[IPSM] In memory of Harriet Nahanee, age 71

[Ahni]

some sad news today...

**http://intercontinentalcry.mahost.org/first-nations-activist-dies-after-release-from-jail/

*First Nations Activist Dies After Release from Jail*
By Zoe Blunt, www.zoeblunt.gnn.tv <http://zoeblunt.gnn.tv>
24 Feb 2007

*In memory of Harriet Nahanee, age 71

*VANCOUVER - A community is in mourning following news of the death of a
great-grandmother who fought to defend aboriginal rights and the
environment. Activist Harriet Nahanee died at St. Paul’s Hospital in
Vancouver on Saturday, February 24, one month after she was sentenced to
fourteen days in jail for protesting the destruction of a wetlands for a
highway bypass.

The woman who once said <http://sisis.nativeweb.org/sov/allnahan.html>
that natives need an “aboriginal Malcolm X” to restore their pride will
be sorely missed by many, including her children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren. Nahanee, age 71, was weak from the flu and asthma
when BC Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown ordered her to the Surrey
Women’s Pre-Trial Centre in January.

Nahanee was hospitalized with pneumonia a week after her release from
jail. Then doctors discovered she had lung cancer. A news release on
Sunday, February 25 briefly announced Nahanee’s death from pneumonia and
complications.

Fellow activist and great-grandmother Betty Krawczyk, age 78, was among
those who attended a prayer vigil for Nahanee Friday night. “Me and
Harriet really bonded” at the Eagleridge Bluffs blockade, she told me.
“We were the only great-grandmothers there. It was up to us to bring it
forward.”

In January. Krawczyk urged Justice Brown
<http://www.firstnations.de/media/01-4-betty-letter.pdf> to refrain from
sending Mrs. Nahanee to jail. “I am very worried about Mrs. Harriet
Nahanee,” Krawczyk wrote. “Mrs. Nahanee is not well. She has asthma and
is suffering the after effects of a recent bout of flu that has left her
very weak.”

On March 5th, Justice Brown will sentence Krawczyk for her own part in
the Eagleridge Bluffs protest. Krawczyk expects to be sent to the same
Surrey jail as Nahanee.

“Harriet believed Eagleridge Bluffs belonged to the Squamish Nation, and
she felt her band – the elected chiefs – were trading the land away for
development,” Krawczyk told me by phone from Vancouver. “She wanted the
land preserved for her great-grandchildren. She put her life on the line
for that.”

Krawczyk reports <http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com/> that Nahanee
was “challenging the right of the elected chiefs of the Squamish Nation
to negotiate away traditional Squamish Lands off the Squamish Reserve,
lands that include Eagleridge Bluffs. This action potentially has
serious ramifications for the entire band concerning who has the right
to negotiate away traditional Squamish Indian lands,” she wrote in her
blog <http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com/>.

Nahanee was born on the Pacheenaht Indian Reserve on Vancouver Island in
1937. Along with the other children on the reserve, she was taken from
her parents at age 5 to live at the Ahousaht Residential School. Five
years later she and 300 others were transferred to Alberni Residential
School. In 1998 she testified about the horrific abuse she and other
native children suffered, including beatings, rape, and murder.

According to Lloyd Dolha
<http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/education/fall98_edu.htm>, Nahanee
reported that children were punished for singing their traditional songs
and speaking their own language. They were so poorly fed that they were
beaten for stealing vegetables from the root cellar. She disclosed that
she was sexually abused for four years in the school.

“I didn’t bring it to mind until 1984, when my daughter committed
suicide. Then I began to look at myself. Why I was addicted to alcohol?
Why I wasn’t a good parent?” When Nahanee visited a psychiatrist she
told him, “I think the church and the government did this to us
deliberately in order to take the land and resources. It was all about
keeping us dysfunctional, to keep us dependent.”

On December 24, 1946, Nahanee witnessed an altercation between Rev. A.
E. Caldwell, and a female supervisor at the top of a staircase at the
school. They were arguing about a little girl who was running up and
down the stairs.

“Mr. Caldwell was always drunk. You could smell the liquor on his breath
all the time,” Nahanee recalled.

“He kicked the little girl and she fell down the stairs and died. That’s
murder. There were other kids in the infirmary who had their appendix
burst. That’s murder. Other children were beaten so badly they died.
That’s murder. No one bothered to take them to the hospital.”

“The worst part of it was the loneliness. When you’re a little kid and
you can’t reach out to your mom for a hug – it really hurts. It’s a
wound for a lifetime,” said Nahanee.

On February 23, the day befoe Nahanee’s death, the Indigenous Action
Movement held a rally and prayer vigil for Harriet. Amost 100 people
gathered outside the Supreme Court for a ceremonial walk to St. Paul’s
Hospital.

The group prayed with drums and sang the Women Warrior’s Song outside
Nahanee’s hospital room to give her support and strength. They brought
flowers, cards and a picture of the Larsen Creek Wetlands at Eagleridge
Bluffs before they were demolished.

Details about Nahanee’s memorial have not yet been confirmed by her family.