Leo XIIapproved de Mazenod's order as well as his choice of nameand objectives, and bestowed a motto: \"To preach the Gospelto the poor, he hath sent me\" (Kennedy 1969, 17).The focus of the missions in France was the rural poorof Provence; each mission was based upon a set formula ofpreaching and prayer over a certain number of days or weeks(Whitehead 1988, 6). The chief objective of these Frenchmissions and thus the foreign ones that de Mazenod encour-aged was to teach the basic tenets of the Roman Catholicreligion. By 1859, the Oblates had spread from Provencethroughout France to Switzerland, England, Corsica, Ceylon,3Mexico, Ireland, Algeria, Natal, the U.S.A., and Canada(Whitehead 1988, 7).Many of their contemporaries viewed the Oblates asheroic; they were lauded as hardworking and self-sacrific-ing. It was this reputation that, in 1846, prompted theArchbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet of Oregon City to travelto Europe and appeal personally for Oblates to work in hisecclesiastical province, founded in July of that year. Theterritory administered by Blanchet, twelve Jesuits, twodiocesan priests, and six nuns, consisted of the presentstates of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, as well asVancouver Island, mainland British Columbia, and the Yukon.The area was divided into three dioceses: Oregon City, WallaWalla (Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana), and VancouverIsland (British Columbia and the Yukon) (Cronin 1960, 3).At first, Blanchet's requests for help were refused,primarily because de Mazenod did not have priests availablefor another mission. Blanchet's brother Magloire, theBishop of Walla Walla, travelled to Montreal and appealed toFather Guiges, the Oblate Superior there for men. FatherGuiges promptly promised him three Oblates, a promise thatde Mazenod honoured despite the shortage of availablepriests.In 1847, four priests and one lay brother were sentfrom France to Oregon (Cronin 1960, 4). Father PascalRicard, by all accounts a frail man, headed the party. The4three scholastic priests, who had not completed their train-ing, were Eugene Chirouse, George Blanchet, and CharlesPandosy. The lay brother was Celestin Verney. They arrivedat Walla Walla, a fortified trading post surrounded by a fewIndian dwellings, on September 5th, 1847.The Oblates' eleven years in the Old Oregon territorywere not very successful. While a number of missions wereestablished, five men were not adequate for the huge task ofestablishing, building and maintaining missions to theNatives. In October 1847, the Oblates established the firstmission, St. Rose, near Fort Walla Walla (Cronin 1960, 11).Barely six weeks later, on November 29th, fourteen of theirPresbyterian rivals at Walla Walla were murdered by theCayuse Indians in what came to be known as the Whitmanmassacre. Subsequent warfare, coupled with Prostestantallegations that the Oblates had assisted the Natives in theYakima Wars, meant that future missions to the Natives werenearly impossible. Nevertheless, a second party of Oblatesarrived in the Oregon territory in 1850.The missionaries preached to the Natives of Oregonusing a cloth chart or stick that depicted the religioushistory and the growth of the Catholic faith (Kennedy 1969,21). It had been developed by F.N. Blanchet for use in hismissions to the Indians at Cowlitz (Whitehead 1981, 14).The \"sahale\" stick, or \"stick from above\" as the Nativescalled it (Kennedy 1969, 21), resembled a miniature totem5pole. At the bottom of the stick, were representations ofthe creation of the world and the fall from grace of Adamand Eve. The top of the stick showed Blanchet ministeringto the Natives. A cloth chart replaced the carved stick andwas distributed to chiefs willing to act as catechistsamongst the Native bands (Whitehead 1981, 14). Thus, theOblates hoped to teach Natives the basic tenets and historyof the Roman Catholic church long before they actually met apriest (Whitehead 1981, 14).In March, 1857, Father D'herbomez became acting superi-or of missions; Father Ricard, in poor health, had beenrecalled to Rome. As had Ricard before him, D'herbomezbegan pleading with de Mazenod for missions on the mainlandof British Columbia. D'herbomez hoped that a speedy entryinto British Columbia would forestall the efforts of theProtestant missionaries there (D'herbomez 1859a, 2235). TheOblates saw Protestantism as a very real threat to theirwork, not least because of the accusations of the Presbyte-rians during the Yakima Wars, and wanted to establish mis-sions ahead, not after them, so as to avoid interdenomina-tional conflict.D'herbomez got his wish. The Yakima mission, which ineleven years had baptised only 160 people, mostly children,closed in March 1859. Previous to this, D'herbomez, apriest and two lay brothers had travelled to VancouverIsland, where a mission was established at Esquimalt.6Gradually, most of the other priests moved north from Ore-gon. Only Fathers Durieu and Chirouse remained at the newly- established mission of St. Fancis Xavier to administer tothe Snohomish Indians.Although the centre of missionary activity had beentransfered from Olympia to Esquimalt, D'herbomez continuedhis pleas to de Mazenod for the establishment of permanentmissions on the British Columbia mainland. He wrote:I believe I have spoken in other lettersof the importance, the necessity and theadvantages of the missions which we mightestablish in British Columbia. It is urgent,for the English Church have already anepiscopal see, the ministers are travellingin all directions, and they will know howto chose the best places as well as we do.(D'herbomez 1859a, 2235).Internal conflict regarding the mission in the Snohomishterritory was also taking its toll; in June, 1859, D'herbo-mez wrote to de Mazenod that \"our relations with the Bishopof Nesqually [Blanchet] are becoming more and more strained\"and that Bishop Demers of Vancouver Island \"on the contrary,shows himself very well disposed towards the Oblates\"(D'herbomez 1859b, 2236). Eventually, De Mazenod gave hispermission for the establishment of the first mission on themainland of British Columbia, and D'herbomez selected FatherCharles Pandosy to found it.On October 9th, 1859, Pandosy selected a (temporary)site for the mission: L'Anse au Sable on the shore of LakeOkanagan. He wrote:7Nous sommes arrives hier soir^la placeque nous avons choisie pour n6tre Mission.C'est une grande vall6e situee sur lebord de Lac Okonagan...le terraincultivable est immense...nous avons unefamille blanche aypres de nous; au printempsprochain un autre viendra de Colville nousrejoindre.(Pandosy 1862, 139).The first Euro-Canadian to claim farmland in the area wasCyprian Laurence, the French-Canadian who had accompaniedPandosy north from Colville. On the 15th of December, 1859,he took claim of 160 acres in a document that was witnessedby Fathers Pandosy and Richard.The site for the permanent Okanagan mission was chosenin 1860; it was located near Mission Creek in what is nowKelowna. Mission buildings were erected on the site. Thefirst Oblate school for Native children was begun at theKelowna Mission, but attendance was sporadic and the pupils,when they did attend, were often late to arrive. In addi-tion, the Oblate fathers felt that anything learned at theschool was quickly forgotten when students returned home inthe evening to the \"pagan\" influences of home (Whitehead1988, 56).In 1860, there were still only ten Oblates at theTulalip, Kelowna, Esquimalt and Olympia missions. Two morepriests were sent out from France in 1862, bringing thetotal number of Oblates to twelve. However, the shortage ofpriests did not prevent either the establishment of perma-nent missions on the mainland or the performance of shorter8missions to the Natives in British Columbia. There weremissions to the Natives of the east coast of VancouverIsland, across to the mid-coast mainland camps, and north-wards to Bella Bella. Southwards, the Oblate jurisdictionextended to the border. Oblates travelled throughout thisvast area by canoe, horse, or on foot. In addition torelying on Native hospitality for food, many of the fatherslearned traditional Native methods of hunting, fishing andfood preservation.In 1875, Father Paul Durieu became coadjutor bishop ofmainland British Columbia. He later became Vicar of Mis-sions and assumed the position of the head of the Oblates inBritish Columbia after the death of D'herbomez in 1890.Durieu is credited with introducing a new system of mission-ization into British Columbia (Chapter 2), a system that wasused by the Oblates throughout British Columbia until Du-rieu's death on June 1st, 1899. Thereafter, it was used inmodified form until its eventual abandonment when Oblates ofEuro-Canadian extraction became more numerous (Lemert 1954,27).In addition to the Oblates, the children at St. Mary'scame under the care of the Sisters of Saint Ann (S.S.A.) .The first language of both the priests and nuns was French.However, the S.S.A. originated in Canada, not France. Theirfounder, Marie Esther Sureau-Blondin was born in Terrebonne,Quebec, in 1809. Early in her life, Sureau-Blondin recog-9nized the need for strong teachers who would help the poorand needy, and she dreamed of founding a religious orderdedicated to the teaching of the children of these people(St. Ann's Academy n.d., n.p.). On September 8th, 1850, thecongregation of St. Ann came into existence and Sureau-Blondin became Sister Mary Ann. In 1858, the order foundedan academy for girls in Victoria, B.C., and from there theS.S.A. served the Natives and poor of British Columbia,Yukon and Alaska. In the patriarchical, male world of thechurch, the nuns did not, however, play a role in policydecisions regarding the care, education and missionizationof Natives.The majority of Natives who came under the influence ofthe Oblates from St. Mary's Mission were Sto:lo, a Halkome-lem speaking group who lived from New Westminster to Yalealong the Fraser River and some of its tributaries. Sto:lolife was characterised by a high degree of mobility; peoplegathered into large winter villages for the dance seasonwhen resources were scarce, and dispersed into smallergroups when food resources were more plentiful. These smallgroups gathered food, preserved it, and then returned to thelarger village. Only the very young and the very old re-mained in the village year-round. Because of this fact, thebond between the grandparent and grandchild was strongerthan that between child and parent. It was this bond thatthe Oblates sought to break with their system of residential1 0schools; they saw the Sto:lo child as a blank slate that hadto be removed from the environs of the village and thepernicious influence of Native elders.The Oblates frowned upon mobility as Natives that didnot stay in one place for long periods were hard to control,more likely to come into contact with European settlers, anddid not, by definition, make good agriculturalists. TheOblates encouraged the Sto:lo to give up their mobile formof subsistence, farm the good soils of the Fraser Valley,and to send their children to school. At school, childrenwere uprooted from a familiar world in which they learned byexample and from tales told by their grandparents, in whichphysical punishment was unheard of, in which time was meas-ured by seasons and the passage through life, and in whichthe major physical boundaries were formed by the river andthe forest, and found themselves in clearly defined compart-mentalized spaces where each hour of the day was filled witha task in a strictly regimented religious environment.In the years before 1900, the fur trade, epidemicdiseases, the gold rushes, the reserve system and increasingEuro-Canadian settlement in the area probably had moreinfluence on the Sto:lo lifeworld than the school at St.Marys. However, it is probably not correct to suggest, asRedford did, that before attendance was made mandatory atresidential schools in 1920, pupils were not seriouslyalienated from their families and cultures (Redford 1979,1154). Not all Sto:lo children were affected, but individualchildren were torn from known worlds and forced into avastly different one. The children's families and friendswho remained in the village felt the effects of the chil-dren's absence for the ten months they were at school, andnoticed the different patterns of behaviour exhibited bypupils when they returned.It is difficult to assess the Oblate impact on Sto:lovillage life and on the children who attended St. Mary'sschool. There are no Native survivors of the Oblate systemand early residential schools, and no priests or nuns whoworked at St. Mary's are still alive. Hence, one is depend-ent upon written documents for source material; the Sto:lovoice is rarely heard in these Euro-Canadian documents. Inaddition, the priests and nuns did not record their pupils'individual achievements and very little is written aboutindividual pupils after they returned to their villages.However, as this thesis shows, it is possible to reach someunderstanding of the impact of the mission and school at St.Mary's on traditional Native lifeworlds and on the transis-tion that children made from one world to another - worldsso disparate that even perceptions of time and space wereirrevocably altered.12CHAPTER TWO: THE OBLATE SYSTEMThere were clear Oblate strategies for convertingNatives and maintaining piety. Initially, priests had totravel large distances through unfamiliar territory in orderto meet and convert Natives. Because of their superiorknowledge of the land and their survival skills, Nativeguides were often employed in the search for likely con-verts. The Oblates encouraged the imposition of a newpattern of Native settlement on the landscape of BritishColumbia, for as part of the conversion process, the Oblatescreated Christian villages or enclaves. Natives were dis-couraged from continuing their pattern of seasonal mobilityand taught basic agricultural skills, so that they would be\"tied\" to the village. In addition, the Oblates requiredNatives to attend church daily; this restricted further themovement of the Natives. Within each enclave, an elaboratespy system under the control of often-absent priests wasintended to maintain Oblate standards of piety and morality.Space became the buffer that protected the enclaves' inhabi-tants from the influences of non-Native miners and settlers.The geography of British Columbia was both friend and foe tothe priests, and a factor that definitely influenced theOblate system of missionization.Paul Durieu was credited by both Bishop Emile Bunoz,one of his disciples and a successor to the Bishopry, andFather A.G. Morice with beginning this new system of mis-13 •sionization, dubbed \"the Durieu System\" (Bunoz 1942, 193-209). According to Bunoz, Durieu's System involved the\"application of the proper ways and means to protect anIndian against himself and against evil-doers and to confirmhim [sic] in christian [sic] life\" (Bunoz 1942, 193).Durieu saw the system as both destructive and formative;first the priest had to destroy sin by \"repressing andpunishing it relentlessly as an evil, horrible and degradingthing\" and then create a new person by \"moulding the innerman [sic] by instruction, preaching and the reception of thesacrements\" (Whitehead 1981, 19).Jacqueline Gresko, however, considers \"Durieu's System\"to have had clear antecedents in the thoughts of D'herbomez,the missionary efforts of Jesuits in Paraguay, the Oblatesin Manitoba, Fathers Demers and Blanchet in British Columbiain 1841, and in the use of the Catholic Ladder by Blanchetin Oregon (Gresko 1982, 52). Certainly, as early as 1862,D'Herbomez wrote that his goal was the creation of:Une reduction modle pour les meilleursde nos sauvages, afin de les initier Atoutes les vertus du christianisme, et.a tous les avantages d'une civilisationchretienne.(Kennedy 1969, 26).These ideas were based in part on a directive from De Maze-nod, issued in 1853:Every means should therefore be takento bring the nomadic tribes to abandontheir wandering life and to build houses,cultivate fields and practise theelementary crafts of civilized life.14(Whitehead 1981, 18).These ideas were echoed in later years by Durieu's methods.By 1861, a Temperance Society, missions and cathecal ses-sions, watchmen, Native courts under the priest's guidanceetc. had been established, and the use of agriculturalpractices encouraged in Sto:lo villages along the FraserRiver (Gresko 1982, 54). To safeguard Natives from theevils of the Euro-Canadian society, Durieu created \"reduc-tions\"; isolated agricultural enclaves in which Nativeswould live:an Indian state, ruled by the Indians, forthe Indians, with the Indians, under thedirect authority of the bishop and the local .priests as supervisors. The administrationconsisted of the chief, the sub-chief, watchmen,cathechists, even policemen, chanters andsextons. The laws of that community wereall the commandments of God, the precepts ofthe Church, the laws of the state, when[emphasis mine] in accordance with the laws ofthe Church, the Indian Act, the by-lawsenacted by the local Indian government etc.(Bunoz 1942, 194).Durieu's Indian state included a court in which the chiefand priest were the judge, and punishments ranged fromlashings, to fines, prayers or fasting (Bunoz 1942, 194).All of these developments, which Bunoz treated as Durieu'sideas, clearly originated with his predecessors.During his years in Oregon, Durieu had been influencedby the Jesuit priests at Colville, with whom he had takenrefuge during the Yakima Wars. Their system of missionizingwas based on the \"reduction\" or model of a self-supporting15agricultural, Christian village developed by Spanish Jesuitsin Latin America (Whitehead 1988, 15). Spanish Jesuitsisolated Paraguayan natives from the negative influences ofEuropean society, and then worked to break down traditionalsocial structures and practices, including polygamy (White-head 1988, 15).Although, as Gresko suggests, Durieu should not becredited with creating a new form of missionization, sincethe methods that made up his system were not \"his autonomouscreation\" (Gresko 1982, 55), it is fair to credit him withformalizing earlier programs. Starting in 1875, Durieuformalized the programs begun by D'herbomez, and addedrefinements, such as the Honour Guard of the Sacred Heartand Passion Plays (Gresko 1982, 55). Durieu was responsiblefor the creation of a Catholic Indian state in every willingIndian village (Whitehead 1981, 18). The priests under hisauthority created an \"instituted tribal theocracy\" (Lemert1954, 24). In the village, every aspect of life was carriedout under puritanical restrictions (Whitehead 1981, 19); theOblate system was rigid and inflexible.Whether or not it is appropriate to label the mission-izing practiced by the Oblates in British Columbia before1900 the \"Durieu System\", Oblate missionary activity in-volved activities that can be divided into five parts (Fiske1981, 11). The system, which is described in detail below,was designed and adapted from earlier systems so that a16handful of priests could control many Natives over a vast,geographically disparate area.Initial Contact: Conversion through Baptism and Preaching, and the Changing of Native Religious, Inheritance and Cere-monial Practices:Missionaries canoed, rode, or walked great distances tovisit the local bands in the area that came under the juris-dication of a local permanent mission. Word of Roman Ca-tholicism had usually spread throughout the Native communi-ties along trade routes, and often a priest would arrive inan area and find that the Natives already practiced a formof Western religion (Suttles 1954, 39) that was the legacyof much earlier missions or of contact with the M6tis em-ployees of the fur companies. During the early years ofOblate activity in British Columbia, Native \"prophets\" oftenpreached a mixture of traditional Native beliefs and Euro-pean Christianity in areas where the priests operated.Jason Allard, a M4tis and a Hudson's Bay Company factor,told of one prophet Quitz-ka-nums, who created a \"spiritualrevival\" among the Natives in the Fraser Valley (McKelvie1945, 244). Quitz-ka-nums, whose teachings were a mixtureof Christian doctrines, Indian mythology and commmon sense,had a parchment which he claimed to have found on a mountainback of Katz Landing and from which he quoted various teach-17ings (McKelvie 1945, 251). These included:Indolence is the cause of a great many evils.Do not be called a thief.In accepting gifts from neighbours, exchangethe gift with profit.Be kind to the aged and those beneath you.