1

EARLE WAUGH, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view of the Cree

1. Background who worked among the Cree from 1946 until his death in 1976, and who came with It seems clear that North America has ideas about culture and language that always been peopled by migrants.! If current derived from his experience in Flanders. information is substantially correct, both Vandersteene was part of a powerful force North and South America served as end that has immigrated into Canada, namely the points for successive migrations that reach Catholic Church, and it could be argued that back more than 15,000 years. Judging by the Cree people he came to were relatively Canada's experience during the last hundred isolated and self contained, culturally and years, every successive wave of migrants linguistically. What elements of linguistic brought powerful ideas for shaping and belonging did he see as applicable to this redefining life in the new country; they Canadian society? reformulated the environment in place in some way, to make it more like their I shall examine two questions which are original home or to make things conform relevant not only to the Cree but also to more to their perceived cultural norm. If so, Flanders, and which form part of notions of assimilation and colonialism have Vandersteene's Flemish experience that he a far longer genealogy than previously brought with him. These features are firstly believed. One can only imagine the conflicts the relation oflanguage to identity, and that must have arisen in the process of the secondly the shape of identity and cultural integration of these migrations. Most history. He offers an especially interesting startlingly, one has to conclude that case because he represents an individual Foucault's concept of Other has been with whose views are diametrically opposed to us from the beginning of this hemisphere's those of the hegemonic European who is settlement. 2 bent on conquering the New World. He struggled with his own legacy, and used it in I offer here one case where a new factor a careful and restrained manner. Hence it is entered into the dialogue, the mixture of worth while examining the factors at play, in social effects of immigration, namely both language and ethnic identity, brought missionary work among the Indians in by this influential migrant to Canada. I shall Canada. In particular, I wish to discuss the then examine his ideas of "decolonizing" the outlook brought to this task by Rogier3 Cree, before drawing some conclusions Vandersteene, a colourful Oblate missionary about contributions he might make to our .,------

2 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

understanding of Canadian culture. But first became something of a folk hero, while I will give some account of his life and Canadians at many levels of society career.4 honoured or criticized his work. He showed his sympathies early in his career, when a Rogier Vandersteene O.M.I. was a fellow priest broke an old man's sacred pipe colourful and dedicated priest who served as a sign of disgust and rejection of his with the Oblates in several Cree settlements traditions; Vandersteene fixed the pipe and in northern Alberta from 1947 to 1976. He returned it to its owner. Before he died, the was born in Marke in Flanders on July 15, old man ritually transferred the pipe to him. 1918. He was the eldest son of the thirteen The incident changed not only his thinking children of Adolf George and Julia but his career. He began to involve himself Vandersteene, but his father did not want in activities related to native healing him to enter the priesthood, as the eldest practices, such as transferring Indian healing sons were often expected to do in that area plants to his home and nurturing them in his of Flanders. During his youth he was a greenhouses. strong defendant of Flemish nationalism, and until his death he attached an insignia to He returned to Wabasca and stayed there all his correspondence indicating his loyalty until 1956. In 1957 he was assigned to Trout to Flanders. He was extremely sensitive Jo Lake, where he remained until 1968. The Flemish linguistic claims, and believed Cree mothers of Trout Lake had confidence Flemish religious nationalists should work that his prayers and his vow to build a grotto for the good of their fellow-Flemish against to the Virgin Mary at Trout Lake prevented the French-speaking majority in Belgium, an epidemic among the children of that even to the detriment of the latter. remote northern village, and some Cree medicine men so trusted him that they began He trained locally for the priesthood and passing on secret medical lore to him. At the took his vows on July 11, 1943. He applied same time the Bishop urged him to go to for the toughest and poorest of the Oblate Grouard to act as overseer of the missions missions, notably those among the Inuit in and develop a Cree missions policy. After Canada's Arctic, but he was sent to Alberta. five years he asked to be returned to mission He served in Wabasca from 1946 to 1949 work, and he was sent to the remote and in Little Red River and Fort Vermilion settlements of Jean D'Or Prairie, Fox Lake from 1949 to 1953. In 1955 he published and Garden River, at the southwestern edge Wabasca, a book based on his early of Wood Buffalo National Park. In 1975 he experience among the Cree; the book was learned from the Cross Cancer Clinic in popular in Belgium and was translated into Edmonton that he had pulmonary cancer. French. In it he described the ceremony of Following the preliminary treatments he the wikkokkewin, which inducted the spirit returned to his duties. He sought out and of the recently deceased into the other world was treated by two medicine men, but he and welcomed the spirit ancestors of the died in Slave Lake of an asthmatic attack on tribe to a winter celebration in their honour. August 7, 1976. He was interred in the This ceremony became the basis for a Oblate section of the Girouxville cemetery revised Catholic mass incorporating many after both Indian and Church burial Cree emblems. In his native Flanders he ceremomes. )f

