The Sweet Traits Of Our Teenage Girls

Posted on October 2, 2013 by South Wind

The Sweet Traits Of Our Teenage Girls
dedicated to Maisy and Shannon (who disappeared in 2008)

A pearl, a girl
A wind that whirls

Talk of love, of a dove
Of God up above

Teddy bears, country fairs
Doing things on a dare

Giggles and wiggles
And twinkles in the eye

A sigh, a good cry

A song about “What’s wrong!”
A circle in which to belong

A friend to the end
A shield that never bends

A plan for a clan
A wife and her man

Wonder about blunders
And things that cast a soul asunder

Pow wow dancing, models prancing
Handsome boys glancing

Enter the evil
Our greatest fear
Our girls disappear

Damn those evil men for their lust
They have broken humanity’s trust
And left
Our lives broken
Our spirits shattered
Our hearts hollow

The sweet traits of teenage girls – I know them so very well! I am blessed to be the father of daughters and the grandfather of granddaughters. No sons or grandsons to be seen in this neck of the woods. Many times it seems, I have watched girls emerge from the whirlwind of teen years and land on that minuscule circle of bubbling earth on which only strong and confident women take their first steps as leaders. Our women are regaining their power. I am happy for them and joyful, too, for our communities will benefit greatly because it is so.

My daughters and granddaughters are superbly intact with health and vigor. They are destined to leave their mark, their unique imprint on the soul of the land. The realization of their dreams. I know they will do it.

But I worry about my girls. My hope for them is as great as the hope all parents and grandparents have for the women and girls in their families, that being, they will live long, healthy, happy lives. What causes worry for me is the fact that a great number of our Aboriginal women and girls are murdered or disappear each year in this country, now known as Canada. We want our womenfolk to be safe.

4 Oct 2012 Families of Sisters in Spirit Vigil. Photo: ©juliecomber.com

There is only so much we can do to protect them but it is a lot if we do it right. It begins with showing girls respect right from the time they emerge from the womb. And then we back up that respect with unconditional love each and every day of their lives.

If my teenage girls were to suddenly disappear from my life, a shroud, heavy with the stones of despair would fall over my shoulders. It would cling to me as bark does to a tree. Even the most spectacular dawn could not pull it free. My heart would feel, each hour of every day, as if the nails of sorrow were piercing it over and over again. A right lost to me if my girls vanished would be my right to hold them in my arms, to reassure them and to grant them counsels empowered to heal through the strength of my own life’s experiences.

If evil men stole my girls away from the sanctuary I helped to construct for them, my soul would thereafter suffer a crucification each of my waking hours. My sleep time would be only a time of calling out their names and of the shedding of my tears.

But because you are there, my family, my friends, my community, the healing circle, I would somehow find the strength to carry on.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

Please note: October 4th is the 3rd Annual Families of Sisters in Spirit Vigil 2013. It starts at 6pm at the Human Rights Monument on Elgin at Lisgar. If you are in Ottawa, please attend to show that Aboriginal women and girls are loved and valued.

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Racism stinks; can’t you smell it?

Posted on September 6, 2013 by South Wind

The following is my opinion about the controversy that has erupted because Ian Campeau (of A Tribe Called Red) made a completely reasonable request that the Nepean Redskins change their racist name. I speak for no one else but myself. My thoughts are directed at First Nations and other Aboriginal individuals whose views on racism are contrary to mine. These people do not know my heart, what gives it joy nor what brings sadness into it. It troubles me that someone outside of myself, would think they know my mind when they really know nothing of my life or my experiences of life.

Do I believe the word “Redskins” to be racist? I most certainly do!

