Mary Pember: Facing the historical trauma of boarding schools

The Great Hurt was written by retired artist and St. Scholastica College faculty member Carl Gawboy of the Bois Forte Band of Minnesota Chippewa. It contains eyewitness accounts, both historic and contemporary, of the Indian boarding school experience. Performers read aloud the words of people such as Captain Richard Pratt, credited with founding the governing philosophy of the schools. Pratt famously championed the idea that the schools should “kill the Indian to save the man.”

Topping-Thompson said learning about the history of the schools and reading the play helped her better understand the experiences and actions of her family. Her grandmother, who attended Pipe Stone Indian school, was an alcoholic. She was unable to care for her children, so they were placed in non-Native foster homes. This angered Topping-Thompson, who blamed her Grandmother for being a poor mother.

“After the play, I was able to see and feel the pain of my grandmother’s experience. I came to understand how she never had her own needs met as a child and how this contributed to her being unable to nurture her own children, “ Topping-Thompson said.

Topping-Thompson was assigned to read the words of her Uncle Jim Northrup, a well-known Ojibwe poet and author from the Fond du Lac reservation whose work is included in the play. “I read his story in which he describes how the little boys would cry at night for their mothers in the dormitory. He said the crying would start with one boy, then move in waves through the children in their beds,” she said.