Stained Glass Window Dedication Ceremony - Elder Alo White

Transcript: Elder Alo White

Christi Belcourt: He's going to sing a song. I should tell you that when we got the name for the piece of art, we did everything in a traditional way, right from the very beginning, we always put our tobacco out and we did ceremonies and part of what came through that ceremony was a song that goes with the window. So this is part of it and the song is also called Geniigaaniimenaaning.

Alo White: Bonjour. (In native language). I'm not going to repeat what I said in my language. I will repeat the song (in native language) which means looking ahead into the future. As my partner Christi said, she gave tobacco, the sacred 'sama', for me to search this name for this glass window when she was finished. It took many days to go into that dream world where the ancestors came and told of the stream. The name and the song, they go hand in hand. So here's the song. The first two parts is going – is slow. It commemorates this part of the window and then the second part, the hope, the hope of the window.

(Singing by Elder Alo White)

I just want to say before I go back and sit down and behave myself, I wear this little thing around my wrist. It signifies I'm a survivor, a survivor of day school. I'm one of the survivors that suffered and I hope that along with myself, the day school, also the Métis day school survivors, the Inuit, the survivors of day schools, that we are not forgotten. We are the forgotten ones, I feel, as I stand before you. This window signifies hope and let's all hope that the rest of us are not forgotten. Miigwetch.