(McKelvie 1945, 251).Although Quitz-ka-nums was among the \"finest Indians [Al-lard] ever met\" and \"was an intelligent man among his peo-ple\" (McKelvie 1945, 251), his preaching aroused the ire ofthe Oblate missionary, Leon Fouquet, who was also active inthe area. Fouquet took the parchment from Quitz-ka-nums,spat upon it, and cast it into the fire. He berated theprophet and told him that he was an imposter. After thistreatment, Allard records that Quitz-ka-nums \"wasted away indistress, refused to eat and died\" (McKlevie 1945, 251).Neither were the Oblate missionaries entirely ignorantof the language and cultures of the Natives to whom theywere sent to convert and civilize. In 1861, D'herbomezencouraged his missionaries to learn a Native languagebefore they began their work of christianization (D'herbo-mez, 1861: 2214); to what extent languages were learned isnot known, but certainly Father Lejeune, who published theKamloops Wawa, a Chinook newspaper, and Father Fouquet, whoin his retirement helped nuns and priests at St. Mary'sResidential School talk to their new (presumably Halkomelemspeaking) pupils, were able to communicate in either the18Native language or in the Chinook jargon. In particular,those missionaries under Durieu's control had a grounding inChinook, as well as having read the reports of other mis-sionaries in the \"Missions de la Congregation des Mission-aires Oblats de Marie Immacul6e\".Native groups in British Columbia had different tradi-tional cosmologies and ceremonial practices. However, onecommon link between them all was the belief in an animatingspirit present in all lifeforms (Suttles 1954, 48). Theselifeforms all \"cooperated\" in the web of their ecosystem.Thus, an animal that was slain by a hunter had alloweditself to be caught. The hunter had to pay his respects tothe departing spirit of the slain animal. Failure to do sowould result in famine or catastrophe; the Nisga'a believethat a volcanic eruption in the late 1700s was caused by thesalmon people after some boys mocked the fish and stuckstone chips through their backs. These beliefs stronglycontrasted with the Judeo-Christion perception of God havingcreated animals for the use of humans. In addition, Nativecosmology often included animals that also had human forms;the change from animal to animal-human was celebrated intheir transformation dances. Because of these beliefs, manynorthern nations are still divided into clans, each of whichis named after a mythical or real entity from whom theyclaim descent. However, the Obaltes attempted to removethese characteristics of Native religions and to replace19 .them with one uniform, unchanging and inflexible Europeanreligion based on the holy trinity.To what extent and for what reasons, the Natives al-lowed this substitution to occur are the subjects of muchdebate. It may well have been that Natives perceived thewhites as being sources of power; Lummi Indians equated thewhites with \"sk'e'laqam\", a being with supernatural power(Suttles 1954, 70). An acceptance of the white's power mayhave been seen by the Native as a way to gain access to thatpower (Suttles 1954, 70). Another factor that probablyinfluenced the Native decision to adopt or at least considera non-Native religion, was that, confused and beleagured bywhite diseases, social systems, alcohol, and settlement,they felt abandoned by their traditional cosmology andmethods of healing (Whitehead 1988, 18).The first stage in the missionary effort also involvedchanging the social systems of the Natives, in an attempt tocreate a patriarchical European society on the reserve.Many British Columbian Natives were polygynous; multiplemarriages were made by men of high social status. TheOblates did not tolerate multiple marriages; men had tochose one of their wives and \"forsake all others\". FatherLeJacq, who ministered to the Okanagan Indians, told of thechief Kalamalka who kept four aged wives (Cronin 1960, 132-134). Le Jacq refused to baptize the chief until he hadonly one wife. Eventually, under repeated threats to his20immortal soul, the chief complied - he replaced all fourwives with a beautiful young one and Le Jacq baptised him.In this case, the former wives were released of their dutiesand were also provided for by their former husband. Howev-er, many former wives were not so fortunate; they wereabandoned and shunned by both their husband's and their ownfamilies.Inheritance among Natives was often matrilineal, al-though the southern coastal Natives often inherited throughthe line deemed most advantageous. Matrilinity was frownedupon by the Oblate Morice as a degraded state that was \"theoutcome of looseness of morals and absence of social re-straint\" (Fiske 1981, 32). Tribes governed by paternalright were thought to be more partial to the patriarchical,male-dominated, Christian religion (Fiske 1981, 32). Pre-sumably, the Oblates believed that lineage was tracedthrough the mother's line because no one was sure who thefather of a child was - in fact, the system of matirilinealinheritance was not the result of trying to cover up \"habit-ual infidelity\", but one way of making sure that ties wereestablished between the family into which a woman marriedand her family before marriage. Woman were held in esteemfor whose daughter, wife and mother they were. Women losttheir traditional status and power in the Oblate system.After the initial conversion and baptism, the teachingsof the local priest were reinforced every six months when21Father Durieu called pious Natives together in order toreceive instruction in religion. In 1887, Father LeJacq wasspecial preacher at a gathering of three thousand Natives atSt. Mary's Mission at Mission City (Cronin 1960, 164). Someof these Natives had travelled from Williams Lake to takepart in the religious retreat. The Natives often performeda passion play recounting the death of Christ in eightscenes; this was a very solemn event which ended with awaxen \"Christ\" being nailed to the cross, a weeping andblood-splattered Mary Magdalen at his feet (Cronin 1960,166). An individual's failure to comply with the teachingsof the Oblates at these gatherings resulted in punishmentfor the whole group. In 1877, an \"Indian medicine man\"attended the retreat; one Native, resenting the Catholicattitude towards the medicine man, struck Durieu (St. Mary'sMission School Monograph 1950, 7). Durieu locked the churchat St. Mary's and held masses outside for the next sevendays. Finally, after much begging and pleading from theNatives, he allowed them to re-enter the church.Although Durieu was adamant that the Natives' tradi-tional feasts and ceremonies be abandoned because they\"contained some traces of paganism and superstition\" (Bunoz1942, 206), Durieu realized that by removing importantsegments from the Natives' social system, his priests were\"badly fracturing\" the Native way of life (Lemert 1954, 25).Something had to replace the traditional ceremonies. The22passion plays and pageants performed this function (Lemert1954, 25). Feasts were held at villages, in which neigh-bours were invited to share the villager's pride in theirchurch (Kennedy 1969, 61). Sharing pride replaced thetraditional gift-giving of the Native potlatch. Militarydrills and music by Indian brass bands were performed atthese meetings (Kennedy 1969, 61). The traditional spiritdancing garb was confiscated and replaced by the costumesand uniforms of the Oblate brass bands, choirs, and schools(Suttles 1954, 70). It was felt that these celebrations\"helped in no small measure to make the Indians forget theirold-fashioned and superstitious beliefs\" (Bunoz 1942, 208).The Establishment of an Ecclesiastically Controlled Politi-cal Hierarchy (Fiske 1981, 11):De Mazenod warned the Oblates that they \"should nevertake upon themselves the government of the tribes\" and urgedthem to promote those capable of \"governing according to thedictates of Religion and Justice\" (Whitehead 1988, 15).However, under the Durieu System, something like local\"Indian states\" were created. Under the authority of the theBishop and with local priests as supervisors, an administra-tion consisting of the chief, sub-chief, watchmen, cate-chists, policemen, chantmen, and bell men (Cronin 1960, 162)was set up. The Oblate system usually strengthened thepower of the existing chiefs (Knight 1978, 245); the tradi-23tional hierachy was maintained, except for the fact thatstatus now descended through the male line, not the female.Sometimes, two chiefs presided over the tribe; one, selectedby the Oblate priests, was the \"Eucharist Chief\" in chargeof anything pertaining to religion, and the other a \"merefigurehead\", the chief appointed by the Department of IndianAffairs (Bunoz 1942, 196).The creation of this administration was part of theOblates' geographic strategy; the administration maintainedcontrol of the village, even when the Oblate priest was on amission elsewhere. The watchmen were very important to themaintenance of order; a \"good watchman [was] a precious aidto the priest, for without him the priest may not even knowthe evil that is rampant next to his door\" (Bunoz 1942,195). The priests appointed the watchmen in an attempt toensure that the Natives attended religious instruction anddid not return to their \"pagan\", immoral ways (Whitehead1981, 18). They also stood by the church door and inspectedthe churchgoers. If any smelled of perfume, hair cream orface lotion, they were punished by having to stand in frontof the altar with their arms out to the side (Whitehead1988, 16). Policemen carried out the punishments on thosewho resorted to the \"old ways\"; fines were collected andrepeat offenders were whipped (Whitehead 1981, 18). Cate-chists taught religious instruction, and the bell men sum-moned the Natives to church, three times a day (Whitehead241981, 19). Even \"commissaires secrets\" were established;these Natives \"spied\" on the other authorities and reportedtheir transgressions to the priest on his bi-monthly visit(Kennedy 1969, 63). The Oblates imposed a system on thereserves that tried to ensure that each individual waswatched by another; because of the continual observation andthe threat of being reported to the priests, it was hopedthat the Natives would \"behave\" when the priest was notpresent. The system was built on fear of reprisal fortransgressions - one cannot claim that Natives who behavedin a manner pleasing to the priests did so solely out oflove for the European lifestyle rather than out of fear ofpunishment.The new hierarchy embodied in the Oblate system tendedto bestow power on the emerging elite: Natives who hadbenefitted financially from dealings with white traders andfarmers (Knight 1978, 245). It did not favour women. Oneconsequence of Oblate interference in the traditional pat-terns of inheritance and marriage was to render women almostcompletely powerless. While one could argue that the tradi-tional system only saw women as.the mothers of sons andstatus-bearing daughters and as the status-bringing wives ofthose sons, under the Oblate system, women were furtherdevalued: status was dependent on a person's father, not themother. Women became mere wives and labourers.25 •The Creation of an Independent Agricultural Economy (Fiske1981, 11):Like the Jesuits in Latin America and the Oregon Terri-tory, the Oblates were committed to developing autonomousNative settlements (Knight 1978, 246). Converted Nativeswould remain pious if removed from the negative influencesof Euro-Canadians and of unconverted Natives. Natives oftenreceived alcohol, which the Oblates did not tolerate on thereserves, from Euro-Canadian traders (Suttles 1954, 45).Preventing access to traders meant removing the temptationof alcohol. Traders and settlers also formed liaisons withNative women that invariably were regarded as sinful (Sut-tles 1954, 47). It was believed that women could be keptchaste if they were guarded by the priest or his secularhenchmen and hidden from white males. The Oblates also helda utopian vision of the pre-industrial peasant (Knight 1978,246); therefore Natives were to be insulated from the indus-trial economy of British Columbia.The removal of the Native \"captive audience\" to isolat-ed agricultural enclaves meant that the villages had to beself-sufficient (Knight 1978, 246). Anything less entailedthat some Natives would be in contact with Euro-Canadiansfor subsistence goods. Even mobility was discouraged, notonly because crops would fail if ignored, but also because\"outsiders\" would be encountered. The traditional seasonalround, which used a variety of available resources, was,26therefore, to be discontinued. Although, in the contactyears, Oblate priests had benefitted from the Native's waysof food gathering, under the Durieu system Natives were tolearn Euro-Canadian ways of survival.The Intervention of the Priest in all Judicial, Medical, Political and Educational Matters (Fiske 1981, 11):Durieu wanted to create an \"Indian state, ruled by theIndians, for the Indians, [and] with the Indians\", under thesupervision of the Roman Catholic church (Cronin 1960, 162).In order to accomplish this, the Oblates set up a courtsystem presided over by the chief, under a priest's guid-ance. The court could mete out a series of punishments fortransgressions of rules that were intended to govern mostaspects of Native lives. All Natives under Durieu's controlhad to marry between the ages of eighteen and twenty (Bunoz1942, 200). Parents did not \"dare to oppose him\", and allmarriages were \"successful\" because separations were \"nottolerated\" by the Roman Catholic church (Bunoz 1942, 200).A woman was not allowed to travel alone to sell berries; shehad to be accompanied by two or three other women (Bunoz1942, 205). Even the time people arose was under ecclesias-tical control; villagers had to rise upon the sounding ofthe first church bell and be in church by the second (Bunoz1942, 205).In order to encourage abstinence from the \"old ways\",27the Indian Total Abstinence Society was established by theOblates on the reserves (Kennedy 1969, 64). A pledge wasmade to attend church for morning and evening prayers; fivedollars was donated towards the repairs of the church if aNative failed the abstinence pledge (Kennedy 1969, 64). Apublic penance could also be imposed by the priest-delegatedpresident or captain of the society to punish those whoworked on Sundays, danced, gambled, or potlatched (Kennedy1969, 64).Among the Sto:lo Indians, Durieu established an HonourGuard of the Sacred Heart to honour the most pious Natives(Kennedy 1969, 64). The Oblates tried to enforce a systemof reward and punishment based on the level of a person'sadherence to the rules of the Roman Catholic church. Wholebands could suffer for insubordination to the church orpriests. In 1887, the Hayamines of Sechelt were not allowedto attend a religious retreat at St. Mary's Mission becausethey had been disrespectful to Father Chirouse Jr. (Kennedy1969, 62).The Oblates were also involved in medical matters.Traditional methods of healing, often involving shamans todrive out \"evil spirits\", were discouraged by all mission-aries, who viewed such methods as witchcraft. During thesmallpox epidemic of 1862, the Natives had come to rely onthe Oblate priests, who had nursed, vaccinated, and adminis-tered the last rites to thousands of striken Natives; Father28Fouquet alone vaccinated more than 8 000 people (Cronin1960, 95). This reliance on the Oblates was reinforcedbecause many of the Natives were disillusioned by the ina-bility of shamanistic medicine to cure measles and smallpox.On occasion, the medical dependence of the Natives onthe Oblates worked against the priests. Parents who feltthat poor conditions at the mission schools encourageddisease often kept their children home from school (Fiske1981, 16). In addition, whereas the successful treatment ofa sick Native might result in his/her conversion, unsuccess-ful treatments had the opposite effect. If traditionalmethods of healing prevailed when European medicine hadfailed, whole bands sometimes left the Roman Catholicchurch. Such desertions imply that the conversion to Chris-tianity was not as \"complete\" as the Oblate fathers wishedto believe.The Education of Native Children (Fiske 1981, 11):Traditional Native education was not formal; no lessonswere given. Children learned from observing their elders,from being shown how to perform tasks, from listening tostories and myths told to them, and as a result of their ownexperiences. This system of education was replaced inBritish Columbia in the late nineteenth century by a formalEuropean method of schooling. Rote recitation became themain way of teaching Native pupils, partly because it was29felt that Natives were \"blank sheets upon which civilizationcould be written, if its tenets were only repeated oftenenough\" (Fiske 1981, 51).The intervention of the Oblates in all secular mattersincreased the Federal government's reliance on the Order forthe maintainance of law and order on the reserve. In addi-tion, it meant that the Oblates were an obvious choice toprovide education for the Native children. The Oblates andthe Sisters of Saint Ann, the Sisters of Child Jesus and theSisters of Providence, the teaching orders of nuns associat-ed with them, represented an accessible and inexpensivesource of teachers (Fiske 1981, 23). The federal governmentdid not seem overly concerned with the type or quality ofthe education received by Native children in an Oblateschool; economics tended to blind the administrative eye tothe fact that the clergy were not trained teachers (Fiske1981, 23).Schools run by the Oblates under the auspices of theFederal government also fitted the wishes of the Oblatefathers. They knew that the education and training ofNative children to mission standards would ensure the per-petuation of the Roman Catholic community, and establishedschools on many of the reserves. At these schools prayersand catechisms were repeated \"until they were memorized byeven the dullest\" (Bunoz 1942, 197). As regards formalschooling, however, the Oblates had learned from the high30incidence of student truancy and tardiness at L'Anse auSable day-school in the Okanagan, and believed that only aresidential school would successfully prevent the transmis-sion of the traditional culture to Indian children (White-head 1988, 56). The Oblates had established a residentialschool at St. Mary's Mission in Mission City in 1863, al-though, without government funding and with no way of makingthe children attend, it was soon floundering (Knight 1978,253). However, after 1871, the Oblates successfully lobbiedthe Federal government for more schools; in 1874 the firstfunding of Oblate schools was provided on a per capitabasis, and Indian parents were made to sign contracts con-firming their child's attendance for three to five years(Redford 1979, 52). This contract was changed in 1895, sothat attendance was mandatory until \"such time as the De-partment [saw] fit to grant his/her discharge\" (Redford1979, 52). However, during this period, parents couldrefuse to permit their child to attend a residential schoolif a day school was available on the reserve (Redford 1979,15). In 1920 mandatory attendance was enforced; attendanceat a residential school was no longer a matter of choice forthe parents and the police could be used to round up poten-tial, or to return truant, students.Eventually eight residential schools were operated bythe Oblates of Mary Immaculate, although only St. Mary's atMission City (1863), St. Louis at Kamloops (1890), St.31Eugene's in Cranbrook (1890), Kuper Island (1890) and St.Joseph's at William's Lake (1869) were established by 1900.These schools represented a further \"reduction of the reduc-tions\" established by the Oblates on the reserves. Eachschool was spatially segregated from the main community.Self-sufficiency was a goal. The fields around each schoolwere tended, crops were raised, chickens provided eggs,vegetables were grown in kitchen gardens, and all theclothes were made and mended by the female students (Knight1978, 254-255). Some surplus goods were sent to the Oblateschool at Mission City. Pupil contact with outsiders wasdiscouraged; even parental visits were conducted under thesupervision of a priest or nun (Fiske 1981, 53). Startingas early as the 1870s, the school year lasted ten months sothat children would be removed for most of the year from thenegative influences of reserve life (Knight 1978, 253).Within the school, the clergy exerted almost completecontrol. The priests were responsible for the whole life ofthe school; they established the forms of discipline, pro-vided religious instruction, taught classes, and treatedsick students. Every hour of the day was accounted for,from 6:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night. The student's daybegan with morning prayers followed by breakfast. Thenthere were three to four hours of lessons (in arithmetic,reading and writing, and religion) and chores (Fiske 1981,33). Every hour of the day was taken up with some task -32even playing was done at prescribed times. A constantsurveillance of the students by the nuns and priests wascarried out twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week(Fiske 1981, 38).English was the only language spoken at the residentialschools; both French clergy and students had to learn tospeak this unfamiliar tongue. The insistence on Englishmeant that speaking \"Indian\" became a form of student re-sistance to Oblate rule (Fiske 1981, 40). Students werepunished for their resistance; usually by public shaming,which was a Native form of punishment, but in extreme cases,whipping was used to chastise the pupil, despite the factthat the physical punishment of children was anathma toNative groups (Ashworth 1979, 15).Sexual morality was to be accomplished by sexuallysegregating male and female students (Fiske 1981, 21). Boysand girls had separate sleeping, dining, teaching and play-ing areas to discourage any licentious behaviour. The bodyitself was ignored or treated as shameful. Adolescent girlswere bound with tight cloths so that their breasts would notshow (Persson 1986, 152). Baths were taken in a cottonshift - at no time was a person to see his/her own body, letalone someone else's (Persson 1986, 152). Girls were en-couraged to stay at the school long after the final gradewas finished, until they left to get married (Fiske 1981,29). In this way young women would be kept away from the33 •lewd influences of men.The skills necessary to live the life of a Europeanpeasant were taught at the Oblate schools. Boys learnedagricultural techniques in the fields that surrounded theschools. Although the education given Natives about animalhusbandry and agriculture was superior to any given thewhite settlers, Native boys were not taught how to use orcare for machines like tractors (Knight 1978, 254). Girlslearned domestic skills such as cooking, cleaning, launder-ing, preserving foodstuffs, raising hens, tending a gardenand handcrafts: sewing, knitting, and mending (Fiske 1981,42). Basically, the products of the school's education weresupposed to be men who could plow and till fields, and womenindoctrinated with the idea of a clean home and hearth, whowould make excellent wives. It was hoped that former pupilswould settle in villages around the mission or school, andlive as devout, pre-industrial (albeit nominally educated)peasants (D'herbomez 1879, 2246).