Interview with Ma-Nee Chacaby



BEARDY-LINKLATER: Hello my name is Brielle Beardy-Linklater and I'm here with... how do you say your name?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Ma-nee Chacaby.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Ma-Nee Chacaby. And we're here in Beausejour at the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre and the date is August 4th 2018. So, Ma-Nee is this your first time at the gathering? Just an icebreaker question.

MA-NEE CHACABY: No this is my second time.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: So what brings you here today?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Today... When I was invited, I thought about... I wasn't going come, but then I thought oh, no I better come because I was hoping to come more... more to be part of activities than to be the organizer or to be leading sessions... or to do... different things.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Have you done any speaking at any other gatherings?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh yeah, I've been different places.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: And how long have you been going to gatherings -- two spirit gatherings specifically.

MA-NEE CHACABY: Ahh... I went one in... Montreal... two in here, Tucson? Tucson? Its in the States. Three I guess; three gatherings.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell me about where you're from?

MA-NEE CHACABY: I'm originally from Thunder Bay. I was born there and I was made there [laughs].

BEARDY-LINKLATER: And do you still live there now?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Yes.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell me what it's like to be Two-Spirit in Thunder Bay and if there's any Two-Spirit culture that's visible there?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh... It's really a hard life to live there because people don't 00:02:00see you as a person really. It's really hard for Two-Spirit people to come out, or to be out -- visibly out. Even people do come out, but you never see people come out with their hands come out together if they're lovers. So it's like even... even other Nations that lived there are... I don't see them embracing each other, like two men walking and they're both gay and they don't hold hands or nothing, so they just walk and... So I think they're... my community, my town is very... it's getting easier -- we've been fighting this now for a couple years now. Me and a couple of my friends... I wouldn't say friends... me and my 00:03:00organizations such as... [thinks]... Gays and lesbians, like Pride. Pride's making a difference there because we're starting to hold Pride. My friend started the two... not the two... she started [thinks]... Thunder Pride it's called. And I help her and a bunch of other people help her. Our first pride was really small. Then the second one she did was not too bad. The third one she did was pretty good -- really good. A lot of people kind of... or... liked it very much. Then the fourth time, she didn't do it, somebody else did it... Was a couple of other gays and lesbian that continued running it because she stuck 00:04:00down and didn't want to do that anymore. And... The first time we didn't have no parade, like the first year. The second year we didn't have any parade either, but the third year we did, they organized a parade. The fourth year, which is... I think this is our fifth year. Our fifth year got really nice -- big! This is our fifth year. We started the parade from Waverley Park to the marina where the activities happened. We did our activities at the waterfront in the marina park. That's where all the activities took place that day for the Gay Pride. But we have it from one week, like say we started celebrating on the 6th, the flag 00:05:00raising... then the book talk, healing walk, and... pub night for drag show and... Oh, no, there was a reading night for authors or just people to read their writings and then there was pub night which was for drag night and then the big activity -- big dance on Saturday, then church on Sunday. So it was really nice. And that was really good and everybody was welcoming us, but you know that's the way it's like. Everybody's all happy to see gay people or embracing them and everything but then when it's over and done with, nobody embraces anybody again after that. It goes back to square one maybe -- eternal.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell me about how you identify yourself?

MA-NEE CHACABY: I identify myself as ahh... a Two-Spirit person or elder some people call me. When I'm an elder, I'm an elder -- do elder work. I don't consider myself anything other than Ma-Nee Chacaby. The elder. And then if I'm doing any activities like say HIV/AIDS work or workshop that's when I identify myself as Two-Spirit elder. Or if I'm doing LGBTQ workshops then I identify myself as two-spirit elder. If I'm reading my book, I identify myself as two-spirit elder. Two spirit person. And. when I'm home, I just identify myself -- because I am a two-spirit person. I like myself, I like the way I am. Ahh... 00:07:00even though people... I think sometimes people are embarrassed with me because I am who I am. I don't have any best friends like... one individual person to go out with me to go for coffee to go to a movie, to go do things, you know. I'm not looking for a lover, but somebody to do anything with. To go... 'Cause I see women go out together and they're having fun together. I really envy that. I wish I had someone I could do that with. But... When -- I'm not saying I don't have any friends. I have lots of friends. Most of them are gay and lesbian and Two-Spirit and kids, and to me they're more like my family when we gather. So 00:08:00that's... but I don't have one individual person that I could go out with just to do things with... a movie or a music concert. I have straight women that will come with me for those kind of events, because they like me as a person not as a Two-Spirit or anything; they just like me because I'm that person they met and they got to know. So that only happens once in a while.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell me about when you first discovered the term Two-Spirit and when you started to use that for yourself -- when did you hear the word Two-Spirit?

