Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Seven Fallen Feathers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism, Cultural Genocide, and Racism
Generational Trauma and Circular Suffering
Indigenous Youth, Education Reform, and Support Networks
Tradition, Prophecy, Spirituality, and Hope
Summary
Analysis
Tanya Talaga meets with Alvin Fiddler, the new grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN). Fiddler oversees the governance of 45,000 people across the northern half of Ontario—and the youth of his people are committing suicide at an unbelievable rate. Talaga tells Fiddler that she is writing a book about the seven students who died at school in Thunder Bay—a book she’s wanted to write since joining the search team for Jordan Wabasse. At that time, Fiddler was traveling with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC—the Government of Canada’s most significant attempt to heal the trauma of the 150,000 Indigenous survivors of the residential school system.
As Talaga meets with Alvin Fiddler, the narrative ties together the epidemic of Indigenous youth suicide, the disappearances of Indigenous youths from Thunder Bay, and the traumatic history of the residential school system. The connection between these three issues plaguing Canada’s Indigenous communities is important, because it speaks to the circular nature of trauma and suffering, how trauma passes from one generation to the next. Indigenous leaders like Fiddler are still trying to help their people heal from the wounds of the past—wounds that have created patterns of depression, substance abuse, and hopelessness both in the survivors of the school system and their families and descendants. Meanwhile, there are few governmental support systems in place to help survivors and their families—so problems with isolation and a lack of resources on reserves creates suffering that filters down to young people, and in turn leads to elevated suicide rates that even further traumatize the community.
Themes
When Fiddler heard of Jordan’s disappearance, he was sad and furious—in 2008, after another student named Reggie Bushie had been found dead in the water, he’d warned NAN that children in Thunder Bay were dying at school. Now, sitting across from Talaga, Fiddler advises her to “start with Chanie Wenjack,” a young Indigenous boy who died long ago.
Fiddler here asserts that the answers to how to solve the problems facing today’s Indigenous youth must be understand in the context of the past. The traumas and cruelties Indigenous people have faced in the past are directly connected to the epidemics of depression, substance abuse, and suicide that they are often forced to reckon with today.
Themes
As Talaga walks along Lake Superior in the crisp October air, she considers the boundary between different worlds this place represents. The treaties that Canada’s First Nations signed with the British Crown isolated Indigenous people on remote reserves, forcing them to cede their lands to white settlers. The nearby Fort William First Nation falls under the Robinson-Superior treaty, signed in 1850. William Robinson signed the treaty with Chief Joseph Peau de Chat, promising Peau de Chat that it was unlikely the area would be settled. So, Peau de Chat signed the treaty, handing over 57,000 square kilometers of land in exchange for a small yearly payment. In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands more kilometers were taken from Canada’s Indigenous people under similarly false pretenses, and white settlers began forming the modern-day province of Ontario.
In this scene, a body of water—Lake Superior—becomes a symbol of how Indigenous people’s traditional lands (and thus their autonomy and traditional ways of life) were swallowed up by the forces of colonialism and cultural genocide. The white settlers who took Indigenous land essentially conned First Nations people into unfair deals—and once the settlers began taking things, they never stopped. The losses Indigenous people have faced are so large-scale that they’re difficult to fully comprehend—and that’s why the symbol of being consumed by the forces of colonialism is so potent
Themes
In 1876, the Canadian government introduced the Indian Act, which created extensive rules meant to keep Indigenous people on their reserve land and out of settlers’ way. Now, people recognize this act as a form of apartheid—it stripped Indigenous people of their rights, limited their movement, and barred them from the pursuit of education. The Crown used this act, and the various treaties signed by First Nations all over Canada, to create residential schools and begin assimilating the next generation of Indigenous people. The goal was to assimilate these children into Canadian society so that they’d violate the protections of the treaties that had been signed—and essentially end the Canadian government’s financial and legal obligations to its Indigenous people.
Once the settlers had colonized the Indigenous people’s land, they began the process of cultural genocide. This passage shows how the act of colonization (taking away space) and the act of cultural genocide (taking away traditions and autonomy) work together to erase entire swaths of an Indigenous group’s culture. The point of colonization and cultural genocide was always, essentially, to reduce the chance that Indigenous people would be able to remain autonomous, draw on their treaties, or rise up in rebellion.
Themes
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With the advent of the Indian Act, all children 16 and under were expected to attend and live in one of the country’s 139 residential schools. These schools were operated by different Christian religious orders. They were underfunded and overcrowded, and children were often rounded up from their reservations and brought to the schools against their will. The schools were unsanitary, poorly constructed, and infested with vermin. The children were malnourished, far from home, and forbidden from speaking their native dialects. Ultimately, about 6,000 students died of neglect and disease—but the exact figure is unknown, since the federal government destroyed over 200,000 documents and files related to “Indian Affairs” throughout the 20th century.
