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Local motorcycle clubs led a procession bringing John Parker back to White Earth on Sunday.  A simple cedar box containing his remains was carried into the Naytahwaush Sports Center where about 100 people gathered for a traditional Ojibwe funeral. 

Parker’s living relatives requested the ceremony for the young boy who left the White Earth Reservation more than 130 years ago. He attended St. John’s Industrial School in the late 1800s and when he died at the school, he was buried in the cemetery at St. John’s Abbey. 

Rob Tibbetts, White Earth language and culture coordinator, assisted with the ceremony. 

The purpose is to help the spirit of the deceased understand their death and start on the path to join their ancestors, Tibbetts said. 

And in the case of boarding school students, to help bring peace to the spirit. 

“And be OK with who they are,” he said. “A lot of what they went through and a lot of what they endured was being told that it was wrong to be who they are, and it was pretty difficult I think for a lot of families even now to come to terms with that past.”

A handful of community members raised concerns about the repatriation process, and a tribal official says those concerns are being addressed. 

Tribal officials are giving family members more time to decide on a final resting place for two other boys, Napoleon Giard and Felix Aemly, who also died at St. John’s. At least one of those boys will be buried near his family at a Catholic cemetery on the reservation

Jaime Arsenault, White Earth historic preservation officer, said bringing the boys home was a five year process. She sees it as a beginning, not an end.

“In this particular instance with this being connected to boarding schools, it also I think brings  some level of healing, some level of closure for those in attendance,” she said.

About 100 people gathered for the funeral ceremony in Naytahwaush. 

A second young boy, Joseph Roy, also returned to White Earth on Sunday. His family chose to have a private ceremony. Both boys were buried in a repatriation cemetery near Naytahwaush. 

Ted Gordon is director of the Initiative for Native Nation Relations at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. 

He helped coordinate the research to find records of White Earth children who attended boarding schools there.  

“It’s a day that signifies that families and communities that had long been separated from relatives are able to reconnect with those relatives,” said Gordon, who attended the funeral. “Even after all this time, hope is still possible for other families to reconnect with relatives and have their remains returned if they wish.”

Gordon said researchers are poring over tens of thousands of pages of documents about boarding school students. 

This work is the beginning of a process of truth and healing from the history of boarding schools where students were often forced to deny their religion, culture and language.  

Arsenault said the work of locating children buried at boarding schools is just beginning and there will likely be more ceremonies over the coming months and years to welcome the children home. 

These moments in time create an opportunity for conversations about the trauma inflicted on Indigenous people by the boarding school era, said Arsenault, and help start the process to heal that trauma. 

St. Benedict nuns apologize for Native boarding school

In a statement, the White Earth Nation said “healing is hard work and sometimes involves complex feelings, thoughts and emotions,” and that the tribal government is making counselors available for those who need support.

“I do look at how these boarding schools operated for about seven generations and I in no way think that we’re going to fix this in ours,” said Arsenault. “I think this is going to be a multi-generational path that we’re on.”

But Sunday in Naytahwaush was a significant step along that path. 

Dan Gunderson

Author

Two Ojibwe boys who died more than a century ago at the St. John’s Industrial School in Collegeville came home to the White Earth Nation on Sunday. John Parker and Joseph Roy had been buried in the cemetery at St. John’s Abbey. 

Children who died at a boarding school in the 1800s return to the White Earth Nation

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