Nov 17, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Nov 17, 2000 |
 The powerful theme of transformation resonates in the master’s thesis of Robina Thomas and in her life as well. Telling the harrowing stories of former students of the Kuper Island industrial school nearly led the school of social work assistant professor to utter despair. But, like the storytellers in her thesis, the experience left her feeling renewed.“The stories are very tragic and very powerful. They speak of spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and sexual abuse in a way that you think would never happen in a place called Canada. Telling these stories was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It was so, so hard to listen,” says Thomas, a member of the Lyackson First Nation, whose Indian name Qwal’sih’yah’maht also appears on her thesis. The Kuper Island school operated from the late 1800s to 1974. Aboriginal students lived there away from their families, learning menial skills. Thomas wrestled with taking her storytellers back to a dark place in their lives and presenting their words within the confines of traditional thesis structure. She began by interviewing three individuals extensively, transcribing the tapes and taking the transcripts back to the storytellers for verification. Then she began weaving the conversations into stories. “I tried to tell the stories in their voices as much as possible,” she says. At each step along the way, the storytellers were consulted. After one particularly gruelling conversation while on her way to another interview, Thomas broke down sobbing, convinced she would have to abandon her thesis because of the pain she was causing her storytellers. Before she could, two of them called to say that while participating “was the hardest thing they had ever done, they felt so freed internally. They felt the storytelling process induced healing.” Thomas continued her work. She presented her analysis in the form of a play, with the four main characters hiding behind masks from Coast Salish mythology, in much the same way as the storytellers described adopting another “character” to mask their childhood pain. Only one mask, that of the devil, was borrowed from the religious teachings of the church that ran the school. The final character, the Wise Woman, is “the healer, the carrier of life, one who carries on tradition,” who represented her storytellers. They were present at Thomas’ successful thesis defence and were guests at her celebratory feast. “When you look at the tragedy of their stories, I was left in awe that they could go to that place,” says Thomas. “I learned about the absolute healing power of storytelling. These storytellers had the answers. They just needed me to listen.” |