*Such were the Oblate plans for British Columbia. TheOblates' achievements are, however, a different matter andcannot be assessed provincially. St. Mary's Mission was thesecond permanent mission founded in the Fraser Valley re-gion, and home of British Columbia's first residentialschool for Native children. It was to serve the Natives inthe valley, to give them a religious centre, and a locus34around which Natives could settle in an agricultural way oflife. It is a logical candidate for a closer examination.35CHAPTER THREE: THE LIFEWORLD of the STO:LO CHILDIn 1861, Native society was rapidly changing as Nativestried to adapt to new forces around them. Traditional areasof settlement had changed; Fort Langley had been founded in1827, and the Kwantlen, who intermarried with the Hudson'sBay people, had moved close to the fort (Suttles 1955, 12).The 1858 gold rush had brought many new Europeans to theFraser Valley. The miners had brought with them disease,alcohol and \"loose morals\" from which the Oblates wished toprotect the Natives. The priests missionized Native adultsin situ, but the children of willing parents were sent tothe residential schools at St. Mary's. In order to assessthe impact of the priests on the Native population in gener-al, and, in particular, on the Sto:lo children, who wereremoved from this known environment and \"inserted\" into theunknown world of the priests for ten months of the year, itis important to understand something of Sto:lo culture andof the Sto:lo child's lifeworid during this period ofchange.The majority of children taught at St. Mary's Missionwere Halkomelem-speaking Sto:lo, drawn from between NewWestminster and Hope. The Kwantlen, who in pre-contactyears had lived near New Westminster, but moved upriver tolive near Fort Langley after its founding in 1827; theKatzie who lived on Pitt River and Pitt Lake near PortHammond; the Matsqui and Sumas who lived on the prairie36across the Fraser River from St. Mary's Mission; the Scow-litz at the confluence of the Harrison and Fraser Rivers;the Cheam, Peters, and Ohamill near Seabird Island; and theChehalis who lived on Harrison River below Harrison Lakewere all influenced by the priests at St. Mary's and sentsome children to the school [see Map 1]. In addition,Thompson children also attended the school (Whitehead 1988,61).The pattern of a Sto:lo child's life was influenced bythe actions of the adults who surrounded them. While notfull participants in the seasonal round of hunting, gather-ing and fishing, they learned from observing their elderswhile the elders carried out the activities involved inresource exploitation. In addition, games, such as \"hunterand prey\" helped the children learn to hunt, while \"potlatchand feast\" games helped the children learn about importantsocial customs. Young children learned about their physicalenvironment from the elders' tales and the older ones fromtheir own observations and experiences as they followedtheir elders from place to place. Social customs wereabsorbed by the children through tales and observations;language, cosmology, medical practices, kinship affiliationsand the sharing of wealth formed a cultural framework withinwhich thought and conciousness existed. The experiences ofchildhood coloured lifetimes.The Sto:lo traced kinship bonds through space and time37(Duff 1952, 76). Since marriages could be either patrilocalor matrilocal, and since descent was bilateral, a fine webof relations was spread between villages and could be fol-lowed back through either the mother's or father's line(Suttles 1955, 28). Each child learned who his/her rela-tives were and where they lived. They also learned in whichvillages \"friends\" could be found who would cooperate intimes of need. Unlike other Northwest Coast groups, theCoast Salish did not have social units that were based onlinked descent from a mythical ancestor; all kinship relatedto the child was real (Duff 1952, 76). The names given tochildren helped to strengthen these ties by linking thechild to another specific person, either living or dead.The socio-political world of the Sto:lo was dividedinto two units. The smallest of these was the extendedfamily, within which the child lived and was educated untilhe/she left to be married (Duff 1952, 86). The extendedfamily group was strictly exogamous; marriages between firstand second cousins were forbidden. The village was the nextsocio-political group; usually it consisted of a few extend-ed families, although it was sometimes made up of only one(Duff 1952, 86). The villages were small, often impermanentand not always exogamous (Duff 1952, 86). A further socio-political unit, the tribe, was defined by ethnographers butDuff states that the concept of a tribe was not clearlydefined by the Sto:lo, nor was it an important idea to them38(Duff 1952, 86).Young Sto:lo children rarely accompanied their parentsto the fishing, hunting and gathering grounds. Rather, theyremained in the village with their grandparents. Thus, thevillage was the backdrop against which most of the chil-dren's activities were carried out. Sto:lo villages con-sisted of one or more cedar-plank longhouses often builtfacing the river. Surrounding the house was a large middenor refuse dump, where salmon bones, shells, fire-crackedrocks, and broken implements were thrown from the entranceof each house. Village elders mended nets or processedfoods on the banks of the river, near the houses. Spinning,weaving and manufacturing took place in or near the houses.During this time, stories were told to the youngsters. Atnight, the family entered the house, whose only source oflight and heat was a central fire. It was at night thattales were told to the children, tales that taught of themorals and ethics of the Sto:lo.The Sto:lo world probably appeared chaotic to westerneyes, but it was no more so than any other space wherehumans live. Refuse in the middens was available for re-useby other village members. The activities carried out by theelders in and around the village made up part of the Sto:lochild's informal education. Nor were the villages lackingboundaries; rather than the walls of a European village, theSto:lo village was bounded by the river in front and in39behind, the forest, where children dared not tread lest (themythical) Thookia eat them.Leadership of the village was given to those who hadearned the respect of the inhabitants. There were no chiefsin Sto:lo villages; one person usually assumed leadership asthe occasion demanded, such as in times of war (Duff 1952,81). Rank was also measured by respect; high-born andself-made leaders were called siPm. SiE'm possessed manyqualities: wisdom, ability, industry, generosity, humility,pacifism, age, supernatural powers and wealth (Duff 1952,80). The latter was measured by the number of potlatches,feasts and dances the person had hosted, and also by thenumber of wives he was able to support (Duff 1952, 80). Thesie'm evidenced humility by a mock denial of their status.They sought marriage with high ranking people in othervillages, which helped to strengthen inter-village ties.Divorce, common among the lower ranks, was not allowed inthe higher (Duff 1952, 79), presumably because importantinter-village ties would be dissolved. Polygyny was commonamong the richer men in the village, but women never hadmore than one husband (Duff 1952, 79).Ownership of land or resources was not strictly definedin Stalo culture. Rather, the attitude that \"anything toeat is for everybody\" prevailed (Duff 1952, 77). However,each group's definition of ownership varied. The Chilliwackshot intruders on their hunting grounds (Duff 1952, 77) and40salmon dip netting stations were owned by families. Owner-ship was customarily associated with habitual use ratherthan with laying claims to specific lands and resources.The pre-contact cosmology of the Coast Salish can onlybe inferred; long before missionaries entered the area,facets of Christianity, such as the belief in one supremebeing that lived in the sky outside of the world, appear tohave trickled into Coast Salish cosmology. Thus, there isconfusion as to how old the belief in a supreme being is,with some Native informants stating that it was recentwhilst others claim it to be much more ancient (Jenness1955, 35; 88). According to ethnographers, the Katziebelieved in a \"God-like\" being who, rather than creating theworld, sent Khaals, who may be likened to Jesus, to trans-form the earth's people and the world into its present shape(Jenness 1955, 35). Everything had been human before Khaalstransformed people into rocks and animals (Jenness 1955,50).The Sto:lo in general prayed to the supreme beingL'6a1 sie'm; during the first salmon ceremony they prayedfor plentiful salmon to be sent up the river (Duff 1952,120). The supreme being revealed his will only to theprophets (a'lia) before the priests came. These prophetsheard the word of the deity and preached it to the people.Although the Sto:lo did have the concept of a supreme beingbefore the arrival of the missionaries, Duff considers it41likely that prophets borrowed this concept from early Euro-Canadians and integrated it into previous beliefs (Duff1952, 122); this early syncretization is one factor thatcontributed to the adoption of Christianity by the mainlandCoast Salish.Ceremonial winter dances and feasts were important inSto:lo religious life. Although food was supplied by a hostand incidental gift-giving did occur at these dances, theyserved a religious function that was clearly differentiatedfrom the secular functions, such as the naming of childrenor the paying back of debts, of the potlatch (Duff 1952,87). Most people acquired a spirit song which had beensought, dreamed, heard emanating from a natural object orhad arrived completely unsolicited (Duff 1952, 103). Thespirit gave the person powers, such as prowess at hunting(from the black bear spirit) and the ability to dry fish andspin wool (from the mole and sandhill crane spirits) (Jen-ness 1955, 50), and re-possessed the dancer during thewinter dancing season, forcing that person to break intosong and to dance at the winter dances or smitla (Jenness1955, 41). The secrecy that surrounded the identity of eachperson's guardian spirit was usually broken at these dances;others present could identify the spirit from the song anddance. Throughout the season for dancing, which variedaccording to where the group lived (eg. the season startedin October and ended in January at Chehalis and Yale),42groups of various sizes gathered to feast and dance (Duff1952, 108). Children heard these songs and stories of thespirits and this too formed part of their education.Although a rigourous quest was not necessary to obtaina guardian spirit, some people underwent prolonged fastingand purification in an effort to gain the power to heal(Jenness 1950, 65). Shamans could cause or cure an illnessin another person, although the powers given to each shamanvaried greatly. Sickness was seen to happen in one of threeways. A person's soul or vitality could be missing, theperson could have been infected with an impurity from asupernatural force, or a shaman could have implanted someevil into the person (Jenness 1955, 68). The methods bywhich the person could be cured also varied. The purelypsychological treatment could include massage or sucking atthe site of infection (Jenness 1955, 68). Some shamans useda cluster of deer hooves on a loop as a rattle or elsepounded a stick on the floor and chanted to create an in-tense atmosphere that drove evil from the afflicted person(Jenness 1955, 68). Others used herbal medicines while somecured by grasping the evil in their hands and casting itupon the fire (Kelleher n.d., transcript). Sweatbaths andherb tea were thought by one medicine woman to be the curefor smallpox, although the dream in which she received this\"cure\" came after the epidemic (Kelleher [a] n.d., n.p.).The Sto:lo were generally pacifistic; however, their43need to retaliate against raiding parties meant that somemembers of the society were skilled in warfare. Clubs andslings were the chosen weapons of war (Duff 1952, 60). TheLekwiltok (from southern Johnstone Strait) and the occupantsof the lower Fraser River delta were also known to raid themid-river Salish for slaves (Duff 1952, 84). The Thompsonraided the Nooksack and Skagit for women (Kelleher [a] n.d.,n.p.). The Sto:lo owned slaves (the Kwantlen, for instance,kept Coquitlam slaves), so some of these raids were paidback in kind. The raiding on the river was finally broughtto a halt by the presence of Fort Langley (Lerman 1976,114), whose officials were concerned that the warring Na-tives spent too much time on \"the care of their families\"and too little time hunting for furs for trade (Duff 1952,96). Although these raids were halted before the foundingof St. Mary's School in 1863, and thus were not part of thelife experiences of the children attending the school,earlier raiding and long term enmity with other groupsundoubtedly formed part of the oral histories that wererepeated to the children.The social life of the Sto:lo was carried out against abackground of fishing, hunting and gathering. Each season,different resources were exploited as Sto:lo adults moved toplaces where resources were seasonally available (sinceyoung children rarely particpated in this effort, a completedescription of the seasonal round of resource exploitation44is not given here; see Duff 1952, 62-74). Only during thewinter, when they subsisted on resources gathered and pre-served during other seasons, did all the Sto:lo live invillages. The winter season was marked with dancing andspirit singing. Once fresh fish became available, thepeople of the village dispersed, leaving only the very oldand the very young at the winter village. In this way, theSto:lo moved in harmony with the seasons, their moves dic-tated by the changing availability of resources and by theirability to use a variety of resources over a wide region.The Sto:lo measured time using a lunar calendar withtwelve months in one year and thirteen in the next (Jenness1955, 87). The seasonal change was also used to mark time(Jenness 1955, 87). This yearly cycle of seasons in whichthe Sto:lo hunted, fished and gathered, and in which thechildren observed and learned from the adults around them,was repetitive in nature. Time was measured as it wentaround from winter to winter. However, the progression ofyears was not recorded as an endless cycle of changingseasons but as knots on a string (Duff 1952, 128). In lateryears, this method was used by Christian Natives to recordthe days of the week, so that they would not miss Sundays(Duff 1955, 128). Time was also marked by a person's pas-sage through life, from birth to death.During the birth of the child, the mother was assistedby a midwife, who fed the prospective mother infusions of45herbs and leaves (Duff 1952, 90). After birth, the child'slegs were bound, the infant was wrapped tightly and placedin a basketry cradle. Except for bathing, which once thechild was several days old was always done in cold water,the child remained bound to the cradle. The binding wassupposed to keep the baby's limbs straight (Duff 1952, 90).Only when able to walk, was the child allowed to leave thecradle permanently. Babies firmly bound in the cradle untilthey walked caused a minimum amount of disturbance to anursing woman. The child was constantly with the mother,she did not have to worry that s/he would crawl into danger,and nursing could be accomplished by swinging the cradlefrom the mother's back to her front, without the motherhaving to stop whatever tasks she was performing. In addi-tion, the child's informal education in village and subsist-ence activities began immediately; physically \"tied\" tohis/her mother, the child was always able to observe whatshe and the others around her were doing.Right from birth, the child began to learn a distinc-tive way to live (Dimen-Schein 1977, 3). His/her mother wasthe primary care-giver at this stage of life. At certaintimes of the year, specific subsistence activities werecarried out by the mother; the child knew (before knowings/he knew) what tasks were performed by women in the vil-lage. In addition, the differing treatments afforded boysand girls also \"educated\" the child about gender differ-46ences. The child was beginning to learn language duringthis period. More so than any other phenomenon, languageforms the basis for thought and perception. Gradually, thechild came to recognize that s/he was part of a social andphysical universe which was \"localized in space and objecti-fied in things\" (Piaget and Inhelder 1969, 13). During thisperiod of childhood, the child assimilated the buildingblocks that were the basis for subsequent intellectual andperceptive development (Piaget and Inhelder 1969, 3).Usually, children were not named for some time afterbirth; the Katzie gave their children nicknames until theywere eight or ten years old, for it was thought that givingchildren ancestral names too early in life would cause theirdeath (Jenness 1955, 75). The name conferred certain rightsand privileges, as well as giving the child a sense ofhis/her history and relations - a place in the social andtemporal web of Sto:lo life, past and present. The recep-tion of the ancestral name was the first momentous institu-tional event in a child's life. Before contact with theEuro-Canadians, richer Natives conferred names on boysduring a potlatch ceremony, but in the latter half of thenineteenth century, the name was probably given to the childat a winter dance (Jenness 1955, 76). The Kwantlen andChilliwack called the winter dance for naming notable's sons\"sqoiaqi\" (Hill-Tout 1978, 74).Children were taught by their grandparents, the boys by47their grandfather, the girls by their grandmother (Lerman1976, 113). They were drilled in matters regarding subsist-ence, the history and myths of the Sto:lo people (Lerman1976, 113) and in the identity of their relatives in theirown and other villages (Duff 1952, 76). The si'la (grand-parent) and the young child spent more time together thanparents and child, since the young and the elderly wereoften left at the winter village site when the older chil-dren and adults went fishing, hunting or berry-picking (Duff1952, 91).In the mornings, the grandfather would rouse his grand-sons and make them swim in the water, telling them that thepractice would make them \"well-to-do\" when they grew up(Duff 1952, 91). The day also ended with a swim. Duringthe day, the grandfather would talk to the boys about theskills needed for hunting and fishing. Sometimes boys wouldbe whipped by their grandfather, so that they would learnfortitude and courage (Duff 1952, 91). Ocassionally, girlswere whipped by their grandmothers. Girls learned theskills of weaving, basketry, gathering and preserving foodsfrom their grandmothers. Children held mock battles andmock potlatches (Suttles 1955, 9). In the evenings, theelders would tell stories about Sto:lo history and thechildren's relatives; along with the observations the childmade of their elders activities, these stories gave thechildren a grounding in their setting - the history, the48taboos and the geography of the village. In addition,stories of Sasquatch, the hairy boogeyman, and Thookia, acannibal who gathered up children to eat them, could be toldto scare the children into being well-behaved (Lerman 1976,122; 123).The bond between grandparent and child was very strong,as one tale of Khaals, the transformer, illustrates:Khaals travelled from Spuzzum to Yale andthen to Point Roberts, turning peopleinto rocks. He met an old man at PointRoberts [probably Nooksack) who was teachinghis grandson how to fish. Khaals turnedthe boy into a rock and himself into theboy. The old man realised the trick, so,after saving \"the boy\" from choking todeath on a flounder bone, the old man askedto be transformed into a rock, sothat he could keep his grandson company.(Lerman 1952, 87).The love of the old man for his grandson is obvious; thegrandfather preferred to become a rock, rather than to leavethe boy. Not only does the story affirm the love that thegrandparent had for the child, but also, along with othertransformer tales, helped to interpret the local geography.Rocks and other features of the landscape could be pointedto, and a story told about the people they had been. Thus,physical geographical features would become familiar to thechild and their names remembered because of a tale toldabout them.Other aspects of the environment, such as certainanimal characteristics, were also explained in folktales.For instance, the rumble that grouse make was thought to49have been a gift from Thunder, with whom the animals werewarring (Lerman 1952, 97). After receiving this gift, thewar was halted and the animals, who had climbed up to thesky on a ladder of arrows, returned to the earth in peace.Most of the animals in the folktales bridged the gap betweenanimal and human; they could talk but acted with the charac-teristics of the animal they represented. Mink was a fool-ish character (Lerman 1952, 65), who ran hither and thither,without a thought in his head, rather like the mink thechildren saw darting around the woods. Raven was loud,brash and a cunning trickster, like a real raven, but wasoften used to teach a valuable lesson in tales.Sto:lo tales taught children that people who disturbedthe equilibrium of the village by breaking taboos or commit-ting crimes would be punished. These people could be ex-iled, deserted or killed (Duff 1952, 89). The story of Wrentells how Black Bear was punished for stealing food, a veryserious offence:Wren lived with his grandmother Caterpillar.He discovered that Black Bear had beenstealing fish from his fish trap, so Wrenkilled Black Bear. Mrs. Bear was very upsetabout her husband's death and asked theothers to help punish Wren. But Wren andCaterpillar could not be punished, sothe people gave up trying to hurt them.Wren was later asked to lead the peoplein a war, so he became a hero.(Lerman 1952, 97).To a western mind, murder would seem to be the greater crimein this story, yet Wren and Caterpillar could not be pun-50ished for their crime. Stealing food, which could lead tostarvation, was a crime that left the perpetrator no honourand Black Bear was punished accordingly. Tales in which thefood thief was punished by death are common in Sto:lo my-thology. Laziness was also frowned upon; Black Bear waspunished for being too lazy to set his own traps.Humility was another virtue prized by the Sto:lo peo-ple. Raven lacked humility, and was punished accordingly bybeing made a laughing-stock:Seal invited Raven to his house for food. WhenRaven arrived, Seal held his arms out to thefire and fed Raven with the fat that drippedout of them. Raven, who did not think thatanyone could do things better than he, askedSeal to his house. He held his wings out tothe fire. No fat came - Raven's wings wereburned black and useless.