Honouring Women

Last night we discovered just how cold a tipi can be without a fire inside!  The overnight temperature dipped well below the expected, and most of our group shivered through without a lot of sleep.  As soon as the sun rose in the morning though it warmed up quickly, and those up early were rewarded with sun glinting off frost on the ground, and a group of horses quietly grazing in front of our camp.  Campfire coffee never tasted so good!

Pauline set us our next task this morning – each member of our group was given a length of diamond willow to whittle, carve and sand over the course of our retreat.  The Blackfeet Community College often gives it’s students a task like this to occupy them while they are listening to stories and teachings – it is a great meditative tool and seems to enhance the whole experience.  Pauline asked us to think of our mothers, or a woman or person who had impacted on our lives as we worked with the wood, and to carry it with us throughout the next two days.

The group took to the task with enthusiasm – whittling away the bark, then looking for “diamonds” and patterns in the timber, as Pauline and Mari shared stories of the Blackfeet people.  Meredith took a quick drive back to Two Medicine to pick up more sleeping bags and blankets in case the next night was as cold, then we prepared for our next outing for the day.

During the morning Pauline explained the importance of tobacco in Blackfeet culture.  Tobacco was sacred and used as part of smudging or smoking ceremonies to send their prayers to the creator.  In old times, the tribe had four tobacco men, whose job was to pray over the tobacco and protect it.  They would go up into the mountains to plant tobacco seed, and then it would be left until harvested.  They didn’t need to water or tend to the plants, as that was taken care of by the “little people”.  The Blackfeet believe the little people are still in the forests looking over them to today.

Nowadays there are no more tobacco men in the tribe, so they use other tobaccos they can cultivate or harvest, or buy commercially.  Tobacco is often used as an offering to the creator in prayers on a daily basis.

Several more Blackfeet women joined us in the morning, including Tammy, another pipe holder, and a young woman with great spiritual and healing power.  As a group we loaded up in our cars and drove back into Glacier National Park to Running Eagle Falls.

Running Eagle was a Blackfeet woman who lived in the late 1880’s.  Her parents died when she was twelve, leaving her the head of her family.  Along with her 10 year old brother, she made a pact to keep the family together and support them.  As she grew up, she sought a life of independence, and believed she could not only do anything a man could, but do it better!

She became a famous warrior – in Blackfeet tradition, women could chose to fight alongside men if they wished.  There are many famous stories about Running Eagle, including one where a man wanted to marry her, and she agreed as long as he could take more horses than she could in a raid.  He managed to take thirteen horses, but Running Eagle took fifteen, so she kept her independence!  There is a story that at some point in her life she took a wife, but that it didn’t last.  She is listed in the ration records in the 1880’s as the head of a family of eight.

Running Eagle Falls was a place where she went for vision quests – a retreat to find strength, or seek help for others, or find her direction in life.  The Falls and the waters are known to have great healing power among the Blackfeet and women in particular will travel there to swim in the waters, or to pour the waters over their head and drink it.

We walked along the trails to the falls which were spectacular.  In Spring the entire falls is a torrent of water, but when the flow is slower, you can see how they got their other name – trick falls.  As well as the water which pours over the top, water also runs inside the rock and pours out another opening half way down.

The setting was absolutely beautiful.  When we arrived, Mari gave each of us a small amount of tobacco, and we offered our prayers – starting facing South, then West, then North, then East.  We then put our tobacco into the water, and Mari also suggested putting a little in our hair or on our body.

Megan, Meredith, C and Donna all took the plunge literally – diving into the deep pool below the waterfall.  The water was straight from the glacier and absolutely freezing, but you could also feel the energy flowing through it.  The rest of the group contented themselves with wading in the water or drinking it, and we spent time by the river eating our lunch, reflecting and talking.  Each of us took a pebble from the stream – Mari told us the red ones had the greatest healing powers – for our pouch, and some filled their water bottles from the stream to take home with us.

Tammy then lead us along a dry creek bed for a special prayer and smudging ceremony.  Tammy learnt her traditional Blackfeet prayers from her father, who had passed away from cancer three months ago.  Her grief has been so great, she has been unable to offer prayers on behalf of others in the tribe since that time, and it was a great honour to us that she came out to meet us that day.  She said once she heard about our group and what it represented she really wanted to meet with us, and that was the incentive that had brought her out today.