Back in the day, I’ve been called a “dirty redskin” and a “fuckin’ redskin”. I heard racist people tell tales of encounters they had with “a drunken redskin” or with “wild redskins”. The names I was called and the stories I heard connected to the word “redskins” were not meant to flatter or to bring a friendly, brotherly chuckle. They were directed at me in the hope of bringing pain and shame into my heart only because I was Anishinabe. If you are of First Nations blood and have never been called a redskin by a bigot, then good for you. Your good fortune however, does not give you the right to tell the world that because “you” are not offended at being called a “redskin”, then neither should I be. I did not ask you to speak for me. You might not give any more of a hoot to my view or opinion regarding what constitutes racism for me than the man who first named a sports team “Redskins” did for the opinion of the Aboriginal people of that time. He just didn’t give a damn what their views were and it saddens me that your stand appears to hold the same grain.

Does the word “squaw” offend you? It is an ugly word and it offends me too. Guess what! There are Aboriginal people living in our community who are not offended by it. Tactics of assimilation used against us were pretty vile and vicious, some of us were overcome. Does this mean the rest of us have to tolerate the word “squaw” being directed at our women? If the answer is “yes” for you, then you need to know it is an unequivocal, absolute “NO” for me!

The first sports team owner who chose the word “Redskins” as the moniker his players would carry into the field of battle did not respect the Aboriginal People of this land. Keep in mind that at the time it occurred we had yet to be given the sacred right to vote, we still had to apply to a white man for permission to leave the rez, the list goes on and on, not signs for sure that society was in “respect” of us as Peoples. The team owner of the day gave his team the name “Redskins” because the belief of mainstream citizens living in those times was that we were a cunning, ferocious and brutal people. You know, much in the same way a lion or tiger or other ‘bad’ animal is when bringing down their prey.

I am against the word “Redskins” as a name for any sports team. I believe it is racist. But even if I did not see the name as such I would still feel duty-bound as a member of a First Nations community to support the stand of those in my community who felt the name was offensive to them. Whatever sensible reasons they had for feeling as they did would be good enough for me.

The blade of racism cuts deep. It has cost me much over the course of my life. I will not sit idly by and watch my children suffer mental and emotional pain because a racist society flaunts their indignation towards them even at a football field supposedly built for the benefit of all communities who make this country great. If someone reading this is keeping a tally, sign me up as a protester.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

UPDATE: On 19 September, the Nepean Redskins announced they will change their name at the end of this season. Congratulations to Ian Campeau and everyone who helped achieve this! And I am glad the Nepean team’s management has chosen to do the right thing.

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Motionless Waters: Poetry

Posted on August 20, 2013 by South Wind

I’m at my cabin again, oh yeah, and feeling quite pleased with myself at how my poetry writing went this morning. A draft of a poem, one of the city’s Aboriginal organizations requested I write, is laying face up on the floor near my lazyboy chair. It is a good first draft. I doubt much change to it will be necessary before I stamp it ‘complete’. Man, it just tickles me when that happens!

Inspiration and poetry came to me this day in the stillness of the dawn. I realized then that the dusk of yesterday had persuaded the lakewater to find its perfect level. The obliging waters lay flat as glass all the hours of the night, until an early morning light broke the day and revealed the majestic calmness of the water to me at that moment. In the light I watched spirited fish shoot from the lake’s depths into the sky. They didn’t get far, gravity pulled them back down into their familiar watery surroundings where the breath of life for them, is theirs without struggle. The bass will never make it to the clouds but it was fun for me to watch them try to do so.

I noticed too, on the shoreline, a small red squirrel darting from the forest into the clearing of my camp. He abruptly stopped and raced just as quickly as his forward dash had been, back into the security the trees offer him. Perhaps he sensed a bird of prey was near and thought it best to stay out of open places for the time being.

The hunt is good for the hawk at this time of year. All those things he consumes which came to life in spring are beyond sample size at this point of the summer season. They have grown up, so to speak, and have now become the main course. Partridge, Waboose the rabbit, squirrels, snakes and other critters are going about their lives in the forest of late summer and the hawk is strong and well-fed because of it.

The fish who forces its body into the wind, and the squirrel who runs into the light and with it into the glare of a predator are more than poetry in motion. They are teachings with special lessons attached to them. It is for you to learn something good from it in your own way.

The hawk with eyes that capture every turn of the leaves on the trees under his gaze must eat. It wants to soar the winds on open wings in celebration of a fine meal, like a connoisseur of poetry would do after being overwhelmed with emotion because of the power alive in poetry.

