“This is not a day of celebration,” said Chief Shelly Loring, of the Simpcw First Nation. “This is a solemn day.”
Neqweyqwelsten school students, teachers, parents, family and friends had walked up the mountain together on Friday, Sept. 28, to gather at the outdoor classroom for the Orange Shirt Day ceremony.
Women clothed in long ribbon skirts drummed and sang ceremonial songs.
The mood was that of mourning as the crowd remembered the children who made it out of the residential school system and those who didn’t.
When Chief Loring spoke to of her people of the significance of the day, it was not without difficulty.
She paused, overcome with emotion, when she spoke of the children who were taken from their families, stripped of their clothing and long hair cut, or even ripped from their heads, because they were made to assimilate.
“Take the Indian out of the child,” she said was the purpose.
A small child ran to her and consoled her with a hug.
Chief Loring smiled and told the people it’s okay to hug, it’s okay to speak the Secwepemcstin language and it’s okay to be who you are.
Tiffany Bowser then stood to share Phyllis Webstad’s story with the children.
She explained that Webstad’s grandmother had bought her a new outfit for her first day at the St. Joseph Mission residential school, near Williams Lake. Webstad had chosen a bright orange shirt.
On her first day of school, however, she was stripped of her clothes and she never saw the orange shirt again.
The colour orange came to signify, for Webstad, the memory of nobody caring how she felt and being treated as if she was worthless.
Bowser said we wear orange on Sept. 30 now, around the time Indigenous children were taken from their families, to recognize the damage done by residential schools.
Margaret Joseph, an elder of the Simpcw First Nation, also addressed her people and spoke of the importance of community and togetherness.
The ceremony concluded with smudging and prayers so sacred and intimate they cannot be photographed.
Then people hugged, cried and even laughed as they slowly made their way back down the mountain to move forward and heal together.