(Lerman 1952, 50).Virtues would also be rewarded and could even help to erasedishonour if an otherwise virtuous person broke a taboo:A boy in training ate some fern roots, which wereforbidden to youths during this time. As punish-ment, he was abandoned by the village. Before hewas left, however, his grandmother hid a bow andarrow and a glowing coal for him. The boys huntedbirds for food, and made a blanket out of theirskins. An old man (probably Sun) appeared andoffered to trade a mountain goat blanket for thefeather blanket. The mountain goat blanket wasmagic - if the fringes were placed in water, andfish were wished for, they appeared. The boywished for herring, which he captured and cured.Raven appeared and told the boy that the villagewas starving. The boy returned to the villageand fed the people with the herring.(Lerman 1952, 30).In this tale, the boy's diligence and industry were rewarded51by Sun, who wiped out the stain of his disgrace and enabledhim to return to the village a hero.The diligence of another child wiped out the stain ofhis parents' sins:A young woman discovered that her lover was herclose kin. Since she was pregnant, the younglovers exiled themselves. They and their sonlived at the base of a mountain, where theyhunted deer for subsistence. The boyreturned to his parent's village, wherehe saved them from starving with food fromhis magic sack. He donned an eagle'sskin and flew to the sky, where he married Sun'sdaughter. The hero made the rainbow and silvertrouts before he returned to the village with hisnew wife.(Lerman 1952, 130).In this tale, everybody behaved in the ways prescribed bythe Stalo culture. The incestuous couple exiled themselvesso as not to bring shame upon their families and the vil-lage. Their son was raised to be a great and industrioushunter, and he returned to his parents' village a hero. Thevillage accepted him despite his parents' sins, and for thisthey were rewarded with [the creation of] two important fishspecies.As with many other cultures, puberty was seen by theSto:lo as the end of childhood. With girls, this event wassignalled by the onset of menstruation; boys were watchedclosely for less obvious signs, such as hardening of thenipples and the deepening of the voice (Jenness 1955, 79).Since illness during later life was often attributed toimproper feeding or to a failure to dispel the \"old life\"52(childhood) during the four days of puberty, the treatmentof the youths, girls in particular, during this period wasvery strict (Jenness 1955, 79).In some Sto:lo villages, the progression of a boy fromchildhood to manhood was not marked in any special manner.However, at the first sign of the boy's nipples hardening,the Katzie placed a bone tube around the boy's neck, throughwhich he had to drink for the next nine months (Jenness1955, 79). This tube restricted the amount of liquid theboy could drink; liquids were believed to make him \"heavy\".Throughout the four days that marked the actual change intomanhood, the boy was forbidden to drink at all (Jenness1955, 79). He was allowed to eat only tiny pieces of driedfish and meat. Berries and hot foods were forbidden, be-cause they might cause the boy's teeth to rot or cause himintestinal distress (Jenness 1955, 79). Frequent baths weretaken; after them, the boy scrubbed himself clean withspruce boughs and squeezed his nipples between two rocksuntil they burst and the old life flowed out of him (Jenness1955, 79). The boy roamed the woods, spitting towards thesun and large trees, praying to them for strength. When thefour days were complete, a shaman came to the boy. Hepainted four patterns on the boy's forehead, erasing eachone as it was completed. The youth bit off pieces of food,spat them into his hands, and then threw them away, prayingas he did so for a long and good life (Jenness 1955, 79).53After this ceremony was completed, the youth returned to thevillage. He was not allowed to eat berries or drink exceptthrough his tube for several more months (Jenness 1955, 79).The puberty rites for girls also varied from group togroup, but all included a period of seclusion. The Kwantlenand Chilliwack secluded their girls for a period of fourdays from the first onset of the menses (Hill-Tout 1978,55). During those days, the girl was kept busy making yarn,so that she would not be lazy in later life. Her food andwater intake was also restricted; water was drunk onlythrough a hollow bone tube (Duff 1952, 92). After fourdays, four dancers, each holding a salmon in his hands,danced around the girl (Hill-Tout 1978, 55). The Chehalissecluded their menstruating girls in a but from the time oftheir first period until after their second. During thistime, she was also kept busy, and was only allowed to eatdried meat and fish (Hill-Tout 1978, 104). Chehalis womenhabitually secluded themselves during their menstrual peri-ods (Hill-Tout 1978, 105).Usually, marriage quickly followed puberty for women,although boys married later (Duff 1952, 92), after they had\"proved\" themselves. Puberty and marriage marked the end ofchildhood; now the person was able to take on the adultresponsibilities of subsistence and raising a family. Theywere also able to put into effect the training given to themby their elders during the childhood years and to use the54knowledge imparted to them during that time to enable themto be productive members of their society.As thought, perception and development all relate backto the early years of life, the Sto:lo child was not \"ablank sheet of paper\" upon which the Oblates could write aforeign culture. The first language of the children was notEnglish; concepts such as the use of minutes and hours tomeasure time were not ingrained in the children's subcon-ciousness. The regimented day of the school must have beenshocking to children accustomed to falling asleep in smokeylonghouses whilst listening to tales spun by their grandpar-ents. Sto:lo children learned that different places andenvironments were the sources of food and materials and thatmobility was necessary for survival; at school, the dormito-ries, church, schoolroom and yard formed the boundaries of anarrow physical environment. In addition, Sto:lo childrenlearned by observation and example and were often peripheralto the actual quest for subsistence; at the school they wereexpected to be fully functioning members of a self-suffi-cient agricultural settlement. Yet, the priests and manyNatives saw the Oblates as champions of the Natives, pro-tecting their children's rights, lives and souls against theencroachment of \"evil\" Euro-Canadian society. Other Nativessaw the priests as part of a grand scheme to eradicate theNatives. Both parties were to some extent correct.55CHAPTER FOUR: ST. MARY'S MISSION: OMI MISSIONARYACTIVITIES in the FRASER VALLEYThe school at St. Mary's Mission did not operate in avacuum; from there, and from New Westminster priests mis-sionized the Natives of the Fraser Valley. The priests whotravelled to the Native villages ensured that the parents ofprospective pupils had been exposed to Oblate teachings.Without this missionary effort, it would have been impossi-ble for the Oblates to attract children to their school inthe days before attendance at such schools was made mandato-ry. In addition, Oblate observations of the behaviour ofthe Sto:lo, European settlers, and Protestant missionaries,served as constant reminders to the Bishop in New Westmin-ster of the need for residential schools for Native chil-dren. Converted Natives also travelled to St. Mary's forsemi-annual religious retreats; these retreats were publicevidence of the \"success\" of the Oblates in engenderingNative piety and helped focus government attention on mis-sions, Native concerns, and the school.The Sto:lo first met a Roman Catholic missionary whenFather Modeste Demers, worried about Protestant missionaryactivity in the area, visited Fort Langley in 1841 (Gresco1973, 144; 149). Fort Langley had been founded in 1827 andwas a locus of Native settlement. Some Sto:lo had movedthere for protection from the \"Yuculta\" (the Lekwiltok fromJohnstone Strait) and Cowichan; others, such as the Kwantlen56had moved closer to the fort so to control its supply offurs (Kennedy 1969; 14). Thus the fort was a logical placefrom which to conduct a mission; many Natives lived nearbyand Demers, in effect, had a \"captive audience\" during hissix week stay. Fifteen hundred Sto:lo and their summervisitors listened to Demers preach, heard him explain theCatholic Ladder or \"sahale stick\" to them, sang hymns, andlearned the sign of the cross. Demers baptized four hundredSto:lo children. Chief Factor Yale, a Protestant, kept theNatives peaceful and helped the Roman Catholic priest carryout his mission, for which Demers was extremely grateful.However, Demers claimed to be disappointed with the state inwhich he found the Natives, and wrote, in a statement thatserved his purpose of encouraging future missionization ofthe area, that:[They were] in a pitiable state, corruptedand debauched by fur-traders...diseased,barbarous,...improvident, indolentand threatened with starvation. It is obviousthat besides, if not before, being Chritianized,they would have to be civilized and prepared toadapt themselves to a new order.(Forbes 1948, 11).In order to accomplish this latter goal, missionarieswere needed to preach the \"new order\" to the Natives. By1860, Demers was Bishop of Vancouver Island and largelyresponsible for the movement of the Oblate fathers fromOregon to British Columbia. On September 13, 1860, heauthorized the founding of a mission at New Westminster,called St. Charles after the Oblate's founder (Cronin 1960,5780). The mission at New Westminster was described as \"uneplace qui soit comme la clef de la British Columbia afin depouvoir se conformer aux vues de n8tre...fondateur\" (OblateProvincial Council Deliberations 1860, 33) and the need forurgency in its founding was recognized by D'herbomez, Pan-dosy and Fouquet; \"les ministres Protestants invahissent cesparayes it y en a a New Westminster, Port Douglas, Fort Hopeetc., it est urgent de contrebalancer leur action\" (OblateProvincial Council Deliberations 1860, 33). St. Charles'Mission was to serve the numerous \"sauvages\" in the hope ofprotecting them from the corruption that was invading thecountry and also to serve the few Euro-Canadian Roman Catho-lics whom it was important not to \"laisser a l'abandon\"(Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations 1860, 33). Twochapels were built: St. Peter's for the Euro-Canadians; St.Charles' for the Natives.In 1861, \"dans la m&lie but d'int4ret sprituel et tempo-ral des Indians\" (Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations1861, 36) as had prompted the founding of the mission at NewWestminster, Father Leon Fouquet ascended the Fraser Riverwith twelve Native canoemen in order to found a missionentirely for the Natives in the district. Fouquet paddledto Yale in his search for a likely spot, but settled on asmall hill with a creek running through it, thirty milesupriver from New Westminster. Flat land of agriculturalpotential lay across from it on the south bank of the Fraser58 .(Orchard 1983, 22). The new mission was named St. Mary's.Although St. Mary's Mission was built to serve theNatives of the Fraser Valley and was the focus of Nativereligious retreats, the mission at New Westminster was thecentre of all Oblate missionary activity in mainland BritishColumbia. It was from there that priests usually left toperform missions to the Natives of the Fraser Valley. Thebaptismal record for this time shows that priests travelledwidely from New Westminster; baptisms of Natives who livedin Mount Currie, Spuzzum, Lillooet, Yale, Hope, Langley,Chilliwack, Agassiz, and Matsqui are recorded in the NewWestminster baptismal book. Early Oblate baptisms were ofNatives \"en danger de mort\" (Mission City Baptismal Record1863, n.p.), and children. Differentiations were madebetween the innocent and dying, and those adults who wishedto be baptised. Whilst the former received absolutionreadily, the latter had to live a pious life, renounce allsins, keep a pledge of abstinence, and follow the catechismlessons and daily prayers for a year before being baptised(Casey 1982, 13). D'herbomez ordered prayer books and hymnstranslated into the Native dialects to facilitate the con-version of adults (Casey 1982, 13). Mass baptisms, such asthe one conducted by Demers at Fort Langley in 1841, wereoften carried out: in 1861, Father Charles Grandidier bap-tised eighteen children between the ages of two months andsix years at Fort Yale on February 26th; fifteen children at59TABLE 1: NATIVE BAPTISMS and MARRIAGES PERFORMED in theFRASERVALLEY1863-1884YEAR BAPTISMS MARRIAGES1863 19 41864 76 41865 47 61866 97 301867 213 791868 98 121869 151 201870 143 211871 116 271872 152 261873 119 191874 125 281875 88 231876 57 191877 80 261878 34 151879 24 201880 10 21881 78 191882 130 441883 73 291884 106 48(Mission City Baptismal Record n.d., n.p.)60Isiham (I'yem, a small permanent village, four kilome-tresabove Yale [Duff 1952, 30]) on March 1st; and fourteenchildren at Tseness (apparently nearby) on March 2nd.Altogether, between February 26th and April 2nd, 1861,Grandidier baptised eighty seven children in the FraserValley and Canyon; as of July 12th of that year, two hundredand sixty-seven Native children had been baptised (MissionCity Baptsimal Record n.d., n.p.).During baptism, French names were assigned to Nativechildren. Thus, names such as Leon and Jean replaced Nativenames such as Tsikautlac and Ikolrimeltou (Mission CityBaptismal Record 1861, n.p.). Victor, Joseph and Virginiewere the children of Skoukssettow and Siamyat, Chelassenchetand Chauvislat, and Chalayesseto and Sirotatko respectively(Mission City Baptismal Record 1863, n.p.). Whether theFrench names were subsequently used by the Natives in theirvillages was probably dependent on a number of factorsincluding the extent to which the teachings of the Oblateswere adopted in the band and the frequency with which thepriest visited that particular village. The names given tothe children by the Oblates appear in the records of mar-riages performed by the priests; usually a French first namewas followed by the former Native name in these records.Missionary reports during the years between 1861 and1900, help to illustrate the important role that the perma-nent missions in the Fraser Valley played in the evangeliza-61tion of the Natives in the Fraser Valley and Fraser Canyon.In 1871, Father Marchal wrote to Durieu of his missions tothese Natives (Marchal 1874, 310-11). In the first week ofNovember, 1870, Marchal left New Westminster in order to goto St. Mary's Mission (310). From there, he embarked on atrip to \"les sauvages du Fraser\" (310). He visited theNekawel (Nicomen), the Sumass (Sumas), the Skoyola (Swaya orSkwahla), and the Squa (Skwah), as well as the villages ofSkaoukrene (Skulkayn?), Jokoweous (Yakweakwioose), andTsoualy (Soowahlie). In the village of the Squa, he foundthat the methodist minister had already visited there (310).His next stop was the Tsiams (Cheam), \"les meilleurs de lariviere\", where he stayed for two days. Marchal then visit-ed the Papeoum (Popkum). The Papeoum were \"tout compose duprotestants ou infideles\" and Marchal was shocked to findthem dancing, clapping and eating beef on a Friday (311).On Saturday, Marchal visited the Shouamel (Ohamill), withwhom he stayed two days. Taking advantage of the frozenriver, he walked to Fort Hope and from there made it to Yalefor Christmas. On his return voyage to St. Mary's, Marchalvisited the Shaonits'(?) village; in this village the eldersadhered strictly to their \"practiques superstitieuses\" andall of the inhabitants were infidels (311). Still, Marchaltold them that \"sooner or later, you will find God in yourhearts\". Marchal returned to St. Mary's on January 4th,1871.62In 1887, Father Peytavin wrote a lengthy report in the\"Missions\" about his experiences in 1886 with the Natives ofthe Fraser Valley [Map 1] [Table 2] (Peytavin 1887, 258 -361). Upon leaving New Westminster, he travelled five milesto visit the Quiquittums (Coquitlams), and then a furthersix miles to visit the Ketsies (Katzies) (238). The Ketsieshad one hundred and eight band members and Peytavin consid-ered them the worst Native camp on the river (239). Peyta-vin says that, with only a few exceptions, the adults\"nagent dans la boisson\", and that even the children, whomChirouse Jr. had tried to help on previous missions, hadbecome just like their parents. Peytavin, as the mission-aries before him, could \"do nothing with the Ketsies\" (239).Peytavin next visited the village of the Qwantlen(Kwantlen), which was located six miles from the Katzievillage. Once again, he found that alcohol had decimatedthe population, which stood in 1886, at only forty onepersons (240). Peytavin recognized that before the comingof the Europeans, the Qwantlen had been a proud race; theyhad kept Quiquittum slaves. A small church, erected as theresult of Father Chirouse's work in the Qwantlen village,was still present although not much used (240). Five milesabove Langley, Peytavin found the village of the Whonnocks.He describes the thirty eight people there as \"ignorante etparesseuse\" and thought them too much under the influence ofthe Qwantlen (240).63TABLE 2: FATHER E. PEYTAVIN'S MISSION to the FRASER VALLEYNATIVES, 1886.VILLAGE (Peytavin)^VILLAGE (Sto:lo)^POPULATIONQuiquittumKetsieQwantlenWhonnockMatsquiSumassLarhoueScouyamSroyalaSkcohyeKokwapultYoukyoukiweousSqwahScocolitsTsellesCheamSquatashChamillsSkwologRubrey CreekEmaheuxPocoholsen(after Peytavin 1887,CoquitlamKatsieKwantlenWhonnockMatsquiSumasLackawaySkweahmSwaya or SkwahlaSkwali or SkwayKwawkwawapiltYakweakwiooseSkwahScowlitzChehalisCheamPetersOhamillSkalwahlookRuby CreekIwowesPeqwcholthel238-361 and Sto:lo Nation10841384460768310072461271335170?-2348491892, map).64 .Map 1: The Sto:lo Villages mentioned by Peytavin10050254Other (including^Percentage ofnative religions) Roman CatholicsPeqwcholthel(49)Circles are proportional to populationTotal population identified in brackets,(?) indicates population unknownRuby SkalwahlookCreek(23)Chehalis Ohamill----^If(C1^\\rds'll^(pseite)rsI^--/OP—\\ \\ /t(oldSkwah,(72) -_,--Skwahla (?)Yakweakwioose(100)(after Peytavin, 1887, 238-361and Sto:lo Nation, 1992, map)0^ 10 miles0 10 kilometersR^Kwav)kyvawapilt(83)4111Sumas /(60)Skweahm(76)° Lackaway (?)SkwaliriiCheam(133)9'■ Scowlitz(46)(,)C▪ oqu▪ itlam (?)New Westminster/ 2,/*^ 10 (°i ic, •^,, lKwantlenWhonnock%IN a■(41)^(38)1°-^RMissionCityMatsqui(44)Katsie(108).)