Happy Aboriginal Day!
Good afternoon everyone! I just thought I'd share a neat little story and a bit of Cree culture with you all on this auspicious day.
(Yeah, I didn't know that today was apparently a national holiday - Aboriginal Day - either. Still, that made what happened today a delightful surprise!)
This morning, I met a friend of mine, Erin (whom you may remember as being the organizer of our excellent Ireland-Scotland-England trip last summer, and an all-around awesome person), and we went to the Royal Alberta Museum. We went mostly for it's incredibly well-regarded and respectful Aboriginal culture gallery, which focusses mostly on the Cree culture found in the Edmonton area, but also addresses the Blackfoot and others. We had been there for several hours, seeing the sites, and were just in the gift shop checking out the books (I ended up buying one on edible and medicinal herbs and plants found in Alberta as well as my favourite book on fur trade history, Sylvia Van Kirk's "Many Tender Ties", which I cannot recommend enough)... when there's an announcement over the intercom: a Cree smudging ceremony was about to begin in that gallery. Well, I'd seen smudging done informally before at Fort Edmonton, but hey, why not?
There were three Cree, two men, one woman, and a Haida man (from British Columbia) there administering the ceremony in the tipi-like structure at the centre of the gallery. They were not elders in the most technical of senses, I believe, except the grandmother; at least, they said that they did not claim the title. The eldest man spoke prayers and blessings in Cree, and another one of the men blessed many of the artifacts in the gallery - museum attendants removed the panes of glass from the displays with large suction cups.
If you would like a really good quick rundown of what can be used as smudge and a bit of why, this website has an excellent short explanation. Essentially, they burned sage, which looks like this:
The stuff being used in this ceremony was loose in the bottom of an artifact bowl. The smoke was wafted over the artifacts with a few large feathers bound together, possible from the golden eagle.
We've also used sweetgrass for smudging at the fort, which is generally burned in braids like this and trailed over items in camp at the beginning of the day to disperse negative energies. It also smells amazing.
The idea is that everything, be it human, animal or "inanimate" all have spirits, which must be "fed" on occasion. I use "blessing" as a loose term, and I don't pretend to be an expert myself. These items - many of them over a century old - are being fed, blessed and cleansed all at once in these ceremonies.
During the ceremony itself as well, the men and women (who were sitting on different sides of the fake tipi in the middle of the gallery) were also smudged; we wafted the smoke from the burning sage over ourselves as the man came around. Two pipes were also passed around (one for the men, one for the women) four times and we all smoked from it. Yes, real tobacco. Those who didn't wish to partake of it tapped their shoulders with the burning pipe and wafted any of the smoke onto themselves anyway. I did smoke; you don't inhale it into your lungs anyhow, and it would be rude to refuse, I believe. In Cree tradition, it was explained to us, when the Creator made Turtle Island (the world), He also created animals and a tobacco plant. You make offerings to the Creator and to the animal or plant which allows itself to be to be used. For example, if you must cut down a tree, you offer a bit of tobacco as thanks.
The men and woman conducting the ceremony also gave short speeches towards the end. Much of the message was gratitude for our interest - especially youth from all backgrounds - in traditional ways, which were for much of their lifetimes made illegal or shameful but are now to be respected and celebrated. The grandmother also joked that whoever prayed for rain last week can stop now: we have enough. (The North Saskatchewan is very flooded from nearly five days of continuous rain, ceasing briefly today.)
It was a lovely ceremony, and I am very honoured to have been able to observe and participate. My friend and I said as much to the Cree grandmother afterwards, who shook our hands. Hi-hi.
(Hi-hi, possibly spelled differently but spoken like someone saying our slang for "hello" in English twice, is the Cree way of saying "thank you".)