Ballad Of Yvonne Johnson - Eliza Gilkyson

My name is Yvonne Johnson, my native blood is Cree

I’m here to tell the story of the life stolen from me

My grandfather’s grandfather was the great war chief Big Bear

And Flora my grandmother worked with medicine and prayer

My mother’s from Saskatchewan, my dad’s U.S. marine

And I was just a half-breed falling somewhere in between

Raised up in a reckless world of drugs and alcohol

The police killed my brother Earl, the only one who cared at all

Cleft palate split my face in two, my words came soft and spare

I lived in shame and ridicule, foundations of despair

Daniel let the kids all watch when I was oly three

He threw me on the table, forced himself inside me

My brother Leon learned from him what I learned not to tell

Cause when my daddy found him then he had his way as well, boys

He took me down as well

I didn’t have a language for the pain I suffered through

Escaping into marriage, but your past just catches up with you

Until I had three children and a ragged family

A desperate urge to keep them from the wolves that got to me, boys

Wolves that got to me

I wish I could forget that night, the way the cards all fell

The deck was stacked against me and I played my part so well

Three days on the party in a drunken revelry

Shirley Ann said Chuck had plans to lure my kids from me

I wrapped the cord around him there, they beat him round the head

They threw him down the cellar stairs and pulled the cord til he was dead

Courts set me up to take the fall, I went down silently

I’m doing life in prison now for murder first degree

While they got leniency

Grandmother, grandmother, send your prayers to me

Protect me and my children, for I love them endlessly

Creator, creator, I have come alive

Medicine bear woman, doing life at 35, life at 35

I pray

Help me to make my amends to those that I have harmed

Grant them love and peace so they may understand I’m sorry

Help me share my shame and pain so others they might do the same

And so awaken to themselves and to all people of this world

Hai hai

Hai hai

Aho