Editor's Note: This article contains descriptions of abuse endured or witnessed by residential school survivors that may be triggering. It mentions violence against children, including physical, mental and emotional abuse.

A deep thrum fills the air.

A beat begins, and the rhythm is steady, absorbing, guiding.

A voice rings out, then two. An Elder and a youth sit next to each other like two sides of a looking glass.

Their voices, which when spoken were soft and gentle, sing clear, thunderous and balance the thread of great force and great control.

The music and its emotions travel down into your chest, through the bones and into the ground. It fills the air. The singers say it’s carried across the water, and up into the hills so all their relatives can hear.

“The drum is medicine,” s

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