WEBVTT 00:00:09.426 --> 00:00:12.429 My name is Helen Hester and I am from Waskaganish. 00:00:12.554 --> 00:00:18.601 I will talk about the times when I was still very active. 00:00:18.601 --> 00:00:22.897 It was not an easy time. This is what I think. 00:00:23.690 --> 00:00:26.359 We were living inland from here. 00:00:26.359 --> 00:00:33.992 I lived with my parents and with other people when we got to the area to hunt and trap inland. 00:00:33.992 --> 00:00:39.789 My uncle was there but he went further up the river. 00:00:39.789 --> 00:00:44.961 My uncle had an accident and he and my father went to the post. 00:00:44.961 --> 00:00:59.517 When they got back, my uncle left again to his camp, up the river from the bridge that this there now. 00:00:59.976 --> 00:01:02.979 We lived further down the river. 00:01:02.979 --> 00:01:04.773 This is where we spent our spring. 00:01:04.773 --> 00:01:10.945 There was my father, my mother, two of my younger siblings plus two young children. 00:01:10.945 --> 00:01:20.663 One of the girls was now older but I don’t remember how old, maybe three years old. 00:01:20.663 --> 00:01:23.500 These two girls also lived with us. 00:01:24.084 --> 00:01:25.877 My mother and the girl got sick. 00:01:25.877 --> 00:01:31.758 They got the sickness that was going around that spring. They had fevers every night. 00:01:31.758 --> 00:01:38.264 I did not sleep for one whole week because I had to take care of them. 00:01:38.264 --> 00:01:43.770 I spent the whole week just taking care of them, keeping the fire going all night. 00:01:43.770 --> 00:01:48.733 I used to help them take off their soaked clothes and rinse them off with warm water 00:01:48.733 --> 00:01:51.111 in the washtub which I had brought inside. 00:01:51.111 --> 00:01:53.988 I then would hang them up to dry inside the lodge. 00:01:55.031 --> 00:01:59.828 I would help them put them back on when they dried from being soaked from their overheated bodies. 00:01:59.828 --> 00:02:05.250 I never used any kind of medication while I was taking care of them. 00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:10.547 When morning came, then I would head out 00:02:10.547 --> 00:02:15.343 because one of my siblings was capable of keeping the fire going inside our lodge. 00:02:15.343 --> 00:02:26.604 I took my older younger brother with me to help get wood and carry it home on our backs in a bundle. 00:02:26.604 --> 00:02:35.196 Then I could carry on keeping the stove burning all and every night while they were sick. 00:02:35.196 --> 00:02:40.201 Later they got better. 00:02:40.869 --> 00:02:47.292 The only medicine we had was bear grease. I used to rub this grease on them. 00:02:47.292 --> 00:02:51.880 For us who were well and could eat, 00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:56.092 we would be encouraged to eat bear grease with our dried meat. 00:02:56.092 --> 00:03:04.309 We used to eat it with moose meat I had cut in slices and rabbits that I had dried and smoked 00:03:04.309 --> 00:03:09.355 in the teepee which I had set up. 00:03:09.355 --> 00:03:15.904 I hardly slept during the day. 00:03:15.904 --> 00:03:24.704 Later on my uncle in my father’s side and his family came to our camp by canoe 00:03:25.955 --> 00:03:29.334 and by this time my mother and the young girl had already gotten better. 00:03:29.334 --> 00:03:37.300 My uncle on my mother’s side had set muskrat traps. 00:03:37.300 --> 00:03:42.305 They could not get to their traps because our canoe was too large to manoeuver to these areas. 00:03:42.305 --> 00:03:44.891 With a smaller canoe, we would have been able to. 00:03:44.891 --> 00:03:52.565 He told us not to try and that we should just go on our way to the post. 00:03:52.565 --> 00:03:56.069 He told us our canoe would be too heavy and get stuck in the shallow parts of the streams. 00:03:56.069 --> 00:03:58.655 So we left the traps where they were set. 00:03:58.655 --> 00:04:03.076 When my uncle came down the river and saw the traps had not been checked, 00:04:03.076 --> 00:04:08.331 he knew right away that something was wrong. 00:04:08.331 --> 00:04:12.126 The fur on the muskrat had bald patches because the traps had not been checked 00:04:12.126 --> 00:04:16.839 and the muskrat had been underwater for far too long. 00:04:18.216 --> 00:04:20.802 When my mother and the young girl got sick, 00:04:20.802 --> 00:04:25.098 I didn’t sleep for a whole week and I had to do all the work myself. 00:04:26.099 --> 00:04:32.105 During this epidemic, many elders who stayed at the settlement died from this. 00:04:32.105 --> 00:04:37.944 The elders were the most affected, not many children got sick. 00:04:38.611 --> 00:04:46.786 The sickness caused them to constantly perspire during the night and they had awful headaches. 