L'INTERVIEWEUR: Pourriez-vous s'il vous plaît dire et épeler votre nom complet pour nous.
NAZAIRE AZARIE BIRD: Okay. My name is Nazaire Azarie Bird; and it’s spelled N-a-z-a-i-r-e A-z-a-r-i-e B-i-r-d.
Q. Merci beaucoup. D'où viens-tu?
R. Je viens du Canada.
Q. Tout de suite. Où se trouve-t-il au Canada?
A. Réserve de Little Red River, au nord de Prince Albert.
Q. Dans quelle école êtes-vous allé?
A. My first few years were in Duck Lake, St. Michael’s School in Duck Lake. I was short-changed a couple of years, but that one we’re working on.
I also went to school in Lebret, Saskatchewan. It’s an Indian Residential School in the Fort Qu’Appelle area.
Q. D'accord. Excellent.
Vous souvenez-vous de quelles années vous étiez là-bas ?
A. Yeah. I went to school —
Cette nouvelle information que nous avons obtenue, je suis allé à l'école en 1938.
Q. D'accord.
A. Yeah. Right up to ’51. In Lebret I was there in ’50-’51.
Q. D'accord.
Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous êtes allé à l'école pour la première fois?
R. Six ans. Ma grand-mère me le disait (parlant la langue maternelle), ce qui veut dire que tu allais à l'école quand tu avais six ans.
Q. D'accord.
A. I’m talking to you in Cree on that one.
Q. Oui. Comment était ta vie avant d'aller à l'école ?
A. Well, we lived in a log house. In them days there was no power, no electricity. All we had was wood, wood stoves, and I used to haul snow to melt for water. The living was pretty good. Being a young kid, when you’re a young child, you know that you’re being loved by your grandparents and your parents.
Mon père est mort quand j'avais quatre ans, j'ai donc été élevé par ma mère et ma grand-mère.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous du premier jour où vous êtes allé à l'école ?
A. Yeah, I remember. The Priest came to the Reserve that day. He used to come on Sundays to say Mass. I told my grandmother that the Priest is here and it’s time for me to go to school. But everything was spoken in Cree. So I slapped on my moccasins, my little rubbers, my hand-sewn pants, my hand-sewn shirt and hand-sewn jacket and I had a little fur hat. But that was thrown away before I hit the Residential School because the boys would be laughing at me wearing a little fur hat, eh.
Quand je suis arrivé à l'école, je n'ai rencontré qu'une bande de petits garçons, des gars de ma taille. C'était le début du pensionnat.
Q. Qu'avez-vous ressenti en partant ?
A. Well, I didn’t feel too bad because I was one of the guys that wanted to learn, more than A, B, C, D, and more than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That’s the reason why I think that I went.
Q. Quand vous y êtes arrivé, comment s'est passé votre arrivée à l'école ?
A. Well, it was different. It was a big building and there was a lot of commotion and boys around. We didn’t have that back on the Reservation.
Quoi d'autre?
Q. Comment étaient les professeurs ?
R. Les professeurs ?
Q. Hum-hmm.
A. Well, to be honest with you, sometimes I didn’t know because I never spoke English. I didn’t understand anything what they were saying, but there were guys that understood English and they talked to me in Cree and that’s what the Sister said. From then on I followed along.
Q. Pensaient-ils que vous pouviez parler cri?
A. Well, they had no alternative. It’s all the language I knew. And I think most of the boys, too, they spoke Cree.
I just want to make a comment on that. There’s a lot of people who said they weren’t allowed to speak Cree. I don’t know what school that was, but the school I was at, everybody spoke Cree.
Q. Oh, d'accord.
A. Maybe somebody else afterwards looking at the school maybe those guys weren’t telling the truth. But that’s the truth. That’s the way it was.
Q. D'accord. Et aviez-vous un uniforme quand vous y êtes allé
R. Non ; pas d'uniforme. L'uniforme n'existait pas. Je pense qu'ils m'ont donné un autre ensemble de vêtements, après avoir enlevé mes vêtements indiens.
Q. Étiez-vous autorisé à rentrer chez vous pendant les étés?
A. Yeah. We were allowed two months out of twelve months; two months out of twelve months, and you were only allowed to stay twenty-two —
En onze ans, vous n'étiez autorisé à rester que vingt-deux mois dans la réserve à partir de l'école, et le reste du temps au pensionnat.