MA-NEE CHACABY: I heard it in... Well I heard it in Thunder Bay. In... in my own sleep -- in my vision. I had been fighting with Oka Crisis -- that was 1987 -- 00:09:00and then I came out in 1988. So one night in 1988 after I got beaten up by these people and different walks of life, like from West Anishinaabe -- my own people beat the crap out of me and then I was okay for a while. Then white girls -- six of them -- beat the crap of me. I was in bad shape for a while. So one night when I was at home, there was a police man standing in my building to keep an eye on who's coming and who's going because they have to keep on checking -- who the person that was really was threatening me because somebody was giving me threatening phone calls and they're going to kill me... so when I was in my 00:10:00home, in my apartment sleeping, laying down I could... hear something in... I don't know if it was real, but one moment I woke up, I-I heard this voice "niizhin ojijaak?" My grandmother's voice. I was positive it was her. I look around all over and I thought "oh, somebody's talking to me," so I got up and went to the balcony to look around. It was so weird, 3 o'clock in the morning or maybe it was 4 -- I hear this "niizhin ojijaak... niizhin ojijaak.." I thought, "Holy niizhin ojijaak what's that I'm thinking?" I don't know I let it go after for a while because I didn't let it bother me. I didn't have a lover yet or I 00:11:00didn't know anything about having lovers, so I just let it go and then maybe when I came out... I talked to one other person who I... who we went celebrating, where we were allowed to.. We weren't allowed to go on the Welcome Ship... all the gays and lesbians... some of them were just going for an anniversary, people were meeting at this one big building for whole years [unclear] and we just wanted to celebrate our life, who we were -- gays and lesbians -- and wanted to have fun and so we decided to rent the Welcome Ship and then... and then they did but we weren't allowed to get on it after because we were told we were gays and lesbians and we were going to make a big mess and it was going to be awful, so we got denied from our boat and following, I don't 00:12:00know maybe two months later we... they also tried to rent a hotel, they wouldn't let us stay in the hotel because of who we were, gays and lesbians. So those two events made us fight for a reason because for human rights, we made our complaint -- that's when I came out as niizhin ojijaak person, but I didn't announce it on the radio, I just say when they asked me "Are you a lesbian?" I said "YES I am and I'm proud" or something like that [chuckles]. And then I was so happy I was who I was... Oh I heard my voice saying "Yeah... it felt so... nice to finally say LOUDLY in front of TV, in front of the... the media... Yeah, 00:13:00I'm a lesbian, and you can't stop me from having fun on the boat or you can't make me not be who I am," and that's how it happened. And then several years later in 2010... I been struggling all that time thinking, "Ahh, how do you say 'niizhin ojijaak' in English? How would you say it? Ahh, that's so dumb," in my mind I thought I was really dumb. Because two... I didn't think about number two like two... One, two. I didn't think of it that way here, one, two. I was thinking, "Oh, how would I translate that?" and I'm thinking, "NIIZHIN OJIJAAK!" And I couldn't figure that one in my little brain was clogged, so I thought, "Okay, so my grandma told me niizhin ojijaak, so she knew all these people." And 00:14:00then -- and then I talked to one of the elders. I says "What does niizhin ojijaak mean to you?" I told this one elder who I was talking to. "Oh, don't talk about that," he says. I said, "Why not?" I told him in my language I wanted to know what that means. He says, "Oh, don't talk about that," he says, "You'll figure it out later," he says, "Don't worry about that." Oof! That's it! He didn't give me any answer. He was denying it he's a straight person -- why would he give me that information. And then why would he say, "Don't talk about that?" It really made me unsettled. So I let it go after that and I just came out as a lesbian person and now I'm to this gathering for the first time in my life it was called um... [thinks]... some kind of... I can't remember... Tenth 00:15:00anniversary or ninth anniversary in Montreal... and then later on I was in Montreal, I was talking to a bunch of Two-Spirit people -- I felt so, "OH! This is the place for me! Geeze! I love it here!" You know, and I met lots of nice people... lots of... I met [unclear] there. He was fishing around for, "H-How do we do a sweat lodge?" he says, you know? [laughs] And then I looked at him and I says, "I'll show you how to make sweat lodge. I'll teach you guys." So I took a whole bunch of cool people there and we went in the bush and picked up our little sticks and then we went back to the church yard and we were allowed to be in the church yard, but we were told not to do anything in the church yard -- in the grounds, we weren't allowed to touch anything in there, but we could walk around and if we wanted to play baseball, we could play baseball. I says "I know 00:16:00where we can build a sweat lodge, I says right over there by the church and they said... everybody looking at me funny... "right here?" and I said, "Yeah! Bring it here" and everybody was wondering how we were going to do or what people are going to see if we burnt the ground. People going to see how we going to make it. I says "oh no don't worry, get your shovels so we got the shovels, I dig an area that much, maybe that much from the ground [demonstrates]. We took the... I said GENTLE with the earth, you just pick her up, put it over there, pick all the earth, put it over there, and then we can use all that stuff. We made a fire pit and we dug that out too, then we dug out the sweat lodge, where the grandfathers and grandfathers going to be, and then we build the sweat lodge there and we all had fun. The next day, we all took it down, dismantled 00:17:00everything. We put the mother earth back where it was. You couldn't even tell the next day that anybody had sweat here.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: How long have you had your traditional teachings, whether you grew up with them or did you pick them up later in life?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh well, I grew up with them with my grandmother for a long time and then my dad... until I was about 16 and then I married this man. They made me marry this guy, my wedding wasn't all that, cause after I ran away, I had two kids from him, I ran away with my two kids. I was in bad shape. I got repaired in the hospital in Thunder Bay. And... I had hardly any jaws left in me. You could see, like my face, it didn't look like that before, but when I arrived 00:18:00there I looked horrible, I was in bad shape, lots of patches all over me and then I stayed there, never went back, and I went to court, because the doctor from Geraldton, Ontario phoned Thunder Bay Hospital and said "we have all the records that we've been mending her, try to mend her, but somebody has been torturing this lady really bad" that was what he said, his report to my new doctor in Thunder Bay. And then the new doctor repaired me and made that big note to when I went to court for divorce and the judge says well I'm going to throw this one out and call this "annulled wedding, there's no wedding that took place because it was the voice of the people that told her to get married to 00:19:00this guy so she was never legally married." So that was nice, I didn't have to worry about divorce, he just took the name off -- my name off him, but I had two kids from him and he was told to feed those kids and he was supposed to stay within fifty yards from me, not supposed to come near me. And the kids there he was told not to visit his kids until they were old enough between fourteen and sixteen until they're old enough ot make a decision to see him. That's how bad shape I was in when the judge told them, the only time I ever, ever a nice judge in my life... Where someone was really... I guess maybe he saw all the reports, probably. What this doctor said from Geraldton. Cause ah, my son was born 00:20:00early... because of what he did to me, two months. He was deprived two and a half months. He was born too early, he almost died. So now he's got a brain with no hardly, like, for his mental problem he doesn't -- he's not like the rest of the people; he's a little bit slow, and they told me that's the way he was going to be. And I blame myself of course, but you know I was not -- later on I discovered it wasn't my fault. So that's... ahh... that part of my life... and what else did you ask me?

