Students from St. Patrick's School and Notre Dame Academy participate in a round dance together on Thursday.--NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Students from St. Patrick’s School joined Grade 6 students at Notre Dame Academy on Thursday for an event celebrating Orange Shirt Day and Truth and Reconciliation.
Josh Cross, Indigenous wellness facilitator with the Medicine Hat Catholic board of Education, opened the celebration by explaining smudging and giving a demonstration of how it is done.
Josie Saddleback then performed two jingle dances for the students, explaining her dancing journey and the dances she performed.
After her performance, Saddleback took a few questions from the audience. The first was if her hair, which hangs down almost to her ankles, was real. Saddleback responded by explaining it was half real and half hair ties.
“The hair ties that I’m wearing are actually honour ties. You’ll see lots of female dancers – fancy dancers, jingle dress dancers, traditional dancers – wearing these on their braids at powwows.”
The second question was when Saddleback started teaching Indigenous practices. She started after the unmarked graves were discovered in Kamloops. About that time, she was in a market in Edmonton where she met a seamstress who made jingle dresses and that is where she bought her first dress.
Cross, after describing the Metis sash he was wearing, also took questions from students. The first was why he came here.
“I go to all the nine different schools,” said Cross. “I came here today because I think it’s important to have a voice. For a long time I did not have a voice, so it’s great to have these opportunities I didn’t have growing up.”
Next, he was asked when he started questioning the language.
“Language is a very tricky subject to manoeuvre. There are many reasons why Indigenous people cannot practice their language even today … many of the Indigenous Elders aren’t around anymore to teach the language. Some of the Indigenous Elders lost their language. For me, even though I grew up with a mom who taught me about my Indigenous and Metis culture, I wasn’t that interested. Part of it is the younger generation aren’t interested in learning their own language.”
Cross went on to say accessing resources to learn languages can be difficult, but he has recently started learning his Cree language.
Another student asked about the three flags that were standing in the gym. Along with the Canadian and Alberta flags, the Metis flag was also hanging.
“It is an infinity symbol because it’s all reciprocal, it is all one, we are all equal,” explained Cross, who also told the students the Metis speak their own language, which is a combination of Cree and French.
Cross took several more questions from students before inviting them all onto the gym floor to form a circle. There were so many students that a circle within a circle was needed. With Cross remaining in the middle and Saddleback taking the lead in the outer circle, everyone participated in a round dance together, to the delight of all students.