•Seven miles further upriver lived the Matsqui Natives.The forty-four Natives were only three miles away from St.Mary's mission and, not suprisingly, Peytavin found thattheir \"submission to the priest was exemplary\" (241). Atthe Sumass village, nine miles further east from Matsqui,Peytavin encountered his first Protestant Natives; of sixtyinhabitants only twenty-eight were Catholic (241). However,Peytavin found that the twenty-eight Catholics in the vil-lage were very feverent. More protestant Natives lived atLarhoue (Lackaway), two miles further upstream.Peytavin then travelled north into the interior (242).At the Scouyams (Skweahm) village, five miles north ofSumas, he found that all seventy-six \"souls\" were piousCatholics. Six miles away, Peytavin met with the Sroyalas(Swaha or Skwahla), the Skcohyes (Skwali or Skwah) and theKokwapults (Kwawkwawapilt) at the Kokwapults village (243).Out of the eighty-three inhabitants of these three villages,sixty-nine were Catholic; the Anglicans had two families andthe Methodists one (243). Previous missions to these vil-lages had been made by Durieu, without whom Peytavin feelsthat all of the Natives would be Protestant. The Youkyou-kiweous (Yakweakwioose), who lived six miles east, hadresisted completely the \"propaganda and ruses\" of the Prot-estant ministers; seventy-four of the one hundred inhabi-tants were Roman Catholic (244).All the Sqwahs (Skwah) and the Scocolits (Scowlitz)66were practicing Roman Catholics. The Sqwahs, who lived onthe fertile Chilliwack plain, had \"une spacieuse 6glise\"where all seventy-two inhabitants worshipped (245). TheScocolits' village at the mouth of the Harrison River had apopulation of forty-six (246). The Tselles (Chehalis) livedten miles from the Scocolits camp. The one hundred andtwenty-seven people lived in two camps; one situated on thebad ground near the river, and the other on higher, drierground (247). The Tselles chief was inconsistent in hisideas and his conduct, and many superstitious ways werestill present in the village (247).Sixteen miles from the start of the Harrison River, onthe banks of the Fraser River, lived the Cheams (248).Peytavin found that the one hundred and thirty-three soulsthere, all of whom were Catholic, no longer possessed theirpredecessors' fevour for the Roman Catholic religion. Heblamed the younger generation for its debauched ways that\"retardent beaucoup la reforme\" (248). At Squatash(Peters), ten miles from the Cheam village, Peytavin found asituation which he described as \"fait rire blancs et sau-sages\" (249). The chief there was Episcopalian, althoughthe majority of the fifty-one people were Catholic. TheMethodist minister had appointed a Methodist chief to lookafter the few Methodist Natives. Not to be out-done, Peyta-vin also appointed his own Catholic chief (249). Presuma-bly, the Squatash village suffered greatly from this divi-67sion of power, although Peytavin offered no comment as tohow the presence of three chiefs affected the daily lives ofthe Natives.The Chamills (Ohamill) lived four miles from the Squa-tash and were mostly of the Catholic faith. Only four orfive families were Anglicans (250). Peytavin also met theRubrey Creek (Ruby Creek) and Skwolog (Skalwahlook) Natives,and was impressed by the piety of both villages. To theRubrey Creek, who lived by cultivating the soil on the riverbanks, he promised the money for a bell for the church thatthe twenty-three Native inhabitants were building. Theforty- eight Emaheux (Iwowes), who lived two miles north ofFort Hope, were all Catholic, although the forty-nine Poco-holsens (Peqwcholthel), who lived four miles away, were\"ignorant but energetic\" (353).Altogether, Peytavin visited 1318 Catholics in theNative villages between New Westminster and Yale. Duringhis 1886 missions, Peytavin heard these Natives give 8000confessions, baptized thirty-three adults and ninety-threechildren, and witnessed twenty-five conversions from Protes-tantism to Catholicism (361). He also blessed or regular-ized thirty-nine marriages. In all, ten churches were beingbuilt in Native villages at this time, four of which hadbeen blessed. Eight cemeteries were also being built andhalf of these had been blessed.In 1887, Father Eugene Casimir Chirouse Junior was the68priest responsible for conducting missions to the Natives inthe Fraser Valley area (Chirouse 1887, 1-17). On March 1st,1887, Chirouse left New Westminster to visit the Semiamooand urge them to \"remplace leur ancienne ‘glise delabr‘e parune neuve plus conforme A la majestie du Dieu\" (2). Chi-rouse was in Chowassen (Tsawwassen) on March 8th, where,upon his arrival, he was secretly informed by Native watch-men about the activities of the Natives in his absence.With sadness he learned that the all \"les belles promesses\"that were made to him on his last journey to the Tsawwassenin the preceding autumn had been broken (2). While in thearea, Chirouse also visited the white Catholic families; heperformed two baptisms, heard confessions in Ladner, dis-tributed six communions and promised to bring next fall themoney necessary to build a small church for the Euro-Canadi-an Catholics (2). Chirouse then returned to New Westmin-ster, which he left again on March 28th, in order to conductmissions to the Natives in the Douglas, Lillooet, and Foun-tain areas (3).Although not at the centre of travelling missionaryactivity, St. Mary's Mission served as a gathering place forthe semi-annual retreats that were important to the successof the Durieu System in British Columbia. Natives from asfar away as William's Lake came to partake in the celebra-tions of Christ's life and to receive religious instruction.In 1887, 3000 Natives attended a retreat that took place69from June 7th to 14th (Chirouse 1887, 10). As they arrivedin their canoes, the Natives \"chantant dans quatre lanquesdifferentes les louanges du Dieu de 1'Euchariste\" (Chirouse1887, 10). On June 9th, Durieu welcomed new arrivals, andin the afternoon, confessions were heard (Chirouse 1887,11). On June 10th, general communion was performed. Satur-day, June 12th, services for the dead were held, and in theafternoon, a steamer arrived from New Westminster carryingpupils from the girls' school and St. Louis' College there(Chirouse 1887, 12). On June 12th, Mgr. Lootens sang massfor the Euro-Canadians who had come to assist in the proces-sion of the sacrements. One thousand holy communions forNatives were given on Monday, June 13th (Chirouse 1887, 13).In the evening, a procession was held. The Guard of Honourheaded the procession, carrying their insignia and candlesin their hands. Two bands of musicians and the all theNative school children followed. They also carried bannersand streamers. Hymns were sung in six Native languages.The return procession was lit by 1200 lanterns and thestatues of the Sacred Heart of the Virgin and St. Josephwere carried (Chirouse 1887, 14). On June 14th, the Nativesreboarded the trains and returned to their reserves. Thisretreat was typical of these gatherings, although the Pas-sion Play was not performed at it.As the Oblates attempted to re-shape the lifeworlds ofthe Natives in the Fraser Valley, they became embroiled70almost immediately in controversy over the question ofNative pre-emption and land claims. Father Fouquet wrote toD'herbomez in the early 1860s:It seems to me that this question of Indianlands requires that we become actively involved.I feel keenly that we must protect the rightsof the poor Indians who are daily being deprivedof their best lands...(Fouquet n.d., Oblate Archives Series One+, Box 34, File01).Previous to the 1866 legislation that prevented Natives frompre-empting land, Moody complained that:the Roman Catholic priests have moved theIndians to pre-empt as freely as any otherpersons.(Cherrington 1974, 5)Almost a decade later, Paul Durieu worried that:Everything possible is being done to deprivethe natives [sic] of their lands. [Chief]Snatt has had to strive not to lose the landon which we have built the church...I wasobliged to run around for ten days, findingthe judge and then the policemen, and thendrafting a petition...(Durieu n.d., Oblate Archives Series One+, Box 34, File 01).The Oblate's decisions to \"spare no effort that justice bedone to [the Natives]\" (Grandidier 1874, Oblate ArchivesSeries One+, Box 34, File 01) and to \"defend the Indianwhenever [we] have reason to do so\" (D'herbomez 1863, OblateArchives Series One+, Box 34, File 01) angered the provin-cial government.Although the policy to encourage pre-emption andfavourable land-claim settlements worked to the detriment ofOblate institutions, which suffered from a lack of fundingbecause of government anger over this policy (Cherrington711974, 5), the priests lost no opportunity to focus theattention of the federal and provincial governments upon theplight of the Natives. In 1873, Durieu used the Queen's DayCelebrations as a forum for land issues when he brought adelegation of Natives to see Dr. I.W. Powell, provincialcommissioner of Indian Affairs. Hearing the Natives' pleathat \"the white [man has] taken our land, and no compensa-tion has been given us\", Powell reassured the Natives oftheir rights (Cherrington 1974, 6). Durieu returned withPowell to his boat and pressed his advantage by furtherdemanding Native land rights. In 1891, Bishop Durieu warnedChief Harry Joseph of the Cheam band that unless SeabirdIsland was used by Natives immediately one half of it wouldbe taken over legally by Euro-Canadian settlers who hadcomplained to the government that this prime land, which hadbeen allocated by Sproat for Native use in 1879, was as yetunused (Casey 1982, 16). The Natives moved to the island,and it remained a reserve. However, the involvement of theOblates in this issue was not motivated by concern for theNatives' loss of traditional lands and livelihoods; rather,access to land upon which Natives could settle, plant crops,and build European houses and churches was a fundamentalrequirement for the success of the Durieu System.In 1898, of the the 3185 Natives in the valley, 2708were nominally Roman Catholics (Missions 36 1898, 253). One72hundred and ninety-four Natives were Protestant and 178 werepagan (Missions 36 1898, 253). How deeply Oblate teachingpenetrated the everyday lives of the Natives is anothermatter.The Rev. C.M. Tate, a Methodist minister in the FraserValley, took delight in relating in his diaries the storiesof those Natives who either rejected the Oblates' teachingsoutright or converted to Protestantism (Tate 1874-1877,n.p.). Jim, a \"Squihala [Skwahla] Indian\", told Tate thathe had been visited by a \"Romish priest\" who, thinking Jimstill a member of the Roman Catholic church, took supperfrom Jim and \"would have staid [sic] all night\", except thathe soon discovered Jim had become a Methodist. Without\"saying any more to [Jim , he] took up his satchel and left,much to the amusement of Jim and his friends\" (Tate 1874,n.p.). Other Natives, while baptized in the Roman Catholicchurch, did not, according to Tate, live as good Christians.Upon finding Natives horseracing on a Sunday Tate lamented:Oh, these worse than heathen Roman Catholics,when will they cease? After their being amongthe Indians for near 30 years, the fruits oftheir labors are yet to be seen.(Tate 1875, n.p.).The Native acceptance of Protestantism was not neces-sarily wholehearted either, and was often hampered by theactivities of Euro-Canadian settlers. Tate told how he cameupon a white man teaching the Natives to horse-race. Hedecried those who professed to belong to his church, yet73hampered the task of \"leading the poor creatures\" away fromvices such as horseracing (Tate 1874, n.p.) Conversion toProtestantism also appears to have often been based on arejection of Roman Catholicism rather than a belief inProtestant teachings. For example, Tate related a story inwhich \"an old Indian doctor\" of the Popkum village told himthat \"he was strongly opposed to the R.C.s and [was] tryingevery way he [could] to injure them\" (Tate 1877, n.p.) Tothat end, Tate was informed that \"the Methodist Church wasthe right kind of [church] and [that the doctor wished] tounite his religion with ours and make one church\" (Tate1877, n.p.). However, Tate rejected this mixture of reli-gion and \"superstition\" as forcibly as the Roman Catholicpriests had before him; the Popkums became equally angrywith him and his church.Another facet of Oblate teaching, the creation ofself-sufficient agricultural enclaves, failed in the FraserValley. The Oblate vision was not based on a realistic viewof the European peasant, but rather on a utopian vision thatwould probably have failed in a European application, letalone in a place where the people were not peasants and theland was not France. In addition, small plots of landrarely allowed for much more than subsistence farming (Fiske1981, 49); within the land tenure system of reserves imposedupon Natives and within the Oblate ideal of pastoralism,mechanization was not encouraged and probably not possible.74The farms in the villages established by the Oblates weretoo small to net the Native farmer a cash return, althoughcash was becoming increasingly necessary in the developingeconomy of British Columbia (Knight 1978, 245; 255). Nativefarms could not compete with larger white farms nearby,which used modern technology. With few visible results,there was little in the agricultural lifestyle to holdNative interest.Even in Matsqui, where the soil and climate were gener-ally favourable for agriculture, the Natives continued theirseasonal round of work and resource exploitation (Kennedy1969, 77). The Sto:lo were paid cash for their labours inthe canneries and for berry and hop picking (Kennedy 1969,70). Seasonal migration further discouraged successfulagriculture, since the Natives rarely stayed in place longenough to tend the fields; sedentism often occurred as aresult of continuous employment in the canneries and saw-mills, not from a desire to till fields. So, although someelements of the Oblate vision were put in place at placessuch as Matsqui and Cheam, they did not survive long, andthe Oblate goal of recreating \"an idealised\" pre-industrialFrance was not realised in the Fraser Valley, nor for long,in any other region of British Columbia.The Oblate priests were not blind to the discrepancybetween their vision and the reality of Native life in theFraser Valley. They considered the elders to be most at-75tached to traditional lifeways; to counter this, the Oblatesfocussed their efforts on Native children and encouragedtheir attendance at St. Mary's Mission school.76CHAPTER FIVE: SCHOOL DAYSSt. Mary's Indian Residential School was establishedbecause the Oblates considered the younger generation malle-able and receptive to their ideas. In addition, they feltthat the school should be residential because their experi-ence with dayschools on the reserves showed that studenttardiness and the high rate of truancy interferred withtheir education. At a boarding school children could bekept away from the influences of their elders for an extend-ed period. In this way, the Oblates hoped to maximize theeffect of their teachings on the minds of Native children.The first buildings on the mission site, a chapel andthe priest's quarters, were built of logs by Brothers Janinand Guillet in 1861. A sawmill and gristmill were placednear the mouth of the creek; machinery for both had beenordered from France. The mills provided the Oblates withmuch needed income as they milled flour and lumber forEuro-Canadian settlers in the area. Father Grandidier pre-empted 160 acres of land across the river from the missionin 1869. New and better buildings were added in 1873. Amap of the mission drawn from memory by a Mgtis boy whoattended the school in the 1880s shows the mission buildingsjust before the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway andthe subsequent removal of the mission to the top of the hillbehind the original site [Map 2] (Kelleher [b] n.d., n.p.).To the east of the creek, the Oblates erected a barn to77EEbench cemetary(smokelhouseIndian labourers' housesGDamorchards j (plums ,j ( apples, j^pears flume^(diningMOM dormschoolnest shousegristmillboys'playgroundIndian labourers' houses—•14•■■• 98\"IV8direction offlowf_abourersj-lousesMap 2: Rough Sketch of St. Mary'sMission circa 1880I I■steep hill(after Kelleher, n.d.: n.p.)78house cattle. Hay for the cattle was harvested from theprairie across the river. The gristmill and sawmill were atthe confluence of the creek and the Fraser River; a flumewas built and the creek dammed so that the creek flow wasregulated. Houses for the Native labourers who helped thepriests in the mills were on the north shore of the Fraser,as was a post office and a landing for boats. Directlybehind them were the orchards that Fouquet had grown fromstock sent from France. Adjacent to the creek were theboys' school and dormitory; a dining room was attached tothe back of the building. A woodshed and smokehouse werebuilt behind the boys' quarters. The boys' playgroundseparated these quarters from the priests' house. A churchwas erected to the west of the priests' house and it sepa-rated the male world of the priests and the schoolboys fromthe convent, the westernmost building on the site. A roadfrom the convent led up the hill to the Oblate cemetery; newbuildings were built adjacent to and west of the existingcemetery when the mission was moved to make way for therailroad in 1883.A boys and girls school were built on the new site;each building had three storeys with two wings, and measuredsixty by thirty-five feet. The old church near the riverwas demolished in 1890, and a new one was built between thenew boys' and girls' schools. Sewage was disposed of inseptic tanks, and fresh water was pumped in from Mission79Creek. Also present on the site was a small grotto orshrine to the Virgin Mary. In 1890, D'herbomez had made apromise that he would build a shrine in her honour; FatherCornellier was commissioned to construct it. He built ahexagonal building with a silver-domed sanctuary, all thewhile intending to replace this structure with anotherlarger shrine to the east (St. Mary's Mission School Mono-graph 1950, n.p.). Cornellier was transfered before hecould carry out this plan and the grotto remained in itsoriginal form until it burned down in 1965.Twenty years before the move uphill, on the originalsite of St. Mary's, Father Gendre and Brothers Guillet andJanin erected the first building of the boys' school in1862. While Janin and Guillet built log cabins to house theboys, as well as a small church, Gendre cooked and studiedNative languages (Cronin 1960, 98). At Christmas, whenGendre had despaired of ever finishing the church in time tohold mass, more than a 1000 Natives arrived at the site andraised the roof on the church (St. Mary's Mission SchoolMonograph 1950, 3). In addition, fields were laid out andplanted by the Oblates for their \"provisions pour la pro-chaine annge scolaire\"; these fields were also to be used toteach boys the agricultural techniques deemed necessary fora civilized life (Kennedy 1969, 50). During the 1863 schoolyear, forty-two boys attended the school (Kennedy 1969, 51).The girl's school at St. Mary's was founded in 1868.80Although there was a girl's school at St. Charles' Missionin New Westminster, D'herbomez had recognized the need toremove the Native children from the pernicious influences ofthat city to the more secluded location at Mission City. Herequested that the Sisters of Saint Ann (S.S.A.) help him inattaining this goal by sending two sisters to Mission; theywould be granted two hundred dollars a year for their serv-ices and given an additional four hundred dollars when theybegan to furnish their house (St. Mary's Mission Monograph1950, 5). However, the Oblates were unable to raise themoney necessary to fufill this agreement. For the years1867, 1868 and 1869, the Sister Vicar of the S.S.A. inBritish Columbia, Sister Mary Providence, who believed thatthe girls' school was a necessity that transcended simplematters of money, lent the Oblates the money required forthe sisters' upkeep (St. Mary's Mission Monograph 1950, 5).On November 25th, 1868, Sisters Mary Lumena and Bonsecoursleft New Westminster for Mission City. They were accom-pained by Fathers D'herbomez, Marchal and Lamure, who hadrecently arrived from France, two other sisters who wouldreturn to New Westminster, and seven Native boarders for theschool (de Pathmos 1961, 147-148). As the fathers at St.Mary's were not expecting them until 1869, no provisions forthem had been made (St. Mary's Mission Monograph 1950, 5).The S.S.A. were accomplished, resourceful women. Whenthey arrived at St. Mary's to find that no provisions had81been made for them, Sister Mary Lumena began to furnish thefifty by eighteen foot lumber convent (Down 1966, 63) withfurniture of her own making. She made five tables and fivedressers immediately upon her arrival at the mission, sothat the seventeen students who were attending the schoolwould be comfortable (Brasseur 1927, 4). Sister Mary Lumenacontinued her tradition of carpentry in 1871, when she madetables, chairs, desks, washstands and beds from trees thatshe had previously felled (St. Mary's Mission Monograph1950, 6). At the new convent, in 1885, Sister Mary Lumenamade forty-two beds for the pupils, as well as new table-like desks for the classroom (Brasseur 1927, 55).Funding for the two schools at St. Mary's was obtainedfrom a variety of sources. First the vicariate assignedcertain funds to the schools per year. In 1868, the vicari-ate gave 3000 dollars to the mission; this money includedfunds for the S.S.A. and for the construction of a school-house for the \"jeunes sauvagesses\" (Oblate Provincial Coun-cil Deliberations 1868, 55). In future years, funds for themission were always in the range of $1000 - 2000, althoughcertain loans were made to the mission so that the prieststhere could purchase land and erect buildings. Four hundreddollars per year were assigned for the upkeep of the sistersat the mission; in 1887, this sum was increased to $600(Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations 1887, 146). Themonies set aside for the administration of the schools are82not differentiated in the Oblate records from the money usedto run the mission in general.^All that can be said isthat the vicariate funding for the entire mission, includingthe schools but excluding the S.S.A. pension, was $600 to1400 per year between 1868 and 1892.In 1865, Governor Seymour had allocated fifty poundssterling to the school at Mission; the involvement of theOblate fathers in encouraging Natives to pre-empt land inthe valley, however, angered the government so that no moremoney was forthcoming from them (Cherrington 1974, 5). In1871, with the entry of British Columbia into federation,the federally administrated Department of Indian Affairsassumed responsibility for Native education. However, thefirst government grant to the schools at St. Mary's was notmade until 1874, when a sum of $350 was received (Kennnedy1969, 57). Previous to that date, all the money for theschools had come from the proceeds from the mission farm,the congregation, contributions from the Propagation of theFaith (Kennedy 1969, 57) and from the profits made at asupply store that the S.S.A. had set up in 1869 to sellcloth, thread and other supplies to the Natives (Brasseur1927, 14).In 1893, the schools received $500 from the federalgovernment (Missions 31 1893, 396). This amount was basedon a quota of fifty students at the boys' school. However,as the \"Rapport de Vicariate\" for this year explains, this83quota had not been met:Le government federal ne nous a alloug jusqu'icique 500 dollars par an...Nous n'avons actuellementque 50 enfants, nos moyens ne nous permettantpas d'en recevoir davantage. Nous nous voyonsforces d'en augmenter le nombre jusqu'.4 lacentaine, parce que les ministres protestantesfont cette annee ,des pieds et des mains poureattirer a leurs coles gratuites les enfantsde nos neophytes indigenes.