The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view of the Cree 3

2. Language and identity Rodenbach was a key figure at the origin of the Flemish Movement. He was considered Vandersteene was heavily influenced by a young radical in 1875 when he formed the the Flemish nationalist movement. We will Blauwvoeterij or Stormy Petrel Movement, see how his attitude toward the Cree a loose organization of students dedicated to language was moulded in that crucible: "A Flemish independence. His poem "Flies the Fleming understands better than anybody petrel, storm at sea,,6 became the rallying cry that the language of a people is its main of young Flemish nationalists from that time artery," he contended.5 It may be instructive on. The sentiments of the poem are that the to summarize some of the movement's main Flemish people, symbolized by the seagull, directions. It arose in part from the fact that will rise above the storm, survive and thrive. Flemish speakers were a minority in their On Rodenbach's statue is the following own country and the administration seemed inscription: to despise any language but French. Vandersteene grew up in the shadow of this Vit houwe trouwe wordt moereland conflict, once incurring the wrath of his jherboren school principal when he refused to wave En Vlaanderen' s sonne is aan het the Belgian flag for visiting dignitaries daghen. because the national government was [Out of strong fidelity our dominated by French-speakers little motherland is being reborn concerned about Flemish language rights. And the sun of Flanders is rising.] Many are the stories told during the First World War of Flemish-speaking soldiers From such sentiments grew the Flemish under the command of French-speaking linguistic and nationalist movement. officers who either could not or would not acknowledge the language of the soldiers in When Vandersteene came to Grouard, he communicating with them, with tragic immediately plunged into the study of the consequences. Following the war, Flemish Cree language. His partner in this process nationalism gained new strength, spurred on was a young priest from Quebec, Louis-Paul by stories of discrimination in the army and Lachance, but there was never any the government. The outraged cry of the competition between them. Hour after hour soldiers and other Flemish nationalists found he toiled over the language, never even expression in a text scratched on a stone by stopping when he went out hunting. As he an unknown soldier: "Here our blood / recalled later, he found it helpful to write When our rights?" Similar sentiments are Cree words on pieces of paper and place expressed in a poem by the nationalist priest them on the gunsight, then he forced himself Father Cyriel Verschaeve (I translate): to say the word several times before he fired a shot. He pursued Cree relentlessly, like a Here their bodies lie as seeds in the besotted lover; it became a constant source sand, of delight and consternation to him, till the Hope in the harvest, 0 Flanderland. end of his life. His skills increased so rapidly that local Crees marvelled at him, Such nationalist emotions were not new. and Lachance despaired and abandoned the Long before the First World War, Albrecht field. So competent did he become that 4 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies people who did not know him by name, and taught it to the people were even some parishioners, referred to him by doing a very wise thing. the epithet ka nihta nehiyawet, "the person English or French taught in who really speaks Cree." schools were often forgotten quickly by the native children Despite many reverses, his success with when they returned to their Cree sustained him, along with his inner communities, and those who convictions about his calling. Vandersteene did not forget completely did did not like to fail; he never had, even when not further develop. Their he was very ill. His love for Cree grew reading consisted mostly in along with his pursuit of an underlying Cree comic strips .... character. He was beguiled by the stories of Many books and articles elders, their powers and their ideas; he was were printed and still are sure something entirely Cree lay beneath the reprinted in syllabics in Cree, facade of the complex culture he found Montagnais and Eskimo, himself in. His experience of the Flemish mostly of a religious nature. language and its cultural significance, he Lately, however, the state felt, gave him an insight into the Cree took over all education in all people. He was entranced by the way Cree its ramifications and native could give an instant photograph of a languages started to suffer. situation; he liked the ease with which new No more Cree in schools. It words could be formed, just by connecting has been banished locally, elements of meanings together. In his even from recess periods and meetings with colleagues he could wax recreational halls, and eloquent about the treasures of the Cree propaganda is being made to language. He pressed academics to study have the children speak more Cree for its possible relationship to German English at home, even when and Dutch. parents do not understand it. A painful spiritual poverty of In 1971 he attended a conference in the children is the result of Winnipeg on Cree syllabics. His remarks such actions. The authority of there sum up the attitude he formed early on the parents is broken, respect towards Cree: for their own history and culture is replaced by a false Cree is a beautiful language sense of superiority. Mature that should not be allowed to people and children are die. It is spoken, in several alienated, to the detriment of dialects, nearly clear across both. Undigested ideas make Canada and in parts of the an unreal and unrealistic United States. It belongs to atmosphere in which the Algonquin family of dissatisfaction and frustration languages .... abound."" Missionaries and traders who Reaction to this situation is learned it themselves and coming from both the people The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene' s view of the Cree 5 themselves and from wiser afraid of discovering things men in school administration, that may upset us from our Church and government. self-created pinnacle of our There is a movement of arche [sic} de triomphe? return to the native languages Many truths can only be among educated Indians. facets of one truth, and many There is still the attitude truths are enthroned in many among some officials that languages, that corne through Crees can speak and write centuries of wisdom, thought, their language and be experience ... and kept alive considered illiterate! The and brought to us today. We ideal we should aim for is must not destroy it. that with our fellow Humanity will never be one Canadians we could because one language is communicate in an official spoken! Look at those who language, spoken or speak English. Are they one? written,while at the same If unity has to be bought at time we should be so rich the price of linguistic poverty (and helped to be that rich!) and limitation, that unity is as to learn the tongue of our offensive and evil. Humanity community - reading and has to be diversified, with writing as well as in speech. diverse approaches, diverse In any case, your own expressions, because language, studied, spoken, humanity is too big for one written and read, is still the pair of eyes, one pair of ears, very best starting point to one set of brains and one learn to speak, write and read language to express it. 7 another one, official or not. We do some splendid What can be concluded from this research on the origins of our profession of faith? It reflects an individual planet, up to going to the who interpreted the Cree language as he moon, that may teach us interpreted the norms and ideological something of our own earth­ controversies of French-Flemish rivalry. He genesis, up to digging up old comprehended its value as an extension of bones buried for eons,but all his own loyalty to the Flemish language. In that is only "body;" we try to his opinion, Cree was completely neglect our past, the spiritual undervalued, misrepresented and ignored by development, the viewpoint the majority debates on French and English, of other notions concerning and he felt the same sense of outrage as he our inner growth and being, did at the treatment of Flemish in Belgium. and we even try to destroy His commitment to Cree, then, was not just what is not spiritually "me a question of learning the language in order now." Is humanity only as to communicate. It was to re-establish the rich as we are? Or are we Cree language in its important position in ,"ft'

