Page 41 - 1895: With Sarah Denny

ISSUE : Issue 40

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1985/8/1

With Sarah Denny Micmac leaders and priests speak to those gath? ered at the end of the "road up." The choir sings hymns in Micmac in procession and return? ing to the church. Holy water is taken from a~ fount near the Big Rock used as an altar when" Fr. Mai Hard said Mass for the Micmacs in the~ 17th century. (Was it more like a party, to go to the Mission?) No. You weren't going to a Mis? sion for a party. You were going there for a spirituality. People were going there to ask for favours of St. Ann, and to expect that they're going to be cured of some? thing. You aren't going there for favours to be given, money-wise. It's for health and for family. It didn't make any differ? ence how poor you were. You wouldn't be go? ing and trying to ask to be rich or any? thing like that. It's just for your food, and be thankful for whatever you received. (Were people cured because of the blessing at St. Ann's Mission?) Yes, there were a lot of people. I remember myself one time, there were white people coming. They were on the wharf. And that woman said, "I don't know why we have to go here, an3rway." She didn't know what to make of it. I don't know if she was scared of the people, if she was afraid of the Indians, or what it was. She said, "We could have gone to our own church, and we could have prayed." And that old woman was saying, "We prayed and prayed and prayed. I've prayed. I don't know about you." Well, they were ar? guing as they were getting off the boat. And she was kind of holding back. But this person (with them)--there was one guy, there were two canes on him. So he was go? ing. And then, by the jumping, they went up. And at the time, I was only young. When they came back, he was walking, and he forgot his crutches way up on that rock. When they came over by the wharf, he said, "I forgot my crutches!" And he was walking as natural as any of them. And he left his crutches way up on the rock where they take the St. Ann (statue). So, he was go? ing to go back for (the canes), and that girl told him, "I'll go get them." But the (4i;i

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