Belonging:
A Plains Cree Woman’s Journey

Leta Kingfisher

I am 10. I step off the Greyhound bus, the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to me, my stomach still queasy. Smoking is reserved for the last 8 seats but by the end of the long ride, the whole bus is filled with smoke. My Mosôm¹ is standing on the platform, cowboy boots and cowboy hat, his town clothes on. I hand him my suitcase and give him a hug and a kiss. He smells like he always does, of cigarette smoke, tea, sweat and sweetgrass. I love how he smells. We hop into his green Ford pickup to pick up Kôhkom.² She is at the “Indian” grocery store stocking up the type of foods I like. Fruit, cookies and milk: items they never buy.

We pull into the parking lot and she is waiting outside the store in her purple town dress, new shoes from the discount store, and her old black purse. Her black hair is in a kerchief and two braids hang down her front. She swings her bags into the back of the truck and gives me a kiss. Her face is wet from sweat as she comments on how soon I will be a woman. Her hands are shaking, town always makes her nervous because her English is not that good, and all the store clerks are white. I quickly wipe my mouth from her kiss. She has no teeth, and her kisses are wet.

We drive out of town with the windows down and me between my grandparents. My grandfather sighs and lights another cigarette. He takes off his cowboy hat, puts it on the dusty dashboard, and starts telling me I will have fun. I am excited to spend the summer with my cousins swimming, having picnics, berry picking, braiding sweetgrass and maybe the fair with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Once we are out of town, and on the highway, the cooling air reaches us as the hot asphalt and sidewalks turn to fields of grasses, their sweet smell filling the truck. Kôhkom opens her purse and pulls out a powdered donut for each of us. They never eat white food, except when special company comes. Me.

We pull onto the dirt road, and my Môsom closes his window a bit so the truck doesn’t fill up with dust. The truck bounces along the washboard road as I look to see how many kids there are at the swimming hole. The chokecherries are almost ripe, “Another week,” my Môsom says. I see laundry hanging out on someone’s ramshackle clothesline, as we continue driving through the Reserve. The old bridge is still there, as we cross it, I see about 20 kids swimming in the dust-filled creek. I spot my cousin, wearing the swimsuit I had left behind the summer before. We climb up the last hill before turning onto the road where my family’s land is. The poplars are tall and every so often there is another tiny house. People outside their homes wave at us, my grandfather puts his index finger up from the steering wheel to wave back. We pull into my grandparents’ yard. The outhouse has been painted green, and Kôhkom has planted daisies in the big tractor tire-planter in her yard. The little white picket fence has been freshly re-painted.

As we enter the house, I smell bleach and sweetgrass. Always sweetgrass. I take my suitcase to my room, and bounce on the bed, the old metal frame squeaking with each bounce. Its quilt is one my Kôhkom had just finished from leftover cotton and polyester squares from her other sewing projects. The wood-paneled bedroom has a big council drum in the closet. Soon, I smell moose meat frying. I cross the small living room into the tiny kitchen and sit down. A plate with fresh moose meat, potatoes, and a piece of bannock is placed in front of me. I had missed the thick dense bread. My Kôhkom pours a cup of strong black tea for me, and adds Carnation milk and sugar. My Môsom opens his bannock and adds a large knife full of lard to it, then salts it heavily. I flatten my boiled potatoes and add margarine and salt. It is so hot in the little kitchen. My Kôhkom stirs the soup bubbling on her big wood stove, takes a drag from her cigarette and smiles at me. “Big girl,” she says. My Môsom gnaws on his bannock and waits for his soup. He has no teeth either. He takes his hankie out of his pocket and wipes his sweaty brow. I sigh, good to be home.

I was raised in Alberta, and went to Saskatchewan every summer to visit my maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My mother passed when I was 18 months old. I always felt both, a stranger and family, when with my mother’s siblings and parents. My family were always kind when I visited, often crying when I had to return home. Sometimes, one of my uncles would drive three hours to meet my father halfway between Saskatchewan and Alberta. I never thought about the gas expense, which was significant for a family whose income was so limited.

I am mixed-ancestry, although I identify as Plains Cree: a People delineated by one of the five dialects of Cree across Canada who adopted the plains buffalo-hunting. The Plains Cree are unique, having elements of both the Eastern Algonquian Woodlands and Plains Cultures (Wissler, 1908). Academics believe we became a distinct culture in the late 18^th century. We, however, know from our oral history that there was a pre-horse Cree culture that existed in the Saskatchewan prairies, and that the Eastern Cree joined us to become a blended horse-culture.

My community is in the borderland between boreal forest and prairie grasslands. We have both prairie Sun Dances, and Northern Shaking Tents. Sun Dance ceremonies are done differently across the plains, with each Nation having their own distinct practices. They are done to bring help to the People, and to renew the relationships between the People and the Spiritual World. Individuals participate for healing themselves or their families through physical sacrifice to the Spirits and the Creator in order to have their prayers answered.