6 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

North American history and culture, and to return from the Canadian mission field on give it its rightful place in the development his first furlough: "I serve my country by of Canadian identity. going on this mission."

3. The shape ofcultural history and identity One regrettable fact that we cannot gloss over is that Vandersteene shared the pro­ Belgium is a recent country by European Nazi sympathies of some of the Flemish standards, having come into existence only nationalists. He became more and more in 1830. Within this new country, both involved with the pro-German student Flemish and Walloon (French-speaking) movement that flourished between the two identities were intended to be integral to the World Wars, and his faith in Germany whole. August Vermeylen, the modernist continued throughout the Second, since he and nationalist writer, put the Flemish case saw no way for the Flemish to receive fair clearly: "In order to be something, we must treatment under Walloon hegemony. It was be Flemings; we want to be Flemings in the policy of the Church to keep French­ order to be Europeans.,,8 In this way the speaking Oblates in Belgium but to Flemish were supposed to feel connected to encourage the Flemish-speaking priests to French-speaking fellow-Belgians by religion move elsewhere, and he realized that his and liberal perceptions of government. . loyalty to Flemish nationalism was working Unfortunately the Walloons tended to look against any long-term service to his beloved down on the Flemings as uncultured. Flanders in the Church.

However, Flemish national awareness Activist politics fitted his temperament. flowered in the arts and literature; it He relished the resistance of people like his developed particularly strongly after 1860 father, who was firmly opposed to him. He when Guido Gezelle (1830-99) published thrived in that environment, but it would his first poems. As a young student, prove to have a bitter aftertaste. In 1940 his Vandersteene especially looked to Gezelle brother Etienne was called up to be sent to as one of his models. With Gezelle the close France to fight against the German army. He relationship among literary expression, refused to go, and this was interpreted to religion and nationalism came to the fore. It mean that he was a collaborator. After the is a trait that touched many writers both Allied victory, the collaborators were inside and outside the nationalist movement. hounded on every front and Etienne ended up in jail. Suddenly everyone claimed to Of all the regions of Flanders famous for have been in the resistance, but not its missionaries, the area around Marke has Vandersteene and his friends, many of a special significance. Scores of priests and whom were jailed as well. missionaries came from there, partly because of the forward-looking bishops who He took these events in stride and began sponsored a college for training priests, working with those who were accused of partly because of a connection between collaboration, sometimes in ways that could Flemish nationalism and Catholic piety. The have led to his own imprisonment. One day link was echoed by Vandersteene when he he appeared in court on behalf of some of addressed the local congregation on his his accused friends. When the court case The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view of the Cree 7 was over, Vandersteene hurried from the But sometimes, we saw a building, forgetting his black satchel. A thing (from another culture) court official ran after him: "Father, Father, and we hid behind a set of you've forgotten your bag." Luckily the symbols in our heads and official did not look inside: there were instead of saying, "The set of fifteen false passports in it. Once he dressed symbols that others have, a woman as a priest in order to get her there's truth in there," no, we through a security checkpoint, but he went on with our own symbol realized when they were almost there that and we smashed theirs. When she was wearing rings. Quickly he signalled we smashed the symbol, we to her to cover her hands, and they passed smashed what was inside too, through without difficulty. At other times he in this case, the practice of represented himself as an ordinary citizen the Indian religion. Now we who wanted to visit collaborators in prison can't find anything among so he could taunt them; in reality he brought young Indians, because we them food. He also hid people in his room disregarded the bases of his when the building was being searched. One [sic] life. For their sense of day he barred the doorway of an artist's wrong-doing, even their house when it was besieged by irate anti­ sense of what was fun, collaborators. "Over my dead body!" he differed from ours.Now they said, staring them down. Vandersteene' s just don't believe in anything pro-Nazism was a source of concern to his 9 family and friends. They feared for his safety, and given the public mood Thus Vandersteene came to the conclusion immediately after the liberation, they that speaking Cree was not just a way of anticipated that he would run afoul of the reacting to the world and creating identity: government with his well-known support of he also saw how the Cree could use it as a those accused of collaboration. force to create an alternative world to the white Canadian one. The old Cree people That he was willing to go so far in his consciously used language to help create loyalty to Flemish nationalism (as he and maintain a different cultural world. The interpreted it) has be kept in mind when we more he learned, the more he realized how consider his work in Canada. He brought distinctive Cree culture was. this same intensity to the Cree position in Canada, and tended to see Cree culture in Cree people talk differently much the same way as radical Flemish than whites. Like the problem nationalists viewed Flemish culture, that is, of committing themselves. as the original Celtic culture of antiquity Cree never will lie because destroyed by imperialism. At the heart of the they have seven or eight situation in Canada, he felt, was the similar different words to express "colonial" vision of the white Euro­ doubt. If someone comes and Canadian, a "seeing" based on a reductionist I say "Are we going to hunt attitude toward Indian culture and religion: tomorrow?" he would say "Enh enh ahpo ituke," that 8 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