The residential schools were another tool of colonization and cultural genocide. The colonizers who ran the residential schools attempted to strip young, vulnerable people of their cultural heritages, their languages, and their senses of pride in their people’s traditions—with the goal of separating the younger generation from their traditions and in so doing destroy the culture behind those traditions by blocking it from being passed on. By leveraging malnourishment, corporal punishment, and sexual assault against these youths, the colonizers could further reinforce the idea that Indigenous culture was unacceptable. The legacy of the residential schools is profound and ongoing—the traumas that happened there filtered down to the generations that followed, signaling to future generations (even those who weren’t forced into the schooling system) that the government of Canada wanted them to be erased.
Themes
Talaga pays a visit to the ruins of the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School, which was operational until 1974. She meets with Elder Thomas White from the Whitefish Bay First Nation, a survivor of a different residential school. He tells Talaga that Cecilia Jeffrey’s baseball field was built over a former burial ground as he leads her into his office, a mobile home on the site of the school’s former main building. Inside, he offers her a suitcase full of documents related to Chanie Wenjack. Looking through the many photos of Indigenous students inside the suitcase, Talaga finds herself disturbed by the students’ cold, uncomfortable gazes.
As White tells Talaga about the former Indigenous burial ground upon which parts of Cecilia Jeffrey were built, he underscores the indifference (and indeed contempt) that white colonizers and white Canadians have always had for Indigenous spirituality and tradition. They built a colonial institution over a sacred Indigenous space to make their point: nothing about Indigenous culture mattered to them.
Themes
Cecilia Jeffrey, the secretary in charge of “Indian Work” at Rat Portage’s Women’s Missionary Society, founded the school in hopes of “sav[ing]” Native children by Christianizing them. At the school, originally located near Shoal Lake First Nation, the students learned, did chores, and attended worship each night (as well as Sunday School on the weekends). Many Indigenous leaders protested the schooling the children were receiving as substandard and even cruel—children were corporally punished for challenging authority—and though abuse claims mounted steadily over the years, nothing was done to improve the school.
In the past, Indigenous people knew that what was happening inside the residential schools was wrong and even dangerous. But there were no support networks available to the students or their parents—Indigenous people had no say in their own lives because of the many restrictive, apartheid-like treaties that had stripped them of their autonomy. This precedent echoes up through the present day—even though Indigenous people are no longer barred from speaking their languages or honoring their traditions, there still aren’t many avenues they can take to speak out against the injustices being committed against them. As the book unfolds, Talaga will continue to explore how Indigenous people struggle to secure funding, support, and autonomy when it comes to creating better educational systems for their children.
Themes
When a new school opened beside Round Lake outside Kenora in 1929, a lot of Indigenous parents protested because the school was too far away. But many students were rounded up and sent there anyway; some were relocated from schools like the one at Shoal Lake. The children were experimented on, given foods with strange additives, and refused medical treatment for tuberculosis. At Cecilia Jeffrey, an unmarked grave holds at least 14 bodies—the children died from causes that are still unclear.
Students attending residential schools weren’t just stripped of their cultural identities—they were used in colonizers’ experiments. Again, Talaga is hammering home the degree to which the colonizer who formed Canada viewed Indigenous lives as insignificant and contemptible. This passage also implies that the weight of knowing the terrible things that were done to Indigenous residential school students in the past, some of whom are still alive today and ready to share their stories of outright torture, weighs heavily on the current generation of Indigenous youth—another kind of generational trauma.
Themes
In September of 1966, Pearl Wenjack saw several of her siblings—including Chanie—off to school as they departed for the term by pontoon plane. Pearl remembers Chanie asking her to pack his clothes up in a box, a request Pearl thought was strange, since that was what their family did when someone died. Months later, Pearl opened a letter from Cecilia Jeffrey’s principal, which reported that all the Wenjack children were doing well. But that afternoon, a plane arrived at the reservation; the principal disembarked with Pearl’s siblings and her mother, who’d been at a faraway hospital for cancer treatment. Pearl’s sister Daisy told Pearl that Chanie was gone.
As Chanie prepared to head off to Cecilia Jeffrey for what would be his final year, Pearl’s recollection seems to show that Chanie perhaps knew he wouldn’t make it through the term. By asking his sister to prepare his things for his death according to his cultural tradition, he was perhaps seeking to hold onto a part of his identity that the residential school was actively trying to take away from him.
