Description
Josephine Beaucauge Recording Transcription
Interviewer (I)
Interviewee- Josephine Beaucauge (JB)
*There appears to be a 3rd person present at Interview. [This only becomes clear 7-12 minutes into the interview
→ uncertain of who this person is and their relationship to either Josephine or the Interviewer
→ they mention someone between 12:45-12:50 named Audrey. Possibly this woman is the third person in the interview.
~
[0:00- 0:13] indistinct chatter and noises
[0:14] I: Mrs. Beaucauge, whereabouts was this Convent that you were… that you mentioned that you were in?
JB: We were sent in 1914 to Spanish, that was an industrial school for orphan children. That was the reason why my dad sent us there. He thought it would be the best thing for the both of us. We were only the two girls left after mom died. But, he didn’t know that my mother died
3rd Person: What?
[appears to be a break in the recording. Possibly the interviewer paused it before picking it back up again.]
I: Practice it a couple of times first
JB: Dr. Todd...with the Carnegie Museum Company. It was what he was working for. When he left home in April, I remember… what do you call… When he was leaving he said to me “take care of mother.” He says “I’ll be back whenever I’m through working.” But, he wasn’t through working until late in August then mom was dead already. Mom died in June from a child birth and it seemed as though there was no one to help her when we were up at Cochrane. We were living in Cochrane then… and she had took blood poison and that’s how she died, and the baby died too also. It was a little boy. So when he came home he was very shocked that my mom was not… you know… had passed away. But then again when we went to the Convent, we were very lonely, the both of us. We were the only two little girls, I was 10 years old, and my sister was 8. We were lonely for about 2 months. You know we cried, like nobody else. I guess you know wanting to go home. But, after, as the years came by I noticed that was one of the best things to ever happen in my life, and I was very thankful that I was in the Convent and sent to the Convent.
[2:14] I: So you still have very good memories of the Convent. Were they very strict with you there?
JB: The only one thing that was very strict is that we never spoke our own language. We, all and any Ojibway people… we were all mostly native children from around Lake Winneconne, and Little Current, Killarney and the surrounding places there was all children from the… that were Ojibway children. We were not allowed to speak our own language. Some came from St. Bridges in (uncertain). They were not allowed to speak their language.
I: Yes, I’ve heard that before… I hope you weren’t punished if you did speak.
JB: No no, they just told us to be careful because we are not-
I: What was their reason for not letting you speak it?
JB: That I never knew because we always wondered why it was that we couldn’t speak our own language, even among ourselves. But, after a while I guess perhaps when we were learning in the classrooms, we are learning the English language-
I: And they think you might learn a bit quicker if you- (laughs)
JB: Yeah, that’s what I think, that's what I believe. The quicker we would learn our mathematics, and whatever in school it would be better for us. In one way I thought it was pretty… It wasn't too bad. But it was… that was a really good place for an orphan child to go. I heard a lot of people that was in the same Convent that I was, they kind of pull it down and they said that they were being punished for this and that, but that never happened when I was there.
I: Well that’s good, and this is the Convent in Spanish. What was the name of the Sisters who ran the Convent?
JB: That I never knew. But, they are an order that didn’t have to have habits on. They just had skirts and they had a shirtwaist that would tie around their neck and long sleeves.
I: That was quite innovative in those days because that's the way some of them are now. But, in the old days they had all sorts of regalia on. Mrs. Beaucauge you were talking just now about Semo Commanda and you have some memories, this is your great-grandfather?
JB: That was my granddad.
I: Your Grandfather?
JB: My dad’s dad.
I: Right. So that makes him your grandfather. What do you remember about Semo Commanda?
[4:45] JB: We moved-- they moved to Cochrane from Beaucauge. That was right after he was Chief and they moved up in Cochrane for I don’t know what reason, I never knew. But, that's where my mother died up in Cochrane. Then in 1918 they moved from up there back to Beaucauge in that little bay between North Bay and Sturgeon Falls. They made their home there right up until the time of his death. He died in 1934.
I: I Remember when I was doing some earlier research, we have a copy of the story that was in the Nugget. How far back can you remember him, just to put things in order. Do you know anything about him when he was young that you’ve heard from other members of your family at all?
