[Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. Find the first here.]
Chief Adam Dick was the boy who lived. He was the child in the bullrushes. Whether you prefer J.K. Rowling or the Bible, there are many legends across many cultures that tell of children hidden from malign forces intent on destroying a people and a way of life — heroes who must survive before re-emerging to continue the battle. On the west coast of B.C., Chief Adam Dick was destined to be that kind of warrior.
His chieftain name is Kwaxsistalla Wathl’thla. Kwaxsistalla means “The smoke from his big fire reaches around the world;” Wathl’thla means “the late.” Chief Dick died of heart failure last year at age 89. He was a chieftain of the Kawadillikall Clan of the Dzawatainuk Tribe of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation, and took with him an unmatched knowledge of Kwakwaka’wakw music, culture and practice.
But before he died he succeeded in passing much of his knowledge along, and in the process helped transform our common understanding of life on the coast before Europeans arrived, and before the residential school system devastated Indigenous families.
“We would have lost the knowledge,” says Kim Recalma-Clutesi, also known as Ogwiloqwa of the Qualicum First Nation. “For six generations children in that area were removed to go to residential school. The only way to transmit that knowledge is to actually live there with the old people. He was the last contact with those really old teachings.”
If you picture the residential school system as a giant meteor, an obliterating force that wreaked havoc in First Nations communities across Canada, you might assume all was lost. But the impact did leave survivors. Adam Dick was one. It is no accident that young Adam, a descendant of clan chiefs, was spared. His deliverance was the collective act of his community.
GREAT READ: They Hid Him from Residential School, He Grew to Be Chief | The Tyee
Read the first in this two-part series here.
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- THE COUNT 2024
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- How to Open Closed Adoption Records for Native American Children (updated 2021)
- LOST CHILDREN BOOK SERIES
- Split Feathers Study
- The reunification of First Nations adoptees (2016)
- You're Breaking Up: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl #ICWA
- Indian Child Welfare Act organizations
- About the Indian Adoption Projects
- How to Search (adoptees)
- THE PLACEMENT OF AMERICAN INDIAN CHILDREN - THE NEED FOR CHANGE (1974)
- NEW: Study by Jeannine Carriere (First Nations) (2007)
- NEW STUDY: Post Adoption (Australia)
- Dr. Raven Sinclair
- Laura Briggs: Feminists and the Baby Veronica Case...
- Bibliography (updated)
- Adopt an Elder: Ellowyn Locke (Oglala Lakota)
- TWO NATIONS: Navajo (Boarding School)
- GOLDWATER
- Survivor Not Victim (my interview with Von)
- Adoption History
- GS Search Angel Site 2024
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- Genealogy\Indian Affairs 2021
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We conclude this series & continue the conversation by naming that adoption is genocide. This naming refers to the process of genocide that breaks kinship ties through adoption & other forms of family separation & policing 🧵#NAAM2022 #AdoptionIsTraumaAND #AdopteeTwitter #FFY 1/6 pic.twitter.com/46v0mWISZ1
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ADOPTION TRUTH
As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
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