Poetry! What would the world be without it?

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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A Tribute to Willie Dunn

Posted on August 13, 2013 by South Wind

The Death Wail
by Albert Dumont ©

Take care the passions I leave behind
Hold them fast, by and by
May they guide you and make you stronger
Remember the love, the kindness, the courage
That flowed mightily through my heart
And were vessels which gave me being
Remember me at gatherings
And on the occasion of a feast
Know sure, I act in ceremony
For your wellness
In the sacred Spirit Land of our ancestors
Live long, dear kindred
And may your path be straight and gentle

(from a Turtle Moons Contemplations greeting card)

Willie Dunn, the activist and poet, the writer and singer of songs which inspired activism among the First Nations Peoples going as far back as the 1960’s, succumbed to cancer on August 5th. Willie would have reached his 72nd birthday this week (August 14). The raspberry moon gave him his first breath and it took away his last.

It seems to me that people born during the moon when raspberries reach their prime are rather unique in the area of word smithing and in their dedication to causes they believe in. They are, more often than not, strong of will, strong of spirit, and strong in pride at who they are as a human being. They possess a natural love of poetry. They write it or they read it and will search a poem carefully to find words in it that might guide their lives in a sacred way. I believe Willie Dunn was such a man. He drew from poetry but he also impacted many thousands of people with the verses and rhymes only he could produce.

Willie was humble. He identified with the grassroots because he was the grassroots. Egotistical, self-centred boars and the First Nations grassroots community don’t mix. Don Cherry? He could take a flying leap. Willie barely tolerated the high and mighty, especially those among us who believe they are exactly that, but exist in such a way in their minds only.

It was said by a speaker at Willie’s funeral service that back in the early 1970’s, when Elizabeth II, the Queen of England, was visiting Vancouver, BC, Willie told her, “We are not your children anymore.” That’s the kind of activist he was. He said what needed to be said. Because of his courage and songs, Willie had the respect and admiration of the leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of other red power movements as well.

Please understand that Willie and other activists, singers, and poets of his generation had no role models to direct them. They were the first. Buffy Sainte-Marie, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, Duke Redbird and others, they started it all. The drum and our ceremonies came back into the light because of them. Make no mistake, the eagle followed where Willie went at that time, to keep him motivated.

A stream brings life and health to the lake it empties into. If the stream was not present, the waters of the lake would become stagnant. The fish inside the lake would lose their glitter and eventually they would die. Willie Dunn was/is a stream. A stream with a sweet voice. He brought life afresh to a dying lake which was the First Nations Peoples as we were so close to becoming totally assimilated after so many of us having given in to the government’s propaganda machine.

Kichi Migwech Willie Dunn, Sweet Voice, for all you did and for all whom you inspired. You are a man who will never die. You will live forever, a hero among us, pushing us forward, demanding more from our spirits. Dear friend, pray for us to stay strong.

Willie’s family requested that I oversee his funeral service. I accepted. It was a proud moment in my life. One I shall never forget.

In memory of Willie Dunn, please consider making a donation to the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, 299 Montreal Rd., Ottawa, ON K1L 6B8.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

 

One of Willie’s trailblazing music videos: http://www.nfb.ca/film/ballad_of_crowfoot

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A Tragedy

Posted on August 9, 2013 by South Wind

So, an anniversary sacred to many Canadians has come and gone. The celebrated day, which took place on Morrison Island near Pembroke last weekend, marked the 400th year since one, Samuel de Champlain met Tessouat, a grand chief of the local Anishinabek nation. I guess every Canadian school boy and girl has heard of Champlain. But Tessouat? He was a great leader, yet very few know anything about him. This fact alone tells it all, doesn’t it? Champlain was a somebody, Tessouat a nobody, according to the writers of our history books.

It was Champlain who first called my ancestors ‘Algonquins’. No one knows for sure what word Champlain butchered to come up with it. ‘Algonquin’ is not a word in our language.