(Missons 31 1893, 396).At no time during the period 1863 to 1900 did the missionfufill its quota of one hundred students; in 1898, onlyeighty-five students attended the school (forty-one boys andforty-four girls) although this fifteen student shortagecost the mission money, since the government would only makea minimal allocation to a school that fell short of itsquota (Missions 36 1898, 253). Paradoxically, the school atSt. Mary's Mission had to refuse pupils because, as FatherChirouse's report to the Department of Indian Affairs for1896 states, the school was always short of funds (Atkinsonet al. 1973, 7). Problems with a rather fluid population ofstudents, some of whom would go truant and return to helptheir parents and grandparents carry out subsistence activi-ties, meant difficulties in obtaining funding that wasallocated on a \"per head\" basis. These comings and goingsare also responsible for the discrepencies that exist be-tween the numbers of students attending the school cited inthis and other work on St. Mary's Mission.Funding was also received from the parents of thepupils attending the school; boys' fees being higher than84the girls, presumably because girls were less valued econom-ically by Natives and their families unlikely to pay muchfor their education. The parents of the girls gave fivedollars a year in order to offset the cost of soap, thread,needles etc. in 1868 (Brasseur 1927, 5). In 1869, this feewas raised to nine dollars a year, four dollars for tea andsugar having been added to the previous five (Brasseur 1927,10). Obviously, not all parents could afford to pay, andsince the school also taught orphans and abandoned childrenwho had no parents to pay, the reception of nine dollars pergirl per year was by no means guaranteed. In fact, as thefollowing chart shows, orphans (which included childrenabandoned by their parents) made up a large percentage ofthe pupils at the girls' school:Year Orphans Total Attendance Percent1871 1 15 61874 10 38 261887 23 36 631888 28 36 781889 26 36 72(In 1881, the convent reached a permanent register ofthirty-six pupils, so the numbers given for years after thatdate represent a maximum number in attendance, not theactual number)(Brasseur 1927, 21; 34; 35; 66; 72).Since orphans were often sent to the school because theyrepresented a drain on the economy (Redford 1979, 48; 55),the surviving members of their families would be unlikely tocontribute anything towards the costs of their education.85The parents of the boys were also expected to providesome funding for their sons' education. The Oblate fathersnoted that Euro-Canadians had to pay for schooling, andthought that, as funding and resources at St. Mary's werevery small, it would be only fair to have the Natives payfor the education of their youths (Oblate Provincial CouncilDeliberations 1884, 117). However, they recognized thereluctance or inability of many Natives to pay. TheOblates' solution to this problem was to encourage:les villages Indiens...a y envoyer deux deleur enfans de plus capables, tout le villagese cOtisant pour leur fournier la v'tementet payer la petit pension de cinq dollarspar mois.(Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations 1884, 117).The Oblates hoped that the Natives who paid for the educa-tion of the two boys would eventually have their expensescompensated for by the boys themselves, who would teach therest of the village upon their return from the school. Nofurther reference is made to this plan in council delibera-tions, and financial hardships continued.The lack of funding presented a problem for the priestsand nuns running the school. In order to avoid additionalexpenses, the school was supposed to be self-sufficient;grain was procured in payment for the use of the gristmill,fruit was grown in the orchards, hay was grown on theprairie across the river to feed the cattle, and beef andpork were raised at the mission. However, the amount of86food produced was small, and the diet that the nuns andpriests fed to the boys and girls at the school was monoto-nous and unnutritious.In 1864, the Oblates granted a three week hiatus fromschool to the forty-two boarders at the boys school so thatthey could help plant 4000 cabbages on the land across theriver (Aicher 1971, 3). The priests chose cabbages becausethey cost little to produce and because the \"boys [were] sofond of cabbage soup\" (Forbes 1962, 28). It seems unlikelythat this fondness for cabbage soup continued much beyondthe 1865 school year, when that vegetable formed the basisof the boys' diet. In 1868, Sister Mary Lumena wrote thatthe diet available to the students consisted of fish with aration of potatoes (Brasseur 1927, 11). There was no bread,meat, vegetables, or cereals available (Brasseur 1927, 12).The potatoes were strictly rationed and when Sister MaryBonsecours used up her ration too quickly in 1868, theOblates held an inquiry into the matter. It was discoveredthat the scale at the convent was underweighing the rationsand that the nun had not knowingly increased the rations.Still, potato rations at the convent were reduced to make upthis shortfall and the girls went hungry (Brasseur 1927,13).At Christmas and New Year's, a treat was served; eachpupil received a dish of rice sweetened with molasses.Generally, however, the \"allowance for children fresh from87free out-door Indian life was not over-abundant\" and eventhe fish \"was served in pitifully small pieces\" (Brasseur1927, 12; 14). In 1869, conditions at the schools improvedmarginally; some pork was available to augment the ubiqui-tous potato soup (Pineault n.d., 2). The nuns and priestsdid not fare much better than the children either, althoughthey did have flour for bread (Brasseur 1927, 14).By the time that Cornelius Kelleher, a half-Irish,half-Nooksack orphan, attended the school in 1879, morefoods were available. The gristmill was in operation, sothat the children occasionally had bread to eat, as well asthe corn and peas that were ground at the mill for soup(Orchard 1983, 23). The male pupils often helped out in themill; Kelleher remembers being asked by Father Martin tohelp fix the leather straps that had been chewed by rats.The mill was sold soon after the arrival of the CanadianPacific Railroad; James Tretheway, who had originally helpedto build the water-powered mill, carted it away to Chilli-wack (Kelleher [a] n.d., n.p.). Thereafter, flour wasbrought in by steamer. Boys from the school hauled thefifty pound bags of flour up the hill, either using an oxand sled, or sharing the load of one sack between two boys(Kelleher [a] n.d., n.p.). Each sack of flour was thensplit evenly between the boys' school and the convent.Milk was never served at the mission. Cattle raisedwere kept only for beef; in the fall some of the animals88 •were slaughtered and the meat salted so that it would keepover the following winter (Orchard 1983, 23). Care for thelivestock was also shared by the boys at the school whohelped cut and \"scow\" hay across the river for the animalsto eat in the winter (Orchard 1983, 24). Pork was alsoraised at the mission; pigs were allowed to roam free andscavenge until 1883, when the largest building on the oldermission site was converted into a pigpen (Kelleher n.d.,transcript). Salmon was served roasted over a fire or in asoup with vegetables and potatoes (Orchard 1983, 23). Thefood prepared had to be cooked in the large brass kettlesthat the Oblates had brought with them to the mission in1862; a cookstove was not initially part of the mission'saccoutrements, although Sister Mary Lumena procurred one forthe convent in 1887 (Brasseur 1927, 67). In the orchards,the pear, plum and apples trees that Fouquet had broughtfrom France and Oregon produced fruit for the mission(Kelleher n.d., transcript). However, the amount of foodserved must have been quite small; Kelleher related that theboys used to sneak out of the dormitory at night and raidthe orchard for apples to supplement their diet (Orchard1983, 24).The poor diet, coupled with the intense physical labourdemanded of the children and the fact that all of the chil-dren (of one sex) slept in large dormotories that wereinadequately heated, probably accounted for the spread of89diseases throughout the school. Cornellius Kelleher'syounger sister died of a \"cold\", soon after she began shebegan attending the convent (Kelleher n.d., transcript).She was only seven years old. In May 1883, a measles epi-demic broke out at the school, and almost all the childrencontracted the disease (Brasseur 1927, n.p.).Parents tended to associate St. Mary's with illness,and often were reluctant to send their children to theschool. Chief Johnnie of the Harrison River explained thathis band did not want children to attend the school because:A good many of the children when they leave theMission school they are very unhealthy. I senttwo of my boys to that school. They were verystrong when they went there. But after they camehome, they both died...I think they were workedtoo hard at the school and got consumption...(Haig-Brown 1990, 17).Chief Joe Hall of the Scowlitz band concurred with thisfinding:We have had complaints about that school anda great many other children come out sickly...there is no partitions to the rooms and all thechildren sleep in one room...I was in thatschool myself when I was a boy...[others] tookconsumption and died...that is why I know theschool is not safe...during all the time I wasat Mission, I only saw a doctor once...(Haig-Brown 1990, 17).Parents controlled their childrens' attendence at school;only after 1920 could the authorities enforce attendance ata residential school (Redford 1979, 52). Because of thereluctance of the parents to send away their children, basedboth on fears for their children's health and because olderchildren contributed valuable labour to the village group,90St. Mary's school taught mostly orphans and those childrenwhose parents were strongly under the influence of the RomanCatholic faith and/or believed that the inevitable changesthe Euro-Canadian culture would force in the Native worldmeant that a white education was a practical means of sur-vival in the new world.Many pupils who attended St. Mary's found the transi-tion from the Native way of life to the cloistered world ofthe nuns and priests difficult to make. The seventeen girlsthat made up the first class at the convent were:homesick and showed it by giving way tosadness and sulkiness. When one was missingshe was found crying under the table or inas secret a place as was thought safe.(Brasseur 1927, 8).Any change in procedures or personnel also produced a terri-fied response. One night the nuns at the convent had to goto New Westminster and a strange nun was left in charge ofthe girls. Upon awakening, the girls found themselves witha stranger who spoke no language that they could understand.The Native children cried at being left with the nun; SisterMary Lumena saw this as an expression of devotion to thenuns who normally cared for the girls (Brasseur 1927, 8),but it seems more likely that the children were terrified atbeing with an unfamiliar person.The language barrier also presented inevitable prob-lems. The nuns and priests spoke French as their firstlanguage, and the Sto:lo spoke Halkomelem. Often the Chi-91nook Jargon was used to bridge the gap between the twolanguages outside of the school, but during the ten monthsof the year when school was in session, the only languagethat could be spoken was English. Kelleher remembered histeachers as \"mostly French teachers trying to teach usEnglish\" (Orchard 1983, 24). By 1869, only one year afterthe girls' school had opened, Sister Mary Lumena reportedthat \"our seventeen pupils are happy and docile; they canread [and] write [in English]\" (de Pathmos 1961, 148).Apparently, the language barrier had been overcome, and thetransition from a Native lifeway to life in the convent hadbegun. However, the Native girls were taught some prayersin their own language (Brasseur 1927, 80), presumably sothey could share these with the non-English speaking membersof their villages.Besides English, the pupils at the schools also learneda variety of other subjects. Their academic courses includ-ed arithmetic, geography, history, reading, writing, andgrammar. Lessons were taught by rote recitation. Examina-tions in each subject were done orally at the end of theschool year before an audience that consisted of the parentsand the priest (Brasseur 1927, 24). At these occasions,good conduct and lessons were rewarded by public recognitionof the student's achievements. Although some childrenremained at the mission until they left to be married, ahigh-school education was not offered to Native students.92Each student learned a basic grounding in the \"Three Rs\";anything further was not encouraged. St. Mary's school didnot have a high school graduate until 1952 (St. Ann's Acade-my n.d., n.p.).As well as religion and the \"three Rs\", the missionschools were intended to inculcate the children with thebasics of European peasant ways. To that end, the priestsput the boys to work clearing and planting fields, helpingin the grist and carding mills, mowing hay for the animals,caring for livestock, tending a vegetable garden, makingfurniture, cleaning pots and pans, baking bread and whateverother jobs were required to make the mission as self-suffi-cient as possible. Father Gendre, the first principal atthe boy' school, considered putting Native children to work,rather than academic achievement, to be the true measure ofsuccess at St. Mary's. To overcome the \"natural indolenceof the children\" (Forbes 1948, 17), he \"made use of theirvanity and love of authority\" (Forbes 1962, 29) and createdposts and titles for them. Thus were the Captain of theCanoes, Chief of the Pots and Pans, Head Cook's Helper andGarden Manager made (Forbes 1962, 29). Titles were lost ifa boy was lazy. In 1868, Father Jolivet wrote:I congratulate you on having founded a flourishingagricultural institution...[however], as, afterreligion, work and study are the principal meansof civilizing the Indians, I should have preferredto see the. Indians work more...you must try to getthem to work for approximately four hours a day...(Forbes 1948, 17).93 •Manual labour was not restricted to the boys at theschool. The girls' school also had a vegetable plot thatneeded tending. Although Sister Mary Lumena stated that theboys did the heavy work for the convent, such as \"fellingtrees, cutting firewood, plowing\" etc. (Brasseur 1927, 47),it was not unknown for the older girls to perform tasksnormally reserved for boys. In 1889, the girls raised atwenty foot extension to a shed, shingled the roof, levelledthe kitchen garden, removed brush, filled ruts and holes,and dug potatoes, which they then stored for the winter(Pineault n.d., 7). All this was in addition to the already\"heavy programme\" that included training:in the use of brooms, dusters, floor-scrubbing,window washing - all unknown arts in theirIndian homes...the use of the needle, sewingmachine, cutting and making clothes [for theboys, girls, and priests]...mending, as wellas washing and ironing for the two households.(Brasseur 1927, 46-47).In the convent, day succeeded day according to a strictschedule of chapel devotions, school hours, domestic duties,laundry, gardening, and needle accomplishments (Pineaultn.d., 6). Kelleher indicates how the \"daily grind\" began inthe boys' school:[We] only had a basin or two to wash in inthe mornings, so we decided, us boys, we'd godown to the creek to wash. We'd take our toweland soap and go down to the creek...then we gotdaring one or another to get into the water...ice was on top of the water. Then we had to goup there and go into the chapel...[which had]no fire in it at all and stay there for a quarterof an hour or half an hour. Boy it was cold...94if you didn't go down into the creek and dumpin the water, you felt the cold more when yougot into the chapel...(Kelleher n.d., transcript).Chapel was followed by an eight hour work day; four hourseach were devoted to academic/religious instruction andmanual labour, interspersed with regular religious devotionsand prayers. Academic work was split into two two-hourperiods, following the recommendation of Jolivet that stu-dents must \"never [be] in the classroom for more than twoconsecutive hours\" (Forbes 1948, 17). On the other hand,recreation appears to have been rather informal at St.Mary's, although that went against the rigid rules outlinedfor schools in the Durieu system. Boys would ride the oxsleigh down the hill in the winter, jumping off just beforeit crashed into the mission fence (Kelleher n.d., tran-script), and swim in the Fraser River when the weather washot (Orchard 1983, 24). Despite the twenty-four hourpresence of the priests, the boys' play seems to have beenlargely unsupervised; perhaps the priests did not know ofall these activities. Some recreation was supervised howev-er; Bishop Lootens used to take Kelleher fishing at HatzicSlough, even though Kelleher did not \"like to be with him[and would rather] be out playing with the boys\" (Orchard1983, 26).Music was also taught at the mission schools. Accord-ing to the Missions, Father Pandosy began a brass band atSt. Mary's, which was subsequently under the direction of95Father Lamure (Gresko 1983, 13), who was principal of theboys' school from 1869 until his death in a shooting acci-dent in 1870. Lamure taught singing and instrumental musicto the boys for an hour and a half each day (Gresko 1983,12). The musical instruments had been sent from France by aschoolmate of D'herbomez (Gresko 1983, 13), and consisted oftraditional European brass instruments (Mattison 1981, 11).The band played publicly at such events as the Queen'sBirthday in 1867, to welcome the provincial Commissioner ofIndian Affairs Israel Powell to St. Mary's and at the 1891Mission land auction held by J. W. Horne (Mattison 1981,11). The band declined in the late 1870s because of a lackof teaching staff, but by the 1880s, under the direction ofFather A.G. Morice, it was once again a good band. Moricetook his pupils on a tour of the Canadian Pacific Railroadconstruction camps in 1881, and managed to raise the moneynecessary to purchase a small harmonium (Gresko 1983, 13).In 1891, the Vancouver World newspaper described the Nativebrass band as \"unquestionably the best Indian band in theProvince, or for that matter in the Dominion\" (Mattison1981, 11).Discipline at St. Mary's Mission school was carried outin a variety of ways. Upon arriving at the school, theNative children were issued a school uniform; the nuns andpriests thought this served not only to counteract theNative \"love of extravagance\" (Pineault n.d., 2), but also96to remove the differences between pupils, so that they weretreated as equals. The girls' uniform was, in the words ofone Native woman, \"very homely and we did not like to wearit\" (Pineault n.d., 2), and consisted of a lilac calicoshirt, a brown linsay blouse and a white cambric headpiece.Both the boys' and girls' uniforms were sewn by the femalestudents at the school.Punishment came in the form of public humiliation. Atthe beginning of the school year, each child was assignedseven \"good notes\" (Brasseur 1927, 25). Notes could betaken away if the pupil were bad; no one teacher could,however, remove a note, but rather a miniature court judgedthe child and determined if the note should be lost (Bras-seur 1927, 25). At the distribution of prizes in June, itwas made manifest to the public those who had kept theirnotes all year and those who had lost some. Although theerrant pupils were not singled out for exposure to thepublic, they felt the sting of being ignored and embarrassedwhen their names were not made public as having been goodstudents all year. Public humiliation had been chosen asthe form of punishment most likely to elicit the correctresponse in the Natives, because of their hatred of publicignomy (Brasseur 1927, 25). Indeed, it was felt that thismethod was successful because \"even before these poor chil-dren of the woods learned English, they knew the value ofthe notes\" (Brasseur 1927, 25).97Punishments at St. Mary's were not corporal; whippings,which were anathma to the Natives, were not officially givenat this school (Forbes 1962, 29). However, Cornelius Kelle-her certainly felt the blows of physical punishment while heattended there. Kelleher's first teacher, a German boatcaptain who had been hired by the Oblates, often dealt histroublesome pupils a hard blow with a rod across the back ofthe knuckles (Orchard 1983, 24). This punishment was in-curred when a boy did not know the correct answer to aproblem and was therefore unable to \"go up to the black-board\" (Orchard 1983, 24). In addition, boys that werefound out of their beds after lights out were dealt a\"whack\" with a switch by the priest. Still, the blows didnot seem to temper the boys' spirits; upon occasion theywould hit the dormitory supervisor across the back withtheir pillows, and when the first tie cars came past themission, the boys played truant from school, in order to\"ride the rails\", with little regard for any punishment theywould receive (Orchard 1983, 26). Indeed, the misdeeds ofthe boys seemed to be regarded with good humour by thepriests; after Kelleher was married and settled on his land,Father Martin would visit to reminisce about the mission,and to laugh \"until the tears ran down his face\" about thepranks the boys used to play (Orchard 1983, 24).The punishment for a repeated or serious offense wasexpulsion from the school. At vacation time, after the 186898school year, the nuns asked one of the girls \"who was sulky,obstinate and hard to manage and [was] a bad influence...totake her featherbed along\" with her on her vacation (Bras-seur 1927, 9). The girl apparently understood that she wasno longer wanted at the school and began to cry. However,the nuns did not relent, and the girl did not return to theschool in August. On one occasion, a girl was expelled fromthe school, and the nuns clearly did not think that sheshould have been. An older girl, who had always been \"goodand pious\" was told to leave the school because she had toldher parents something that the director of the school,presumably Durieu who was in charge from 1870 to 1873, didnot like (Brasseur 1927, 29). In addition to being ex-pelled, the girl also had to perform a public penance andhave her upcoming marriage postponed. The secrecy regardingthe exact nature of her \"crime\" led to a great deal ofconfusion on the part of Sister Mary Lumena, who appears tohave thought the punishment was too harsh. However, thenuns did not question the judgements of the priests on thisor other matters.The school year lasted ten months; during the vacationperiod of two months, the nuns returned to Victoria and thechildren returned to the camps from which they had come.Only in 1886 was there a nun present at the mission for thewhole year; the nun that did not travel to Victoria remainedto care for the numerous orphans who were the sole responsi-99 •bility of the convent (Brasseur 1927, 59). The priests keptthe mission running, but school was not in session duringthis period.The return of the students to the villages often pre-cipitated a clash with the culture of the Natives who livedthere all year. Upon their return to the mission schools,the teachers were appalled to find their former neat andclean charges filthy and unkempt. Even when they were senthome with soap and a comb, the children continued to returnunwashed (Pineault n.d., 7). When asked for an explanation,the children replied, \"the old Indians [probably the chil-drens' grandparents, with whom, traditionally, they spentmost of their childhood] laugh at us, and say we are whites\"(Pineault n.d., 7). The missionaries decided that while\"the ancients lived\", nothing could be done about the chil-dren's cleanliness at home. Rather they waited until theelders died; according to the missionaries, only after 1910,was a \"degree of civilization becoming evident in theirdwellings\" (Pineault n.d., 7).The years spent at the St. Mary's Mission school tendedto leave graduating students without a culture into whichthey fitted. The goal of the Oblates was to acculturateNatives, not to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian society.Therefore, settlement in the white community was frownedupon. However, former pupils did not always fit into Nativelifeways either. Thus it was left to the Oblates to create100a niche into which the these students could fit. In 1879,three mission boys married three mission girls, all of themwearing clothes made by the girls at the mission. Land wasgranted to the young men so that they could settle near themission and begin life as agriculturalists (Pineault n.d.,4). In 1883, the Oblates formalized these aims for settle-ment of former pupils on Oblate-owned land near the missionwith a lengthy legal document that left no room for anydeviation from the norm as defined by the Oblates:To every boy (who has been educated in the schoolof St. Mary's Mission and who has obtained a goodreport for conduct and morality)... the Superior ofSt. Mary's will let at a nominal rate thefollowing property:I) 10 acres of land belonging to the Missionand outside of the dyke on the left side ofthe Fraser RiverII) One lot of land 60 feet front by 250 feetfrom front to rear, on the right-hand side ofsaid riverIII) One frame [house] 32 by 16 feet withside walls 10 feet high and shingle roof. Theoutside shall be weatherboarded and white-washed, the inside lined with rough lumber,cotton and paper [and] divided so as to make4 apartments on the ground floorIV) Furniture - one cooking stove with...utensils...dining room utensils for 3...3 chairs, one table, one bedstead and beddingand a few pictures.Each person occupying [the land] shall be obligedto give up quite [sic] and peaceable possessionand in good order in receiving legal notice toquit. Such person must leave whole and entireall improvements and fixtures...without having anyright to claim compensation for same...