JB: No I never did. We were… I don’t know… we seemed to have been not included with the band, when we were away so much so that the history was not even kept in order but then he hadn’t been chief a very long time before they left Cochrane, and before Cochrane. Then when he died the Nugget came there, I remember that because there was a whole group of us relatives that gathered there and he had two families. He married first to a… (long pause as she is trying to remember the family name of the woman)
[6:21] I: It’ll come to you. What was the name of the other family, do you know?
JB: I forget the name of the first woman he married. He had a family with that woman and then when he married my grandmother she was 14 and he was 50.
I: Really?
JB: Yes
I: What was her name?
JB: Marie (Larond?). She was from… that family was straight from France. When he saw them on the bank of the South River. He went and asked for the girl, and they gave him the girl. She couldn’t speak English, neither could he speak French.
I: Just like that?
JB: Yeah, we often wondered how they ever got along but it seemed as though they got along and as life went by she was able to talk the native language later and he was able to talk French and the English.
I: Where would they have been when he took this second wife? Where would he have been living?
JB: he was living… in Beaucauge, that’s where he was living. But they were portaging food from South, when they were travelling in big large birch bark freight canoes, and that's how they happened to see these people along the bank.
I: Where were people going to, any ideas?
JB: Hudson’s Bay. Up North, yes.
I: So they were coming along the (uncertain) river...
JB: Coming into Nipissing Lake [I (in the background): Right.] Then on wherever the portages.. they portage all that food and bring the food in large bulks (Windbarrows?), and big large bags of sugar, and flour… and they had a hard time to portage it but, there was quite a big crew of them.
[indistinct chatter]
[8:22] I: So it was love at first sight? (laughter)
JB: It was love at first sight with him. But I think she was frightened.
I: Frightened?
JB: Yeah, I think she was frightened.
[Laughter]
I: How many children did he have with Maire (Larond?)
JB: lets see… I think it was 5 girls, and 2 boys. One of my Aunts was the oldest, and my dad was next, and then there were the girls, and the youngest was the boy.
I: So you go back to Marie (Larond?) then?
JB: yes
I: oh okay. Maybe, later on… the name of the other one…I may have the other one written down… I don’t know. How long was Semo chief for?
JB: I never knew. No. But, we knew that he had been Chief for a long while before he ever left Beaucauge.
I: Whereabouts were you born?
JB: I was born in Beaucauge, in that little bay along lake Nipissing.
I: did you always live there?
JB: No. We lived there till I was 7 years old. When I was 7 that's when we moved to Cochrane…
I: what took you up to Cochrane?
JB: I don’t know what it was… I never knew. All of a sudden I knew that we packed up and went up North.
[Laughing]
I: Um.
JB: When I was going to school there up in Beaucauge, I remember walking from the Bay way out until the Point to the school. They had a beautiful school there, a nice big schoolhouse and a nice big church. So we used to walk to school, and Miss. Kelly was our teacher. I remember her well.
I: Was she a white lady?
[10:00] JB: Yes. Yeah.
I: What kind of things did you learn at school?
JB: Well, we had arithmetic, and I was in Part II. I think they called it that at that time in the Cathlic readers.
I: So then you moved to Cochrane and do you remember what your dad did up there? Was he…
JB: He had in 1912... when he started… When he got this job from the Carnegie Museum Company and he was every summer after that or anytime the Company was ready to go up North he was the guide that they picked always because they found him a very patient person, and well spoken, and... Always ready to do whatever they asked of him.
I: Your father is Paul?
JB: Yes.
I: That's right. He was known all over North American and the States as being such an excellent guide. Can you tell me more about his work as a guide?
JB: When he was not working for Todd, he used to go to Temagami. When we moved, I married after I came out of school in 1921. I got married in 1923. We didn’t really have a home to live in so he didn’t want me to live with my grandma all the time. So I got married in 1923 then we stayed in Garden Village, I think only till 25 or 26. Then we moved to Temagami, my husband and I, we moved to Temagami. That’s where we...I… My husband was a guide and so was my grandpa. Paul was my grandpa and we got him to come to Temagami and he used to guide people from there. I think there are about 8 commercial camps on the lake and my dad used to work for the Northwoods Camp, that was a boys camp. That is how I knew that every summer that he was not with Todd he was down at Temagami guiding. People liked him very much.
