By MAURICE RUSH

aa
duver ‘oe Secluded corner of Van-
her beloved weY Park, not far from
of Cana das Siwash Rock, lie the ashes
Son, on Poet, Emily Pauline
Tent made a Simple rustic monu-
Sting Dace stone marks her last
‘ childre contain where in sum-
Beach ty a come up

7
ee _Saw the passing of

i lan. All those years
Med th

Ned the ;

tm
Ore tha :
: Pauline n a writer of nature

“People 4 oSOn was a trib
ple, the Native Indians, She
"gs of her people, the
use to which they
her own pen trans-
t feelings of her

side of her life
bourgeois so-

Be Ato
her men had a keen aware-
8 those Canadian life. Con-
& Indian. Ould have her
an origin she once

Ta ee
Indian
aed ben and my life

that humbly
ee bard of igs Singer of her
—S €ver seen e noblest folk the

€T Most outstandin
.* 0€m snes The Cattle Thief
N chieg jclates the chase of
Ching ang) .,2 band of men
€d by ad killing him they are

an Indian pee van

Cur
. Sed, and Called him

hi ief,

| Robson Ist of = oa you robbed

er ™m and Tobbed m

Stary, & at tne Y people...
ed wie a8 Shrunken face,
Ollow hunger,

your race,

Cattle are not ours
Our meat; :

ck th "ih of game;
te © furs
Hebe ts Before you eeere*
J e;
Peace and the plenty...

E. Pauline Johnson

Bard of her people

With her poetry Pauline Johnson
challenged those in high places whose
policy it was (and still is) to destroy
the Native Indian people. Through her
a powerful voice was found which
cried out against the wrongs being done
to them.

It is for this reason that the ruling
circles in Canada have endeavored
through the years to destroy the best
tradition of Pauline Johnson. It is for
this reason that progressive Canadians
have a responsibility to bring before
the Canadian people the true social
character of her poetry and legends.

However, while assessing the pro-
gressive social character of her works,
it would be wrong to close your eyes
to the shortcomings. Those who read
her poetry and biographies will be im-
mediately impressed with this contra-
diction: on the one hand, she spoke
out strongly for her people, on the
other, her ideas were strongly influ-
enced by the thinking of the ruling
circles of her day.

Thus she wrote poems such as Riders
Of The Plains which glorify the RCMP,
the very force first brought into being
to suppress her people. Her failure to
see clearly the forces oppressing her
people and the fact that she was her-
self influenced by them, lessened the
impact of her struggle for the rights
of the Native Indian people.

* Bg *
Pauline Johnson’s early life on the

Indian reservation near Brantford, On-
tario, where she was born March 10,

1862, to Mohawk Indian Chief Johnson;

and his English born wife, Emily Sy
Howelle, prepared her for her role she
was later to play as tribune of her
people, and outstanding Canadian poet
and_patriot.

As a child her home was saddened
on two different occasions when her
father, a leader on the reservation,
was beaten near to death by gangs.
Wealthy men seeking control of the
reservation’s timber organized the
gangs to assault him, trying to silence
his opposition to their scheme to dis-
possess the Indians of their already
limited rights and properties.

In her early years Pauline Johson
was profoundly influenced by the
Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel
in 1885. There was no mistaking her
support for the heoric struggle of the
Metis and Indians for their rights.
Although only 23 years old at the time,
she wrote one of her most powerful
poems, A Cry From An Indian Wife.

AN INDIAN WIFE

They but forgot we Indians owned
nd

ae that they

From ocean unto ocean,
stand ‘
Upon a soil that centuries agone —
Was our sole kingdom and our right

n
ae, oes think how they would
feel today,

If some great nation came from far

away, :
Wresting their country from their
helpless braves, ae

Giving what they gave US ---

wars and graves. ;

Then go and strike for liberty and
life,

And bring bac
wife.

k honor to your Indian

Go forth, and win the glories of the

war.