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Um, what I want to know is you've been a champion for human rights for a long time. I want to know where that started from and what gave you that drive.

MA-NEE CHACABY: What?

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Championing human rights -- you mentioned Pride, you mentioned Oka, you mentioned a lot of things.

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh... When I became to be that, well, when I left... ok, the day I was beaten... the day I was beaten by him, the last time my husband, or my kids dad beat the crap out of me, I saw one day.. I saw one day him coming home oh! He's coming home early. I'm thinking, "Oh my God, I see him go to his mum's house. And then I could see him coming every day my life was like that, I could see the way he walks would be the way I know I was going to get beaten. If you walk certain way I know he's going to be ok with me. And everything, all my cupboards I have to put that away really nice, I couldn't eat extra food because he would get mad at me for eating extra food and so if I did anything, I'd have 00:22:00to have no evidence of anything that happened in my house. When he was gone to work. He wasn't like that when I first married him, he and I used to go hunting and we used to have fun. It started when I had kids, I got pregnant... he became... I didn't know who he was after. He was totally a different person. It was awful. And he wasn't drinking. He didn't drink alcohol all the time. He was just a mean person. He would go to his mom's place, and so I would always tell what he was going to do. So and then I left and then when he was... that was the last time for the first time, I stood up to him. I'm standing there because my company came, his nephew came and his nephew's girlfriend came so they're both sitting there and then he comes waltzing in and he goes "Whoa what the heck you 00:23:00guys having a party? What're you doing with my -- what're you doing with her (about me) and then this guy answers -- I'm not going to mention names, because he might be still alive. And this guy -- oh, that was his uncle -- "Oh, no, we just, I thought you'd be home by now, but..." and then ah... then the kids dad says "Well, okay, well aren't you going to make me tea?" and I say's "Yeah, I'm making it" I'm boiling water, turn it on, and standing there waiting for water "Ohhh, what's wrong with you," he comes over to me, he says, "What's the matter with you, why you acting so strange?" I said, "I'm not acting strange." He said "Well, okay." And then walks around and stands around and then ... and then he... his -- aha -- his nephew's girlfriend says, "I'm going to -- "she was 00:24:00playing with, playing with the baby... ah one of my... my youngest son. And then... and then he comes and says "So when is that tea going to be ready," he says, "Geeze, what's wrong with you women. Do I got to teach you guys a lesson here?" And then he grabs a lighter and he comes behind me and I could feel I was getting my bum burned and I look at him I said, "AH, don't!" and he says "Yeah and this is how you... if your girlfriend isn't listening, that's what you got to do," he tells his nephew, "This is how you treat a woman, you got to show them some respect," he says, and then I look at him [laughs] and then he, he went the other way and then he just turned around and I grabbed this boiling bucket of water -- I just, it was boiling and I turned around and I just threw 00:25:00it towards where he was standing and I cut him over here a little bit [demonstrates] ... burnt him a little bit and then he fell on the floor and he went "Ahh!" because he was -- it was hot water. Anyways, and then I grabbed -- there was a two by four on this end [demonstrates] and I went and grabbed that two by four and I hit him again and then he fell on his back and then I grabbed that two by four and I put it in his neck and I just sat on him [laughs] he was dying. His nephew ran out the door and then another guy come running in. There was five men that tried to take me off him. He was lucky he didn't die. [laughs]. Otherwise I'd of been in jail [laughs] but anyways, so they pull me off them and then I guess they revived him and they came back together and then 00:26:00a guy... an older fella that was his mom's boyfriend talked to him and then he come outside and talked to me. I was so scared that I killed him. He says "no he didn't kill him." And says "how can you kill a board -- a guy with a board and his brains, he says and I looked at him and he says, "but here's what I want you to do, you better run. You better go an' hide, we're going to keep him here. He can't do nothing right now, but we're going to keep him here." I said Okay and so I just took off. He had the kids. They were there but he had his... nephew's girlfriend was watching the kids. So I was hiding in the bush and they hid me -- I was hidden. For seven days I was hidden in a bush. Not knowing