It was a raw, powerful moment that seemed to stop time – a song performed emotionally in Cree to the tune of Canada’s national anthem by an Indigenous woman wearing traditional regalia. In an interview Thursday with CBC News, Si Pih Ko, also known as Trina Francois, said the song’s lyrics were an ancient ballad about the land and the village. Other speakers of the local language have translated it as: “Our creator, keep our holy land, Canada. Our land here, Canada. Our Holy Land.” After singing, to applause and cheers from the crowd in Maskwacis, Alta., Si Pih Ko spoke directly to Pope Francis in Cree, her voice strong in her anguish. “You are hereby served by the oral law. We, the daughters of the Great Spirit and the sovereign members of our race cannot be forced into any law, any treaty that is not the Great Law,” he later translated for CBC News. WATCHES | Si Pih Ko’s message to the Pope:
Si Pih Ko sings in Cree after Pope’s speech in Maskwacis, Alta.
Si Pih Ko, also known as Trina Francois, sang a message in Cree to the tune of the national anthem in an unscripted moment during Pope Francis’ visit to Canada. “We have appointed chiefs in our lands. Govern yourselves accordingly. ‘Hello’ does not mean ‘Thank you’. It means I have nothing else to say,” he told the Pope in Cree. Si Pih Ko had not planned to speak during the ceremony marking the first day of Pope Francis’ “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, but said she had to when the pope was given a headdress and placed it over the his skullcap or his gourd. . To her, this was a sign of disrespect. “Silence is power, but I couldn’t stay silent,” she later told CBC News.
“Took place”
In Edmonton, Métis Sixties Scoop survivor Brenda Hatt watched it all, tears streaming down her face. She said she felt – for the first time – like someone was talking about her. “She put her fist in the air. That’s a very powerful symbolism around the world. She took a stand,” Hutt, 54, said. Scoop survivor Brenda Hatt of the 1960s was one of many people deeply moved by Si Kih Po’s message to the Pope. She said she feels it was a turning point in her own journey to connect with her Métis roots. (Ty Ferguson/CBC) Raised in an English household, Hutt did not learn her traditional language, so she did not understand exactly what was being said. But he said it resonated deeply. “You could feel the passion and the pain in her voice,” he said. “She spoke for a lot of people across Canada, and the fact that she’s a woman is even more powerful.” The moment was shared around the world on social media, with people saying they were shaken to the core, her pain like a knife to the heart. A Twitter reaction to Si Pih Ko’s song performed in Cree during Pope Francis’ visit to Maskwacis. (BSwirlsi/Twitter) One person writes ‘if my heart had a face’ on Twitter in reaction to Si Pih Ko’s emotional song. (quoth_the_rave/Twitter)
“She spoke from her point of view as a woman”
William Elvis Thomas watched proudly from the community of Si Pih Ko on the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, 800 kilometers north of Winnipeg. “I like the fact that he had the courage to say what he said and take a stand for what he believes,” said Thomas, who heads the Nihitho community’s Language and Culture Unit. Thomas knows Si Pich Ko personally and is also fluent in the particular Cree dialect she spoke, “the language of the four winds or four spirits,” which has been passed down by elders living in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. William Elvis Thomas is an elder from the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Man., Si Kih Po’s home community. He knows her personally and said he was proud to see her stand up so strongly for what she believes in. (Karen Pauls/CBC) Thomas said it’s difficult to translate the words precisely into English, but she used the term for Canada’s land, Kakanatahk, which means “that which is sacred.” “She was speaking from her perspective as a woman. She includes herself in the language when she speaks and says that we are like part of a dominant group and we are the women of the group,” Thomas said. The message itself was a rebuke to the Pope, the Catholic Church and the colonial countries of Britain and France, he said. “They had no right to come in and do what they did to displace the traditional ancestral, sacred laws that we had in place,” he explained. “It says that we still have this and that we want it to be respected and that the Pope has to acknowledge that.”
“Speak for many of us”
Back in Edmonton, Brenda Hutt says the message is even more powerful now that she understands it. “She got our point, not only her point, but our point… That we’re still here, that, even through it all, all the hundreds of years of trying to wipe us out in Canada — and I” Don’t say lightly. There was a plan to genocide Canada’s aboriginal people. But you know what? We’re still here.” Hatt said it feels like a turning point in her life. Brenda Hatt as a four-year-old living in a foster home in Alberta as part of Sixties Scoop. She said Si Kih Po’s message resonated deeply with her, even when she didn’t fully understand what was being said. (Courtesy of Brenda Hatt) Taken by her mother from Alberta Social Services when she was just four weeks old, sent to “horrible” foster homes and later adopted at age 13 by a white family, she is trying to connect with her lost Métis heritage. Hutt recently learned that her grandfather was a survivor of the school. “I was living in a foster home where he clearly told me he was going to beat the Indian out of me and I didn’t even know I was Indian or what Indian was. a young age that was something to be ashamed of, that I didn’t look for anything to do with my family background until I was 40,” Hutt said. Hutt isn’t religious and said the Pope’s apology doesn’t mean much to her, though she’s glad he asked all the residential school survivors for forgiveness. However, he will take one thing from his visit this week. “We can’t change what happened and we have to move forward and we have to move forward together,” he said. “And to be part of a group of people who have survived hundreds of years where they shouldn’t have survived is a powerful message. And to stand up, step forward, put your fist in the air and say, ‘We’re still here.’ ‘ How can anyone not be proud of her?’
A mission in progress
Si Pih Ko says she is honored by this response. “I hope it brings people back to the land. Our way of life,” he said. An activist most of her life, Si Pih Ko lives in a teepee as part of a protest camp in the Manitoba legislature. She said that experience gave her more confidence to speak out in her ongoing fight against the child welfare system. “I fought for two years to get my little ones back and it didn’t have to be this way,” she said. “Residential schools continue in the child welfare system, and if I were to ask survivors today, ‘What would you like me to do?’ To talk about the little kids today, who care?’Cause I’ll do whatever it takes. your pain, your words, through me. I’ll do it.’ Support is available for anyone affected by their residential school experience or recent reports. A national crisis line for residential schools in India has been set up to provide support to ex-students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419. Mental health counseling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