The People of the Great River, the People of the White Fish, the People of the Island and many other bands were the populace who held stewardship over a vast, rich and fertile territory. They were a great nation with many hundreds of thousands of members. They were peaceful and were as one with nature. They had at their disposal everything they needed to live long healthy lives; things like rivers, lakes and streams, fish and game in abundance. The land provided wild rice, berries, maple syrup, medicines and much more. The Jesuits recorded that “there are no fools among them (Algonquins)” meaning that no illnesses of retardation of any kind existed in the physical and mental realms of my ancestors, so strong and pure were their bloodlines.

Then Champlain arrived, and bloodletting as never seen before in this part of the world, began. War with the Iroquois and their British allies took a toll on the Algonquins. But it was the plagues brought here by Europeans which practically wiped us out. Tuberculosis, measles, mumps, smallpox, chickenpox and other horrific diseases killed too many to count. It is said that the common cold (we had no immunity to it) killed more Indians than all of the other diseases put together.

We haven’t fared well since Champlain arrived. Today, we are for the most part, uneducated and live on or below the poverty line. Things of addiction are rampant in our communities. We fight amongst ourselves, while the Europeans who followed Champlain here, prosper mightily.

When I look at the picture, which is our lot as Algonquins, I wonder why it all happened the way it did. Deception occurred. Treachery took place. And at the forefront, religion led the charge. The people, my ancestors, instead of holding fast to their ancient spiritual beliefs, caved and embraced something they should never even have pondered accepting. The rest, as they say, is history.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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Cloud Healing

Posted on July 28, 2013 by South Wind

Years went by
And the little girl’s love of clouds
Grew stronger with each passing day
“They are islands” she said
“Carried by the winds
They have seen the oceans
And they have smelled the pines”

(from one of my short stories featured in Broad Winged Hawk, 2007)

We have forgotten the songs our ancestors sung while standing in a sacred circle in honour of the gentle clouds dotting the sky over the prairies, mountains, forests and waters of our homelands. It is sad that our teachers no longer tell us of the goodness clouds contribute, not only to our health, but also to that of all things which surround us. The eagle soars high, to be ever nearer to them, so important are clouds to all who live beneath them and who are touched by their shadows.

Mino-Manidò, the good spirit, has designed each cloud to bring health to something on the land. Such clouds are medicine. They traverse the blue sky – so slowly, one can feel their softness, at least in the spiritual sense. “Accept our prayer for peace and goodwill to all,” we should cry out to them as they pass and then make a humble request that the clouds will take our prayer to whomever it is who hears our words in the Land of Souls.

Clouds are great teachers. They speak of sharing and tolerance. They speak of the importance of touch and respect, and of holding on to something sacred until the right time has arrived to share it.

I have seen clouds the colour of cotton, of charcoal, and of steel. I have seen them painted yellow, red and purple by the sun. My heart has swollen with the passion clouds have placed into it. Clouds have helped me grow in my spirituality. I will be eternally grateful to them for this.

I recall a woman who was living in a state of severe depression. She told me she had nothing to look forward to and that her life was without purpose. I did not know what to tell her until I looked into the sky that day. The heavens were filled with massive clouds. They had been removed from a giant bowl in a wigwam in the spirit land. They had been kneaded by the touch of the good spirit and released into the sky to do their healing work.

Such clouds had never appeared in any sky on any day at any time of the million years Mother Earth has been here. And such clouds will never decorate any sky ever again for however long life lasts here on earth. But the same can be said of all cloud-filled skies. We are fortunate and blessed to see something to look forward to and wonder about. It is something to sing in honour of.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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The Healing in ‘Sound’

Posted on July 21, 2013 by South Wind

When my drum sings
The trees and birds hear it
The ears of the four-legged
Welcome the sound into themselves
Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Moon
Bless the day and the night
When my drum sings

There are sounds which I hear every day I know I will never, ever hear again within the eternity that is the spirit land I will enter after I cross over to the ‘other side’. Examples? Sirens and bells, revving motors and angry voices, they will not be welcome at the place I hope to go after the hour of my death has arrived.

