Breaking walls at Niverville Truth and Reconciliation concert

Thousands of people, including Prime Minister Jean Chretien fresh from a close call with the Quebec referendum on separation, had gathered in Ottawa for a Sacred Assembly in December 1995. Jonathan Maracle, then a young man who had struggled reconciling his Mohawk identity with his devout Christianity, was asked to sing Amazing Grace and use a traditional drum.

He told the Indigenous leaders that he did not think he could.

“You know the drum is heathen. You know if I do that, I’m turning my back on the principals of Christianity from what I was being taught,” Maracle told those gathered in Niverville Community Fellowship church Sept. 27, three days ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Elijah Harper, the renowned Oji-Cree MP for Churchill and minister in the federal government, insisted. So did Wally McKay, former grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (1981-83) and vice chief of the Assembly of First Nations (1982-84) who helped form one of the first Indigenous police services, and brought a legal case to London High Court in England to ensure treaty rights with the Crown. McKay was in Niverville to speak as well.

So, Maracle prepared himself to perform. Then just before it was time to drum, elder John Sandford spoke on the disruption colonialism caused in generations of Indigenous peoples of the world.

“And his final statement as he was speaking, he said, ‘there are walls of bitterness that are built in the hearts of our Indigenous people of the world.’ He said, ‘and these walls of bitterness must be broken,’” described Maracle.

Within 10 minutes, he said he was inspired to write a new song looking at the path ahead for those gathered called Broken Walls. Then he let out a traditional shout and broke into song for the Niverville crowd.

“Broken walls, that are smashed by love. Broken walls that will never stand. They’re coming down by hands of love, by the love of God in the hearts of man,” were the last English lyrics before the song ends in traditional singing.

It was this breaking of barriers that Roger Armbruster, president of Canada Awakening Ministries, was seeking when he organized the event that ended with everyone in the crowd and on stage gathered for snacks and getting to know each other.

“I think it’s a great thing to take advantage of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to bring people together, not just so we look at the past, so that we build a new relationship for the future where we get to know each other and know that we actually as fellow human beings need each other,” explained Armbruster.

The church has been hosting a Truth and Reconciliation event every year since 2021.

“I’ve built relationships with the First Nations community for 30 years now. I’ve worked with people like Peter Yellowquill whose the fifth generation descendant of Chief Yellowquill, a signatory to Treaty 1. And I thought this is a time we need to give a voice.

“I’m a minister in a local church here in Niverville, but my main focus is in building bridges into the First Nations and Indigenous communities because I think they need to have a voice that has an influence on our other non-Indigenous people, and get to know each other better. I think we’ll all be richer for it,” said Armbruster.

McKay was put in charge of organizing the 1995 Sacred Assembly by Harper. He told those in Niverville that four nights earlier, his brother talked for the first time about when McKay was taken to a residential school at five years old.

“He said, ‘us little boys, we were on the trap line [with] our mother and father, sisters and brothers. And we saw this plane come and keep circling around. And it finally landed, and there was this Indian agent and a pilot. And our father and mother did not speak English. And they began to understand because previously, other children had been taken to residential school.’

“And my mother and father understood that it was me they were going to pick up. I was five years old,” said McKay.

He asked everyone to find a five-year-old in the crowd.

“He’s not very big. And that was the first year that I left on a journey that I did not want to go,” said McKay.

He told of how many of the other children did not come back home, including a girl from his own community in northwest Ontario.

“The father and the mother never found out what happened. Every year they kept waiting, hoping that she would come home,” said McKay.

“They found out that her body is in the town of Sioux Lookout in a cemetery. And there’s nothing the family or community can do about it because there are three bodies that are buried one on top of each other, and hers is in the middle.

“I bring that story to you to let you know, we have a lot of work to do in truth and reconciliation,” said McKay.

“It’s about making things right for everybody, not just for us.”