[indistinct conversation]
3rd Person: Is it turned on?
I: Yeah.
[12:23] 3rd Person: You made a slip of the tongue
I: You said Paul is--
3rd Person: You said Paul was your grandpa.
(Laughter)
I: It's okay, I caught it. (Laughter) No I figured out…
[Indistinct Clatter and shuffling]
I: Paul. I brought a picture of Paul. Did Audrey show you the pictures?
JB: Yeah.
I: Very nice. Lets see… Now let's talk about your husband. You talked about when you got married in 1923.
JB: Yeah, we got married in 1923--
I: How did you meet your husband and what’s his name?
JB: When I was just a young girl with my grandmother for a while from the time I left school to 1923, we stayed with Grandma. But my Dad didn’t quite… was not satisfied. We had to work hard with grandma. We were up milking 7 cows every morning, and we… She had a big garden we hoed corn all day long, we hoed potatoes, and picked potato bugs and we had a great big garden of different vegetables in another part of our garden. So my dad kind of thought gee you know that was kind of a hard life for us. But, at that time we didn’t mind it because nowadays I noticed that the kids say ‘oh I’m so tired.’ We never knew when we were tired in those days. We were always ready to do things. So in the evenings when somebody comes along and said ‘well would you girls like to go to a dance.’ Oh my gosh, we were up (laughter) ‘Sure.’ Grandma would say to us ‘you go to the dance tonight. Tomorrow when you get back in the morning from the dance you are not to go to bed you are to do your work all day long, all the days worth. Then after that you can rest,’ she said. She was strict in a sense then again we didn’t mind it.
[14:29] I: This is Marie you’re talking about?
JB: Yes.
I:Yeah. Okay, so how did you meet your husband
JB: It was at one of the dances that we used to go to. We went to Garden Village, that's down here and that's where I met him. I saw him a couple of times when he knew that he was going to pick me out from the girls. He saw me then at Beaucauge so we decided since we were pretty good friends and think that we could live life together, we got married in Sturgeon Falls in the big church in Sturgeon Falls.
I: What year were you married? You still haven’t told me his name now.
JB: Angus Beaucauge.
I: Okay (laughter)
JB: I never knew that he did not know how to read or write. That was the strangest thing. I never knew.
I: He never told you and you were never able to pick it out. So you paid all the bills did you?
(laughter)
JB: After we got married I noticed he’d asked me questions. I asked ‘can you read?’ ‘No’ he says. ‘Can you write?’ He says no. I said ‘how do you get along?’ He says, ‘I can just barely write my own name.’ His parents never let him go to school when he was young at Garden Village. Yet they had good school there for all the children. But that was one family that never went to school. The family that I married into.
I: They believe that they were trying to keep the natural ways of the native people?
JB: Yeah.
I: And that was why. What did your husband do in Garden Village?
[16:09] JB: well he was in the summer… When he was a teenager he went up to Temagimi. He found a good tourist resort up there and he started out guiding and every summer he went out guiding there. Even after we were married he used to go away every summer and I stayed in Garden village till we finally moved up to Temagami. We thought it would be a better place for us because he was always going and coming back and forth anyway.
I: do you remember the people from your early days… did they go onto the land and live the way of the Native people and do people still do that even?
[16:56] JB: Well. Yes. We still live our Native way of living, and we don’t seem to lose it you know? But then again we’re living like the Whites. We’re just as well… we don’t forget anything that we know and what we are to remember.
I: Are the young children today-- the native children-- are they still learning the old ways?
JB: I don’t think so because a majority of them go to school by a bus that goes down to Garden Village and pick them up and takes them to Sturgeon Falls to go to school there. We haven’t got any classrooms down in Garden Village anymore. We did have it at one time.
I: I think I heard, maybe you haven’t heard this, but I was pretty sure a couple weeks ago there was a story in the paper that (Philip Goulay/ Goulais?) said that he hopes … I think it’s in the works. That they're going to have their own whole school. Now. Do you suppose that these will be Native teachers then?