I offer prayers each day in thanksgiving that I possess the ability to hear. I do not take it for granted. Sound (‘madwewe’ in my language), even the word itself is beautiful to hear. All happy sounds produced by nature are things I dearly look forward to listening to as the days of our four seasons come and go.

The piercing call of the Blue Jay. I heard a Jay calling excitedly one day not far from my cabin. “What’s with him?” I asked myself. Then I heard a loud crash. A big tree, dead many years, could no longer be supported by its lifeless roots and down it went. On a windless day no less. I suspect that the Jay was resting on the branch of the tree and sensed the tree was fixin’ to hit the ground. “Get clear,” the Jay warned to all, “this old tree is going down.” With the crash of the tree, the Blue Jay’s calls warning of danger came to an end. Off he flew to rest elsewhere.

Words cannot describe the joy I feel when listening to the happy clatter chatter of the poplar leaves. They are like that fella we all know with the funny sounding giggles who always finds something to laugh about, no matter how desperate a tense situation might become. He is a good guy to have around when we’re singin’ the blues. Laughter is medicine. How about the sound of a torrential rain banging on a tin roof? Doesn’t it bring goosebumps to the surface of the hearts of young lovers when they hear it though?

I remember shortcutting through a farmer’s field as a boy of about eight years old and listening in wonderment to the swishing sound that the grasses, knee-high to me, were making at the urging of the wind. I was bewildered and totally in awe of what I heard. And you know, the same grasses, making the same sounds at night are heard differently by an eight year old boy. At night, the sound the long grasses make in the wind become scary. You hear something else in them beyond the ‘swishing’ sound. The darkness of the hour creates it in your mind only. It makes the heart pump faster and causes the imagination to run wild.

The best sound this old man, now starting into the winter of his years ever heard was the word ‘Mishomis’ when my three granddaughters grew in age to where they could say it. ‘Mishomis’ is ‘grandfather’ in the Algonquin language. A sweeter word is very difficult to find, in my not so humble opinion.

Perhaps words cannot describe the joy some sounds bring to my spirit but my soul knows what to do with them alright. It packages them in my circle where it will keep them well until I die and then I will take them with me to a grand place where they will stay with me forever.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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The Curse of Job Thieves

Posted on July 14, 2013 by South Wind

It is dawn at my camp and I have just returned from a short walk. The dew was hardly present on the grasses and the low laying plants of the forest trail, for it is an overcast sky above my cabin. Rain is coming!

A mosquito, fat with Algonquin blood, is bouncing on the inside glass of the sliding door leading into the cabin. I know with all certainty that the insect has filled herself with my blood because I am alone here this day. She wants out. She has things to do and places to go. And this particular mosquito can only do those things with the blood she has drawn from my body.

It brings a memory of something one of my sisters told me a few years back. A colleague at her job site revealed to her that he had checked off the box asking the question “Are you Aboriginal?” on a questionnaire circulated amongst the workers by management. My sister, knowing full well that her colleague was not Aboriginal, asked him why he did so. “You never know these days,” he responded. “There might be a layoff here in the future and I’m betting that if there is, they’ll have to keep their minorities. I’m thinking ahead.” A pretty creepy guy to be sure.

A lot of other people have been ‘thinking ahead’ or so it seems with so many job seekers signing on as ‘First Nations’ or as ‘Métis’ when they believe a chance exists that doing so will secure steady employment for them. They steal something as precious as prosperity and security from someone else who is truly entitled to it. The job thieves have absolutely no qualms about doing so. How much more creepy can you get than that?

I have taken the ‘City’ section of ‘The Citizen’ near my chair and with it, gently guided the ‘full-blooded’ mosquito out of the cabin. “May you do well and have many offspring,” was my departing wish to her. The mosquito has gone off to do whatever needs to be done with my ‘First Nations’ blood and she has my blessings. How wonderful! But the people who do not have enough Aboriginal blood in them to even fill a mosquito but still declare themselves ‘Aboriginal’ and steal jobs and even our voices in the arts are on the wrong side of the area in me which grants blessings. I give them none.

