On a sunny, breezy August afternoon in Mani-Utenam, a reservation on the Quebec coast for the Innu people, a powwow ceremony is under way. Two sets of drummers beat out a steady rhythm while chanting in tandem, as dancers sway in their traditional, colourful regalia, ringing with the sound of small bells attached to their clothing. It is part of Innu Nikamu, one of the largest Indigenous festivals in North America, but this joyful performance is taking place on troubled ground.
This was once the site of a residential school where children were taken away from their families to force them to assimilate to western culture and forget their heritage. Active from the 1800s, such schools were run by the Canadian state and the Catholic church, who would inflict severe punishments on children who spoke their Indigenous languages and practised their customs. Beyond the thousands of traumatised survivors, 3,200 children are documented to have died (unmarked graves have also been discovered), and in 2022, Pope Francis made a “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada to atone on behalf of the church.
