A few months ago I attended a Blanket Exercise to raise awareness of the Aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation commission that has been talked about in the news lately.  About 30 of us gathered in the back hall at our church.  We all sat in a circle and the facilitator spread several blankets all over the floor in front of us.   There was a brief introduction of what we could expect and then the exercise began.

We were all instructed to find a blanket and stand on it.  The blankets represented all of the territories that were occupied by Indians before the Europeans came over (literally all of North America).   We were encouraged to walk freely among the blankets.  We heard about how the Indians had lived together peaceably on the land.  They hunted and fished for only what they needed to survive.  They worshiped the land and celebrated and gave thanks for its bounty.  And they gave back.    


And then the narrators read through the time line of all that happened once the Europeans came.   They saw these peace loving natives and saw only weakness.   They offered treaties that were misleading and full of lies.  They gave them blankets that were deliberately infected with small pox that killed hundreds of thousands of natives.  Each time something happened, each time a treaty was broken, a blanket was removed from the floor and the people had to move on to other blankets.   Some people had to sit down because they had died from small pox and starvation.  Some had to leave their blanket because they had been sent to residential schools.  Some families were separated because the boundaries of their land were changed.  One of the facilitators was walking around us, making sure we weren't standing on one single piece of blanket more than we should have been standing on.   And by the time the exercise was over, very few blankets and very few people remained.   There was huge gaps between the blankets.  Some were empty.  some had so many people on them they could barely move.  

To say that this was a profound experience would be an understatement.  I have never been so deeply moved.   Afterwards we sat back down in our circle and had a debriefing.  A "talking shell" was passed around giving each person a chance to share their thoughts and their feelings without interruption.  And the choice was given to pass and say nothing.   Quite a few people passed.   Most people only spoke briefly and poignantly about how troubled they were, how ashamed they were that all of that had happened.   Very few of us had realized the terrible injustice done to the people who occupied our country first.  We didn't learn it in school.   We were given the white washed European version of history.  How wonderful it was the Columbus came and discovered a brave new world.   Nothing was said of what they did to that land and the people on it.   We learned about the 'savages'.   And we saw in t.v. shows that the Indians were bad people and if you played cowboys and Indians as a child, you never wanted to be an Indian.  I left that day feeling a deep sense of shame and sadness.   Too often today we see natives as being drunken, lazy, people living on reservations, that pay no taxes and sell cheap cigarettes.  To think of all that they had had, it's no wonder they may angry and bitter.   To have been sent away to residential schools where their whole way of life was erased from them and they were made to learn the white man's ways. Any aspect of their upbringing, of their culture, their language was beaten and brain washed out of them.  When they returned to their families after being at the schools, they found they didn't belong anymore.  They had become too different.  Some families rejected the "white" children and wouldn't let them return home..  And yet they weren't white enough to be accepted in to the culture into which they had been indoctrinated.   It was a terrible tragedy.  And so desperately unnecessary.

I had no idea what to expect when I signed up for this Blanket Exercise.  I saw the sign up sheet on the bulletin board at the church, and I thought it was a native ritual much like a drumming circle.  I had missed the service leading up to the exercise, so I had no idea what I was in store for me .   When the talking shell came around to me I was almost speechless and I wanted to pass it on.  It took me a few seconds to find my voice.   What struck me the most about this exercise was the total helplessness I felt while standing on that blanket, hearing about all of these atrocities, having all of these things happening around me that I couldn't stop.  And the devastation left on the floor at the end of it all.   The Europeans came to a land occupied by friendly, peaceful people who loved the earth and respected it.   who believed in the Great Spirit and honoured Mother earth.   They knew no other way.   The believed and trusted that the Europeans were honest and fair. They were dazzled by their fancy tools and technology.   And they were tricked and abused, and slaughtered time after time after time.   Of course they fought back but their primitive weapons, their bows and arrows were ineffective against the weapons of the Europeans.   And as I sat there digesting all of this I felt the native blood that runs through me, the blood of Joseph Brant, who was a very important figure in the history of our country.   And I also felt running through my veins the Scottish, English, and Welsh blood of my other ancestors.   Unsettling to say the least. I am both victim,  and perpetrator.  And I am not alone.  There are many people like me with such a history. 

 I think everyone who has a chance to take part in a blanket exercise should do so.  It will open your eyes.  It will make you stop and think about how you came to have everything you take so much for granted every day.  And you may feel anger, or shame, or sadness, but you will not feel pride.