[Boyswishing to pre-empt may do so and Superiorof St. Mary's will deed all above except thelet ten acres, plus give the boy a cow101which he must] keep...as well as any other stockhe may possess on the right-hand side of theFraser River.(Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations 1883, 105-106).Further restrictions stated that the boys who settled on theland would not be employed by the mission, except as daylabourers, that they could only be evicted from the aboveproperty for bad conduct of which the Bishop would be solejudge, and that their widows would enjoy the same rights asthe original leasee, providing that \"she conducts herselfwell or remarries a good catholic man\" (Oblate ProvincialCouncil Deliberations 1883, 106). An unknown number offormer students, including Kelleher, who was deeded eightyacres at fifty dollars per acre by the Oblates in 1892 andwho built a two-bedroom, two-storey western-style house uponit (Kelleher [a] n.d., n.p.), did settle on the prairieacross from the mission, but the project was doomed becausethe land was frequently flooded. In 1894, Kelleher had touse a canoe to get to the stairs and thus gain access to thesecond floor of his house (Kelleher [a] n.d., n.p.). Even-tually, the Oblates sold the land to the diocese.Another aim of the Oblates was that the former studentswould return to their villages and influence the villagersin the ways of the church and agricultural life. The extentto which this aim was realised had more to do with theatmosphere in the particular village than with the traininggiven at the schools. At Cheam village Chief Alexis readilyadopted the Oblate sanctioned way of life. In 1879, when102Father Chirouse visited, he was met by a salute of gunfireupon his arrival (Casey 1982, 13). The camp showed\"progress [with] beautiful houses, cultivated fields andcattle in abundance\" (Casey 1982, 13). Alexis' daughter, aformer student at St. Mary's, had set up a day school in thevillage and was teaching religion and English to the inhabi-tants. According to Chirouse, to be among the Cheam was tobe \"among a wonderful group of Christians\" (Casey 1982, 13).Certainly, this former student of St. Mary's was carryingout the aims expressed by the Oblates. However, the twoorphaned daughters of a convicted murderer who were orderedreturned home to teach the women in their village Brusselslace making probably fared less well at educating otherNatives since they had been unwanted by the villagers duringthe seven years they lived at the convent (Brasseur 1927,77). Presumably Brussels lace making was not a valued skillin the late nineteenth century world of the Sto:lo; learningto speak English and how to save one's soul were more valu-able.*The Oblates did not record individual achievements atthe school, nor did they follow the progress of the pupilsafter they had returned to their villages. It is difficult,therefore, to assess the effect of schooling of Nativechildren on the villages from which they came. Previous to1900, a maximum of eighty-five (Gresko [1986, 98] has103eighty-eight attending in this year) students attended St.Mary's school at one time (1898), out of a population of2000 Natives in the Fraser Valley area (Gresko 1986, 98).This fact, coupled with the large number of orphans, aban-doned children and Metis that attended the school, suggeststhat the effects were less than the priests had hoped whenthey founded the schools in 1863 and 1868. However, theeffects of schooling on individual children and their imme-diate families were large.Children were removed from a known environment andplaced in the custody of strangers for ten months of theyear. Their parents were affected, by sadness at losing achild to the school, fear at the health risks encountered atthe school, or even perhaps relief that a non-productivemember of the family was being looked after elsewhere duringthe uncertain times immediately following increased Euro-Canadian settlement in the area. And the legacies left bythis separation, the alienation of the children from theknown, and the type of education given at the school werealso manifold and confusing; they deserve further considera-tion.104CHAPTER 6: INFLUENCES AND LEGACIESThe Oblates sought to teach the Sto:lo a new religion,subsistence farming, a new language, a new mode of settle-ment, and new perceptions of time and space. They intendedto reform the Sto:lo into a real version of their utopianvision of a pious, Roman Catholic peasant. To a largeextent, they failed. Natives on the reserves took advantageof the new industrialized economy emerging in British Colum-bia and resisted Oblate pressures for them to farm. Thechildren sent to the mission school at St. Mary's wereusually not valued members of the society from which theycame, since the majority of pupils were orphans or theoffspring of white men and Native women. The culturalinfluence of school children returning to the reserve wasless than the Oblates had hoped.Yet, Natives are very bitter about the missionaries andtheir impact on Native cultures. While it can be arguedthat the effect was greater after 1900, Oblate activities inthe nineteenth century certainly altered the Sto:lo life-world. Even by removing only a few, largely unwanted chil-dren, the residential schools left gaps in Sto:lo society.Oblate activities among the Sto:lo can be viewed from aFoucauldian perspective. The main elements of disciplinarystrategy, segregation and surveillance were used by theOblates to implement this spiritual agenda (Driver 1984,12). According to Foucault, discipline proceeds: \"from the105'distribution of individuals in space...[which] sometimesrequires enclosure, [and] the specification of a placeheterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself\"(Foucault 1977, 141). The residential school and the agri-cultural settlement were both planned to be such places:there Natives would live isolated from non-Natives and underthe guidance of the church. A homogeneous Native culturewas sought; Natives were all to practise the same religion,speak the same language, and follow the same daily patternof chores and church going. At the schools, individualitywas further eroded by bland uniforms and short haircutsdesigned to eradicate personal vanity and pride. No perma-nent note was made of individual academic achievements.Gender was managed as much as possible and, in a sense,denied; the children were sexually segregated and the geni-tals and breasts kept covered while bathing. The result wasto be an almost \"robotic\" Native that performed its func-tions in an agricultural settlement much as did other Na-tives of the same sex. Future generations, born into thesesettlements, would be born into the discipline, withoutknowing of the \"strict powers\" that gripped their parent'sminds and bodies, thus imposing upon them the \"constraints,prohibitions and obligations\" (Foucault 1977, 136) of theRoman Catholic religion.The exercise of discipline \"presupposes a mechanismthat coerces by the means of observation\" (Foucault 1977,106172). The power of \"surveillance is permanent in its ef-fects, even if it is discontinuous in its action\" (Foucault1977, 201). In the Panoptican, officials used architectureand a series of blinds to observe miscreants who could notsee their observer (Driver 1984, 5). Instead of architec-ture, the Oblates used new patterns of settlement to keep\"watch over\" the Natives. Natives were encouraged to settlein agricultural villages and the Oblates attempted to imposea system of spying that maintained surveillance even duringthe priests' absence. Watchmen, officials, and policemen,\"relays of the disciplinary gaze\" (Foucault 1977, 174) inthe political hierarchy set up by the priests, reported any\"non-conformists\" to the priests. Non-conformity was pun-ishable under Oblate law, and punishment was meted outpublicly under the control of the priest. Public punish-ments ranged from whippings to standing outside the churchwith arms outstretched. At St. Mary's school, examinationswere carried out in front of one's classmates and parents;punishments were also public and sometimes involved expul-sion from the school. Public punishment meant that otherwould-be offenders understood the consequences of theiractions.Examination \"combines the elements of an observinghierarchy and those of a normalising judgement\"; it is a\"surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classi-fy, and to punish\" (Foucault 1977, 184; 186). Native life107on the reserves was constantly examined by the priests andthe local government. Church-goers were examined by thewatch-men for any lapses from the \"norm\" as defined by theOblates. Pious Natives were rewarded with honours such asthe admission to the Honour of the Sacred Heart or withrepairs to the village church.In \"discipline, it is the subjects who have to beseen... power is invisible\" (Foucault 1977, 187). In theOblate system, the ultimate power to judge and then topunish or reward lay with an invisible God. Faith andstrict adherence to the tenets of the Roman Catholic reli-gion were rewarded visibly on earth and invisibly afterdeath. The double system of discipline, \"gratification-punishment\" (Foucault 1977, 180) was clearly evident in thesettlements and the residential schools.Mettray was an agricultural reformatory colony forjuvenile deliquent boys established near Tours, France in1839. In it, Foucault saw the \"model in which are concen-trated all the the coercive technologies\" of discipline andpunishment (Foucault 1977, 293). There were no boundarywalls at Mettray; the reformatory was surrounded by fieldsin which the boys worked. They were subject to constantsupervision and surveillance, and every task was carried outaccording to schedule in an ordered manner. Military disci-pline was taught in marching exercises and brass bands.Justice was meted out in the parlour. On the walls of the108cells were written the words \"God Sees You\" (Foucault 1977,294).St. Mary's school and the institution at Mettray sharemany similarities, perhaps because both reflected Frenchthinking about institutions in the nineteenth century. Thephysical boundaries of St. Mary's were Durieu Creek to theeast, the Fraser River to the south, and empty space to thenorth and west of the mission. The boys worked plantingvegetables and harvesting hay in the fields across theFraser. Every hour at the school was accounted for; work-ing, playing and praying were carried out according to astrict schedule. St. Mary's imposed another way of perceiv-ing space on the Sto:lo children. Some of them had alreadyobserved the establishment of an agricultural village ontheir home reserves, and the school was a further reductionof the self-sufficent, segregated reduction.Space at the school was divided into areas for work,play, prayer, learning, eating and sleeping. In the tradi-tional village, people ate, slept, learned and entertainedin the long houses. Children played at imitating theirelders in the workplaces. Elders told stories while theymended nets or cleaned fish. At the school, no overlap ofspatial function occurred. Part of the regimentation in-volved establishing strict use of spaces and not varying it,not, at least, officially. The children themselves usedspace more flexibly, often conversing in Halkomelem in the109fields, playing in the dorms at night, and sneaking out tosteal apples after bedtime. The four or five teachers couldnot exert continuous control and the children took advantageof gaps in surveillance.The Oblates also controlled private space and refer-ences to their attempts to control the body have alreadybeen made. They sought humility before God and to that end,tried to destroy vanity and a sense of individuality thatbreeds pride. Hence, homogeneous haircuts and uniforms,reports that recorded the achievements of the class as awhole, not of the individual child, and curricula that madeno attempt to tailor education to a child's particularabilities. In the traditional village, a child's particularprowess was noted, and those with special talents, such ascarving, were encouraged to expand them. By attackingindividuality and pride, the Oblates attacked the mostprivate of spaces, that used to define oneself.To counter the \"negative effects of parentalinfluence\", the Oblates did not allow parents to visitunsupervised children. Parents visited their children inthe parlour of the school under the gaze of a nun or priest.The presence in the parlour of the observing authorityinterfered in the visit, preventing chidren and their par-ents from interacting freely. Again, the Oblates estab-lished control over a space so as to manage and minimiizethe bond between parent and child. Contagion from the110reserves and reversion to the \"old ways\" was thus prevented,at least for the ten months that school was in session. AtSt. Mary's, the task was to \"produce bodies that were bothdocile and capable\" (Foucault, 1977: 294), at whatever costto the individual.As well as controlling space, discipline involves thecontrol of time; the most basic way to do this is to imposea timetable. As with other religious orders, the Oblateswere masters of a discipline that took the form of estab-lished rhythms, imposed activities and regulated cycles ofrepitition (Foucault 1977, 149). Even the priests wereexpected to follow a regular daily schedule of prayer andlearning. A mission in France followed the same schedule asdid missions in Algeria, Ceylon and Canada; in this way,priests in France controlled the daily activities of mis-sionaries scattered world-wide.The priests in British Columbia kept control over alarge area by imposing a timetable on activities in thevillages. Several times a day, the church bell was rung sothat the faithful could pray together. Watchmen reportedthose that did not attend to the priests during his nextvisit; the offenders were punished. At St. Mary's, allactivities were performed at an allocated hour and, with theexception of Sunday, there was little to differentiate oneday from the next. Every hour in St. Mary's school wasaccounted for: dull chores, instruction in reading, writingand arithmetic, religious teachings, play, eating, sleepingand washing were all carried out at prescribed times of theday. The beginning and end of activities were generallysignalled by time allocated for prayer. There was someconcession to the passage of seasons (in spring when thecrops were planted across the river, and in fall when theywere harvested) but time was generally represented in a waythat was in sharp contrast to the Native perception of timeflowing through activities, seasons, and the years of aperson's life.The rigid control and management of time - out of whichcome phrases such as \"wasting time\" - were concepts foreignto the Sto:lo. Traditionally, activities were not boundedin short, measurable intervals, but carried out when theyneeded to be, for as long as they took. Stopping fishing topray or because it was \"bedtime\" made no sense in the tradi-tional Sto:lo world, whereas stopping fishing because therewere no more fish, or one had enough, or one was sleepy did.Stories, a major component of traditional education, wereusually told at night, or in the winter, when not many othertasks could be carried out. Formal lessons or prayersduring day-light hours when there were other tasks to per-form was nonsensical. However, the priests used time-disci-pline to keep the Sto:lo in line; Natives had to remainclose to the village to attend church and could not carryout their traditional subsistence rounds.112Rigid control was also exerted over the language spokenat the school. The children at St. Mary's were forced froman oral culture to a literate one, and the English languagewas substituted for Halkomelem. Language, the system ofsounds that each culture strings together in a logical wayin order to communicate (Dimen-Schein 1977, 34), forms thebasis for thought and perception. Certain concepts, such asthe past and future tenses, may not be important to allcultures. Replacing one language with another entailslearning new cultural concepts and replacing many elementsof one's former culture. At St. Mary's, Sto:lo childrenwere to forget Halkomelem and as much as possible of theconcepts and culture encoded in the language. Instead, thepupils learned a new way of representing the world, communi-cating, and relating history. As Halkomelem was forbiddenat the school, and as children rarely spoke it except as aform of protest while working in the fields, they wereeffectively rendered mute until they learned English. Eventhen, rudimentary English would not allow them to expressconcepts and feelings that they could have expressed inHalkomelem. It was probably years before the pupils couldcommunicate adequately to the priests and nuns at the mis-sion.Both the village enclaves and the school were intendedto be self-sufficient. All food was to be grown there, andall clothing and furniture made there. The traditional113round of seasonal subsistence practised by the Sto:lo meantthat they were usually well-fed, since there was an abun-dance of diverse food in the Fraser Valley. Since thetraditional round did not allow for regular, daily churchgoing, and facilitated contact with the outside world, theOblates encouraged the Sto:lo to farm. Because the farmlandin the Fraser Valley was subject to flooding, and because avariety of other economic opportunities were available, theSto:lo on the reserves practised little agriculture. Howev-er, the children at the school were easier to control andfarmed the land across the river to the south of the mis-sion. School dinners thus consisted of what was harvested:a bland diet of cabbage and potatoes, supplemented with verylittle fish. In effect, the Oblate programme of self-suffi-ciency created a \"famine\" amid plenty.Individual recollections of St. Mary's reflected thepersonal experiences there. Cornellius Kelleher, whosereminisces paint the most complete and lively picture of St.Mary's, apparently enjoyed his years at the school. Howev-er, he did not send his daughter to the school, presumablybecause he felt the education received there had been toofocussed on religion, and not enough on more practicalmatters (Gresko 1986, 101). As well, the death of hissister at the school probably discouraged him from sendinghis child to St. Mary's. Generally speaking, the responseto residential schools was more positive from women than114from men (Fiske 1981, 2). Women learned skills, such assewing, teaching, nursing, knitting, and cooking, thatenabled them to particpate in the Euro-Canadian world,whereas men learned agricultural skills that were based onthe European experience, not on the realities of localclimates, soils and topography (Fiske 1981, 46; 49). Womengained power because of the residential school system, andsome of them became chiefs and village leaders; men losttheir former positions of power and leadership (Fiske 1981,2).It is important to realise that the Sto:lo responses tothe Oblates (and the missionary activities among them) hadclose counterparts elsewhere. All Native bands were affect-ed by missionaries of some denomination. Beverly Bird, aCarrier woman, attended a residential school, and blames itfor a myriad of Native problems such as unemployment, alco-holism and the sense of \"not belonging\" (Bird 1990, person-al communication). In her personal life, the education shereceived made her feel dissatisfied with Native life; shemarried a non-Native, and feels that the subsequent failureof that marriage can also be blamed upon the fact that shedid not belong either to the Carrier or non-Native culture.Kate Greenall, a Gitksan, attended LeJacq School during the1960s (Greenall 1993, personal communication). She hatedthe school, and dismisses the church because of the harmthat was done her culture in the name of religion. Like115Bird, Greenall does not feel that she belongs properly toeither the Gitksan or Euro-Canadian culture. Yet Greenallis also ambivalent, feeling that she \"would have gone no-where\" without the residential school. Whereas, she is now aliasion between the Gitksan and Northwest Community College,she feels that, unschooled, she would have ended up \"fat andmarried\" to the wrong type of person.A story told by Dorothy Robinson, a Nisga'a elder,illustrates the effect of residential schools on Nativelanguages. Just after World War I, she was sent against herwill to residential school (Robinson 1992, personal communi-cation). While there, she was taught English and forgot herfirst language, Nisga'a. After seven years, she returnedhome to her family, all of whom still spoke Nisga'a. Herfather told her one day to cook \"saak\" (oolican) for dinner.Confused, she carried a gunny sack to her auntie and askedhow to cook it. Her auntie laughed, which hurt Robinsons'feelings. Soon after, her father asked for some \"ax\"(water). Finding a hatchet in the backyard, Robinson gaveit to her father. Her father grabbed her hand, dragged herto the water faucet and held her hand under the runningwater, all the while berating her: \" You bad Indian. Whatkind of Indian are you, that you can't speak your own lan-guage?