if my kids were 00:27:00alive. Not knowing anything what was going on. Finally somebody -- some messenger came and gave me some information. There was a little writing on a piece of paper. Please come and get your kids. I promise I won't touch you. I just want you to come get your kids out of my house, he says. Those were his kids. And I promise I won't touch you, there's going to be people there to guide you and supervise you, to make sure you don't hurt me, he says. [laughs]. He was really scared of me. They said he was really scared of me even when they were talking because he said "I've never saw this woman like that in my whole life. Never saw a woman act like that my whole life. I never saw this person be like that, he says. I guess, I don't know what he saw in my face. But anyway, whatever he saw, really scared the pants out of him, so I... went.,. I went back 00:28:00to Obabika And they came and got... Somebody went and got my kids and brought them to this other building and that's where I got my kids and we got on the train the next day uh had money. They gave me money to get on, so I had to leave my dog. Her name was Skipper and I had to leave her behind because... couldn't take her with me. So I took my two babies and my brother and pack sack and some other stuff and I had made my own out of the blanket, I used to make my own to carry your babies. I made my own. I developed that, people walk around with it now. They think that business people think they made that blanket, you know when you, you know when you carry a baby. I was the first one that designed that. I 00:29:00designed that in Obabika, because I wanted to carry my babies. I could wash dishes and my kid would be hanging out there and everything and he'd still be part of it. And then the other one was in [unclear] I didn't mind that so... and then my son... not my son, but my brother.... he was my my... brother that we were raising and I had to raise him because my real mom died and my real grandmother died and I didn't have nobody left in the Obabika that's when this guy became really mean and awful because I didn't have no support I guess. So I left Obabika And never looked back and ran away with my kids. We walked from Longlac Ontario to Geraldton about twenty one kilometers or 21 km... We walked 00:30:00in the rain and the muddy old place. We camped out to make a little fire. A school teacher helped us because he was going away himself and then he says Ill carry your pack sack because I know you want to carry your son and Ill carry your pack sack and ill carry my stuff on top of it and your pack sack... he said. So that's how... that's how I became strong and realize hey I can fight. And not going to let anyone ever touch me or my kids ever again. So I never looked back. I left Thunder Bay and I got all patched up. Since then, I just -- nobody, for a long time if somebody wants to hit me I go, "Ohhhh [demonstrates]," you know... the only time I got beat up... the last time I got 00:31:00beat up was when I said I came out in 1988. From there on I've just been just... standing up, fighting for myself -- fighting for my Anishinaabe people.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: What's it been like as a Two-Spirit person see in the change today? What's that been like for you to witness?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh it was awesome to see that. You know when I came out, several years later seeing people like me out there... I mean we're still not holding hands in Thunder Bay, but at least were out now! And were celebrating! And now you see these young kids, ten percent these kids and half of them are who they are and you know it's just really beautiful or for just a moment even just one building somewhere like we have this community centre in Simpson Street, it's 00:32:00called Community [thinks] Norwest Community Health Centre and that's the rainbow, kids go there, lots of kids hang out there, go there and I go there for my medical and when you fill out a form it says there -- their form says Two-Spirit on there... like this is the law changing. Instead of sex or female, what sex are you male or female? When it say that, I don't have to worry about that, I can just say Two-Spirit, because there's a block for Two-Spirit. It says here "that part., that.... are you married mister misses or then it comes and then it comes and then it comes and all of a sudden them... Two-Spirit, Them, whatever the question.. I thought "Oh that's so nice!" You don't have to,.. I said "This Health Centre helps you be who you are. And they encourages you more 00:33:00to be yourself." So you start to see that battle starting to... If you ever look at a movie in a war zone, you see it, you know. You see that image, they're fighting and then when they start to be over, slowly you could see that. And I've seen that. Im witnessing that because more young people are coming out and they're speaking up; they're saying things, you know?

