I was invited to a film screening recently. It was a disturbing documentary called The Nitinaht Chronicles. It follows the Ditidaht First Nation in Nitinaht Lake Reserve. B.C., as they work on a six-year healing journey. It was a film that left many with tears in their eyes, both during and at the end. The subject matter deals with some of society’s biggest taboos – family violence, incest and sexual abuse. A difficult subject to even discuss, it is usually left in the dark. It is almost taboo even to bring it in the light of day, let alone to talk about it openly. It is a subject that could have torn any community apart and in this case it nearly did.
A National Film Board crew spent a long time with the community to such an extent that the people involved didn’t even “see” them at times while they were dealing with their problems. It all started when a respected Elder was found to have sexually abused his granddaughter. The court case was held in the community. Accusations and other cases sprang up.
Both victims and perpetrators got together to begin healing and, in their words, to “ensure the future generations will not have to carry the guilt we did through our lives. We wanted them to have a fresh start.” The film traces the roots of the problems and says that one of the main causes was the residential school system. The Nitinaht Chronicles is a testament to a community’s courage in overcoming a tragic past. It tells of their hopes for rebuilding families and community. After watching this film, I interviewed Linda Edgar, the mother of Bonnie, the girl who had been abused.
The Nation: I don’t even know where to start. I have a million questions and I have none because this is such a taboo subject. How did you feel after seeing the film?
Linda Edgar: It brought back a lot of memories and I felt very sad. It brought back memories I am trying to forget about. I had seen how affected my whole family was from my mom to my brothers, but mostly my daughter.
Is it hard to go through that? It must have been quite shocking to find out what happened.
Yes. I grew up quite close to my dad. When my daughter Bonnie told my mother Christine, they didn’t know what to do about it. They didn’t know where to begin. They kept it from me for three months. I knew Bonnie had been hurt but wasn’t sure how. They told me that Bonnie had a serious problem and I should be aware of it because I’m her mother. Our lives kept going on every day, yet with this pain inside of Bonnie and my mom. They weren’t able to tell what happened because it was my own father.
Someone at the screening said that it happens in a lot of communities, but ail you had to do is change the names.
Not only Native communities; it’s all over. You see it on the news. I guess more people are having the courage to speak openly about it. I believe that in our community it was a big secret and you shouldn’t talk about it. If you did you got punished for it. That’s what basically happened to me when I was 15. I tried to tell. I bore a child through sexual abuse at 15 and I lost my boy in
1992. There are a lot of things we went through that other people have gone through. It’s not that dramatic. So I lost my son at 19.
I found it was surprising to see the victims and the victimizes together. The victimizes turned out to be victims also. Was it hard to see people face-to-face like that? To confront them?
No. No. Not for me at that point. My confrontation with a victimizer was easier than you see in the film. I was very angry. It shouldn’t have happened to me and it shouldn’t have happened to anybody, no matter what. The sad part about all this is that the victims and offenders are people you know. They are very close to you. People you grew up with, trusted and cared about. These are the offenders the victims know. It’s not strangers. If it’s a stranger then it’s considered rape, but sexual abuse is within the family.
I noticed the men who offended got together and started a group to discuss this among themselves. Have you seen a change in the attitudes?
Maybe just a little bit. I know one thing I can say about my community is there isn’t as much physical abuse against women. People won’t tolerate it. As for sexual abuse, I think it could still be going on. If they were going to try to do something about it, it’s not just a one-day thing; it’s a lifelong job. You have to really know what you’re doing while you’re getting into it.
In the film I pressed charges against the three men who did it to me 18 years ago.Two years in a row I sat down with the RCMP just like this for about two hours straighttelling my story. Telling what happened, what time, what I was wearing and what day itwas, daylight or day, and this happened 18 years ago. I remember it very well.
It was something, like Bonnie said, you take something away from another person, something you can’t give back. For me I was raped at the age of 12 losing my virginity. And that is because of who I am as a Native person how my ancestors and my grandmothers really tried to hang on to our customs of respecting other humans. So I grew up without that respect myself, let alone other people respecting me. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care if they respected me or not. I didn’t have that within myself.
Has this changed for you?
Oh yes, it’s a completely different chapter, a different book. I completely respect myself. I am proud of myself. I am proud to be a woman and for me to get here I had to give back to the offenders of mine. It was something I packed around for years. I gave it back to them. I said, here it’s yours, that shame and that guilt, that dirtiness. And that unworthy felling I had for all those years.
