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By Sandra Hale Schulman
News From Indian Country 8-08
 Gut wrenching, confounding, and complex, Rich-Heape Films have released their long awaited documentary titled “Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School.”
A chapter of American history that few know about, this is the searing story of how Indian children were forced – often by their poverty-stricken parents – into boarding schools that were run like Christian military prisons. Once there, the children were stripped of their Native clothing, shorn of their long hair, and punished if they spoke Native languages. They were shamed and abused psychologically, many were abused sexually as well. The effects of the abuse left lasting impressions on the children who often grew up to be abusers themselves.
The skills they were taught denigrated them to lifelong working class
service jobs such as construction, cooking, and sewing. When they
returned to their reservations, they were shunned by their families who
felt the skills they had were useless and did not accept their short
hair and formal dress. Started in the late 1800s, the last school
closed in 1968. Most former students are in their 50-70s, the
administrators are mostly deceased.
The film was released in the beginning of June. On June 10, 2008, the
government of Canada formally apologized to the World, in a solemn
parliament session for its treatment of Indians in the last century.
Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, apologized for previous
governments’ policies of taking Indian children from their parents and
homes and forcing them into residential Roman Catholic schools. The
U.S. government has yet to make a statement.
“How do you apologize to the dead?” asks filmmaker Steven Heape,
Cherokee Nation Citizen and executive producer of Rich-Heape Films.
Yet, despite the harsh treatment, the film shows that many of the
graduates eventually took their newfound knowledge and used it to fight
the system that had attempted to destroy them. The most useful thing
they learned was English as it brought all the various tribal children
– Cherokee, Chicasaw, Cree, Navajo – together in a common language.
When it began in 1879, the philosophy of the Indian boarding school
system was “to kill the Indian and save the man,” the mission statement
of Captain Richard Henry Pratt, founder and superintendent of Carlisle
Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania until 1904.
Jim Thorpe (Sauk and Fox), the iconic hero, survived the boarding
school system and was initially held up as a role model of what the
school could do for a student. Grace Thorpe (Sauk and Fox), his
daughter, in her last interview before she passed away on April 4,
2008, discusses boarding school experiences in the new documentary.
The battle against and the victory over the boarding school monster is
told by educators, former and current students who were interviewed at
Carlisle; Sherman Indian School, Riverside, Calif.; Sequoyah High
School, Tahlequah, Okla.; Anchorage, Alaska; and other locations.
One of the most compelling is an interview with Andrew Windy Boy
(Chippewa/Cree), from which the title is taken. Windy Boy gave the
filmmakers the idea for the documentary. He attended boarding schools
in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and talks about the assault on his
culture.
“[They] took me to the boarding school where I wasn’t allowed to talk
my Native tongue or practice my Native ways. I didn’t know any other
language so whenever I’d talk, it would come out. Cree would come out.
And whenever I’d talk, I’d get hit.”
“We met Andrew Windy Boy in 2002 while on the Summit Lake Paiute
Reservation in northern Nevada,” says Heape. “Andrew’s oral history of
his boarding school experience was the inspiration for this film.
Andrew’s story is not one you will find or hear in the public school
system. He and other survivors of the boarding school system truly have
my respect for what was endured just for being an Indian child. These
kids – 5 year olds – were handcuffed and taken away in buses to the
other side of the country. This is a story that must be told and not
forgotten.”
In addition to Grace Thorpe, participants include Henrietta Mann
(Southern Cheyenne), Ph.D., endowed chair in Native American Studies at
Montana State University – Bozeman, and Daniel R. Wildcat (Yuchi of the
Muscogee Nation), Ph.D., co-director of the Haskell Environmental
Research Studies Center and member of the faculty of American Indians
Studies.
Gayle Ross, renowned Cherokee storyteller and Great Granddaughter of Chief John Ross, is host and narrator of the film.
August Schellenberg narrated the opening introduction statement.
Screenwriter of the film is Dan Agent (Cherokee/Choctaw), former editor
of the Cherokee Phoenix from November 1999 through 2006, original story
by Karl Tipre. With sophisticated photo montages and extensive archival
footage, the film is exceptionally stylish for a documentary.
According to Heape a class action suit was filed by some North Dakota elders against the school system but never went anywhere.
“We are getting the word out about this film through film festivals,
PBS, mass distibution, and any other venue that would benefit from it,”
says Heape. “This story truly crosses borders.”
“Our Spirits Don’t Speak English; Indian Boarding Schools” is the
latest addition to the Native-owned film company’s portfolio of award
winning films, that includes “Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy,”
released in 2006 and chosen “Best Documentary Feature” at the 31st
Annual American Indian Film Festival.
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