Shaking Tents are ceremonial practices to receive needed information from the Spirits. Common questions center around hunting, work, or health of a loved one. Traditionally, a Shaman was tied up and placed within a small canvas structure outdoors, or within a lodge. The Shaman’s Helping Spirits or the Spirits of the Winds would shake the tent. Once the Shaman is untied by his Helping Spirits, attendees can ask the Spirits questions through mediumship. This is an old ceremony, but in the current era very few Shamans are tied up; instead the sole focus is on mediumship. In general, the number of Shaking Tent Lodge Holders diminishes with each generation.

The Plains Cree culture is a patriarchal one. Within Plains Cree ceremonial life, Sun Dance Pledgers, Shaking Tent Shamans, and the main individuals conducting public Pipe Ceremonies and shared Sweat Lodges are always men. Whether we always were patriarchal to the extent apparent in the last century, though, is debatable.

Legislating Lives

Like other countries and Indigenous cultures that have been colonized by Europeans, Canada has a dark past in its relationship with Indigenous People. In 1876, Canada’s Indian Act came into effect, enforcing existing British colonial policies. The focus of many of its policies targeted First Nations women. As First Nations People were put on Reserves, the Indian Act legislated a new system of governance, the Chief and Council model. It also defined “Indian” as any woman married to an Indian man, and any children of such a union. Women who married non-First Nations men ceased to be Indians.

When my mother married my father, she stopped being an Indian, although she still faced racism and discrimination. Under the Indian Act, women were banned from voting, or running for the position of Councilor or Chief. Women’s rights to property, the family home, distribution of family resources, place of residence, and where they could die was dictated by the Act. In 2019, the discriminatory policies regarding Indian Status and women were rectified (Government Bill (Senate), 2019), but the damage had already been done. The internalization of policies that emerged during the Victorian era profoundly impacted the role and status of women within Plains Cree society that continues today.

Prior to the Indian Act, the current assumption is that women were viewed as equals but with different roles in the society than men. Early Europeans arriving on the plains believed the First Nations men treated their women as “beasts of burden, prized and valued for their skill in fancy or capacity for heavy work, rather than for any beauty of face or figure” (Clark, 1982, p. 407). During the fur trade (from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries), First Nations women played an important role, their marriages to European men securing trade relationships and formalizing kinship networks. These networks increased Indigenous peoples’ wealth and status, as well as the European traders’ wealth. Women’s status also increased because of their role in the newly formed kinship alliances. As the fur trade wound down, these alliances proved not to be secure and “country wives” were often abandoned, along with their children. As Canada became a country in 1867, First Nations women no longer had a role in the formation of the new country, which was formalized in the policies of the 1876 Indian Act.

As a child, I was called a Half-breed. For many of us referred to by this term, we did not see this as negative—it was just a fact.

The federal recognition of Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples changed with the 1982 Canada Act. Canada’s new Constitution, recognized the First Nations, Inuit, and the Métis as distinct Peoples. First Nations are those registered as a band member to an Indian Reserve. Inuit, are those in the far north, recognized as Aboriginal, but too culturally different to be considered Indians. Métis are historically from communities of People with Indigenous and European ancestry, specifically in Western Canada radiating from the Red River Settlement. In 1985, Bill C-31 was passed: amending the Indian Act and reinstating women’s Indian Status previously lost when they “married out.” Included in the reinstatement of Indian Status were the children of such unions.

I was no longer a Half-breed, I was “First Nations.” After 1985 there were no longer “Half-breeds.” The term became derogatory. Now there are people who have been accepted as members of the Métis Nation, i.e., those individuals who can prove their Aboriginal ancestry, and that their ancestors were part of the trading routes used by the Métis from Red River in Manitoba. First Nations People are those who are registered with particular Indian Bands living on specific Reserves. If an individual has Aboriginal ancestry, but is outside of the Red River Métis Nation territory, they are little “m” métis, or non-Status Indians. These federal categories have essentially continued the colonial policy of non-Aboriginal government policies deciding who is an Indian and who is not.

For me, this meant I belonged more, but I was still an outsider.

First Nations identity is multi-layered and for women who only have one First Nations parent, and who often have Bill C-31 Indian status, identity becomes complicated and painful because it is often formulated in a hostile social environment. For these women, their identity is more tenuous because they feel stigmatized from non-First Nations people for being a First Nation’s woman, and they experience lateral violence in their First Nation communities because they are “bi-racial”, they did not grow up in the community, they don’t know the language or culture and they often have Bill C-31 Indian status, or no status at all. (Mishibinijima Miller, 2010, pp. 3-4)

My experience of not fully-belonging is shared by others: Individuals whose mothers lost their Indian Status and who could not be raised on-Reserve because of the Indian Act; and those who do not speak their language; those who do not know their Nation’s Sacred Ceremonies; those raised in urban settings; those who attended Residential Schools; those who were taken during Canada’s sixties scoop;³ and finally those continuing to be impacted by Canada’s current policies resulting in child and family services agencies forcibly removing children from Indigenous parents in higher numbers than under previous policies. This means that a large segment of First Nations People do not feel they belong to their own First Nation, or to their own culture.