BEARDY-LINKLATER: During your childhood of yours were you ever exposed to any other two spirit people or people you suspect were Two-Spirit?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Yeah I met a few of them. Well, I didn't talk to them, I ran away from them because they scared me. And there was a place my grandmother told me, she says "Oh no..." before she told me every year, let's say niizhin 00:34:00ojijaak, now don't forget that. Once a year we'd celebrate we'd go on a canoe and she'd say "Oh, niizhin ojijaak," she said, "You got two spirits in your body and mind and soul." That's why people don't understand you. If you think [they] don't like you, that's why, because they think you're different. I do "Oh..." And so little by little when I was six and seven and eight, I was about seven when I met these two... two... two niizhin ojijaak people, I didn't know who they were then, but I was only seven, but I remember going into my friend's house and going "Hey you want to come and play with us over there," she they said "Okay," oh were playing, she says "come inside the house, we're going to have some water," and I said "Okay," so we go inside... and then I see these five bed... looks kind of like this [demonstrates] five beds, one, two, three, four, five beds in one... in one corner on the floor. That's their beds. And 00:35:00then I see one double bed, wooden bed -- and then a curtain this way [demonstrates] and a curtain that way [demonstrates] and I thought "Oh who sleeps there?" "Oh that's our mom's -- our Mamags," Mamags means more than one! Oh... I said oh, yeah? And then I said "Nah," and a little while later we could hear somebody, we could hear some footsteps coming. "Oh that must be... where's your dad?" I told them, [unclear] "Oh, I think I hear them," she goes. I mean I said, "Where's your dad?" -- "Oh I think I hear them." So when I look, there was this lady with no arms, she come in there, she was busy. She was... nah she was... oooh she was welcoming me, she knows my grandma [unclear] -- you're here 00:36:00to visit and having fun... Ahh sitting down there and she so welcoming and then another footstep. Doong doong doong -- I thought it was a man and I look and she comes in "Ohhh! Bonjour!" She looks at me, big woman... big skirt and big woman she says [unclear] she's looking at me, I'm going [expresses surprise] And then they went in the kitchen area, put their stuff there and I went... the door was open I went tee -- I snuck out. I ran home as fast as I could, I told my grandmother, she says "Oh! [gasps] I saw... I saw this kids dad had a big long dress on," I said [laughs]. I didn't know that... I thought that was a dad, but I didn't know that was a woman. She was just a tough woman. "Ohhh... naan, you 00:37:00must've seen this lady... lady... it's a woman," they told me. I said "Oh, a woman and a woman," but then I didn't put it together, oh yeah! I guess the dad's missing, I kept thinking. You know I didn't get it in my head. And then until I was ten, when one of my friends was talking about that, then they said ... gee there was another couple. Another people -- two men were sitting way over there [gestures] in that corner by the CN station, and the guy says "You know those guys are lovers, I saw them kissing. They're hugging each other in the bush. I don't know what they're doing." "I said oh yeah what's wrong with kissing?" "Well you know what they say about kissing? Means you're gonna go to hell" he said "My mom says, 'if you kiss another man, or another boy, I'll go to hell' I'll never get to go to heaven." I says, "Well what the heck is heaven?" I 00:38:00told her -- told him. "Oh it's a heaven when you die, you'll go to heaven. But you have to earn your points. You gotta say Holy Mary with these beads" he pulls out his big long beads from his... "These beads. If you finish all of them, you'll go to heaven," he says. He was telling me all these things. I was thinking "Oh my grandmother doesn't do all that" -- I didn't say my grandmother -- "I said my mom doesn't say that" "Yeah, which mom, he told me [Indigenous language]. I go "Oh my... my... my omaamaamimaa, the one I live with." "Oh that's your grandma," he says, "That's not you mom. That's... that.." You know... "Ahh...," I said, "That is my mom! And don't... [unclear]" and I argue with him, of course. Then we separated, you go your way, I go my way, I don't 00:39:00want you because you're talking bad about my mom and about those two people who love each other, because my grandmother's always been telling me you got love them, even when I was getting sexually abused, and she did try to do something about it but nobody would listen to her because she was so old. So she just told me instead of -- 'cause she can't help me, she's old. I told her these people were doing bad stuff, were doing something to me down there, they hurt me I told 'em. She said "Well..." and when she tried to stop it, but she could do it, because these people kept coming to my mom's house -- my real mom's house -- and they were drinking and they were doing all these crazy... and I was molested... lots of bad times. And so when my grandmother knew that was going on, she couldn't do nothing about it, she was too old. She tried to ask people to help 00:40:00me, but they wouldn't listen to her. They didn't pay any attention to her. "Ahh, she's just senile," they told her. Even when she was talking about Two-Spirit people, she was "senile." I remember I was twelve years old when she was sitting me down and ah... the fire pit, and explaining about niizhin ojijaak. And I thought that was such a beautiful story when she was talking about these two men and two women, four of them people were -- were so special, they were honoured in the community by the elders and taught them how to be who they were and to always defend their community and stuff and I thought "Ahh that's so beautiful," when she would talk about stuff like that. And that's... that's what I think 00:41:00made me naïve about a lot of things, made me become... because two... what my grandmother was saying was so positive and then when it was happening to me, I didn't really get it I was.. I was like "What's going on?" People were hateful and I didn't want to see that in-in people's lives.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Do you think the residential schools had an impact on the way our own people treaded Two-Spirit people?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me, I want a drink. [Drinks]. Mm-hm. What the residential school did... I think it's still happening. You may not... You may color-color it in a different way. When you think about the North... and the 00:42:00kids have to come down here to go to school in Winnipeg or to go to school in Thunder Bay and they live way out there [gestures]... what the government has been doing all those years, what they could have done a long time ago if they wanted to do something with Anishinaabe people... they could've built a big high school way up there in the middle of the North for kids to go to high school over there if they really want them to go to school. They could've done that to pay us back all the land they stole or the land they were taking or whatever it was. But instead, they still uproot the kids. They're saying, you know, residential school had lots to do with why these people are the way they are today and they keep... they keep doing those kind of things and then right now, children's aid -- Child and Family Services -- they're still doing the same 00:43:00thing. They're not any better. They're still taking kids away from... parents.. I know it's about alcoholism and it's about their safety, but they can do something better than that if they want to. Umm... When I say they can go up north and build a school -- build a big school -- big healing center -- big school -- and then all the kids in the north can stay up north and then go to school in their community until they're ready to go to university or college, then they can make up their mind. "Do I - can I go into the city or not?" Instead of grabbing those kids from up north to go to school in Thunder Bay or in Winnipeg, or Toronto. And so, they're removing them from their own community 00:44:00and then they come to the... to the... to the city, not knowing what the heck is going on in the city. It's fast. They can't change us like that. If they didn't want to do it that way, then they should move the whole family. And so that's what I was thinking. I mean that's why... it's like this. Residential school did do those kinds of things and really made those kids, made those people hate themselves and then they end up hating themselves and then transferring that information to their own kids without even knowing it they're doing it, the same thing.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: What would you like to see for our people going forward?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Oh I would like to see people... I would like to see the whole nation, like across Canada, all the Anishinaabe, just bind together and start 00:45:00walking to Ottawa or start walking somewhere, someplace, where people will hear us. Just say that's enough, enough, enough. I'd like to see that. I'd like to see Thunder Bay Anishinaabe, just rise up and say "Okay, here we are. Enough of this alcoholism, enough of this drugs, we're gonna do something for the future for our kids." That's what I'd like to see.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell me about your book and the title?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Ohh [laughs] My book and my title? My book comes from what I said, what I witnessed, I think some of it I talk a little bit about the harsh life I had when I was a kid. Uhh... It was a hard life, I saw people getting... 00:46:00you know I saw bad things happen in -- in Obabika. And when my grandmother was so old, she probably was a hundred and nine, so I remember seeing her when I was sixteen, she was dying and she said she didn't want to live here anymore because of what was coming in the air. And I say "What in the air?" And I didn't know then what she was talking about until I smartened up. I became an alcoholic myself after my grandmother died and I had nobody left and after what the kids' dad did to me, and I just couldn't ah... and then whatever I went through with when I was younger, being raped, being tortured by these kids -- just all that stuff. When you read the book you'll understand. And when I think about those 00:47:00things [breathes and rests] somebody told me... "You are so lucky, you never went to residential school." And I said "No, yeah, I know that," I says, "I'm so lucky because residential school came to me." Everybody in the community had dibs in my body; They raped me, they broke me. They did... they shame me for who I was. They didn't like me because their kids were taken away and there's many walking around and a community with no hardly any kids, except there's this many walking around with little kids following her behind, those are her baby sitters. Those were the sitters I was looking after -- the kids - because nobody was sober enough to look after their own kids. Because they drank and became alcoholics or whatever it was. It was just about alcoholism. I'm not pointing at 00:48:00somebody, it's all their fault. It's just the way it happened. Alcoholism came in and... swoop every human being in that Obabika [unclear], and got affected by their drinking and... and because of residential school, some people couldn't take losing their kids... and then some of them didn't... they didn't like me being there. I didn't get to be taken. There was maybe four... four of us young people that happened to be in the trapping ground when these people came [to] pick up these kids. That's what you call 60's scoops. That's the one I was... that one I remember so clearly. When they say that they came and got the kids, I 00:49:00knew something was happening, I was in the trapping ground. I got up, I told my dad "Oh! Something's happening at home." And he looked at me, he says "No, there's nothing happening at home, you're just thinking that." I said "No something's happening. We should go," I told him. He says "Well let's just do one more trap." And I said "No let's go today." And he says "Holy cow, it's already almost noon." "I gotta go," I told him. "Okay" he says. So, we came back to the community and the community was so silent, you could hear your own snow shoes way at the other end when you're walking. It was so quiet. No kids around. And I said to him "See, something's happening." And then he says "Yeah," he says, "that's strange." So then when we got into the house, he opens the door, 00:50:00"Oh! Bonjour!" he goes, I hear him try to say that to his... which would have been my real mom and my grandmother, and his daughter and his son, the little guy, and then I went in behind him, and then I could hear my mom screaming -- my natural mom, like my birth mom -- "Ahhh!" I could hear her crying and he said "What?" "Oh your daughter was taken away" they told him. And the little boy was taken away too and then my real mom saw me "And you didn't even take you, because you were with mim, our bear," She was mad at me for not going. My real mom didn't like it for a long time that I didn't go. Cause she, like I said, she was [unclear]. She was sick too. But my grandmother was really happy. She was 00:51:00happy I didn't go. She... cause she was... she was more of my mother, my grandmother.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Can you tell us the name of your book?