00:04:48.162 --> 00:04:52.583 This is how the sickness affected them. 00:04:53.793 --> 00:05:00.883 They did not have any coughing but had high fever and perspired even at night during the whole time. 00:05:01.134 --> 00:05:09.183 People today have so much food to eat. Long ago, this was not the case. 00:05:09.183 --> 00:05:15.023 This is what I remember, when people had no food to eat. 00:05:15.023 --> 00:05:24.324 The manager at the store never gave anyone food if they did not have furs to trade. 00:05:24.324 --> 00:05:36.336 My father always took care of his grandmother and she stayed with us wherever we were. 00:05:37.378 --> 00:05:47.638 He told her they would go to a place called ‘Nuutimaasaanaahch’ where they could catch fish. 00:05:47.638 --> 00:05:50.016 Many fish can be harvested here in the fall. 00:05:50.016 --> 00:05:59.192 There, people would collect the fish they caught in the summer and do this again in the fall. 00:05:59.192 --> 00:06:17.794 My father would harvest these fish in the fall after salting them and keep them in a wooden barrel 00:06:17.794 --> 00:06:22.715 which was as big as an oil drum. 00:06:23.007 --> 00:06:28.137 My uncle on my mother’s side would camp up the river at a place called ‘Kaapeshii’. 00:06:28.137 --> 00:06:33.810 Here they had a hard time finding food and hardly had anything to eat. 00:06:34.477 --> 00:06:39.857 As for us, we had fish to eat and even bannock. 00:06:39.857 --> 00:06:51.702 The two elder women used to get welfare so we always had flour, sugar and tea. 00:06:51.702 --> 00:06:54.372 Our family also had a bit of these from the store. 00:06:54.622 --> 00:07:04.841 We would have bannock only in the morning and the rest of the time, we had fish to eat. 00:07:04.841 --> 00:07:10.513 My mother would make smoked fish and dried fish to make pemmican. 00:07:11.180 --> 00:07:15.017 After she pounded the fish into powder, 00:07:15.017 --> 00:07:24.652 she would add a bit of water and sprinkle sugar on it and this is what she would feed us. 00:07:24.652 --> 00:07:29.449 This is what we ate while we lived in this area. 00:07:29.449 --> 00:07:38.416 Later, people who lived up the river came to us and told us they had no food to eat. 00:07:38.416 --> 00:07:42.253 Of course my father gave him some fish. 00:07:42.253 --> 00:07:47.508 He kept on trying to catch fish and his mother used to tell him to try 00:07:47.508 --> 00:07:50.803 and not to put his hands in cold water too much. 00:07:50.803 --> 00:07:54.098 He caught lots so he made a cache and lay the fish on top. 00:07:54.098 --> 00:08:00.146 He would put them on boughs and make alternate layers of fish and boughs. 00:08:00.146 --> 00:08:03.691 This is where he kept the fish after we gutted them without removing the scales. 00:08:03.691 --> 00:08:10.114 He would lay the fish side by side on boughs and cover them with boughs 00:08:10.114 --> 00:08:13.659 and put more fish on top and the boughs again. 00:08:15.036 --> 00:08:22.001 These were the fish he shared with the people who came and said that they had no food to eat. 00:08:23.169 --> 00:08:28.174 This is how life was for us in the olden days. 00:08:28.174 --> 00:08:32.053 We never had too much of anything. 00:08:32.386 --> 00:08:40.520 Not like today, when people have so much of everything. 00:08:40.520 --> 00:08:45.149 When I talked about the woman who had a baby and had passed away soon after… 00:08:45.149 --> 00:08:50.780 we had such a hard time with the young children she left behind. 00:08:50.780 --> 00:08:57.078 The boy was already ten years old and the two others, a girl and a boy, were still very young. 00:08:57.954 --> 00:09:02.250 The baby she had was also a girl. 00:09:02.250 --> 00:09:16.722 The children were on our side of the lodge and when we let them go from our area... 00:09:16.722 --> 00:09:26.107 other people were also in the lodge with us, and out of all these people, 00:09:26.107 --> 00:09:31.696 only me and my sister who lives in Moose Factory are still alive. 00:09:31.696 --> 00:09:36.993 All other people who were there have all passed on. 00:09:38.327 --> 00:09:47.378 When we let the young children go over to their father’s place, 00:09:47.378 --> 00:09:57.638 they would rummage around the blankets looking for their mother. 00:09:57.638 --> 00:10:06.022 One of the girls whose name was Agnes Stephen, you must know her, 00:10:06.022 --> 00:10:14.947 used to tell her little brother, “Sydney, this is where our mommy is”. 