Q. Wow.
A. Yeah. I lost a lot of my culture that I was supposed to have. I lost it at the Residential School. My grandfather used to make Sun Dances. But I used to go and watch. They used to sing, like the Native people are singing today, but I didn’t pick it up because I didn’t stay long enough on the Reserve to pick it up.
But if you want me to sing, I’ll sing a song for you in Latin!
Q. Oh my goodness. I’m very tempted to ask you to do that. (Laughter)
A. Oh, no, don’t.
Q. I’m just joking. You said you had some pictures that you wanted to show.
A. Ouais.
Q. Voulez-vous les montrer maintenant ?
R. Oui. Suis-je toujours devant la caméra ?
Q. Oh yeah, you’re still on camera.
A. Sacré fume.
Q. Don’s good. He’s got this going the whole time.
A. I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures.
Q. Voulez-vous aller chercher un couple ?
A. Comment puis-je les montrer ?
INTERVENANT NON IDENTIFIÉ : Tenez-les simplement comme ça (en indiquant).
R. Oh, d'accord.
Autre chose, j'ai été stationné en Allemagne pendant deux ans, en tant que parachutiste, dans ma jeunesse. Au moment où je suis revenu de là, j'étais allemand, parce que je parlais allemand.
Q. Oh, wow.
A. If somebody wants to —
Nous avions l'habitude de nous entraîner dans nos casernes à parler allemand.
Attendez, accrochez-vous les gars.
Q. D'accord.
A. By the time I got out of the Armed Forces as a paratrooper I put in forty-three parachute jumps. We used to jump in the various parts of Western Canada, like Wainwright. We made a lot of jumps in Wainwright and we made jumps in Cold Lake, Alberta. And then we went to Nome, Alaska in ’62 in the winter time. The snow was —
Il y avait beaucoup de neige et il faisait froid. On a fait un saut à Nome puis on a fait de l'exercice pendant vingt-huit jours avec les Américains. Nous testions les armes, les nouvelles armes dont ils disposaient, le 7,62 millimètres, tirions les armes, voyions comment elles réagiraient par temps froid.
Et puis en 1963, nous avons sauté à Tanner Cross, en Alaska, et nous y sommes restés encore vingt-huit jours pour une manœuvre avec les Américains. Ils testaient leurs motoneiges, quelle que soit la machine qui se déplace sur la neige, ils les testaient. Nous sommes allés environ quarante-huit gars sur cet exercice.
Quoi d'autre?
Q. En avez-vous qui concernent votre pensionnat?
R. Pas sur cette photo.
Q. En avez-vous dans votre groupe de photos ?
A. Ouais.
Q. Those are the ones that we’re most keen to see.
A. I’ll show you.
Q. I’d like to see all of them. Maybe after.
A. The picture I want to show you, he went to Vietnam. He was part of the Airborne. There’s an Airborne outfit in the States, this guy here. His name is Stanley Lapointe. He’s from Muskeg Lake Indian Reserve.
After we got out he went to the States to join the American Army and he was in the Airborne outfit. He got shot twice while he was in Vietnam. Every time a guy got shot over there, he got a Purple Heart. I guess that’s one of the highest ranks they got.
Et l'autre est de Cardston, en Alberta. Je pense qu'il est allé à l'école aussi, quelque part. Il s'appelle Don Mills.
Est-ce que c'est ça?
Q. Ouais. Bien.
Je veux en savoir plus sur toi à l'école, sur ton expérience là-bas. On dirait que les choses étaient plutôt bonnes. Avez-vous aimé aller à l'école?
A. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know too much about the first years because of the lack of language. My English wasn’t —
J'ai eu du mal à comprendre mais finalement je l'ai fait.
Après un certain temps, j'ai bien fait, à l'exception des quelques difficultés que nous avons subies de la part de certains superviseurs et des prêtres. C'étaient les seules choses qui gâtaient un jeune enfant.
Dois-je vous raconter l'expérience que j'ai eue ?
Q. Ouais.
A. The worst one of all…
It seems like when a person is being picked on by somebody, I think I was one of them, we were coming out of the mess hall and I slipped a piece of bread here in my shirt. As I’m walking out the priest was at the door waiting for me because the priests used to sit way at the front out there and he’s asking me, “What have you got there?” I told him I got a bread. He just took it. And he says, “You go into that…”
There’s a cubicle where they had the recreational equipment.
