in himself. But, as our people would say, I wasn’t ready. Yet he kept
recurring in my mind. The more I thought about him, the more he
reminded me, in certain respects, of the place and situation of the
North American Indian in Canadian society. It was assumed that
Uncle David didn’t know much about anything, or what he knew
didn’t count; what North American Indians knew didn’t amount to a
jar of jelly beans, and did not have any larger relevance. As long as
Uncle David stayed where he belonged and didn’t bother anyone or
interfere with anyone’s business, neighbors could put up with him;
and as long as North American Indians kept the peace and didn’t
rock the boat, society could tolerate them. Uncle David didn’t belong
in the community. He wasn’t one of the normal human beings; he was
dumb and couldn’t talk; didn’t and couldn’t understand. He didn’t
belong in the society of sensible people. He belonged in some insti-
tution where he could learn to perform simple tasks and operations.
Some day he might have learned to help himself and earn a place at
the bottom of the totem pole, or the ladder.

Indians didn’t belong in Canadian society. They were wild. They
were more at home in the forest and in the open prairies, with bears
and gophers. Some even believed that Indians came from somewhere
in Asia. They didn’t understand or practice Western European tradi-
tions. They belonged in an institution where they would be super-
vised, tolerated, and modified before they could be admitted into the
larger civilized society.

Reserves ostensibly were created to protect the Indians from the
encroachment of settlers and unscrupulous speculators, swindlers,
and other riffraff; to wean them from their traditional pursuits and
pagan beliefs and practices; to groom them for farming and the
trades, for the exercise of self-government and democracy, and for
conversion to and espousal of Christian beliefs; and to earn them a
place among the citizens of the country.

Indians, it was taken for granted, were as children in the under-
standing of and exercise of civilized institutions, and needed the
guidance and the protection of a Great White Father and a Great
White Mother to nurture and tutor them to the point where they
could look after themselves and their communities, like their more
accomplished neighbors. When the Canadian government under-

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