After two years of horror stories about alleged mass graves of Indigenous children in residential schools across Canada, a series of recent excavations at suspicious sites have turned up no human remains.
Some academics and politicians say it is further proof that the stories are unproven.
Minegoziibe Anishinabe, a group of indigenous people also known as the Pine Creek First Nation, excavated 14 sites in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church, near Pine Creek Residential School in Manitoba, over four weeks this summer.
The so-called “anomalies” were first detected using ground-penetrating radar, but on August 18, Chief Derek Nepinak of the remote Pine Creek Indian Reservation said no remains were found.
He also referred to the effort as the “initial dig,” leading some who were skeptical of the original claims to think that even more is planned.
“I don’t like to use the word hoax because it’s too strong, but there are also too many falsehoods circulating on this topic without any evidence,” Jacques Rouillard, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Montreal, told The Associated Press. Post Wednesday.
Chief Derek Nepinak of the Pine Creek Indian Reservation said no human remains were found during a recent excavation in the basement of a church near a residential school.
However, he welcomes further excavations due to the enormous adverse publicity and stain left on Canada after the first reports of the alleged mass graves.
“All of this has been very dark for Canada. We need more excavations to be able to know the truth,” Rouillard said. “Too much was said and decided before there was any proof.”
In May 2021, leaders of the British Columbia Band of First Nations, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, announced the discovery of a mass grave containing more than 200 Indigenous children detected by ground-penetrating radar at a residential school in British Columbia . Radar found “anomalies” in the ground but there is no evidence of actual human remains.
James C. McCrae, former Manitoba attorney general, resigned from his position on a government panel in May after writing about his skepticism about some of the claims about dead children buried in residential schools.
“We had knowledge in our community that we were able to verify. As far as we know, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” Rosanne Casimir, head of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, said in a statement on May 27, 2021 (Casimir did not return a call from The Post this week).
The band named the discovery “Le Estcwicwéy̓”, or “the missing”.
Pine Creek and Kamloops were part of a network of residential schools across Canada, run by the government and operated by churches from the 1880s to the late 20th century. Experts say that approximately 150,000 children attended the schools.
The grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where some believe indigenous students may be buried, although no excavations have been carried out.REUTERS
But until last week no excavations had been carried out at the supposed burial sites. No excavations have yet been carried out in Kamloops nor have any dates been set for the start of such work.
That did not stop many in Canada from painting a demonic picture of residential schools and those who staffed them.
“The system forcibly separated children from their families for long periods of time and prohibited them from recognizing their Indigenous heritage and culture or speaking their own languages,” according to the University of British Columbia’s First Nations and Indigenous Studies website. .
A makeshift memorial was established at the site of the former Kamloops school.REUTERS
Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief RoseAnne Archibald told the BBC in August 2021 that the residential schools policy was “designed to kill, and we are seeing evidence of that…”
Within days of the Kamloops announcement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decreed, partly at the request of tribal leaders, that all flags on federal buildings fly at half-mast. The Canadian government and provincial authorities pledged about $320 million to fund more research and in December pledged another $40 billion related to settlements of First Nations child welfare claims that partially compensate some residential school attendees.
Pope Francis issued a formal apology on behalf of the Catholic Church, which runs many of the residential school facilities, and asked for God’s forgiveness.
A statue of Egerton Ryerson, the original architect of Canada’s residential schools, was vandalized after allegations of mass graves.SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Several writers, academics and politicians such as Rouillard have warned against the claim that hundreds or thousands of children are buried at the school, but have been labeled “genocide deniers”, although many of the skeptics do not question those conditions. in schools were often harsh.
“The evidence does not support the appalling blanket narrative presented around the world for several years, a narrative for which verifiable evidence has been scant or nonexistent,” wrote James C. McCrae, former attorney general of Manitoba, in an essay published on last year.
McCrae resigned from his position on a government panel in May after his views on residential schools outraged indigenous groups and other activists and politicians.
Students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1937. Residential schools in Canada are alleged to have forcibly separated indigenous children from their parents and refused to allow them to speak their native languages. irshdc.ubc.ca
Tom Flanagan, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary, told The Post on Wednesday that he sees the problem as a “moral panic” similar to the hysteria over repressed memories and alleged satanic cults in U.S. schools in 1980s and 1980s. 90s.
“People believe things that are not true or improbable and continue to believe them even when no evidence appears,” Flanagan said. “People seem to redouble their conviction that something happened.”
Eldon Yellowhorn, a professor and founding chair of the indigenous studies department at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, told The Post last year that he, too, was cautious about the veracity of some of the more charged claims.
Yellowhorn, a member of the Blackfoot Nation, had been hired by Canada’s powerful Truth and Reconciliation Commission to search and identify graves of indigenous children in residential schools. But he later said that many of the graves he found came from royal cemeteries and it was not clear how they died.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn