what may be seen as virgin journey
upon a seam of well sowed soil,
‘tis nothing but a dobbin drag
for someone else’s care and cure
I am tired of this ungrateful beam
of light’s cloudy caress and condiment
surely there is more to this
warp-mirror’d mention of my work
I am strung and hung both ways
by someone’s dire definition
of my daring to succeed
in growing green an ungrateful garden
Of course, I know that this concept is not old ways of our ancient ways, and, as a teacher, I, too have been guilty of using this concept as a way to involve students in study of their personal journey into knowing more about who they are; physically, intellectually, emotionally, and, perhaps, spiritually. It was a place to begin with those who were not involved, or able to be involved, in their own traditional ways. I found it wakened them, as I encouraged finding their own truths from their own elders. I had to start somewhere as I believe that there is an awakening of (spiritual) interest if we began talking about what it means to look at the world, and our world, in another way. I offered that it was only “A Way” to look at culture, not “The Way”.
So many of our Elders seem to be disheartened, and there are so many that have forgotten, that, sometimes we have no place to turn to, to begin talking about Native People in the contexts of rigid constructions of academia. So many children are left out, because of lack of interest of their parents, and further, their communities, that have almost completely assimilated into strict non-native belief system, to allow traditional ways to even be discussed.
What do we do, then, when integrity guides us to, at very least, offer what we can? I have researched for native perspective on certain events ( i.e., Christopher Columbus hypocrisy). I have gone to elders and tried to remain true to their guidance in what to offer a way to understand what makes us unique.
It is easy for those in strong communities to denigrate what little we can do in these hungry and halted circumstances. The moment something is put on paper, it is null and void of the deep and abiding truths and connotations of The True Way.
I have constantly struggled with my “less than ‘full’ blood”, “my white-education”, my lingering legacy of being a captured child raised in non-native home, the denigration at every turn from both races. I have struggled with a strong spirit that guides me, and council of the only elders that were available to teach me and help me find my way through these many detours and detriments.
Do we pull back and only teach the way of the history books that are accredited for use as curriculum, do we offer another way to think about “who we were/are”, do we stay as close to guidance of spirit and do the best we can with that, or do we totally abandon all nurturing in any way, of children who are hungry for a moment of spirit-revealed truth that may come from even a frail , and, yes, faulty fraction of a method for a chance revelation.
So many have been abandoned by their own. Do we abandon them too because we do not have a strong and true traditionalist that is willing and able to come to quench their need to know?
Perhaps, rather than reacting negatively, we should spend this time empowering those in our communities that can set things aright. Perhaps those who have the command, or perceive such, should go out into these places some of us have to
struggle in, and help those who are intent on awakening pride in a way that does not mis-step into the infringement of intricate and holy ways of a particular people, band, community, tribe.
It is very easy to find what is not right. Perhaps time be best spent on focusing what is the best way and getting out, front-line, in those places where are those, like me, who want only to nurture children who seek false idols and ways and places to stave their hunger for something substantial to strengthen them in finding their personal walk into traditional ways.
I fear that once they shrug off a holistic way to approach this problem, they will then begin tribal skirmishes over the different and unique specifics. What do we do when we have children with lineage to different, and opposing beliefs? (Cree and Blackfoot, for instance) My only answer was to follow advice from elders who were true to their spiritual guidance, am I to be denigrated for even this?
How lonely it has been to be someone who has chosen to follow the ways as guided by ceremonies and traditionalists of integrity in each of the different communities and tribal areas I have worked in. I am grateful that many youth I have worked with, have gone on to search for their way in their own traditional ways. I am grateful I have retired and, according to this, do no harm.
Andrea Bear Nicholas
Chair in Native Studies
St. Thomas University
Fredericton, NB
April 24, 2007
To Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Peoples of the Maritimes:
It has been repeatedly brought to my attention how completely our people have been fooled into believing that the medicine wheel is somehow part of our traditions, especially our spirituality. While I had long had concerns about its origins, what woke me to the hoax was an event that occurred several years ago at a national conference of Aboriginal women scholars. It occurred when I raised the concern and prefaced my remarks with an apology to those whose tradition it might have been. Immediately a chorus went up with virtually everyone in the room saying loudly that it was not their tradition! And these were Aboriginal women scholars from across Canada!
Subsequent to that meeting, we in the Native Studies Program at St. Thomas University began researching the history of the medicine wheel, and what we have found is appalling!
Indeed, it was not even known by our people in the Maritimes until the last couple of decades. It is not anywhere in the oral traditions of Maliseet, Mi’kmaq or Passamaquoddy people collected as recently as the 70s and 80s. So how in the world could it represent the knowledge of our elders, if none of them ever heard of it until recently? The answer is that it was a totally invented tradition that was foisted on our people only as recently as the 1970s.
The following is an excerpt from a paper I have written which is due to be published soon. It is titled “The Assault on Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Past & Present”. I include in this paper an analysis of the assault on our languages, as the most important of our oral traditions, specifically the fact that our languages have been deliberately targeted for destruction, not only by residential schools, but also by public schools and all schools taught only in a dominant language such as English. The paper also deals with the fact that so many of the stories of our people have been both distorted and often totally invented or fabricated by non-First Nations people. It is in connection with the destruction of our languages that I discuss the matter of invented traditions, especially the medicine wheel, as follows.