means, "It's possible." But offered, then the requester was not indebted. what if tomorrow his wife is Eventually Vandersteene understood why sick. He didn't want to relations between the various governments commit himself to me to hunt and the Cree continued to be so troubled: the because then he would have government cultivated the notion that the lied to me if his wife was Cree had to express thanks for the funds it sick. An Indian was an allocated to them, despite the fact that they RCMP officer and he said he had owned the land before the whites came. would be in on such and such From the Cree perspective there could be no a day and he never showed equality when one group must always be up. They said he was a liar. grateful to the other. He should have used maybe. All this applies to things like The same principles are at work in the asking people their names, well-known protocols of hospitality and knocking on doors, sharing. Vandersteene learned one of his entertaining people, property, most important lessons as a result of his etc. 10 naiVete. Once at Wabasca he stopped to see an old Indian called Charlebois. He soon Obviously these protocols apply to a wide realized Charlebois didn't have very much range of experience. Vandersteerie learned food to share with him and was making no that asking for anything from a Cree great attempt to do so. From a Cree standpoint required him to preserve the standpoint, Charlebois really didn't take independence of the person he was asking. good care of his "brother" at all. To ask someone directly did not allow the Vandersteene shrugged it off. The next other person the freedom to say no. He morning he went on his way, and a few discovered that ifhe could send someone to miles down the trail he saw a moose. He ask for him, he could respect the other's tracked and killed it, cut a few pieces from independence. He also learned that there the carcass, and brought them back to were ways that you could make requests Charlebois' wife. Then he and Charlebois when you were alone with someone, but brought the moose meat back to the cabin they required certain positional stances. For and feasted. Not for a day or two did example, ifhe wanted a cigarette he could Vandersteene set out for Trout Lake. The say "Smoking a cigarette would be a very Cree who heard of this thought it a great pleasant thing to do with you now." joke. In Cree tradition old Charlebois should have fed the priest, even with the little he Mindful of the relationship between had, and instead Vandersteene ended up Flemish and French culture, he read much doing the sharing. The Cree relished the into Cree language habits. Even in ordinary irony in the story. Vandersteene thought he conversation, the Cree had a different was merely practising Christian charity; conception of power. Thus when a Cree had only later did he learn how he had given a to thank someone, he (or she) was admitting new twist to the Cree value of sharing. the other person was in a very real sense superior to him. Requesting something put What is also important is that him in debt to that person. However, ifhe Vandersteene was in a minority position in The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view of the Cree 9