So I went in there. I didn’t know I was in trouble. I think I was in trouble but I wasn’t too sure until he came in with the strap. You know, one of them straps that was this wide and about this thick and about this long (indicating). He had a good grip on it. So he says, “Take your pants off.” So I took my pants off. “Take your shorts off.” So I took my shorts off. “Now you kneel there.” So I knelt down with my bare ass.
La prochaine chose que je sais, c'est que j'ai eu le premier. Le premier a vraiment frappé. Il frapperait vraiment, finirait, vous savez. Vous savez comment ils finissent. Six fois. A cette époque, j'avais environ onze ans. A la première sangle tu pleures. En attendant, je pense qu'il m'a frappé plusieurs fois sur mon pénis quand il m'a attaché. Je l'ai dit à mes avocats et ils n'ont jamais rien fait à ce sujet.
Anyways, that’s what happened there. That was the worst one of all I got.
Q. Wow.
A. And then I couldn’t sit down. You know them welts, I must have got them. When I was sitting I had to actually sit kind of sideways, you know. That was the worst experience I had. I never thought I would get strapped like that.
Mais en attendant, je commençais aussi à apprendre un assez bon anglais, hein. J'avais onze ans.
The other one —
Another one who used to pick on me was a supervisor. I’m going to mention his name. His name is Alfonse Reikers (ph.). He’s from Humboldt, Saskatchewan. He used to be a supervisor there. He’s one of these people, I think he was a red neck, or some dam bloody thing like that. He used to walk straight, like a big shot.
So one day I got him riled up. I don’t know what I did, but he made me stand right against the wall. I was standing there and the next thing I know, he’s going to punch me like this (indicating). I slid down and he hit the cement wall. He bruised his —
If I would have stood there, if I hadn’t moved, he would have punched me right in the nose, or somewhere around here and probably broken my nose. But anyways, I slid down. And then he grabbed me and he took me to the principal at that time, who was Father Latour (ph.). George Marie Father Latour was the principal at that time. They went into the office and they shut the door. They were talking. They were talking for a while. “I don’t know what kind of lie is that”, the supervisor said. But anyways he went out and the priest told me, he says, “Roll up your sleeve.” So I rolled up my sleeve. “You look up that way.” So I looked up that way. Two times he strapped me here (indicating). “On the other side now.” Two times here, too.
You know them buggars, when a fella is going to strap somebody they really wind up, too, like that. That’s probably what they did, eh. That’s the second time.
Another time we were doing exercises in the school Play Room. Mr. Reikers (ph.), that’s the same guy who punched me, he says, “You come out in the front here and do that.” I told him, “No.” You know, that guy just wind up and slapped me right across the face.
Q. Sans raison ?
A. I told him I didn’t want to do it. Let somebody else do it, eh. But he was picking on me, this guy. I went and sat down on the bench crying. That was one of the worst ones there is. People like that I don’t know why they made us suffer. I had experiences that I never had on the Reserve. I picked them all up from the White people at the school I went to. Indians don’t do that, back in them days when you were a young kid. Your parents look after you, or whoever is looking after you.
Yeah, that’s one of the —
Another time, another worst one of all, not the worst one but one of them. In the spring time I lost one of my rubbers. You know when the snow is melting and there’s water. I lost one of my rubbers. That supervisor sent me out. He said, “You go and look for it.” That’s that same Mr. Reikers (ph.). So I went out looking and I couldn’t find it.
We had a barn where they kept the cattle and horses. I seen this Father, Father Latour coming. They had a rail along the school yard and I was standing there with my foot up like this (indicating). I had no rubber. He seen me but he just kept on going. That guy, he was supposed to be a man of God but he didn’t even come and talk to me, or ask me, but he never did. He kept on walking.
So that same night I was up in the Infirmary in a bed, sick with pneumonia. That Sister that looked after me, Sister (something) she says that she kneeled down and prayed for me. I was there for —
I didn’t know nothing for four days. Then I finally came out of it. Then she came out with a bowl of soup and a toast because that’s the first time I was going to eat something in four days. It really went good, eh. So that was one of the times.
That’s neglect. Because of the Father, and the supervisor, they didn’t look after us. They would rather see you —
Ils nous intimidaient la plupart du temps, je suppose.
Q. Waouh. Je voulais te demander. Quand vous êtes allé à l'école Lebret, pourquoi avez-vous changé d'école de St. Michaels à Duck Lake?
A. I’ll give you the reason why. In 1948-49 we won the Provincial Midget Championship at St. Michael’s School in Duck Lake.