Go forth, nor bend to greed of white
men’s hands,

By rights, by birth we
these lands

Though starving, crushed, plundered,
lies our nation low .--

Indians own

Above all, Pauline Johnson was a
great Canadian. Although the sharp
edge of her writing was directed at the
abuses against her people, she loved
Canada dearly. Hers was a true pa-
triotism which sprang from love of
her country and its people, from an
abiding confidence in its future. She
saw the Native Indian people as part
of a great Canadian Brotherhood, tak-
ing their place in the building of a na-
tion of many peoples.

In a poem written for the unveiling ©

of a monument for Joseph Brant, great
Indian leader, she wrote:

Young Canada with mighty force
sweeps on,

To gain in power and strength before
the dawn...

Then meet we as one common
brotherhood

In peace and love with purpose
understood.

In these days when Canada’s inde-
pendence is being betrayed to the
United States by our ruling circles, it
would be well to recall the reactions
of Pauline Johnson to Yankee expan-
sionism.

In 1902 she travelled through Sas-
katchewan, which at that time had
been widely settled by Americans. In
a narrative of her trip she relates how
she dined at the home of Americans, »
and during the course of the discus-
sion, her hostess said: “When next you
come here you will see the Stars and
Stripes flying over this shack.” Pauline
Johnson reports that she replied in
jest, “If I do I, will empty a shotgun
into it.”

’ From the succeeding remarks in her
narrative it is quite clear that Pauline
Johnson was not jesting and that her
reply really expressed her true senti-
ments at American occupation of our

Northwest.

Later Pauline Johnson wrote: “We
left our Yankee hostess and her stri-
dent sentiments far behind us, our
great Canadian prairie was a sweeter
thing to contemplate.”

Pauline Johnson’s love of Canada did
not blind her to injustice elsewhere in
the world. She considered it part of
her patriotism to speak out against
tyranny wherever she saw it. Thus it
was that she was deeply moved by the
Dreyfus case in France. She wrote a
poem entitled, Give Us Barabbas.

a
PACI

Once more a man must bear a
nation’s stain, ...
And that in France, the chivalrous,

whose lore
’ Made her the flower of kni
gone by. oe
Now she lies hideous with leprous
sore
No. skill can cure... no
ae pardon
Hide from your God. O! i
mee ye that did
With lesser crimes the halls of Hell
are naved. ;

Your army’s honor may be still intact,
Unstained, unsoiled, unspotted, . .
but unsaved.” :

_While She lay in a Vancouver hos-
pital dying of cancer, she told her

- friends: “I wish that there were but

one of my poems that could set fire to
the hearts of men, and thrill them with
the glory of their nationhood.” Pauline
Johnson’s patriotism was of the kind
the dominant circles of the Canadian
ruling class today are trying to de-
stroy because it stands in the way of
their selling our nationhood for Yankee
dollars.

Pauline Johnson was no recluse who
wrote her poetry in an ivory tower.
She was close to the people, and in a
very true sense was a people’s artist.
For years she travelled from one end
of Canada to the other, reciting her
poems in hundreds of cities and towns
to audiences which made up a cross-
section of the Canadian people.

She toured British Columbia during
the gold rush days in 1895 and after.
There was hardly a mining town in
which she did not hold her audiences
spell-bound with her poems and artist-
ry. Friends who travelled with her re-
late how she would sit and listen to
the stories of the miners.

_The love she had for people was re- ©
ciprocated. After she moved to Van-
couver, which city she loved and adopt-
ed as her home, she faced consider-
able financial hardships, followed by
ill-health, But her many friends came
to her aid.

The deep affection the people had
for her was shown at her death. Hun-
dreds of people filed by her coffin and
thousands took part in the funeral pro-
cession. Vancouver City Council closed
its offices that day and all over the
city flags flew at half mast. Seldom had
such respect and love for an artist been
shown by people anywhere.

Pauline Johnson was a true daughter
of our Canadian soil. Her life, her
poems, her legends are part of the
Canadian saga. They are part of our
progressive national traditions which
Canadians must claim as their own
and in so doing restore them to their
proper place in our history and culture.

beta AS JOSS A wid

I) Ch CN. bh TAS aki
IC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1971

ADAGE T ¢