multiple ways. Firstly he was a European in Canadian cultural identity, antecedent to Cree society - thus old Charlebois was both the French and English cultural treating him like an outsider, an Other. Then traditions. there was his minority position within Canada as a missionary to the minority A very clear example of his application of aboriginal group, and as a Catholic in the these ideas is his concept of the faithful largely Protestant population of western remnant, which is left to form a new and Canada. He had also been a minority holy community after a disaster. Originally Flemish-speaker within Belgium, revolting his goal had been to form a meditation in his youth against the slights dealt to the group, based on the notion of a tightly knit Flemish-speakers by the French. Finally he order dedicated to certain forms of piety and was a priest, an elite celibate minority prayer, much like a Euroopean monastic within the family-oriented structure of order. It floundered, surviving only for two Western society. In one way or another he years. He made his next attempt in the tiny experienced, incorporated and reacted to all community of Trout Lake. By his second these elements of Otherness in his life and year there, he could write: "I'm beginning to career. have a small nucleus of faithful at weekly Mass and Communion; very small, but I It is striking that Canada's emphasis on hope, very firm. One day, God knows, it will multiculturalism also contribute.sto this explode. I nourish this nucleus as a mother phenomenon: on the surface the immigrant feeds her babe."ll is welcomed for the contribution he can make, but really he is forever hyphenated. Vandersteene soon learned that most Cree Nor, strangely, is he comfortable in his old communities were fundamentally splintered home. He may be considered as Canadian as in their culture and their religion. He was anyone else, but that very Canadian-ness also aware that there were simply not divides him from his old home as surely as enough missionaries to be present in all the from his new one, or as it divided communities. He therefore proposed the Vandersteene from the Cree. idea of a remnant. The full-blown idea seems to have come to him first as a result His sense of being in a minority played a of a Pentecostal mission to his little Church key role in his perception of the Cree, both in Trout Lake, which left him with only a in regard to his efforts to become one with handful of people. Originally it was his idea them and his sensitivity to their minority that the aged leaders from each community situation. His attempt to bridge the gap who had stood the test of time, and between Canada's first people and Euro­ represented the traditional wisdom and Canadians was a religious project that took leadership, best fit the description of this him to the heart of a moral dilemma: category of leadership. He writes: Canadian "colonialism" leaves Euro­ Canadians without moral authority to We must try to discover a construct the country . Worse still, perhaps, it nucleus of Christianity, a leaves aboriginal people without a truly religious nucleus: those commitment to the current nature of Canada. who are truly Christian. That He saw Cree culture as the foundation of will demand in some places 10 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

one year, in other places during the summer, so that the meaning of more than one year. It all the Church could be developed from within depends how deep their consciousness. In this manner, a truly missionary fervour has Cree-based Church would arise to enrich all penetrated. This second the Church in Canada, and indeed Canadian phase will especially be a society as a whole. This was the message he time of the bringing of the carried from group to group, as he said, word in catechism and liturgy "from one end of Cree country to the other, of a purer and more intensive about the same distance as Spain to nature. We will see who Moscow." drifts to the top under the influence of this more These ideas echo Vandersteene' s notions intensive and purified of the culture of the Flemish people. He and evangelization. 12 his friends had agitated for a Flemish identity and a Flemish clergy for Flanders. He was convinced that the remnant must They had followed the model of be taught to understand the passion of Rodenbach's First World War student Christ, because that commitment to sacrifice associations, which had political goals, was the example for all Christian leaders. especially concerning language and cultural He stressed the use of the Cree word rights for Flemish-speaking people. He had tutakawiyak, which means "to be treated become a leader in the KSA, the Catholic exactly like," that is, the leaders will not Student Action group, a religiously oriented only be persecuted, they will be treated association lobbying for Flemish language exactly like Christ. Thus the remnant must and culture. Part of this movement was be fully aware of the spiritual nature of the decidedly critical ofthe Church hierarchy. enterprise. He emphasized Cree parables; the vexatious temptations of Christ which During the inter-war years, the Catholic could befall all leaders; and the beatitude of hierarchy had treated the nationalism of the Father, who, he affirms, "est une Flemish youth with restrained disdain. They maman! Ma maman, mais mieux encore." regarded these nationalist urgings as They must be taught that Cree culture was activities threatening to the security of the given for Cree people, and that Cree cultural state, and destructive for the Catholic party, concepts, like the belief that remembering a which had the overwhelming support of the spirit or ancestor makes him or her actually hierarchy. Moreover, as part of the favoured present, must be valued as a way for the group, the French-speaking priesthood was remnant to carry on without the white not about to correct the demographic missionaries. He advocated identifying and imbalance in their ranks; the hierarchy did selecting two or three people from each little to spur opportunities for Flemings, community who would lead this remnant, knowing the advanced education required providing a nucleus around which both the and the socio-economic class to which most Church and the community could achieve Flemish-speaking people belonged. In short, some sense of wholeness and blessing. the Flemish people were considered too These leaders, a "council of elders," would poor and too poorly educated to be able to be brought together for intensive training meet the demands of the priesthood. This The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view of the Cree 11 was a kind of post-colonial ideology before Churches were not only it became recognized as such. becoming power structures, they were also part of a 4. Decolonizing the Cree colonizing heavier structure. In Europe religious division It is largely because of this kind of followed the cracks of state discrimination within the Church that borders in a development not Vandersteene refused to stay at home and of conviction but of become a priest in a Flemish-speaking convenience. Nationality and parish, although his family pleaded with him religion were officially one, to do so. While he could conceive of himself persecution was a state affair, as a loyal son of the transcendent Church, he conversion was treason, state, could not accept the political subservience language and religion spread forced upon its Flemish-speaking wing. He together and grew powerful carried into Canada this same distinction or weak together ... Most between the Church as God's vehicle for missionaries who came ... salvation and the Church as a hierarchical were inhibited by that view. 14 organization. There is good evidence that he saw the position of the Cree in Canada in the The school was a perfect tool for· this kind same light as he viewed that of the Flemish of Church, since it provided a means for people while he was growing up. For both conversion and European civilization. example, he was highly critical of the That development encouraged the coming of Canadian Church for its complicity in the whites, who as bearers of the favoured problems among the Cree. Outsiders civilization consistently pushed tpe Indians wondered whether he represented a fifth to the edge of the community and, in some column within the Church. In conferences cases, of the church's concern. The Church and press statements he appeared to argue authorities became "pawns in a game," till that the Church had largely failed the people eventually they looked on a few ho.urs of among whom he laboured. He saw its raison catechism during school hours as an d'etre defeated by its own cultural achievement, when it was in fact "pathetic." underpinnings. In his mature analysis he Moreover, the Church became, sometimes began by reviewing what the Church had unwittingly, the tool for all kinds of done in North America. As early as 1965 he European destruction: treaties which split was warning his colleagues: "Don't read any communities between treaty and non-treaty, more of those American Indian books, and language which deliberately undermined put away all those mission books that tell confidence in the traditional tongues, a you how to convert the Indian.,,13 He saw lifestyle that favoured the swelling ranks of that, while the Church had been a strong technically trained whites, and schools that force for good, some very destructive effects enforced and maintained government policy came about because of her presence. This for the sake of the funding involved. The was so because the Church had seen herself mission church, with her focus on the local as an instrument not only of evangelism but people, gave way to "national" concerns, also of civilization: becoming a Church with a "national" message. The Indian became the 12 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