\". Robinson cried and asked her father repeatedly whyhe had let her be sent to the school, if what he wanted wasan \"Indian daughter\".116•The primary and most damaging legacy of the residentialschool system appears to be cultural confusion (which maylead to cultural genocide). By removing children fromNative settings, teaching them elements of another cultureand then letting them return to people and places that wereno longer theirs, the residential school system created anadult who did not feel part of either culture. Nativecultures in British Columbia were irrevocably altered andmany almost destroyed.Two positive legacies of the residential school systemhave been postulated by Whitehead (1988) and Haig-Brown(1988). Whitehead feels that the results of the impositionof English and a set curriculum created a \"pan-Indian Iden-tity\" by breaking down the barriers between bands and givingNatives a common enemy to fight (Whitehead 1988, 62). On asurface level, this \"pan-Indian Identity\" exists and is thusbeneficial to Native concerns. Vocal activists for Nativerights to self-government and their lands were often educat-ed in the residential school system and their ability tointeract with two cultures probably aids their fight forrights that are long overdue. However, individuals reportthat the pan-Indian identity does not always exist in day today contacts: a Nisga'a child reported being persecuted bySto:lo children at school in Vancouver because she \"was adifferent kind of Indian\" (Stephens 1991, personal communi-cation); the Nisga'a and Gityanow are fighting over rights117to the upper Nass River rather than fighting the provincialgovernment for the right to decide the land claims amongstthemselves. While the visible and public pan-Indian identi-ty is a positive result of the residential school system,Whitehead ignores the negative, divisive legacy which haseven resulted in Natives within nations being divided: those(politically incorrect) who enjoyed their experiences versusthose who did not; those who attended a residential schoolversus those who attended a day school on the reserve.Haig-Brown suggests that Native bands are taking con-trol of education partly in reaction to the residentialschool system (Haig-Brown 1988, 117). By 1987, 184 of the196 bands in British Columbia had decided to assume a meas-ure of control over the education of their children (Atleo1990, 10). School District #92 (Nisga'a) is the firstNative-controlled public school district in British Colum-bia. The Superintendent and several other administratorsare the products of the residential school system. Over-whelmingly, their response to that system was negative, yettheir school is essentially Euro-Canadian in organizationand curriculum. However, Nisga'a is the \"second\" languagetaught at the school, and teachers are expected to relatetheir curriculum material to the Nisga'a culture. Thesecondary school in New Aiyansh was built with a number of\"group homes\" surrounding it to house students from Kinco-lith. Each house is under the control of a \"group parent\";118the day is structured into schooltime, mealtimes, chore-times, homework and bedtime. Essentially, the Nisga'a havebuilt their own residential school although, because of thenegative connotations of the term, they prefer not to use it(Anthony 1992, personal communication). In the past year,Kincolith parents have removed their children from thisschool, prefering to send them to nearby Prince Rupert, sothat the parent-child bond is less disrupted. Native educa-tion still has a \"long way to go\" in British Columbia butpast survivors of the residential school system are usingtheir knowledge to regain control of Native learning.The official response of the Oblates to the culturaldestruction that occurred in the Fraser Valley (and else-where in British Columbia) during the latter half of thenineteenth century is that they were motivated by a sincereconcern for the Natives, and that they did the best toensure the spiritual and physical survival of the Natives ina rapidly changing world (Lascelles, 1991: personal communi-cation). Yet their vision of a utopian lifeworld for theSto:lo was naive; a medieval French peasantry could not bereproduced in the Lower Fraser Valley. Students at theirschools were not \"blank sheets\" upon which Roman Catholicismand western thought could be stamped, but children who hadalready learned a Native culture. The Oblates tried toprevent the interaction between the Sto:lo and non-Nativeinstead of working within the societal and economic context119of late nineteenth century British Columbia. The Oblatesshould have realised that cross-cultural contact would occurbecause the need for cash in British Columbia's changingeconomy was growing and because the number of non-Natives inthe area was rapidly increasing. In addition, farming didnot offer a viable alternative to the Sto:lo subsistenceround, whereas fishing, hop picking and labouring did. Forsuch reasons, the Oblate vision was both detrimental to theSto:lo and doomed. Despite protestations to the contrary,it is clear that the Oblates meant to fracture Native cul-ture and then rebuild it; however, the Oblates did protectcertain Metis children who fell between the Sto:lo and whitecultures, and did educate and feed unwanted orphans. Inaddition, their push for the Sto:lo to have land upon whichagricultural enclaves could be built around a church meantthat Seabird Island was protected as a Native reserve andnot made available to non-Natives.In 1858, when he was first formulating the ideas forhis harsh and rigid system, Durieu felt \"happy only in themidst of the Indians. Away from them, I languish; with themI fear neither fatigue nor any sufferance\" (Cronin 1960,57). Yet, despite these feelings, the agricultural enclavesand the schools at St. Mary's resembled the punitive andreform institutions of the same era. However honourablytheir motives may be judged, the Oblates created people whodid not fit into either the white or the Native worlds.120Cultural confusion led to the almost complete eradication ofNative cultures, but recent efforts on the part of Nativeeducators and activists have led to a resurgence in Nativeidentity and the regaining of control over their education.The legacy of the residential schools and other Oblateactivities is mostly negative but Natives are building ontheir experiences as they seek to create a better future fortheir nations.121REFERENCES CITEDAICHER, Father Boniface 1971 \"We Shall Pause to Give Thanks\"St. Mary's 1861-1971 Anniversary PamphletANTHONY, Robert 1992 Personal Communication ASHWORTH, Mary 1979 The Forces Which Shaped Them (Vancouver:New Star Books)ATKINSON, Kathy et al. 1973 As it Was: Mission City andDistrict (Simple Thoughts Press)ATLEO, Richard 1990 A Study of Education in Context (paper presented Sixth B.C. Studies Conference, U.B.C.)BIRD, Beverly 1990 Personal Communication \"BIOGRAPHICAL Information\" 1895 Kamloops WaWa 4 (12)(Oblate Records: Reel 1)BRASSEUR, Virginia (Sister Mary Lumena) 1927 Diary Accountof St. Mary's Mission 1868-1892 trans. Sister MaryTheodore (unpublished manuscript)BUNOZ, E. 1942 \"Bishop Durieu's System\" Etudes Oblates1:193-209CASEY, Leo 1982 Oblates helped found native churches in thearea\" The Advance (November 17): 13, 16, 17CHERRINGTON, John 1974 Mission on the Fraser (Vancouver:Mitchell Press)CHIROUSE, E.C. Jr. 1887 \"Missions dans le District de St.Charles\" O.M.I. Historical Codex 1887-1889 (NewWestminster)CRONIN, Kay 1960 Cross in the Wilderness (Vancouver:Mitchell Press)dePATHMOS, Sister Marie-Jean 1961 A History of the Sistersof Saint Ann Vol. 1 1850-1900 trans. Sister Marie-AnnEva (New York: Vintage Press)D'HERBOMEZ, Louis 1859a \"Letter to de Mazenod, April 6th\"Oblate Records Reel 2: 2235D'HERBOMEZ, Louis 1859b \"Letter to de Mazenod, June 8th\"Oblate Records Reel 2: 2236122'D'HERBOMEZ, Louis 1861 \"Reports Addressed to the MostReverend Father General after the General Chapterof 1861\" Oblate Records Reel 2: 2210-2220D'HERBOMEZ, Louis 1863 Letter to Govenor Douglas (OblateArchives, Series One+, Box 34, File 01)D'HERBOMEZ, Louis 1879 \"Report on the Vicariate of BritshColumbia\" Oblate Records Reel 2: 2246DIMEN-SCHEIN, Muriel 1977 The Anthropological Imagination (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company)DOWN, Sister Mary Margaret 1966 A Century of Service (Victoria: The Sisters of St. Ann)DRIVER, Felix 1984 Geography and Power: The Work of Michel Foucault (Unpublished Paper, Cambridge University)DUFF, Wilson The Upper Stalo Indians of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia (Victoria: British Columbia ProvincialMuseum Memoir 1)DURIEU, Paul circa. 1870 Letter to D'herbomez (OblateArchives, Series One+, Box 34, File 01)FISKE, Joanne 1981 And Then We Prayed Again: Carrier WomenColonialism, and Mission Schools (Unpublished M.A.Thesis, University of British Columbia)FORBES, George 1948 \"Indian Education in British Columbia\"Oblate Missions 2 (14): 11-20FORBES, George 1962 \"The Story of St. Mary's Mission\" OblateMissions 61: 28-30FOUCAULT, Michel 1977 Discipline and Punish (New York:Vintage Books)FOUQUET, Leon circa. 1860 Letter to D'herbomez (OblateArchives, Series One+, Box 34, File 01)GRANDIDIER, C. 1874 Letter to Victoria Newspaper (OblateArchives, Series One+, Box 34, File 01)GREENALL, Kate 1993 Personal CommunicationGRESCO, J.K. 1973 \"Missionary Acculturation Programs inBritish Columbia\" Etudes Oblates 32:144-155123GRESKO, J.K. 1982 \"Roman Catholic Missions to the Indians ofBritish Columbia: A Reappraisal of the Lemert Thesis\"Journal of Canadian Church Historical Society 24 (2):51-62GRESKO, Jacqueline 1983 \"Roman Catholic Indian Brass Bands,1866-1915\" British Columbia Historical News 15 (2): 12-15GRESKO, Jacqueline 1986 \"Creating Little Dominions Withinthe Dominion: Early Catholic Indian Schools inSaskatchewan and British Columbia\" Indian Educationin Canada Vol. 1: The Legacy\" eds. Jean Barman,Yvonne Hebert and Don McCaskill (Vancouver: Universityof British Columbia Press)HAIG-BROWN, Celia 1988 Resistance and Renewal (Vancouver:Tillicum Library)HAIG-BROWN, Celia 1990 Not Listening: Government Officials, Power and First Nations Control of Education inBritish Columbia 1916-1948 (paper presented SixthB.C. Studies Conference, U.B.C.)HILL-TOUT, Charles 1978 The Salish People Volume 3: TheMainland Halkomelem ed. Ralph Maud (Vancouver:Talonbooks)JENNESS, Diamond 1955 The Faith of a Coast Salish Indian (Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum Memoir 3)KELLEHER [a], Cornelius n.d. My Memories of the 1948 Flood (Unpublished manuscript: Provincial Archives of BritishColumbia, Add. Mss. 206)KELLEHER [b], Cornelius n.d. Rough Sketch of Saint Mary'sMission circa.1880 (Oblate Archives, Series One +,Box 41, File #22).KELLEHER, Cornelius n.d. Transcripts of Tapes Made byImbert Orchard (Uncorrected transcripts: OblateArchives, Series One+, Box 41, File #22)KENNEDY, Jacqueline 1969 Roman Catholic Missionary Effortand Indian Acculturation in the Fraser Valley 1860 -1900 (Unpublished B.A. Thesis, University of BritishColumbiaKNIGHT, Rolf 1978 Indians at Work (Vancouver: New StarBooks)124LASCELLES, Thomas 1991 Personal CommunicationLEMERT, Edwin 1954 \"The Life and Death of an Indian State\"Human Organization 13 (3): 23-27LERMAN, Norman Hart 1952 An Analysis of Folktales ofLower Fraser Valley Indians, British Columbia (Unpublished M.A. Thesis: University of BritishColumbia)LERMAN, Norman 1976 Legends of the River People ed. BettyKeller (Vancouver: November House)MARCHAL, C. 1874 \"Letter to Paul Durieu, February 12, 1871\"Missions de la Congregation des Missionaires Oblats de Marie Immaculee 12: 309-312.MATTISON, David 1981 \"On the March: Indian Brass Bands,1866-1915\" British Columbia Historical News 15 (1): 6-14MCKELVIE, B.A. 1945 \"Jason Allard: Fur-Trader, Prince andGentleman\" British Columbia Historical Quarterly9 (4): 243-257MISSION City Baptismal Record 1863-1899 (Oblate ArchivesBooks 284, 285, 286)OBLATES Associated with St. Mary's Mission B.C. n.d. (OblateArchives, Series One +, Box 40, File 8)OBLATE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL 1851-1892 Oblate Provincial Council Deliberations 1851-1892 (Oblate Archives)ORCHARD, Imbert 1983 Growing pp in the Valley: PioneerChildhood in the Lower Fraser Valley (ProvincialArchives of British Columbia, Sound HeritageSeries #40)PANDOSY, Charles 1862 \"Letter to D'herbomez, October 9th,1859\" Missions de la Congregation des Missionaires Oblats de Marie Immaculee 1: 139.PERSSON, Diane 1986 \"The Changing Experience of IndianResidential Schooling: Blue Quills, 1931-1970\"in Indian Education in Canada Volume 1: The Legacyeds. Jean Barman, Yvonne Herbert and Don McCaskill(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press)125PEYTAVIN, E. 1887 \"Letter to McGuckin, February 21, 1887\"Missions de la Congregation des Missionaires Oblats deMarie Immaculge 25: 238-361PIAGET, Jean and INHELDER, Barbel 1969 The Psychology of theChild (Basic Books)PINEAULT, Sister Mary Theodore n.d. St. Mary's Mission, Matsqui British Columbia, 1868 (unpublished typescript)\"RAPPORT du Vicariate de la C-B\" 1898 Missions de laCongregation des Missionaires Oblats de Marie Immaculge36: 245-254.\"RAPPORT sur le Vicariate de la C-B\" 1893 Missions de laCongregation des Missionaires Oblats de Marie Immaculge 31: 385-398REDFORD, James 1979 \"Attendance at Indian ResidentialSchools in British Columbia, 1890-1920\" B.C. Studies 44: 41-56ROBINSON, Dorothy 1992 Personal CommunicationSAINT Ann's Academy 1858-1973 n.d. (Victoria: pamphlet)SAINT Mary's Mission School. Mission City, B.C. 1862-1950 1950 (mongraph)SAINT PETER'S PROVINCE [Oblate Records] Records of theOblate Missions of British Columbia (Ottawa:microfilm reels of records from Oblate HistoricalArchives)STEPHENS, Myrna 1991 Personal CommunicationSTO:LO NATION 1982 Sto:lo Lands Map (Map Prepared forGrade 7 Unit - Contemporary Upper Sto:lo People)SUTTLES, Wayne 1954 \"Post-Contact Culture Change Amongthe Lummi Indians\" British Columbia Historical Ouarterly 18: 29-102SUTTLES, Wayne 1955 Katzie Ethnographic Notes (Victoria:British Columbia Provincial Museum Memoir 2)TATE, C.M. Rev. 1874-1877 Diaries of Reverend C.M. Tate (Unpublished manuscript: Provincial Archives of BritishColumbia, Add. Mss. 303 Vol.2)126WHITEHEAD, Margaret ed. 1988 \"Introduction\" They Call Me Father by Nicolas Coccola (Vancouver: Universityof British Columbia Press)WHITEHEAD, Margaret 1981 The Cariboo Mission (Victoria:Sono Nis Press)127APPENDIX 1: OBLATES of MARY IMMACULATE inBRITISH COLUMBIA, 1895HOUSE of ST. CHARLES, NEW WESTMINSTER (est. 1860)Priests:^Rt. Rev. Paul DurieuRev. Fr. John Mary FayardFrancis John Mary JayolAugust DontenwillNorbert OuelletteBenjamin Joseph DesrochesJohn WhelanFrancis ThomasScholastics:^William WhelanAndrew MichelsLay Brothers: Patrick AllenEdward MacStayJames FlynnLouis ManceauGeorges LajoieEcclesiastical Student: Henry ThayerRESIDENCE of ST. MARY'S MISSION (est. 1861)Priests:^Emile Bunoz (director)Eugene Casimir ChirousePeter Louis RichardPeter DommeauLay Brothers: Maurice MansfieldMichael CunninghamPatrick CollinsRESIDENCE of ST. EUGENE, KOOTENAY (est. 1876)Priests:^Nicolas Coccola (director)Joseph AudicLay Brothers: John BurnWilliam KennyHOUSE of ST. JOSEPH, WILLIAMS LAKE (est. 1867)Priests:^John Mary LeJacq (supervisor)John Dominic ChiappiniJulian BedardCharles DeVriendtLay Brothers: Patrick HarkinsRESIDENCE of OUR LADY of GOOD HOPE, STUART LAKE (est. 1873)Priests:^Georges Blanchet (director)Adrian Gabriel Morice128•HOUSE of ST. LOUIS, KAMLOOPS (est. 1878)Priests:^John Mary LeJeune (supervisor)Alphonsus Mary CarionFrederick GuertinEdmund PeytavinLay Brothers: Philip SurelJohn MulvaneyRESIDENCE of the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (est. Okanagan, 1860)Priests:^Olivarius Cornellier (dir.)Charles MarchalJames WalshLay Brothers: Felix GuilletSecular Priests of the Diocese:H. Emmelin, VancouverA. Lemay, Nelson(Kamloops Wawa 1895, Vol.iv, No. 12).129APPENDIX 2: ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY ASSOCIATED WITH ST. MARY'SMISSIONI)^O.M.I.^at ST. MARY'S MISSION:J. Audic^1893-1900J. Bedard 1897-1900E. Bunoz 1894-96E.C. Chirouse Jr.^1879-1927N.^Coccola^1899-19000. Cornellier^1889-94C. Desrocher 1890-92P. Dommeau 1892-97P. Durieu^1870-73L. Fouquet 1861(founded mission),^1899-1912F. Gendre 1862-66C. Grandidier^1880L. Gregoire 1874-75,^1878M. Hetu^1874-75F. Jayol 1866-67D. Lamure 1868-70J.M. LeJacq^1867-68J.M. LeJeune 1880-82C. Marchal 1868-72A. Martin^1883-88H. Meleux 1898-99E. Peytavin^1874-79,^1886-93Z. Picotte 1896-98P. Plamondon^1898-?P. Richard 1894-99J. Tavernier^1899-1905F. Thomas 1894-97J. Wagner 1899-1901J.J. Whelan^1897F. Villemard 1865-67II) BROTHERS at ST. MARY'S MISSION:P. Collins 1888-1912M. Cunningham 1889-1917H. deVries 1870-71,^1876-81F. Guillet 1862,^1897-99Janin 1861-?P. Harkins 1887-89E. MacStay 1888-90M. Mansfield 1895-99P. Ryan 1869-?,^1877-85C. Verney 1880-87130(Oblate Archives n.d., Series One+, Box 40, File 8).III) SUPERIORS OF ST. MARY'S GIRLS' SCHOOL:Sister Mary Lumena 1868-85Sister Mary Stephen 1885-88Sister Mary Flora 1891-94Sister Mary Alexander 1894-99Sister Mary Stanislaus Kostka 1899-1906(St. Mary's Mission Monograph 1950, n.p.)131APPENDIX 3: OBLATES PERFORMING BAPTISMS in the FRASER VALLEY1861-19001861: Grandidier1862: None recorded.1863: Gendre, Fouquet.1864: Gendre, D'herbomez, Grandidier, Fouquet1865: Gendre, Durieu, Villemard1866: Norris, Jayol, D'herbomez, Grandidier1867: Pandosy, Jayol, Durieu, Baudre, Norris, Lejacq, Fou-quet1868: Pandosy, LeJacq, D'herbomez, Durieu, Richard, Gendre,Chirouse, Marchal, Jolivet, Lamure1869: Marchal, Lamure, Durieu1870: Lamure, Marchal, Durieu1871: Marchal, Durieu, Gendre, Pandosy1872: Durieu, Pandosy, Marchal, Peytavin, Carion1873: Pandosy, Jayol, Carion, Durieu, D'herbomez1874: Durieu, Jayol, Carion, Peytavin, Gregoire, Hocktigre1875: Carion, Gregoire, Peytavin, Jayol, Durieu, Marchal,Durieu1876: Jayol, Carion, Peytavin1877: Jayol, Carion, Peytavin, Durieu, Martin1878: Jayol, Carion, Peytavin, Baudre1879: Peytavin, Jayol, Carion, Gregoire1880: Jayol, Carion1881: Lejeune, Carion, Coccola, Morice1882: Carion, Jayol, Lejeune, Pandosy, Horris, Chirouse1883: Chirouse, Carion, Martin, Peytavin1321884: Chirouse, Peytavin, Martin, Lejeune, Durieu1885: Martin, Peytavin, Coccola, Baudre1886: Chirouse, Peytavin, Martin1887: Martin, Chirouse, Peytavin, Chirouse Sr. (?)1888: Martin, Peytavin, Chirouse Sr., Caron, Chirouse1889: Chirouse Sr., Chirouse, Peytavin, Cornellier1890: Peytavin, Cornellier, Chirouse, Durieu, Chirouse Sr.1891: Cornellier, Peytavin, Chirouse, Hackett (not OMI?)1892: Cornellier, Peytavin, Chirouse, Bunoz1893: Cornellier, Bunoz, Chirouse, Dommeau, Peytavin, Audic1894: Chirouse, Audic, Bunoz, Cornellier, Dommeau, Chiappi-ni, Richard, Thomas1895: Bunoz, Dommeau, Thomas, Chirouse, Richard1896: Dommeau, Chirouse, Moyan (?), Thomas, Richard, Pi-cotte, Whelan1897: Chirouse, Picotte, Dommeau, Thomas, Whelan, Richard,Audic1898: Chirouse, Richard, Bedard, Meleux1899: Bedard, Chirouse, Richard, Meleux, Rohr, Tavernier,Fouquet, Wagner1900: O'Neill, Rohr, Fouquet, Chirouse, Wagner, Peytavin,Bedard, Tavernier, Conan(Mission City Baptismal Record 1861-1900, n.p.).133APPENDIX 4: O.M.I. GRAVEYARD, MISSION CITY, BRITISH COLUMBIAROW 1 (O.M.I. only, from South to North):N.B. The dates given are those written on the gravestone.Lamure, Dennis 1838-1870DeVries Bro. Henry 1828-1881Janine, Bro. Gaspar 1798-1880Durieu, Paul (gravestone has been knocked over and broken)D'herbomez, Louis n.d.Verney, Bro. Celestin 1814-1889Baudre, Julian 1814-1890Chirouse,^E.C.^Sr. 1821-1892LeJacq, J.M. 1837-1899Mansfield, Bro. Maurice 1836-1899Guillet, Bro. Felix 1853-1908Harkins, Bro. Patrick 1840-1907LeJeune, J.M. 1855-1930ROW 2^(O.M.I. only,^from South to North):McGuckin, James 1835-1903Marchal, Charles 1841-1906Jayol, Francis^ 1824-1907Ouellette, Norbert 1837-1907Fouquet, Leon 1831-1912Richard, Peter 1826-1907Surel, Philip^ 1819-1908Flynn, Bro. James 1843-1908Allen, Bro. Patrick^ 1832-1911.Cunningham, Bro. Michael 1832-1917Carion, Alphonse 1848-1917Peytavin, Edmund 1849-1918Brockway, Tom^ 1865-1922Chirouse, E.C. Jr. d.^February 3,1927 ageO'Neill,^J.O. d. May 26,^1928,^age 5473134\""@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; vivo:dateIssued "1993-11"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0098796"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Geography"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "Saint Mary's Mission (Mission City, British Columbia) 1861 to 1900"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1634"@en .