Years ago, about 22 of them, I attended a sunrise ceremony at LeBreton Flats. It was an extraordinary spiritual happening. About 70 people of all ages participated. At least half of the people acknowledging and honouring Grandfather Sun were white. I mentioned to an old man I respected, how happy and hopeful it made me feel to see so many white people in the circle that dawn. The old man replied to my comment, “Yes, it is good that many white people are respecting our spiritual beliefs, but the ‘white man’ will not be happy with having a place in our circles, he will only be happy when he is running the circle and is in total charge of it.” In some instances, the old man was dead on the money.

There is a fellow I have known for a long time, at least 20 years. He often said, “I wish I had ‘Indian’ blood.” Well somehow, maybe by magic or perhaps through a warp in the twilight zone, he has acquired it. He identifies as ‘First Nations’ today and often dresses in a ribbon shirt and sings our ancient songs. I only know that Kichi Manido (God) had nothing to do with the ‘magic’ that placed blood, indigenous to this land into the veins and heart of the man who longed to be ‘Indian’ so long ago.

These thoughts have made my heart drum to a rhythm I am not happy with. Not at all refreshing like the sound I am hearing now of raindrops striking the tin roof of the cabin. Yes, I’ll go for a walk in the rain. I feel like I’m in need of a cleansing. And if the mosquito again takes my blood, I will not object. She only does with it what God has instructed her to do, which is more than can be said of those people who claim our blood only so they can steal what rightfully belongs to us.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

Note:
To those people who do indeed have First Nations blood, no matter how small the percentage, please know that I stand with you and will fight beside you in your struggle against those who would deny you what is rightfully yours.

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Healing in the Rain

Posted on July 8, 2013 by South Wind

I watch the rain descend
Scattered drops, plunging faithfully to their destiny
Innocence with an explosive end
North Wind must have let out a sigh
The drops have transformed
Scattered flakes, with no weight
Dancing about in their whiteness
No explosion, just water
Seeping into the thawed warm earth

(from my poem “March 21st, 6:15 a.m.” written in 1993)

As I put pen to paper on Bitobi Lake, I see that the tall poplars lining the southeast area of the bay where my cabin sits are predicting rain. The poplars are never wrong, when their leaves turn over in the passing breeze and expose their undersides to the birds and animals and to all the world, you can bet rain is on the way. How much rain? You never know how much water will fall until the rainclouds have come and gone.

I love the rain. I wonder why it is that human beings run like spooked deer to get clear of it when most all other life around us sings in honour of it when they find the blessings of rain are everywhere around them.

Just a few days ago I was watching sheets of rain descending from a dark sky outside the sliding glass door at my camp, when three young rabbits came racing into view. They hopped and leaped, helter skelter in the high grass of the cabin’s front yard. I was greatly impressed with their agility in speed and their graceful maneuvers. And I was certain the rabbits were thoroughly enjoying the damp grass and raindrops pelting down on them, not just in the physical sense but also in that of the spiritual. The spirit of the rain had beckoned to them to enter into it, to cleanse themselves and to play and they were only too happy but to accept the invitation.

The rabbits bounded over raspberry plants and dashed through the daisies, daffodils and goatsbeard scattered around the old wooden swing near the front door. Their fawn coloured fur became chocolate brown, so laden with water it was. Even their whiskers slightly drooped, weighted down with raindrops. The rabbits were the picture of health. Not that I give a damn but I’m sure Walt Disney would agree.

I had a hunch. A day later I was storytelling at a grade school. I asked the five year olds of the kindergarten class if they liked the rain. All shouted in agreement. I asked them if they ever played in the rain and they replied that no, their parents didn’t allow it. All the children said they would if they could.

To walk in the rain and benefit in all realms because of it is a natural thing to do. So why do we not do it? Why do we run from the rain? Have we become that much out of touch with our spiritual beliefs, we no longer care to have rainwater re-invigorating our senses?

Spring rains cleanse, summer rains guarantee a rich harvest, autumn rains are the water which break in nature, before a new understanding about what is purpose of life begins for all who wish to grow in spiritual knowledge and wisdom.