Q. Pour le hockey?
R. Oui. Nous avons battu toutes les équipes blanches cette année-là en Saskatchewan, à l'âge Midget.
The reason why I went to Lebret is I was a hockey player and they wanted two hockey players at Lebret. At that time it was Juvenile age next to Midget, and then Juvenile, so that’s the reason why I went to Lebret.
Voulez-vous le prendre à nouveau en photo?
INTERVENANT NON IDENTIFIÉ : Hum-hmm.
A. That’s me (indicating). I was sixteen years old at that time, fifteen or sixteen.
INTERVENANT NON IDENTIFIÉ : signalez-vous à nouveau.
R. Celui-ci ici.
That’s the reason I went to Lebret. They wanted hockey players.
Q. Comment avez-vous aimé Lebret ?
A. Oh, Lebret, that’s another new experience because I didn’t know the guys. But they all accepted me when they seen me get on the ice and they know that I was a hockey player so I got along with everybody.
Q. Comment étaient les professeurs ?
R. Lebret était bon. Je faisais ma 9e année à Lebret. C'était une bonne école. Les gars m'ont accepté comme l'un des gars. Je jouais aussi au baseball à cette époque. Je m'entendais bien avec eux les gars. J'ai fait l'équipe de baseball.
Lebret at that time, too, had a band. So that one guy he says, “Here, you play these drums, these snare drums.” I didn’t know how. But I used to play the snare drums in that band. I’ve got a picture of that back at home from Lebret.
Q. Wow.
A. Ouais.
Q. Après avoir terminé Lebret, est-ce peu de temps après que vous avez rejoint l'armée ?
R. Oui. J'ai quitté l'école pendant trois ans, puis je me suis enrôlé dans l'armée canadienne.
Q. Qu'avez-vous fait pendant ces trois années ? Êtes-vous rentré chez vous ?
A. Yeah. I stayed home. I looked after my grandmother. I used to haul water for them, chop wood for them. We were still using wood. They used to have a coal oil lamp. I used to look after them. And then I had to leave them because I wasn’t —
I wanted to advance myself. I had a feeling I had to advance myself. I didn’t want to live on the Reserve all my life, not like the ones back at home. They were living on the Reserve all their lives. They hardly went anywhere, them people.
Mais moi, j'ai vu le pays, j'ai vu le monde. J'ai vu l'Allemagne. J'ai vu Copenhague, Danemark. J'ai vu Amsterdam, Hollande. Et à l'époque du hockey, je suis allé à Santa Rosa, en Californie et à San Francisco, et nous sommes allés jouer dans cette arène à Saint-Pétersbourg, en Floride. Nous avions une équipe de hockey appelée les Wagon Burners. Les gars étaient les meilleurs, les meilleurs joueurs de la Saskatchewan; pas le meilleur mais ils ont sélectionné le meilleur pour aller jouer pour les Wagon Burners. Fred Sasakamoose
— Trancriber’s note: Fred Sasakamoose was listed on the Chicago Blackhawks website as a former player.
était là à ce moment-là. Il a joué dans la LNH avec les Blackhawks de Chicago. Il y avait un gars du nom de Ray Ahenakew (ph.), il jouait pour les Quakers de Saskatoon, hockey senior.
Q. Waouh. Est-ce que tu t'es marié?
A. Yeah, I got married in my last two years in the Armed Forces. I met my wife in North Battleford. That’s the time when they used to have fairs. Nowadays they call them exhibitions. I met her in the Fair Grounds.
Q. Avez-vous eu des enfants avec elle ?
A. Yeah, but not right away. We went together for two years and eventually we got married. Her name is Eliza Big Ears. So I went and registered. That summer I got married I went and registered in the office. You know, in the Army they’ve got an office and I told them. The lady there, I said, “I got married.” So that lady came and gave me an interview. “What’s your wife’s name?” Elizabeth Big Ears. All them secretaries, they laughed. It sounded funny, I guess.
Q. Surtout de la part d'un type si drôle !
A. It was a funny name, I guess. So that’s what happened.
Out of that marriage I got four sons. One of the guys I talked to is the youngest one. He’s working in Utah. Cameron Bird is his name. And I’ve got two daughters.