[18:14] JB: That’s something else that I found out when I was travelling. Right now I am a craft…
3rd Person: Can you tell me that again?
[indistinct chatter + whispering]
I: Okay, you’re a craft teacher?
JB: Yes, I am. I found that way up North when I went to a different reserve. They are all white teachers, there are no Native teachers anywhere on the way. When I went to Thunder Bay, and I had a craft class there at the university, and they were being taught to get their degree, a teaching degree, and after they were through and had their diplomas or whatever papers they never did have them in the schools because I was out there after the girls were through having their courses in Thunder Bay and I still didn’t see any Native teachers when I was in the schools that I was at.
I: You mean these Native girls you saw that were being trained, you have no idea that they…
JB: No.
I: oh no. That’s very…
JB: There is a (Jane Goulais/ Goulay) here in Sturgeon Falls that was one of the girls that was in this teaching class and she never got a job. She applied, she says not to the Board of Education but to the Department of Indian Affairs and everytime they asked for a teacher in the different schools they always sent a white person. They never sent a Native girl.
I: That’s very discouraging. I’m just trying to get a hold of Phillip, I’m quite sure I saw that story in the paper and see what's happening. I think that would just be marvelous. Years ago I worked at an Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. Father Johnsons was an Anglican church and we are going back to the idea of language and crafts. He encouraged people to learn their language. These were Cree people. He used to bring people in off the reserve. They’d have Cree classes, they’d have native dancing, and that sort of thing. He was really trying to encourage it. What else do you think could be done to encourage the young children, besides getting schools on reserves… run by Native people?
(laughter)
[20: 41] JB: I think they would like to have some of our own Native people to teach them. Even to pick up their own language. There is an awful lot of them who don’t even understand or speak our own language anymore.
I: That’s the Ojibway?
JB: Yes. Down in Toronto we have a young man that's teaching Ojibway. But, I don’t know how he’s getting along. I never did go see…
I: We have the Indian Friendship Center here, and we have Randy Sawyer who is really been trying to have classes in Ojibway and it seems to me that they were quite well attended. Do families still use much Ojibway in their homes?
JB: As much as we can, we try. But then again the parents, the Elder parents now are not all… most of them are gone and nobody can follow the language… the younger ones can’t seem to follow the language. If, I think if somebody went in there, that would really give some good lessons. I think they would be attended, they are very interesting.
I: Garden Village seems to be a very active reserve and a lot of things are going on there. I think a lot of it is thanks to Phillip. What do you think of Garden Village itself?
JB: Garden Village has improved an awful lot since we ever left there because we went… I wanted to get in there too. But, after a while I thought ‘I think I am a lot better where I am’ and i think I’ll stay where I am because they asked me if I’d like to get into the senior home there and I went down and looked around and I don’t think I’d like it. In Toronto we don’t have to shovel snow.
(Laughter)
I: you don’t want to have to go back to the old ways?
JB: No. No more.
I: what do you do down in Toronto?
[22:42] JB: I right now I am instructing beadwork once a week, for our native seniors and for whoever would like to take the course with us, under the Board of Education there.
I: Where abouts do you teach?
JB: At the seniors home at Wigwamen Terrace and we have a nice big recreational space called the Turner Room and that's where we have all our ‘dos.’ We have different exercises during the week and every day has got something to do with the group.
I: Whereabouts is this located in Toronto?
JB: Bloor and Spadina. Just a little bit above the Subway. We have the subway north and south, and east and west right there at Spadina.
I: so everyone can get to this place very easily. Is it open all day?
JB: Yeah, It’s open all day long.
I: I get down to Toronto quite often. What days do you teach?
JB: Tuesday afternoons.
I: I’ll see what I can do. That would be really great! So you live in this seniors place, is it just for Native ladies and gentlemen?
JB: It was supposedly to be for Native people. But when they opened it up in 1979, I was one of the first families that got in there. When it opened up there were not enough Native families to pay for the building. We got all different nationalities there. We’ve got Chinese, we’ve got coloured people, we’ve got Czechoslovakians and French. Yeah. Quite a few different nationalities. But they are supposed to give-- any time someone leaves or… they are supposed to give our Natives preference to get in there first before anybody else.
