Colonial governments continue to destroy Innu land and traditional culture, says longtime activist and elder
Colonial governments’ mistreatment of the Innu continues to this day, said an elder and activist who has fought for decades to protect traditional Innu culture and lands in Labrador.
“I will start with how we were treated by the white people and the treatment continues today,” Tshaukuesh (Elizabeth) Penashue said Thursday as she began testifying at an inquest examining how Innu children were treated and families were affected by the child protection system.
“When I’m gone, who’s going to teach the kids? The government takes everything away.” – Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue
“You may have seen or heard in the news about the children found in the boarding school graves. You heard about an Innu woman in Quebec who was abused by this nurse or doctors in a Quebec hospital. We are very saddened by this treatment from the police, nurses and doctors who treated [people] bad. lose life. It hurts me to see this, to witness the abuse, because I have children and grandchildren too, and it hurts to think about it.”
child taken
Penashue also testified that she saw an Innu child taken from her family.
“Social workers don’t do their job because I saw a child taken away from their family. The social worker who took the child did not get enough information about the family. It hurts me too to have seen it because of the wrong done to this family by the social worker. When the child was taken away, they immediately wanted to go home to their family. They said they wanted to go back to their mother.”
Penashue also spoke about Innu life before it was influenced by colonial governments.
“Before the government destroyed our country, we had everything, everything. The water was clean, trees, rivers, animals, berries, medicines… Why did the government come here to destroy our country?” she asked in English, fighting back tears.
“When I’m gone, who’s going to teach the kids? The government takes everything away.”
Then she said in Innu-aimun and translated into English:
“Ever since the government destroyed our country, where will we educate our next generation? Our children, the youth. So much damage has been done. Our rivers dammed. The country destroyed. When I do my walks in the countryside, I take the youngsters to teach them about our way of life in the countryside… the country is where we’ve survived for thousands and thousands of years,” Penashue said.
Penashue, 78, was born near Churchill Falls, Labrador and moved to Sheshatshiu with her community in the 1960s. The land on which the Innu lived, including traditional burial sites, now lies submerged in the area that was flooded to create a reservoir for the Churchill Falls hydroelectric power project.
“I’m not the only one who misses our way of life as Innu. I know there are still some elders in our churches who miss them as well. Who miss seeing and hearing children being well and healthy with their families.”
Book describes protests
In 2019, Penashue published a book, Nitinikiau Innusi: I keep the country aliveabout their work to protect the land and traditional Innu culture.
The book, which began as a diary in Innu-aimun, details her experiences protesting against NATO’s low-level flights and bomb tests on Innu-Land in the 1980s and 1990s. These protests led to her and nine other women being arrested and imprisoned.
She has also protested against the development of the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Project on the lower Churchill River.
Penashue began testifying at the inquest on Thursday and continued on Friday.
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