MA-NEE CHACABY: It's called a Two-Spirit Journey. I named it that one day when I was walking around with one of my friends and I was talking about Two-Spirit people, Two-Spirit life, my Two-Spirit journey, and blah blah blah blah, and then [pause] no my friend says "Ohh, why don't you call it 'A Journey' a 'travelling journey,'" she told me, one of my friends told me "call it some kind of journey, you're doing the journey right now," cause I had worked on my sexual abuse. I had worked on everything -- I was empty in here. And so I said "oh, I probably -- yeah, 'journey' I said "I like that, Journey" and then I was 00:52:00fiddling around with it and then "niizhin ojijaak" journey. In my mind I'm thinking, "well how I'm going to spell that, or how I'm going make it sound so niizhin ojijaak?" and then I'm thinking "Oh yeah because I was in Montreal, they said Two-Spirit people -- Hey Journey, Two-Spirit Journey. And that's what I'm going to call it, Two-Spirit Journey.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Where do you feel the most safe and Why?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Where do I feel most safe? [thinks] When I'm with my people, like me. When I meet other Two-Spirit people, even when I meet gays and lesbians like in Thunder Bay there's hardly any Two-Spirit people running around -- I don't know, maybe because they're too shy or they're too -- they don't want to be visible. Like I said, the Thunder Bay is a hard city to live, but we're 00:53:00breaking it -- I'm breaking it. I feel like, I paved the way for these people in 1988 cause there was nobody out in 1988 and now they're out -- they're hiding secretly before. We're having secret parties -- potluck parties because you couldn't be safe anywhere else. This one here, when I came out, we -- not to say me -- but there's a whole bunch of us that all decided that we're all lesbians and were all gays and we're gonna fi- no more fighting, and we totally agreed with that. That's when my first fight -- well, my second fight. My first fight was at Oka Crisis. And you know, so from there on I've been on the journey.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you maybe want to talk about?