“Do you not know enough to get in out of the rain,” I’ve heard parents scream, when their children ‘soaked to the skin’ appear at the door after being caught in the rain. ‘Getting in out of the rain’ is unnatural to a child. To walk in the rain and let it touch you from head to feet is something refreshing, wonderful and natural. Their spirits signal it to the children as soon as the first raindrops touch them.

The mental and emotional will heal in the rain and the spiritual will grow in knowledge and purpose. Give it a try.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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Abused and Murdered – Donna Jones

Posted on July 1, 2013 by South Wind

What is a man
Who no longer delights
At the songs of birds
Emerging from the forest

Who no longer cares
That healing medicines fill every dew drop

Who no longer honours the trees
As wiser beings than himself

Who no longer longs to walk
Barefoot in the rain

Such a man has been swallowed up
By his own ego and selfishness
He has doomed himself to live
Only as a machine, forever running away
From his duty and responsibilities
As a protector of what defines
A life of purpose
For him, a man

Donna Jones was, according to her family and friends, very much like a maple tree. She was strong, generous and sweet. All traits of the Canadian sugar maple. The maple leaf is green for most of its life and then, for a few short weeks, the season gifts the maple leaf with colour and amazing beauty. It can rightly be said that Donna Jones’ life was the maple leaf at its grandest time, not just for a few short weeks of the year though, but for each and every day of the year’s four seasons. Her honourable traits which were so natural to her, are symbolic of all which is good about Canada. The horror of her death however, is symbolic of one of the things gone terribly askew within the Canadian psyche.

Donna Jones’ death at the hands of a monster only came after her body endured unsurmountable pain and suffering beyond the comprehension of even the most hardened among us. She was scalded, shot with pellets, beaten to the point where her eyes were blackened and her nose broken – who knows what else. All of this over the last eleven days of her life. What kind of a creature kills like this in a civilized society? What sickness in the threads which bond us produced such evil?

I was present at Donna Jones’ memorial. I sat on a bench near the monument erected to honour battered women who died at the hands of the cruel, vicious control freaks who had conned the women into letting them into their lives. The cold, grey monument, designed to resemble a woman’s vulva, stands among the maples at Minto Park. Small stones, each bearing the name of a murdered woman, rest at its base. The small stones give the impression (at least to me) like they have just emerged from the womb of the mother stone, frightened and huddling now, around what would and should protect them. In the ‘good’ world I imagine, the fact that a baby is born female would guarantee ‘she’ would be honoured, respected and protected for being so all the days of her life.

A stone bearing Donna Jones’ name will soon be added. What name will be inscribed on the next stone to be planted at Minto Park? There will surely be many more. Will the name be that of your daughter or sister? Please think about this for a moment. There is a chance that your blood relative, a beloved woman of your family, will be murdered too. I cannot even imagine what it would be like for me to see the name of a daughter or granddaughter of mine to some day be found there at Minto Park. My heart grows heavy even at the thought.

When will it stop? I believe the killing of women by deranged men will at least slow down considerably if we begin to teach our boys today that using violence in any and all forms against women is wrong and is something we will no longer tolerate. The daddies and mommies today must take this serious enough to make a commitment for change now, not tomorrow. It should be mandatory that school children, boys and girls, beginning at age ten, should visit the monument honouring murdered women and be told why it stands there. The children can take it. They are wise and they will learn a powerful lesson by being there. The story of Donna Jones should be told in every classroom in Ontario. Women’s lives will be saved because of it.

Donna Jones was born on December 25th, on the same day a saviour was said to have entered the world in a stable in Bethlehem, to place peace and goodwill into the hearts of men. To some, the message was lost somewhere along history’s pathway. The monster who took away the life of Donna Jones never had any peace or goodwill in his heart for her nor did he for any other woman. He killed her and if we let her name and memory die, we will bring another terrible injustice into why Donna Jones lived and into how she died.

Keep the Circle Strong,
Albert “South Wind” Dumont.

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