"neglected" minority. The missionary helped her see that the became the purveyor of "inflationary church's present task is to go Christianity," concerned with numbers of back to her true roots, to souls converted and of natives in residential pursue her original goal of schools, of cathedrals and churches built, all trying to work out Jesus' legacies of a European value system. It was words within aboriginal part of the European organizational process traditions: "I come not to to impose its nature on the local Church. destroy but to fulfil," that is, to bring the message of love This underlying cultural assumption in the present in Christ to Cree way the church developed was clearly lifeY wrong, because, as he wrote,

Christianity can never Vandersteene argued that the evidence of identify itselfwith any moral loss was found everywhere in the human society, social Canadian religious establishment. For structure, form of example, not a single Alberta missionary government, establishment, studied Cree chant, despite the absolutely form of charity, evolution or central importance of music and song in revolution: it is a divine native culture. The most glaringly strange power for all of them, things were done, such as training changing from the inside all indigenous priests in Toronto or Ottawa, of them .... Christianity needs when they should have been trained in the a pre-existing culture, it is a bush where their people lived. Even though yeast, not a culture itself. the church had known for years that it Strangely, the mission cum should indigenize itself, it had not done so, school community did aid the in part because of its commitment to an life of many Natives, unwieldy bureaucracy: introducing incentive, hygiene, cleanliness, The liturgy should have been management and the changed, the Our Father, and religious atmosphere of the official prayers, and other European village life, centred aspects should have been on the Church. It provided changed but, of course, the impetus for a group of nobody did it. Church young natives to tum thejr bureaucracy from Europe critical abilities back onto the stood in the way. In the olden Church itself and bring the days, you had to contact all Church to see her own folly .. the bishops. Then there's the It gave many the skill to diversity of the Crees. They reject the form of the Church go on down from Calgary, presented and to look for there are even some in the another vision, without the US, they go way up to the European overlay. They have east in Quebec, on both sides l