MA-NEE CHACABY: Hmm... [thinks] No, I think you asked enough questions.

BEARDY-LINKLATER: Okay. I just have one final question for you: how important do you think are Two-Spirit gatherings are for our people?

MA-NEE CHACABY: You know... [thinks] I think it's so important that I am ashamed to see that Thunder Bay doesn't have Two-Spirit gatherings yet. I wish we could have Two-Spirit gathering in Thunder Bay. I tried to develop Two-Spirit get-togethers, but people just aren't interesting. Like, I even went to the Northern Women's Centre, [they] offered their space, and gave us their key, and we would go there, and you know -- and people wouldn't come. Some people would 00:55:00come, maybe one person. Maybe two person. People come there the first day there I said that I need help to paint my flag -- my flag that I created. I created a flag for Two-Spirit people. So we have a Two-Spirit people. It's made out of two people's head and then it's got the beaver -- the clan. And then it's got the rainbow on the sides and I'm going to send it away to get it professionalized, so it's going to look normal [laughs] normal flag instead of using bedsheets, which is nice. And then I created a staff. So I have staff for the Two-Spirit people. I've been creating things that represent Two-Spirit people and I have some more students that I want to share with them when I go back to create 00:56:00[thinks] to make something that represents two spirit people, from the old way, the way they used to sort of -- the way they used to make things. So I'm gonna leave that behind. And my legacy when I'm gone [laughs]

BEARDY-LINKLATER: I want to thank you for sitting down and taking the time to share your story. I'm really touched by everything that you talked about and I'm sure that people listening will appreciate everything that you've just shared. [unclear]

Miigwetch [thank you].