Q. Avez-vous aussi des petits-enfants ?
A. I’ve got a few. I don’t know how many. I don’t keep track. My wife keeps track of that.
Q. Avez-vous l'impression que vous deviez guérir de vos expériences au pensionnat, ou étiez-vous à peu près bien?
R. Excusez-moi ?
Q. Avez-vous senti que vous deviez guérir de vos expériences au pensionnat, ou aviez-vous l'impression que vous alliez bien et que vous continuiez simplement votre vie?
A. No. Because of the beatings and the strappings, your mind kind of —
When I was growing my family I used to kind of slap my kids around, too, because I got slapped around in Residential School. You know, that’s the worst thing. I feel sorry for what I did to my kids. Not all the time, but once in a while. It’s because of the way they treated us at the Residential School. It was their fault.
Une autre chose est que j'avais l'habitude de boire. J'ai bu beaucoup. Ma femme dit qu'elle était enceinte une fois et que c'était de la neige épaisse. Aujourd'hui, ça me fait mal, ça me fait mal. J'ai mal ici (indiquant). Elle avait l'habitude d'aller couper du bois alors qu'elle était enceinte dans la neige profonde. Elle m'a dit que. Garçon, je me sentais mal.
I never used to drink. In the Residential School you couldn’t drink. But when we left the Residential School most of us, the majority of us I think drank.
It also seems that the people getting lots of money are the ones that have been in jail and never worked at one steady job in their lifetime. They’re the ones that are getting lots of money. I might as well brag about myself. I’m the guy that works all my life. When I go to apply for that CPP, whatever you call them lawyers —
All they paid me was —
Tout ce que j'ai obtenu était $1,102 après leur avoir raconté toutes mes expériences de 1999. J'ai raconté mes expériences et tout ce qu'ils m'ont donné était $1,102. Vous savez, ces gens vont gagner un tas d'argent s'ils font un livre et le vendent. Ils veulent gagner de l'argent avec ça, gagner de l'argent avec nous. Mais pas maintenant. Mais dans une vingtaine d'années, ils le feront.
What do you call that lawyer in Saskatoon? I can’t think of his name right offhand. But anyways, that’s the way it was.
Q. Can I ask you one more question, because you talked earlier about you don’t drink any more. How long has it been since you’ve had a drink?
A. I’ve been sober for thirty-four years now. I quit smoking in 1967, so I don’t know how many years that would be.
Q. Beaucoup.
A. Ouais.
Q. That’s all the questions I have. Do you have anything else you want to share? Our tape is about to run out, so if you do, hold onto that thought. We could put in a new tape if you want us to.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We’ve got about two minutes.
Q. D'accord.
A. This training that people are giving, it’s good for people that are there. But what about the other people that are not there. They should be here listening, too. They’re the ones that need most of it. They want to hear. They want to listen to what’s happening. And there’s some of them back at home. They went to Residential School. They’ve never been to anything like this. This is about the fourth one for me to attend this kind of a thing.
Q. En parlez-vous aux gens ?
R. Oui, de retour à la maison, j'essaie de leur dire.
Q. Eh bien, nous apprécions vraiment que vous ayez raconté votre histoire. Vous aiderez beaucoup de gens.
A. Yeah. Also back at home I’m a farmer, too. I’ve been farming for eighteen years.
Q. Oh wow. Que cultivez-vous ?
A. Du blé et de l'orge, et parfois des mauvaises herbes !
Q. Ah ouais. Je les ai dans mon jardin.
A. Pas le genre que vous fumez !
Q. Me? (Laughter) I’m scandalized.
A. I guess that’s it for me.
Q. You’re done. Thank you very much.
A. There’s one more thing I forgot to mention.
Q. D'accord.
A. This happened in Residential School. See this elbow? I never got compensated for that. They never give me nothing for that. This finger here, is just about dead now. Look at the finger on the other one. One is bigger and one is shorter. This one is getting shorter and this one’s got a big bone. I broke that in school. I’m not getting compensated for this. I’ve been asking. You’ve got to re-apply, they told me. That’s that lawyer. I told them about it but they didn’t give me nothing. They say that people like this with broken —
They get so many thousands of dollars and me all I got was $1,000 out of the whole deal, eh. So they tell me I could re-apply but I don’t know how I’ll make out. So that’s about it for me.
Q. Mon Dieu. Eh bien, bonne chance pour tout. Et merci beaucoup.
A. Things will be all right. I’ll be seventy-six in May.
Q. I can’t believe you’re seventy-six. You look good, may I say.
A. Thank you. That’s it.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That’s it.
— End of Interview