[Begin quote] “It is into this void [where so many people no longer speak their languages] that invented traditions have come with a vengeance. One such “tradition”, the medicine wheel, is of particular concern for it is now widely promoted as the basis of Maliseet or Mi’kmaq traditions. In fact, it was invented as recently as 1972 (1) by a man representing himself as Cheyenne, but who was immediately exposed as a fraud.(2) The medicine wheel is not a Maliseet or Mi’kmaq tradition, nor, it seems, was it a Cheyenne tradition. Within two decades, however, it evolved into the form it is known today, thanks to the embellishments of several others, including the discredited “plastic medicine man” known as Sun Bear, who exploited the idea for their own personal gain.(3) The irony is that this now very non-Native invention is seen as the essence of Native traditions, not only by the dominant society but also by First Nations people, even many who style themselves as “traditionalists”, in spite of the fact that the enormity of the fraud has been known at least since 1983.(4) With the 1996 publication of a Native Studies textbook that features the medicine wheel,(5) the concept has been foisted upon a whole generation of Maliseet and Mi’kmaq high school students who now firmly believe that this invention is an old Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tradition. Furthermore, Native Studies teachers in New Brunswick high schools are now provided with supplementary binders and curriculum materials that are totally focused on the medicine wheel. That this philosophy has effectively and almost totally displaced the oral traditions of our people in schools, makes it impossible to conclude that it does not serve the ends of the ongoing colonial assault on the traditions of our people. That this headlong rush for an invented tradition has occurred without critical attention to its origin as a hoax is a serious indictment of academia, and particularly those institutions that have taken on the responsibility of training First Nations teachers.(6) The sad irony is that anyone who now voices objections to the medicine wheel as tradition is generally condemned for “messing” with tradition.” [End of quote]
I put these comments out knowing that they will stir up much reaction and discussion, and that they will even be considered disrespectful, to say the least! I just hope that the discussion it provokes is respectful. As an indigenous academic my duty is to seek the truth, and to speak out against untruth, particularly with regard to our history. In fact, I now realize it would be disrespectful of me to hold my tongue on this matter any longer, especially when I know that young people are being taught this hoax as some sort of truth or legitimate tradition of our peoples, even in school.
I urge people to read the following footnotes to the excerpt quoted above, and the sources they cite before weighing in on this matter.
1.) Storm, Hyemeyohst, Seven Arrows, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
2.) Kehoe, Alice B., “Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men”, in James B. Clifton, ed., The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, New Brunswick & London: Transaction Publishers, 1990, p. 200.
3.) Sun Bear and Wabun, The Medicine Wheel, New Jersey: Prentice-Hill, 1980. Judy Bopp, The Sacred Tree, Lethbridge, Alberta: Four Worlds Development Project, University of Lethbridge, 1988; and Lorler, Marie-Lu, Shamanic Healing within the Medicine Wheel, Albuquerque: Brotherhood of Life, 1989. For a critique of this idea and other New Age phenomena Aldred, Lisa, 2000. “Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality” in The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 24(3):329-352; and Jenkins, Philip, Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
(4) Parkhill, Thomas, Weaving Ourselves into the Land: Charles Godfrey Leland, “Indians” and the Study of Native American Religions, Albany: State University of New York., 1997. p. 141, citing Alice Kehoe, “Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men”, p. 200-201, who in turn cites Castro, Michael, Interpreting the Indian, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982, p. 155; and Bruchac, Joseph, “Spinning the Medicine Wheel: The Bear Tribe in the Catskills”, in Akwesasne Notes, 1983, vol. 15(5):20-22.
(5) Leavitt, Robert, Maliseet & Micmac: First Nations of the Maritimes, Fredericton, NB: New Ireland Press, 1995. . (6) Dorson, Richard M., Folklore and Fakelore: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies, Cambridge & London, Harvard University Press, 1976, p. 119.
Respectfully,
Andrea Bear Nicholas
Stretch out to vibrate Universe
with earth-quaking love
swirling between bombs and bullets
a shield against sobering thoughts
dragging on our world
oh, hand to touch
tearstained sky
reflected in the silent roll
of sorrow on child’s cheek
oh, lip to kiss crushing blows
sustained by tooth-ground testaments
that this is not enough
oh, heart to handle hardships
of children stooped on sand
with thirst for care, cracked cry,
bouncing off half-dumbed ears
oh, arms to gather missing sisters
cast off by hearth and home
far flung fears, wrapped round her
to spare her from cold care
oh, feet to race to greet our brothers
help with carrying credence
for a harsh and envious environment
with soft and gentle gratitude
for strength they shape the soil
What soul there is to rock what’s new,
to lullaby in age.
Birch trees, in Wood Buffalo National Park,
waiting slick and sappy,
like full-teated cows
for drizzle-down release
elders, who remember,
sweetening tea,
marinating moose meat
before smoky smudge
of peat, pried from muskeg,
remember sugary brown tang
on winter’s reach
into newspaper folds
for a dry chew of spring
no Maple tree syrup
could alleviate
swell of spit to gum
like thoughts of rolling boil
foaming over a month’s worth
of wrinkled remembrance
honoring dear taste of tapped wisdom.