[24:40] I: How did you happen upon this place?
JB: (Laughs) I was living with the Wigwam and People and the place that I was living in was down in a cellar of a three story building, and every time it rained or something I was flooded out. So I got in at Wigwam and told them that if whenever you have a good place, I would like to move out of here because a lot of my things were being destroyed by the floods. Not only that but when they do come in when I’m not in, some of my things have been stolen. Things that have been given to me on my trips when I’m out instructing. They gave me a nice gift, a going away gift. A lot of them things have been stolen when I’m away.
I: That's too bad. When did you start teaching beadwork with the Board of Education?
JB: 19… (long pause) 1960 we, my husband and I, were asked to go to Niagara Falls at an Indian village. I don’t know if you remember but we had a Indian village down there and somebody came all the way from down this part of the country from Niagara I guess up to Temagami and told them that my husband and I knew how to tan deer hides. So when we were interviewed, the people said we want you to come down. So we were hired and we went down and we tanned 50 deer hides that first year. That was in 1960. Every year after that, in the fall of the year… sorry no it was in May we had to start, that's tourist season. We went down and stayed down there and did all kinds of the demonstrations: bead work, and leatherwork, and whatever. So when a lot of these tourists come along and said to me-- after a while knew a lot of these tourist people who came and saw me-- she said ‘why don’t you get out and teach?’ ‘Get on the board’ she says, ‘and teach.’ So I did. We came to Toronto, I had a daughter living in Toronto by the name of Lynn. She says to her dad ‘why don’t you stay down here?’ I didn’t want to stay down in Toronto. I wanted to come back home to Temagami. But he said ‘no, let’s try it down here for a couple of years.’ So once we stayed down there, we left our home in Temagami and went to live for good in Toronto.
[27:30] I: Where abouts did you live?
JB: We lived in many different addresses. You know when you’re in a city you move from one place to another when you don’t like it here, you find another place. So I couldn’t tell you exactly...
I: Do you like… I guess you must like being in Toronto. Or do you wish you could go back to Temagami?
JB: 1964 is when we lived for good in Toronto, right up till now. For two years I was lonely and wanted to go home back up North and he didn’t want to go back. (laughs) So I said dear me. But, anyhow I got used to the city then once you get used to the city the fastness of the people, you have to really go when you are travelling on the street cars and on the subways. I got used to that. He died in 1970. He passed away as he had got very ill. Then I was alone.
Then I travelled, and started to travel more as Education started to ask me to travel. We had had a meeting from one of the big craft shops that the Natives had in Toronto and I had been asked to work with them for a while. I did. And we had a board meeting and they asked us what we wanted to do, and I said to have somebody to go out and instruct in the different reserves. They said ‘that’s a good idea’ because when the material came from up north into Toronto craft shops, it looked as if they were not finished. Like there were a lot of little ends hanging out here and it looked as though it was not completely finished. So they said ‘can you do that?’ And I said yeah. I know how to work them things out. So that’s how I started with the Board of Education, and everywhere I went I was under the Board of Education. I was never-- like the Natives never paid me. The Board of Education paid me.
[29:46] I: and you still are employed by the Board of Education? That’s great. Over the years that you’ve been teaching this do you feel that you’ve been able to pass this on to any of the people you’ve taught and they now in turn are teaching?
JB: That’s exactly what’s happened! Many of the reserves I taught in, there is even one here in North Bay, her name is Ruth Couchie is one of the ones I taught, and she’s really got a good thing going. She was one of my students here.
I: When I first started working at the museum I was talking to Ruth and she brought down some of her craftings she had made for her display. So you have a lot of people that’s really good. (long pause) What kind of beadwork and things do you make?
JB: Oh we make… see these little.. (scuffling sounds)
(the interview seems to sound far away from the microphone making it hard to hear her well)
I: Oh I’ll get it for you… wow they are gorgeous (indistinct conversation).
This is one thing, and what is it called?