Tammy explained that when you pray to the Creator, you never pray for something material, or for money, or for something for yourself – you always pray for others, and eventually what you need for yourself will come back to you.  You always go around the group in a clockwise direction as you offer your prayers.

Using a river rock as a base, she set fire to the smudge and we all took turns kneeling before it and wafting the smoke over our heads and around our body.  Then Tammy sang a traditional Blackfeet prayer to the Creator, inviting us to join in.  The power of that ceremony in that place was so strong – in the spot where Running Eagle had camped for her vision quests, our group of women sang traditional Blackfeet prayers as the smoke from the sweet grass, sage and tobacco wafted over us and to the heavens.

We shared an emotional moment afterwards sharing our love and support with Tammy, and then the group waded across the stream holding hands in a human bridge through the waters.  As we  left, Mari reminded us to call to our spirits so they would come with us and not stay behind in that special place.

We noticed Tammy had a group of four scars on each shoulder, and she told us she was a Sun  Dancer – part of a powerful ritual where her skin was pierced with pieces of wood and she was then suspended from poles.  The ritual is an offering on behalf of others to relieve their suffering and she had felt compelled to help them – not always people she had known.  She told us that now she had met us, we would also be included in her prayers in the future.

Afterwards we drove to Two Medicine Lake – the source of the same water we rafted down two days ago, and had camped beside all week, then we made our way back to base camp.  The day was so special that most of us found it impossible to describe or put it into words for today’s blog.

That night we had another guest speaker, Linda Juneau, Pauline’s sister and a Blackfeet historian.  She shared more of the Blackfeet history with us.  Linda talked about the history of the Two Medicine area where we had built the bunkhouse and about the Buffalo Jump we had climbed – how it was a happy place in the old times where the buffalo were hunted, and camp was made for the winter by the river, and singing and dancing took place.  Today walking along the river you can still see old tipi rings from those days.

She talked about how large the Blackfeet territory was, and how they had been restricted in the 1880’s back to such a small area in the Reservation.  In return for their land, the Blackfeet had been promised rations by the government, but for two years, the local Indian agent did not deliver the food, leading to a Starvation Winter where in one year over 500 Blackfeet died.  They are buried along Two Medicine River just a short distance from our work site at a place called Old Agency.  The river had begun to change from a happy place to one of sadness.

Linda talked about the history of the Holy Family Mission at Two Medicine.  Chief White Calf had actually donated the land to the Church to build the mission, and that in the early years the Blackfeet had been happy to send their children to school there, as long as they were promised that they would be well cared for.  Later on however, the government mandated that children had to be sent, and in the Boarding school they were denied their language and culture, and were punished for practicing it.

Linda told us how important our construction project was – that it was taking that sad history and replacing it with a place of happiness and celebration of Blackfeet culture, and how it would help the rebirth of Blackfeet culture among the children.  Along with the other women we met, they told us of the great contribution the De La Salle Blackfeet School was making in the Browning community.

We told Linda how amazed we were that the Blackfeet and their traditions had perservered and survived, given the terrible tragedies they had suffered.  She talked about Running Eagle and how despite losing her parents, and others losing their whole families, they survived – she said that in the Blackfeet language there is no word of phrase for “lets give up”.

Over the week several of our group had asked about how you could “receive” an Indian name.  Linda explained that most of the women had Indian names, as well as western names, and that the Indian name you had could change over time – you might start with a baby name, and then be given an adult name, and also if you performed a great service to the tribe you might receive a special name in recognition.  In return for that special name, however, you would also be expected to make an even greater contribution to the tribe.  Names are conferred in a special Blackfeet ceremony by someone who has the right to give names to you.

Deb suggested to our group decided that although we were not Blackfeet, we were our own tribe, and that we could develop our own naming tradition.  That night Deb led the group in choosing tribal names for half of the group, with the rest to be created on our last night back at Two Medicine along with a tribe name.  It was a beautiful and affirming process for all the women named that night.

Those up late shared a final late night smudge with Mari, to bring them happy dreams and good sleep.