00:10:14.947 --> 00:10:21.078 This made their father and grandfather shed tears when they heard her say this. 00:10:21.078 --> 00:10:26.042 I was told to go get the children and bring them back to our living area, so I would. 00:10:26.042 --> 00:10:31.631 We could not let them go too often to their father’s area even when he was there, 00:10:31.631 --> 00:10:38.387 because they would do this every time we let them go. 00:10:38.596 --> 00:10:47.438 The woman who died after her baby was born was not clear-headed after delivering her baby. 00:10:47.438 --> 00:10:54.820 People had to hold her down in order to keep her from being too aggressive 00:10:55.655 --> 00:11:00.368 even though six men were trying to hold her still, including my father. 00:11:00.368 --> 00:11:09.460 Soon after she stopped this behaviour, she passed away. 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:17.134 She acted like a person who had lost their mind, that’s how she was. 00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:22.223 People thought she became like this was because 00:11:22.223 --> 00:11:29.063 after the birth of her baby, the placenta didn’t come out for an unusual long period of time. 00:11:29.063 --> 00:11:32.024 This was what caused the problem, people thought. 00:11:32.024 --> 00:11:35.736 My mother then took care of the baby. 00:11:35.736 --> 00:11:44.578 When she wrapped and put the baby in its mossbag, the area where the back of the head rested, 00:11:44.578 --> 00:11:50.793 the cloth always turned yellow. 00:11:51.127 --> 00:11:54.797 There was a priest who was also a doctor, 00:11:54.797 --> 00:12:00.386 he said that the woman had something growing in the womb and was stuck to her uterus, 00:12:00.386 --> 00:12:04.765 and when she moved around like she did, it caused whatever it was to get unstuck. 00:12:04.765 --> 00:12:09.395 The placenta did not come out because of this growth inside of her uterus 00:12:09.395 --> 00:12:14.608 and caused the yellow colour in the back of the baby’s head. 00:12:14.608 --> 00:12:18.821 The head was touching the growth inside the womb. 00:12:18.821 --> 00:12:23.909 This is what caused the mother to act in such a manner, the priest said. 00:12:24.785 --> 00:12:35.296 The baby that my mother took care of, after the mother had died was always kept in the hospital. 00:12:35.296 --> 00:12:41.719 The girl is now a woman and lives in Moose Factory and her name is Dinah Weapinicappo 00:12:41.719 --> 00:12:47.600 and she was married to the late Billy Weapenicappo from Eastmain. 00:12:48.601 --> 00:12:59.069 Today the people are not doing the right thing, not like it used to be in the old days. 00:12:59.069 --> 00:13:03.949 Children then were taught how to hunt. 00:13:04.950 --> 00:13:11.165 Today the parents leave their children here in the settlement when they go out on their traplines 00:13:11.165 --> 00:13:17.838 so they don’t teach them the ways of living out on the land. 00:13:17.838 --> 00:13:23.469 As for myself with the boys I had, we always took them out on the land when we left the village 00:13:23.469 --> 00:13:31.435 so their father could teach them how to hunt, trap and how to put up snares. 00:13:31.435 --> 00:13:42.071 They were also taught how to hunt geese and wavies on the coast of the bay. 00:13:42.488 --> 00:13:48.702 Today the parents cannot persuade their children to go out on the land, 00:13:48.702 --> 00:13:53.791 instead they leave them here and they get into trouble. 00:13:53.791 --> 00:13:57.837 This is something we didn’t do with our children. 00:13:58.295 --> 00:14:00.631 Even when they went to school, 00:14:00.631 --> 00:14:03.592 we took them out of school and took them with us if we left the community by canoe. 00:14:03.592 --> 00:14:09.932 We asked if we could take them out of school and we were allowed. 00:14:09.932 --> 00:14:17.356 It was better for them to be out on the land instead of being left behind to stay in the village. 00:14:17.356 --> 00:14:19.775 This is what we were told. 00:14:19.775 --> 00:14:25.322 Today, I see too much of young people being left in the community of Waskaganish 00:14:25.322 --> 00:14:28.492 when the parents leave to go out on the land. 00:14:28.993 --> 00:14:36.834 When we leave the community in the spring, we go in March and don’t return here until May. 00:14:37.334 --> 00:14:40.421 Some people just stay out on the land for a short while. 00:14:40.421 --> 00:14:44.008 They come back with their children and leave them here in the community. 00:14:44.008 --> 00:14:45.843 This is how it is now. 00:14:46.051 --> 00:14:50.890 The children don’t have much time to learn about living and hunting out on the land. 00:14:50.890 --> 00:14:54.935 How can they make a living hunting? 