JB: This is the Eagle. I don’t know, there is supposed to be a story of the Eagle in our Native people. But I never did pay too much attention to it. But that’s what we have most of the time on our things mostly
I: This is a necklace we are looking at, and it is beautiful. I have a couple at home but I don’t have one that beautiful. That is just gorgeous
[ 31:31 ] JB: This is my pattern. There are a lot of them that you see the different way of fixing their beads. So I’ve got--
I: So that’s your style?
JB: Yeah that’s my style and way that you see that with a metal or a gold coloured bead thats my making.
I: So what else do you make besides
JB: (Indistinct) get started with a chain like that. Now you would think that that is very easy, but it isn’t. No. So they get all mixed up with it. But, anyhow that's how I start them, and if I don’t start them like that, I start them with a loom. The loom work is very simple and easy.
I: This a small loom
JB: Then we move onto material. We take a piece of material and we start probably something like that, or maybe even a star. There's a lot of different little patterns that we go by. Then I learn how to attach them on the thing here on that and-
I: It's very neat.
JB: Then their little tails. (indistinct sentence) I teach them about anything that they want to learn about. That’s how I start with the rule, I say anything you want to learn about, just let me know and I will start you with.
I: Do you know about the history of beadwork and when it started.
[ 33:03] JB: years and years before we ever had beadwork… this is always something I have to explain to the tourist people when they ask you ‘what did you do before you did beadwork? What did you use?’ Because the native people used the seeds from different berries, or not berries, flower seeds, and little shells, and porcupine quills, and corn. When they grew corn they knew how to fix it into a necklace. And they used a cord that was taken out of an animal that was used for thread…
I: ()
JB: Yeah, (). They dry that () everytime they killed a whale or an animal. The () was the first thing they would take out of the animal and dry it. And when that’s dried real hard you pound it real hard, and when you see the small strands coming out you start pulling them and then… The eskimos still use () for their Muk Luks. I’ve seen them when they came to Toronto, and down to the center on...
I: Harbour front?
JB: No not Harbour Front. At Eglington and Dawn Valley there, what do you call that center? Can’t remember. Anyhow thats where they were and I saw them and this is what they were using, and I talked with quite a few of them and they made a kayak there out of seal skins and all that.
I: so the coming of the white man, this is where these famous trade beads and that sort of stuff… is that when it all started?
[35:04] JB: Yeah, it was the Hudson Bay that started and we never had no money eh? What we had to do was trade for any kind of material he had. So this is how we started to have our beads and we had seed beads, and they had (Toni/Tony/ Pony/ Poni) beads. So that’s how we started to make our material.
I: But before the white man brought his beads, you were already using these natural (JB: Yes)... things and you made decorative what was it tobacco pouches, and bands, necklaces that sort of thing. Were they strictly decorative in the history or did they have a very special meaning?
JB: They had a very special meaning to whatever they applied on their clothing. But, I never did know exactly what it was. But, I know when we look at the or even read about them they had their own idea about the different nationalities, I guess you would say. Like what it resembled.
I: Okay, let’s have a real up to date question. Where do you get your bead from now? (laughs)
JB: All our beads are shipped from Czechoslovakia.
I: Really?
JB: Yes, and a lot of people say, some people say when your working, “how did you make those holes in those beads?” (laughter) I say my goodness, they are already made when we get them from Czechoslovakia or Italy. I say ‘they are already made just as you see them.’ and they say ‘my, I wonder how they colour them.’ I say ‘I don’t know’ that again I say “is something you just see them done up as they are for us.”
I: What kind of thread do you use, because you need something very strong to ensure those things don’t come undone?
[36:58] JB: Some of the… yeah, at the beginning when we started to use thread, we had thread that was not very good. But, now we are using 100 percent nylon or what's that other one?
I: Polyester?
JB: Yeah, polyester. And we double our threads all the way through.
I: That would be just… How long would that take? Okay someone first learning it would take a long time but for you to make one like that, how long would it take?
JB: Well.. about, lets see. Like myself, I would take a day and a half on this part here, and then once that's made I finish it all by you cut a piece of leather and put cardboard in between. And when you sew that leather with this part of the bead that you have on there, you also apply this row of bead... [truncated due to length]Creator
Peter Handley