I am from White Bear First Nations, near Carlyle SK. I currently live on the Whitecap Dakota First Nation south of Saskatoon, SK. I married Vanessa Little Crow on September 21, 2002, and we have eight children and numerous grandchildren. As the president of Kakakaway & Associates, I believe in the value of a good education.
In high school, my English instructor told me I should prepare myself for a trade because he did not believe I would attend university. To be spiteful, I graduated from U.B.C. in 1992 with a B.G.S. degree. I also earned an Addictions Counselling Diploma, Wellness Counselling Diploma, and numerous certificates. On April 1/22 I was accepted into The Writers Union of Canada.
I wrote a memoir for my children about my early childhood experiences in a residential school. I decided they should know about the history of our people. Eventually, I decided to publish my experiences so others would learn about these horrific schools.
Writing about those painful memories was a difficult thing to do, but I felt it was important for Canadians to read about life behind those hellhole prison walls. As I wrote, I could still hear the haunting cries of small boys in the dorm who missed their parents and wanted to go home. There were times when I stopped writing and put my head on my desk and cried.
I am currently writing programs based on Indigenous spirituality so I can return the teachings we lost during the residential school era. With this COVID-19 pandemic, I can no longer facilitate traditional teachings in the sacred circle. Therefore, I am writing books and programs dealing with spirituality. Education is our new bison, so I look forward to publishing my books when the time is right. Aho!
I wrote a trilogy of memoirs about the time I spent at the Marieval Indian Residential School.
1) Thou Shalt Not Be An Indian - Self-published on 09-11-2020.
2) Torn Between Two Worlds -Self-published on 07-27-2021
3) To Hell and Back - Editorial stage
Robert Kakakaway attended Marieval Indian Residential School for six torturous years. His powerful memoir is more than just a glimpse, so prepare yourself as you witness his daily experiences and the hardships he faced inside the prison walls of this notorious residential school. Sadly, his story is a common theme in most residential schools: it was wrong to be an Indian.
Robert had a very happy childhood until he turned six years old when his life changed for the worse. The happy times became memories replaced by loneliness, fear and abuse. Most children have no concept of hell, but Robert lived it. He endured the bullies and lived each day in fear of being punished for something he did or did not do. While learning a different way of life, his parents became strangers. Foreign teachings from the Bible replaced the great outdoors he knew as a child. It is a sad and emotional story of loneliness, betrayal, and abuse.
Catholic priests and nuns controlled the students at Marieval with a strict code of conduct. Parents were discouraged from visiting their children to separate them from their families. At school, life was unbearable. My home was more than a hundred miles away. I would not hear Grandpa’s stories for a very long time. My name would become a number, and I would have to come running when they called it. Any mention of my culture was forbidden, so I would have to be careful not to break this rule. After all, my cultural ways came from the devil, and I had to pray for my ancestors because they were probably burning in hell.
Another thing I learned was to watch out for bullies because of the lateral violence here. Some of the older boys liked to pick on the younger ones and make them cry. This violence stemmed from the nuns, priests, and staff who hit the students with rulers, keys, and straps to vent their anger. I lived in constant fear of making a mistake that would get me into trouble. In other words, I had to live a perfect life. Only one person lived perfectly, and he died on the cross. I could not understand why Christians killed their god and celebrated it as a good thing.
I would long for the days of being at home where it was not wrong to be an Indian. I would miss my mom’s home-cooked meals where I did not have to wait for the sound of a bell to tell me I could start eating. No one talked about hell, where a devil waited for us with a pitchfork. Grandpa said we did not commit sins. He called them “learning experiences,” and each one was sacred because they taught us about life. Grandpa was a wise man, and there were many things the nuns and priests could learn from him. Oh, I forgot. We were heathens, and our cultural ways were forbidden because they came from the devil.
I will do a presentation with a question and answer period. I will share my books as they relate to residential schools.
|
9:00 a.m.
12;00 p.m.
3:00 p.m. |
Opening prayer & song
Health break
Lunch break
Circle check, closing prayer & song
|
I wrote a trilogy of memoirs about the time I spent at the Marieval Indian Residential School.
1) Thou Shalt Not Be An Indian - Self-published on 09-11-2020.
2) Torn Between Two Worlds -Self-published on 07-27-2021
3) To Hell and Back - Editorial stage
Robert Kakakaway attended Marieval Indian Residential School for six torturous years. His powerful memoir is more than just a glimpse, so prepare yourself as you witness his daily experiences and the hardships he faced inside the prison walls of this notorious residential school. Sadly, his story is a common theme in most residential schools: it was wrong to be an Indian.
Robert had a very happy childhood until he turned six years old when his life changed for the worse. The happy times became memories replaced by loneliness, fear and abuse. Most children have no concept of hell, but Robert lived it. He endured the bullies and lived each day in fear of being punished for something he did or did not do. While learning a different way of life, his parents became strangers. Foreign teachings from the Bible replaced the great outdoors he knew as a child. It is a sad and emotional story of loneliness, betrayal, and abuse.
Catholic priests and nuns controlled the students at Marieval with a strict code of conduct. Parents were discouraged from visiting their children to separate them from their families. At school, life was unbearable. My home was more than a hundred miles away. I would not hear Grandpa’s stories for a very long time. My name would become a number, and I would have to come running when they called it. Any mention of my culture was forbidden, so I would have to be careful not to break this rule. After all, my cultural ways came from the devil, and I had to pray for my ancestors because they were probably burning in hell.
Another thing I learned was to watch out for bullies because of the lateral violence here. Some of the older boys liked to pick on the younger ones and make them cry. This violence stemmed from the nuns, priests, and staff who hit the students with rulers, keys, and straps to vent their anger. I lived in constant fear of making a mistake that would get me into trouble. In other words, I had to live a perfect life. Only one person lived perfectly, and he died on the cross. I could not understand why Christians killed their god and celebrated it as a good thing.
I would long for the days of being at home where it was not wrong to be an Indian. I would miss my mom’s home-cooked meals where I did not have to wait for the sound of a bell to tell me I could start eating. No one talked about hell, where a devil waited for us with a pitchfork. Grandpa said we did not commit sins. He called them “learning experiences,” and each one was sacred because they taught us about life. Grandpa was a wise man, and there were many things the nuns and priests could learn from him. Oh, I forgot. We were heathens, and our cultural ways were forbidden because they came from the devil.
I will do a presentation with a question and answer period. I will share my books as they relate to residential schools.
