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them off from their natural bonds. Boys and girls were strictly segregated in separate dormitories and could never meet. One survivor describes never seeing her little brother for years, even though he was in the same building at the Alert Bay Anglican school. And when children at the schools broke into each other's dormitories and older boys and girls were caught exchanging intimacies, the most severe punishments were univer- sally applied. According to a female survivor who attended the Alberni school in 1959: They used the gauntlet on a boy and girl who were caught together kissing. The two of them had to crawl naked down a line of other students, and we beat them with sticks and whips provided by the principal. The girl was beaten so badly she died from kidney failure. That gave us all a good lesson: if you tried having normal feelings for someone, you'd get killed for it. So we quickly learned never to love or trust any- one, just do what we were told to do. (Testimony of anony- mous woman from the Pacheedat Nation, Port Renfrew, BC, October 12, 1996) I was kidnapped from my village when I was nine and sent off to the Brannen Lake school in Nanaimo. A local doctor gave me a shot and I woke up in a small cell, maybe ten feet by twelve. I was kept in there like an animal for fourteen months. They brought me out every morning and gave me electric shocks to my head until I passed out. Then in the afternoon I'd go for these X-rays and they'd expose me to them for minutes on end. They never told me why they were doing it. But I got lung cancer when I was eighteen and I've never smoked. (Videotaped testimony of Frank Martin to Eva Lyman and Kevin Annett, Vancouver, July 16, 1998) Such quack experimentation combined with brutal sadism char- acterised these publicly funded facilities, especially the notorious Nanaimo Indian Hospital. David Martin of Powell River, BC, was taken to this hospital in 1958 at the age of five and used in experiments attested to by Joan Morris, Harry Wilson and other witnesses quoted in this report. According to David: I was told I had tuberculosis, but I was completely healthy; no symptoms of TB at all. So they sent me to Nanaimo Indian Hospital and strapped me down in a bed there for more than six 's of the federal months. The doctors gave me shots confirmed that every day that made me feel really s" of residential sick, and made my skin all red and . itchy. I heard the screams of other ithorised for Indian kids who were locked away | . in isolation rooms. We were never un medical allowed in there to see them. rough a joint Nobody ever told me what they h hurch were doing to all of us in there. the churches (David Martin to Kevin Annett, le schools. Vancouver, November 12, 2000) According to Harriett Nahanee: The residential schools created two kinds of Indians: slaves and sell-outs. And the sellouts are still in charge. The rest of us do what we're told. The band coun- cil chiefs have been telling every- one on our reserve not to talk to the Tribunal and have been threatening to cut our benefits if we do. (Harriett Nahanee to Kevin Annett, June 12, 1998) According to Harriett Nahanee: The residential schools created two kinds of Indians: slaves and Former employees of the federal sell-outs. And the sellouts are government have confirmed that still in ch . Th st of us de ° Q Q sulin charge, The rest of'us do | the use of “inmates of residential what we're told. The band coun- cil chiefs have been telling every- schools was authorised for one on our reserve not to talk to . the Tribunal and have been government-run medical threatening to cut our benefits if experiments through a joint we do. (Harriett Nahanee to agreement with the churches Kevin Annett, June 12, 1998) which ran the schools. The nature of that system of torture was not haphazard. For example, the regular use of electric shocks on children who spoke their lan- residential schools themse guage or were "disobedient" was a widespread phenomenon in __ without using any form of residential schools of every denomination across Canada. This victims of this torture at t was not a random but an institutionalised device. jected to it by different de Specially constructed torture chambers with permanent electric was brutalised in that mat chairs, often operated by medical personnel, existed at the Alberni "worked on by a sick old and Kuper Island schools in British Columbia, at the Spanish _ the same school in 1965. Catholic school in Ontario, and in isolated hospital facilities run Dr Josef Mengele is rep by the churches and Department of Indian Affairs in northern —_ have worked out of Cornel Quebec, Vancouver Island and rural Alberta, according to in Syracuse, New York, ar eyewitnesses. ratories in Ontario. Meng Mary Anne Nakogee-Davis of Thunder Bay, Ontario, was tor- the notorious Montreal ps: tured in an electric chair by nuns at the Catholic Spanish residen- ers, mental patients and na tial school in 1963 when she was eight years old. She states: tial schools in their effort: The nuns used it as a weapon. It was done on me on more than and personality, using dru; one occasion. They would strap your arms to the metal arm methods identical to those rests, and it would jolt you and go through your system. I schools. don't know what I did that was bad enough to have that done Former employees of th to me. (From The London Free Press, London, Ontario, that the use of "inmates" o October 22, 1996) government-run medical ¢ with the churches which ra ee recurring and regular torture at the residential schools themselves was operating on children's teeth without using any form of anaesthesia or painkiller. Two separate victims of this torture at the Alberni school describe being sub- jected to it by different dentists, decades apart. Harriett Nahanee was brutalised in that manner in 1946, while Dennis Tallio was "worked on by a sick old guy who never gave me painkillers" at the same school in 1965. Dr Josef Mengele is reputed by survivors of his experiments to have worked out of Cornell University in New York, Bristol Labs in Syracuse, New York, and Upjohn Corporation and Bayer labo- ratories in Ontario. Mengele and his Canadian researchers, like the notorious Montreal psychiatrist Ewen Cameron, used prison- ers, mental patients and native children from reserves and residen- tial schools in their efforts to erase and reshape human memory and personality, using drugs, electric shocks and trauma-inducing methods identical to those employed for years in the residential schools. Former employees of the federal government have confirmed that the use of "inmates" of residential schools was authorised for government-run medical experiments through a joint agreement with the churches which ran the school: According to a former Indian Affairs official: A sort of gentlemen's agreement was in place for many years: the churches provided the kids from their residential schools to us, and we got the Mounties to deliver them to whoever needed a fresh batch of test subjects: usually doctors, Such torture also occurred at facilities operated by the churches with Department of Indian Affairs money, similar to the sterilisa- tion programs identified at the W. R. Large Memorial Hospital in Bella Bella and the Nanaimo Indian Hospital. Frank Martin, a Carrier native from northern BC, describes his forcible confinement and use in experiments at the Brannen Lake Reform School near Nanaimo in 1963 and 1964: 40 ¢ NEXUS Continued on page 85 WWW.NeXU smagazi ne.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2002