WARNING: This story contains disturbing details.
It was a raw, powerful moment that seemed to stop time, a song delivered emotionally in Cree to the tune of Canada’s national anthem by an Indigenous woman wearing traditional regalia.
In an interview Thursday with CBC News, Si Phih Ko, also known as Trina Francois, said the song’s lyrics are an ancient ballad about the land and the village. Other native language speakers have translated it as: “Our creator, protect our sacred land, Canada. Our land here, Canada. Our sacred land.”
After singing, to cheers and applause from the crowd in Maskwatzis, Alta., Si Pih Ko spoke directly to Pope Francis in Cree, her voice loud in her anguish.
“You are hereby served a loud law. We, the daughters of the Great Spirit and our tribal sovereign members cannot be forced to obey any law, any contract, that is not the Great Law,” she later translated to CBC News.
WATCH | Si Pih Ko’s message to the Pope:
Si Pih Ko sings in Cree after the Pope’s address in Maskwacis, Alta.
Si Phih Ko, also known as Trina Francois, sang a Cree message to the tune of the national anthem in an unscripted moment during Pope Francis’ visit to Canada.
“We appointed chiefs of our territories. Manage accordingly. “Hello, hello” does not mean “Thank you”. That means I have nothing more to say,” she told the pope in Cree.
Si Phih Ko had not planned to speak during the ceremony to mark the first day of Pope Francis’ “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, but said she had to when the pope was given a hairstyle and placed it on his hat or the sugar cane.
To her it was a sign of disrespect.
“Silence is power, but I couldn’t be silent,” she later told CBC News.
“She took a stand”
In Edmonton, Brenda Hutt, a survivor of the Métis Sixties Scoop, watched it all with tears streaming down her face. She said she felt — for the first time — like someone was speaking for her.
“She raised her fist in the air. This is a very strong symbolism throughout the world. She took a stand,” Hutt, 54, said.
Sixties Scoop survivor Brenda Hutt was one of the many people who were deeply moved by Si Kih Po’s message to the Pope. She said it felt like a turning point in her own journey to connect with her Métis roots. (Ty Ferguson/CBC)
Growing up in an English household, Hatt didn’t learn her traditional language, so she didn’t understand exactly what was being said.
But she said it resonated deeply.
“You could feel the passion and the pain in her voice,” she said. “She spoke for a lot of people in Canada, and the fact that she’s a woman makes it even stronger.”
The moment was shared around the world on social media, with people saying they were shaken to their core, her pain was like a knife to the heart.
Twitter reaction to the Si Pih Ko song performed in Cree during Pope Francis’ visit to Maskwacis. (BSwirlsi/Twitter) Man writes ‘if my heart had a face’ on Twitter in response to Si Pih Ko’s emotional song. (quoth_the_rave/Twitter)
“She spoke from her perspective as a woman”
William Elvis Thomas looked on with pride from the home community of Si Pih Ko in the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, 800 kilometers north of Winnipeg.
“I love the fact that she had the courage to say what she said and stand up for what she believed in,” said Thomas, who heads the language and culture department of the Nihitho community.
Thomas knew Si Pih Ko personally and was also fluent in the specific Cree dialect she spoke, “the language of the four winds or four spirits,” which was handed down by elders living in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
William Elvis Thomas is an elder of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Man., the home community of Si Kih Po. He knows her personally and said he’s proud to see her stand up so strongly for what she believes in. (Karen Pauls/CBC)
Thomas said it was difficult to translate the words exactly into English, but she used the term for Canada’s land, Kakanatahk, which means “that which is sacred.”
“She was speaking from her perspective as a woman. She includes herself in the language when she speaks and says that we are like part of a sovereign group and we are the women in the group,” Thomas said.
The message itself is a rebuke to the Pope, the Catholic Church and the colonial powers Britain and France, he said.
“They had no right to come in and do what they did to displace our traditional sacred laws that we had,” he explained.
“She argued that we still have that and that we want that to be respected and that the pope should recognize that.”
“She spoke for many of us”
Back in Edmonton, Brenda Hutt says the message is even stronger now that she understands it.
“She told our point of view, not just her point of view, but our point of view… That we’re still here, that even through all this, through all the hundreds of years of trying to destroy us in Canada — and I don’t I don’t say that lightly . There was a plan to genocide the indigenous people of Canada. But you know what? We are still here.
Hutt said it felt like a turning point in his own life.
Brenda Hutt as a four-year-old living in a foster home in Alberta as part of Sixties Scoop. She said Si Kih Po’s message resonated deeply with her, even when she didn’t fully understand what was being said. (Courtesy of Brenda Hutt)
Taken by her mother from Alberta social services when she was just four weeks old, sent to what she describes as “terrible” foster homes and later adopted at age 13 by a white family, she tries to connect with his lost Métis heritage. Hatt recently learned that her late grandfather was a residential school survivor.
“I was living in a foster home where she told me straight up that she was going to beat the Indian out of me and at that point I didn’t even know I was an Indian or what an Indian was. But it was instilled in me at such a young age that I should be ashamed that I didn’t look up anything to do with my family line until I was 40 years old,” Hutt said.
Hatt is not religious and said the pope’s apology didn’t mean much to her, though she was glad he asked all the boarding school survivors for forgiveness.
Still, she will make something of his visit this week.
“We can’t change what happened and we have to move forward, and we have to move forward together,” she said.
“And to belong to a group of people who have survived for hundreds of years where they shouldn’t have survived is a powerful message. And her standing up, stepping forward, raising her fist in the air and saying, “We’re still here. ‘ How could anyone not be proud of her?”
Current mission
Si Pih Ko says he is honored by this response.
“I hope it brings people back to earth. Our way of life,” she said.
An activist for most of his life, Si Phih Ko lived in a tipi as part of a protest camp on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature. She said the experience gave her more confidence to speak out in her ongoing battle against the child welfare system.
“I fought for two years to get my cubs back and it didn’t have to be this way,” she said.
“Boarding schools continue in the child welfare system, and if I were to ask the survivors today, ‘What would you like me to do?’ To speak for the little ones in care today?” Because I will do whatever it takes. Your pain, your words, through me. I will do it.”
Support is available for anyone affected by their dorm experience or the latest reports.
A national Indian school crisis line has been set up to provide support for ex-students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
Mental health counseling and crisis support are also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness Hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or via online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
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