Themes
The Department of Indian Affairs (now known as INAC) knew, from the late 19th century onward, that students were being sexually abused in the residential schools. So, schools like Cecilia Jeffrey were surrounded by barbed wire, and any students who escaped were quickly rounded up and brought back. Over 37,000 cases of sexual abuse have been reported—some children were abused by staff and teachers, and some were abused by older students. This, Talaga writes, is “the life Chanie ran from.”
Rather than fixing the severe issues plaguing the residential schools and working to save the lives of Indigenous children, the government of Canada instead focused on containing the disasters that the schools were and keeping students, no matter the cost, from escaping and potentially blowing the whistle on what was really going on. Indigenous children were forced into unimaginably violent and traumatizing situations again and again. They had no autonomy and no say in their own lives.
Themes
On October 16, 1966, Chanie ran away along with nine other students. They were headed for Redditt, a small community about 27 kilometers away. Chanie ran away with two other boys, accompanying them to one of their relatives’ homes. A man named Charles Kelly took them in, but Chanie didn’t feel welcome, as he wasn’t related to the Kellys. Chanie left to head for his own home—but after he left the Kelly home, he was never seen alive again.
In this anecdote, Talaga shows how even an Indigenous support network wasn’t enough to keep Chanie from slipping through the cracks. Just as modern-day boarding parents in cities like Thunder Bay work to take in students who need support and a place to live, Charles Kelly took in his own relative, as well as Chanie and another boy—but he couldn’t support Chanie and look after him in the way Chanie needed to be looked after.
Themes
On October 23, 1966, Chanie’s body was found beside the railroad tracks just 20 kilometers east of Redditt. The autopsy implied that he’d stumbled on the tracks and fallen on some rocks. Daisy, who was staying with a friend after being kicked out of school, learned from the evening news that her brother had died. A police officer tracked Daisy down and drove her to Kenora to be with her siblings and bring Chanie’s body home.
Chanie died trying to escape from the residential schools. He should still be alive today—but when faced with the terrible choice between a stifling, abusive environment and the danger of the unknown, he chose the latter. This pattern continues to echo today, as Indigenous youths are essentially forced to choose between staying on underfunded reserves or taking a leap of faith into the unknown to pursue academic or athletic careers.
Themes
Though the Kenora coroner called for an inquest, the Wenjacks weren’t told that one was being held. They weren’t given the opportunity to attend, and they weren’t offered legal counsel. The inquest resulted in several recommendations being made to protect against something like Chanie’s death happening again. Experts recommended more teachers be hired at Cecilia Jeffrey to better keep an eye on the students, and that more schools should be built closer to existing reserves so that the students would have an easier time adjusting. The Wenjacks would read about the results of the inquest in a magazine article three months later. Daisy didn’t receive the official inquest documents for over 20 years.
Chanie’s death should have resulted in a serious look into what was happening in the residential schools that was causing children to risk their lives running away. Instead, the Canadian government decided only that more schools should be built, and that more teachers—teachers who often abused Indigenous students—should be hired. The Wenjack family was totally excluded from the inquest process—their voices weren’t considered worthy of being heard, even as the coroner’s office picked apart the circumstances of their youngest member’s death. The Canadian government’s indifference in these matters will mirror the Thunder Bay police department’s indifference about the deaths of the “seven fallen feathers” as detailed later in the book.
Themes
Daisy’s husband, Henry, later admitted to her that he’d been abused by an Anglican priest while at a residential school. Around the same time, Daisy and Pearl learned from a friend of Chanie’s that Chanie had been abused, too, by a fellow student. Pearl began to recover repressed memories of witnessing abuse herself.
This passage shows just how many Indigenous children who passed through the residential schooling system had to reckon with their memories of abuse later in life. Even if these students don’t remember being abused themselves, they witnessed other children being harmed and betrayed by the people who were supposed to care for them. The traumatic effects of this are unimaginable and profound—and as Talaga delved deeper into a story that appeared to be about Chanie, she learned quickly that no one in Chanie’s orbit was spared from similar trauma and suffering.
Themes
When Pearl heard about the inquest into the deaths of seven Indigenous students in Thunder Bay, she lamented that nothing had changed for Indigenous students since Chanie’s death. The recommendations made at Chanie’s inquest hadn’t been followed at all. Pearl knew all about the loneliness and anguish students living far from home had to face. As a residential school survivor herself, she felt their pain “all over again.”
Pearl’s assertion that the pain of the past is unfolding “all over again” in places like Thunder Bay illustrates the circular nature of trauma and suffering. As a result of the things that happened in the residential schools, whole generations of Indigenous people are traumatized—and when they hear about similar things happening in new, different ways, those wounds from the past open up once more.
Themes
