Between 1932 and 1942 children and youth who attended the Inkameep (IN-ka-meep) day school near Oliver, BC, worked with their teacher, Mr. Anthony Walsh, to create drawings, paintings, and dramatic plays based upon Okanagan language and culture. The arts became a way for the students, aged 6 to 16, to depict their everyday realities and their evolving sense of identity as Indigenous children. Their personal lives engaged complex intersections of Okanagan Nation traditions and stories, spirituality and religion, agricultural and ranching economies, and the encroachment of North American popular culture.

Walsh’s approach to teaching and learning through the arts was unique for the pre-World War II time period. He believed that by exhibiting his students’ creativity and art, a greater respect and empathy toward Indigenous peoples and culture would be fostered by non-Indigenous peoples. Through his arts program Walsh encouraged his students to maintain their Okanagan identities by speaking and singing their language, and signing artworks with both their traditional Okanagan and Western names.

In the years leading up to and during WWII, Walsh believed children’s art could be a powerful tool to promote democracy. Contemporary thinking would critique his perspective that Indigenous peoples’ histories and cultures could be culturally appropriated as part of Canada’s history and identity. Yet, the art created by children under his tutelage and through his vision continues to represent the complexity of Indigenous childhoods and has become a vital archive of children’s knowledge in today’s era of reconciliation in Canada.

 

In 1923 the Department of Indian Affairs declared the Inkameep Day School as a Roman Catholic school. Anthony Walsh, the teacher of the school between 1931 and 1942 was himself a Roman Catholic. Typically religion was taught in residential and in day schools with the intent to completely remove Indigenous spirituality from the lives of children.

These painted cedar roof shakes depict the Stations of the Cross (though there is no description of each shake, it appears that 11 of the 14 Stations are represented in this collection, with numbers 5, 12 and 14 missing. The figures representing Jesus Christ and others are shown in traditional dress of buckskin clothing. It is curious that in the piece that is likely the first Station, when Pilate condemns Jesus to die, Pilate is depicted as an Indigenous person. Other figures depicted as part of the Stations of the Cross are also represented as Indigenous peoples. The representation of Jesus, however, appears similar to non-Indigenous representations of him with a beard and shorter hair. Yet, he also wears buckskin.

The experience of the children on the Osoyoos Indian Reserve included a long term and entrenched presence of the Roman Catholic Church. The usual heavy-handed teaching of religion in schools was absent from Walsh’s classroom. In drawings, such as those of Palm Sunday, and artworks such as these paintings of the Stations of the Cross that depict religious themes, we see children exercising the freedom to depict a mixture of Okanagan and Christian knowledge and identities.

The leather ties that remain at the top of each shake indicate that they were hung and used, but it is unknown where they may have been displayed. The children who painted the individual shakes have signed their work with their initials.

The Stations of the Cross are displayed in order. Missing plates are noted in italic print.

1. Pilate condemns Jesus to die.
2. Jesus accepts his cross.
3. Jesus falls for the first time.
4. Jesus meets his mother, Mary.
5. Simon helps carry the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
7. Jesus falls for the second time.
8. Jesus meets the three women of Jerusalem.
9. Jesus falls for the third time.
10. Jesus is stripped of his clothes.
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross.
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross.
14. Jesus is placed in the tomb.