The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view ofthe Cree 13

of the border. Some are in as if he had a special warrant to carry the Ontario, even Newfoundland. church beyond what it had been so far. His Really, we would have had to authority did not seem to derive solely or get the whole of Canada and even principally from the authority of the probably the United States Roman Catholic hierarchy, despite his being together just to change the a faithful son of that organization. Rather it Hail Mary. 16 arose from the vision he had of a genuine Cree-Christian reality, which gave him If this line of reasoning were taken to its special inspiration and power. Part of it logical end, one would have to conclude that came from the religious roles bestowed on the hierarchical organization to which he him by the Cree people themselves. How he belonged militated against the success of his perceived himself within these two Christian goals. Wherever he turned in the dissonant systems is never spelled out Church, then, he saw the tragedy of God's clearly in his writings or letters, but it is people committed to saving Cree souls but evident that he felt their tensions. I hear constructing organizations consciously or echoes of the Flemish situation in his vision, unconsciously designed to eradicate them as for he seems to have seen the Cree case distinctive children of God. The Church had through Flemish eyes. What he laboured to brought its own colonialism to interactions construct was a church that would be with aboriginal cultures and predisposed the properly Cree, in the sense in which the construction of a particular type of Church, Church in Flanders was not properly with certain European expectations required, Flemish. dictated by a certain European value system: "It was degrees of being bad that we were Responsibility for the loss of moral looking for, not being good." It certainly did rectitude in the treatment of aboriginal not take the Cree normative value system peoples did not ultimately rest with the into consideration. church: it fell on Canadians as a whole. The destructive attitude worked in two ways. It He suggested that leadership like his could fomented a clash that weakened the Cree: only succeed if a radical change came about "As soon as they had contact with our - a Church had to be fashioned out of the civilization they just went all to pieces. I Cree tradition, which could not just be never saw dirty shacks like that until I saw tacked on to the Christian one. The Cree that place. Shacks held together with. people had to fashion their own church, cardboard. It's terrible. You don't see that in effectively eliminating the missionary's role the bush." From the point of view of the entirely. Within his world view, he felt he Cree, the rejection of a valid place for their had to have the concept of church necessary culture denied them the pride of their own to assist God in building a genuine Cree cultural achievements. Vandersteene made Church. At the same time, his role in that much of the fact that a sophisticated proposed Cree Church, and even his role in language in widespread use in Canada the church as it existed, was either unclear before the Europeans came was or unsatisfactory to him. This state o}affairs systematically undermined, and the whole seemed to spur him on. When he celebrated cultural matrix that sustained it was not even mass, or moved among the Cree, he behaved recognized as inherently valuable, despite its 14 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies

importance in the early days of exploration in which he went about his mission; he and discovery. He lamented now that even never radically altered his foundation some Cree had capitulated to this attitude despite the anomalies he faced. Flemish towards the language. Yet that tragedy had culture was read back through the many sides to it, and he recognized that such involvements he faced in Canada, and they activity was costly for more than the dictated how he would react. However, one aboriginals, it was costly for Canada's soul, must also note that only those elements of costly for the church, and costly for all those the Flemish scene which found an echo in who participated in the destruction - it left Vandersteene played this role: there were no them all bereft of moral authority.17 doubt many other such elements which did not become paradigmatic. Nevertheless, For Vandersteene, the destruction meted paradigms of both language and culture did out to aboriginal society in Canada was impose a certain shape on his engagement generated out of a kind of moral blindness; with the Cree people and their history. it spoke volumes ab()ut the inability of whites to see what they were doing. They in Beyond this, there are some important effect eliminated the Cree as people from aspects of the Cree Other in Vandersteene's whom they could learn what living in life. He calls into question a facile notion of Canada might mean. The sense of moral the Other. He felt very deeply his own "superiority" dashed the possibility of . compound problems as an immigrant in encountering the insights of a religion that Canada. His views are indicative of the had been generated out of the Canadian lengths that immigrants will go to, to come experience. Such results were the ultimate to terms with the culture in place, indeed to cost of colonialism, the reduction of the become part of it. To judge by his example, Cree community to the "savage," while immigrants recast the identity they find in white Canadians stood condemned by their place in Canada and relate to it, and modify complicity in the destructive process. No it in the light of important legacies from the wonder whites were stymied by the crime homeland. As a result Canadian culture is wave among aboriginal youth: the whites constantly being transformed by migtants' had no finger left to point. There was no attempts to reshape it according to their way out of the impasse. Canadians now concerns. This factor is seldom broached in faced an apocalypse of their own Canadian discussion of the value of construction. We may recognize in immigrants. It would be instructive to see Vandersteene's vision of Canadian how such notions affect Canadian culture; culpability strains from the conflict among for example,Vandersteene's idea of the Cree elements of Belgian society and the church may have failed, but his ideas still treatment of Flemish language and culture. have an impact in the debate on syncretism, the incorporation of some Cree practices 5. Conclusions into their Christian religious practice.

What can be said of Vandersteene' s legacy Finally, Vandersteene saw both positive in language and culture? First, that the and negative aspects of aboriginal culture in linguistic and social situation in Flanders Canada, and he felt he had identified the constantly informed and influenced the ways essential weakness of the Canadian The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene' s view of the Cree 15