Do you think they feel that?
Yes, I do and even today when they see me I have such a glow of well-being. You cansee it on their faces in public or when I see them in the street. They have a look ofremorse and guilt when they see me because I walk so proud these days. I won’t allowanyone else to put me down so low. It’s like getting my own power back. Before I dealtwith this, if I met them on the street, I would hang my head or walk the other way. “To me, that was giving them the power orsaying they had power or control over me. Not anymore. I control my own power.
Do you recommend that other women do the same thing?
I do so, but it’s really hard to say because you need support. You have to know the time is right for you. If they believe in the Creator like I do, then when the time is right they can deal with this. It’s a lot of work and it takes up a lot of your time to deal with something like you deal with sexual abuse, especially if it happened 20 years ago. You have to dig up all those ugly memories that happened to you. Not only remembering it word for word because you have to give testimony to the police. You also have to remember when you go into court. When I first went to the police there wasn’t enough evidence for them to go ahead. It had happened so long ago. I had to return a year later with more details: how I was feeling, what I was wearing, what day, year time it was, where it happened, was there sheets, blankets? You have to remember all that stuff; it’s very important. It’s a lot of work. A lot of work from the inside.
Was it hard to talk to the police?
Yes, it took me six months. I had a counselor who stood with me for those six years that I went through this hell. Every time I had an appointment with the police on the actual day, I said I shouldn’t, I can’t do it. About twice a month for six months I tried to go and finally said, I can do it. Because the counselor acted like the police and asked me the questions they would ask me. It helped me face it.
This gives me the courage to ask this question. How about your father? How do you feel about him?
Today, I love my father very much. He means the world to me. It was work getting through everything. I live off the reserve. In fact, I’ve been on my own since I was 15. I was close to my dad since I was young. I went fishing with him and other things with him. It’s very visible that I am close to him. Because of the role my father played in my life I was able to separate the wrong that he did from the good he had done.
For me my belief is that he is doing more good today for all of
us, including Bonnie. Some people might not agree with this, but you have to be in our shoes to understand. You would have had to live with us every day of our lives to know exactly where I’m coming from. Bonnie loves my dad today. We’ve always been a close family. We’ve always been there when someone needed anything. We’re able to lean on each other and depend on each other.
I understand Bonnie’s in business?
Bonnie’s a chef with my older brother. He’s on the West Coast trail where they have hikers all summer long. When the trails are closed she works as a clerk. She’s doing fine. We had a nice graduation party. She’s happy and to me that’s all that matters.
In the video, you see other families that are involved in the communiy’s abuse problems. Do you feel that this type of community healing was…
I guess with my dad’s court case and sentencing, it happened right on the reserve. Even people like Jack Tompson, who is an offender, was really against my father’s doings. A lot of people were against him, but yet they had their own garbage. They were offenders themselves so it wasn’t fair that such people with authoritative figures point the finger. These people in my eyes – as Jack said in the being of the video, the victim is going to be affected for the rest of their lives. He’s right and I’m Jack Tompson’s victim. He sexually abused me when I was a young girl. I was 12 or 13. He denied it and we went to court for five years. He wanted to pay me to stop the case (allegedly?). That’s why the other families got involved in the healing because they were victims and offenders just like everyone else. It was not right for them to point the finger.
Do you see this as going anywhere for the community?
I believe it would go somewhere if I was around. I’m not liked in my community because I’m against violence. Not just sexual abuse, but violence as a whole. I’m a very outspoken and strong woman, especially after what I’ve been through in the past eight years. I think it would continue going somewhere as long as people are against. As long as they say our community can be close if we want it.
Do you think the documentary will help people in communities who want to confront sexual abuse?
Yes, I think our documentary would be helpful to a lot of communities, resource places that are against violence. I believe that both men and women can use this. I am not a feminist; I believe that men and women should be equal. That whatever anyone has to say should be acknowledged whether we believe it or not. They have that right and it makes so much difference in the world if people listen and not just talk. We have to listen to the people who are hurting. This video would be helpful to one person or 10. As long as I know our young people are not getting hurt…
It’s not right because it would be like having World War III, but it would be inside the young people themselves, in their own communities and in their own little worlds. Let’s not dump our unfinished business on to the young people because they deserve a better life than we had. It’s people like myself who can help make a difference. It’s not fair to them to make them carry our garbage around with them. They have to be able to reach for the stars.
Interested parties can get more information and possibly order the film, complete with auser’s guide, by phoning 1-800-267-7710.