00:14:54.935 --> 00:15:00.441 Being here in the community, they cannot harvest anything. They just get in trouble. 00:15:00.441 --> 00:15:07.239 Some young men would rather stay and drink in the community instead of going out on the land. 00:15:07.239 --> 00:15:09.450 This is how it is with the young boys. 00:15:09.533 --> 00:15:14.246 Eating mostly traditional food was good for my health, I always had it out on the land 00:15:14.246 --> 00:15:19.001 when my husband harvested any kind of food. 00:15:19.001 --> 00:15:22.838 We would eat whatever he brought home. 00:15:22.838 --> 00:15:26.258 We did not have much of store-bought food. 00:15:26.675 --> 00:15:31.305 My children never had potato chips and soda drinks. 00:15:31.305 --> 00:15:46.236 The other thing that parents tend to do here is not to encourage to attend school if they don’t want to go. 00:15:47.655 --> 00:15:56.372 When we were out on the land, I always had a load to pull. 00:15:56.372 --> 00:16:05.005 When my husband went out to look for beaver, I would be at home. 00:16:07.216 --> 00:16:18.394 When my mother was home, I would go out and check the rabbit snares. 00:16:18.394 --> 00:16:25.234 If I saw any spruce grouse, I would shoot them with my gun. 00:16:25.985 --> 00:16:33.409 We would paddle out to the bay. We didn’t have an outboard motor. 00:16:33.409 --> 00:16:37.997 We would spend our summer out in the bay to catch fish. 00:16:37.997 --> 00:16:40.165 We hardly spent the summer here in the community. 00:16:40.165 --> 00:16:45.212 Now I spend the summer here because I cannot do the things I used to do. 00:16:45.379 --> 00:16:49.925 When I was still strong enough to work, I hardly spent any time in the community. 00:16:49.925 --> 00:16:54.888 During the middle of the summer, me and my late husband would pitch our tent across the river. 00:16:54.888 --> 00:17:00.227 We spent most of our time there and only canoed across to the village once in a while. 00:17:00.227 --> 00:17:01.895 This is what we used to do. 00:17:02.646 --> 00:17:08.360 Some people just go out in their canoe for a short time and never go back. 00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:11.155 They just stay in town. 00:17:11.155 --> 00:17:13.198 This is what people do. 00:17:13.449 --> 00:17:16.577 I will tell you one more thing. 00:17:17.286 --> 00:17:27.296 One time we went out to a river called Natoshtin, which is on the highway now. 00:17:27.296 --> 00:17:31.884 I was still living with my father at the time we were there. 00:17:32.342 --> 00:17:36.221 We lived in a sheltered area. 00:17:36.221 --> 00:17:43.062 Later we were travelling back to the community and at that time many moose and deer were harvested. 00:17:43.062 --> 00:17:51.653 We stayed with my uncle, my father’s brother named John, 00:17:51.653 --> 00:17:59.912 my mother’s brothers Willie and Andrew who were still single. 00:17:59.912 --> 00:18:03.999 There was also my uncle, my mother’s brother named Tommy. 00:18:03.999 --> 00:18:14.927 We were all there together along with my aunt, my mother’s sister who had two living children. 00:18:15.385 --> 00:18:19.139 She had other children but they had passed away. 00:18:19.139 --> 00:18:28.148 We had plenty of food, lots of moose and deer meat so we were not hungry. 00:18:28.148 --> 00:18:33.779 Although we had ran out of flour and tea. 00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:40.119 The snow was soft as we were travelling. 00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:47.543 We had to travel through wet snow and I think we made camp two or three times along the way 00:18:47.543 --> 00:18:50.170 before we got to the community. 00:18:50.170 --> 00:19:01.265 We got to the community and the snow never froze during all this time we were travelling. 00:19:01.807 --> 00:19:05.936 Our snowshoes were covered in wet snow 00:19:05.936 --> 00:19:10.065 so we were given sticks to knock the snow off every once in a while. 00:19:10.065 --> 00:19:14.444 Our snowshoes were light but it didn’t take long for them to get heavy with wet snow again. 00:19:14.444 --> 00:19:20.617 The men lead the way to pack the snow down on the areas we would walk on. 00:19:20.617 --> 00:19:24.621 We would wait until they had done this and then we would continue on our way again. 00:19:24.621 --> 00:19:28.208 This was done all the way until we got to the post. 00:19:28.208 --> 00:19:33.547 Because the temperature was so high and the snow was soft, it was very hard to travel by foot. 00:19:33.547 --> 00:19:39.344 We had ran out of tea and the only drink we had as we travelled to the village was broth. 00:19:39.469 --> 00:19:42.514 I will stop talking for now.