"belonging." His writings suggest that Otherwise they would remain "other" to the multiculturalism had failed as a way of culture and heritage of true Canadian knitting the disparate elements of Canadian society. He seems to have felt that only by identity together. There were just too many encountering the world of the Other, as sides of the Other left unexamined in this depicted in both the language and the sacred belonging. Indeed, in Vandersteene's view, of the Cree, would Canadians truly become the really serious business of engaging the Canadians. One has to become dual­ Other in Canadian society had not yet taken positional in comprehending this cultural place. Part of the problem was that the only matrix, able to comprehend one's own world consciously recognized division within through the forms offered by another. If my Canadian culture was that of the English­ understanding of Vandersteene' s ideas is and French-speaking peoples, characterized correct, and I believe it is, he took a as the "two solitudes;" that phrase still strikingly original view of Canadian identity dominated Canadian discourse. For - all the more so because it grew out of a Vandersteene the most identifiable view formed far away in Flanders. multicultural Other in Canada was neither the immigrants nor the French, but the aboriginals, who would remain regardless of NOTES any national fracturing. Disenfranchised more than any other group, the aboriginal I For a popular discussion of the Clovis nevertheless had prior claim to the land and people and current hypotheses, see Kenneth offered us the structures of the mind B. Tankersley, "A matter of Superior moulded by the Canadian ecology. Spearpoints," Archeology July-August 1999, Vandersteene seems to argue at various p.60-63, based on John C. Cotter: Clovis points that until white Canadians engage the Revisited, New Perspectives on Paieoindian reality expressed by aboriginals, they will Adaptionfrom Blackwater Draw, New not be part of the Canadian environment. Mexico, Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1999; One of the tools he saw as necessary for Michael B. Collins and Marvin Kay, Clovis achieving this engagement was language. Blade Technology: A Comparative Study of Canadians needed to grasp the wealth of the the Kevin Dais Cache, Austin: University of Cree language as part of their own Texas Press, 1999; and George Frison: The inheritance. The quarrel over language in Fenn Cache: Clovis Weapons and Tools, Canada was at least partially based on a kind Santa Fe: One Horse Land and Cattle of collective forgetfulness, by which white Company, 1999. Canadians "forgot" those who had been here before them, "forgot" how the first 2 See Michel Foucault: Madness and immigrants had adapted, and were Civilization, a History ofInsanity in the Age determined to function as if there were no ofReason, tr. Richard Howard, New York: value in the collective experience of the Vintage Press, 1965. aboriginal peoples. If Canadians as a whole acknowledged the rightful position of the 3 Vandersteene was christened Roger, but Cree as part of their inheritance in this land, his colleagues in Canada, even those who then they would truly be rooted in Canada. were French, used the form Rogier, and so 16 Canadian Journal ofNetherlandic Studies did he, even in his French writings. I have 10 Interview with Fr. Paul Hernou, 24 used that form throughout. August 1978.

4 The material for this article is drawn from 11 La Voix voL 35, no. 6, p.147. my biographical study, Dissonant Worlds, Rogier Vandersteene OM!. among the 12 Rogier Vandersteene: Wanneer gij uw Cree, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier ogen op Godgericht houdt: Brieven aan een University Press, 1996. I wish to express my religieuze, Kortrijk, De Riemaeker pvba, appreciation to several granting agencies: 1977, p.39AO. The Boreal Institute; the University of Alberta's Vice-President (Research) Grant 13 Rogier Vandersteene: "Among the Cree," and the Faculty of Arts Endowment Fund presented at a conference to the Daughters for the Future; and the Government of of Wisdom in Red Deer, Alberta, in the fall Alberta's Alberta Historical Resources of 1965, and recorded on six tapes. I thank Foundation, as well as to the diocese of Fr. Jacque Johnson for making these Grouard and Archbishop Legare, to the available to me. I have been unable to Oblates,and particularly to Vandersteene's determine how many of these ideas are colleague Fr. Paul Hernou. The original. Theodore F. Zuern, S.J., published Vandersteene family also gave willing co-, "Indians Must Be Indians" in The Catholic operation during this study. It was the Cree Digest April 1969, p.76-80, condensed from people, however, who provided much of the his earlier essay in Worldmission, New insight that made Vandersteene' s impact and York, 1969, containing many of the same achievements measurable. Their help in this ideas, apparently developed during his seven research is gratefully and appreciatively years of service among the urban Indians of acknowledged. Rapid City, Iowa.

5 O. Tanghe: Leven en sterven in de missie 14 I have been unable to trace the precise der eenzamen, Amsterdam: Lanoo, 1978, influences on his thought expressed here. It p.56. is clear that the ideas are not new, they are part of the rhetoric behind liberation 6 For Albrecht Rodenbach's Gudrun, see Jan theology. It is possible that he had read and Greshoff: "Belgian Literature in the Dutch been influenced by R. Hernegger: Macht Language," in Jan-Albert Goris, ed.: ohne Auftrag? Die Entstehung des Staats­ Belgium, Berkeley: University of California und Volkskirche, Olten and Freiburg, 1963, Press, 1946, p.286-300. where we read: "The religion that marked the West was not properly the Christian 7 Vandersteene's private notes. message" (p.431).

S Quoted in Jan Greshoff: "Belgian 15 Vandersteene: "Among the Cree;' Literature in the Dutch Language," in Jan­ Albert Goris, ed.: Belgium, Berkeley: 16 Ibid. University of California Press, 1946, p.292. 17 The idea is expressed in an interesting 9 Vandersteene's private notes. parallel by Malek Bennabi, Vocation de The "Flemish" character of Rogier Vandersteene's view ofthe Cree 17

I 'Islam, Paris: Seuil, 1954, English tr. Islam kills the colonized materially and the in History and Society, Chicago: Kazi colonizer morally." Publications, 1988, p.111: "Colonialism