Ceremony and Gifting

My interest in Plains Cree ceremonial life began as a child, with my grandparents gently introducing me to the Ceremonies. I did my first four-day Traditional Fast⁴ when I was 19, and had a powerful Spirit visit me. Terrified, I pulled out a pipe I had borrowed, and prayed the Spirit would leave me alone. Afterwards, I felt I had made a huge mistake. I did not tell the Elder guiding me about the visit, and did not get any instruction on what I could have done differently.

Had I just severed my relationship with the Spirit World?

The Elder was someone I connected with, he never pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He was a Residential School survivor, former alcoholic, and former politician. He had a hard side to him, but was also kind and compassionate. I remember him telling the non-Indigenous cooks to make their soups for Traditional Feasts without carrots. I could overhear whispers in the kitchen about the Sacred necessity not to include carrots. In reality, he just did not like them. He had a humorous side that lived within his hard exterior, but he was deeply connected to the Spirits. When I completed my Fast, he prayed over a drum and then gave it to me.

In Plains Cree culture, women do not touch Sacred Tools,⁵ this includes, drums, eagle feathers, pipes (unless it is a woman’s pipe), and any other Sacred Tools in the possession of a man. Men, in traditional Plains Cree society, are viewed as more important because of the “public” position they hold as the leaders in Ceremonial life. What women do is less important, because of their gender. This Elder ignored those cultural rules and I was incredibly humbled.

Most Indigenous societies have menstrual taboos and the Plains Cree are no different. For example, if a woman were to witness a Sacred Ceremony while menstruating, it is believed that the Spirits would take offence. The Plains Cree honor the Grandmothers and the Sacred feminine. Women hold a position spiritually because we are linked to the cycles of the moon and the night. However, in the past, people did not understand the underlying biological basis for menstruation. Women bled every 28 days without an apparent wound, and their cycle mirrors the moon. The process was viewed as supernatural (Guterman et al., 2007). The Sacred feminine is represented as a Grandmother, not in the form of a menstruating woman. Menstruating women are believed to “kill” a Manitou⁶ or sever a Manitou from a Sacred Tool when they are in their moon-time. The belief that women’s connection to the moon, is separate from a connection to the Manitous because the Manitous cannot be near a woman in her moon-time, and it is the Manitous who guide and protect the People.

When I had a moon-time, I adhered to the menstruation taboos by not attending Ceremonies or participating in them. At a Sun Dance, I stayed in my tent, even though I knew I could walk outside as long as I stayed outside the formal parameter set for the Ceremony; however, I had been reprimanded for that, and was told this behavior was the reason the Sun Dancers were struggling, “There are too many women walking around in their time.” Tarasoff’s 1967 study with the Plains Cree and Saulteaux of Southern Saskatchewan revealed the gendered perspectives for women and ceremony:

Koozma Tarasoff (KT): I notice that women who have menstrual periods are not supposed to go inside the Rain Dance lodge.

Felix Panipekeesick (FP): No. They are not. Oh, they could look into the lodge from about here to that pole [50 or 100 feet] but they can’t come in.

KT: Do you know why this is so?

FP: Well, you see, if a woman is like that and she comes in, then she will spoil everything. Supposing I was singing and she came in; in about five minutes I couldn’t sing. I’d choke. That’s why we don’t let them come in. And all those dancers, you know, they’ll just drop. All those that fast, you know.

KT: Does this mean that the woman has some kind of a power when she has her menstrual periods?

FP: No. She has no power at all. She can’t come in there or else she’ll spoil everything. (Tarasoff, 1980, pp. 78-79)

Despite the contemporary lip service given about women in their moon-time being powerful, this has not been the traditional understanding.

While in my 30s, menstruation taboos began to feel discriminatory rather than respectful of women’s power. There was no cultural acknowledgement that women deserved a break during their moon-time, rather they were expected to continue their familial obligations and workloads, without being able to attend Ceremonies and get Spiritual help. There was no “moon-lodge” as recorded in other Indigenous societies that women could retreat to in sisterhood, exempt from work. All the rules I was told, such as not washing my husband and son’s clothes with mine or not touching their food, meant more work for me. I also started to question whether all the protocols were necessary for a culture that no longer was considered a hunting and gathering society.

Women Healers

Mandelbaum (2001), an ethnographer who wrote the most comprehensive account of Plains Cree life, recorded the narratives told by Elders before their People were placed on Reserves. Mandelbaum reported that women were not prevented from obtaining Spiritual power to assist with healing, but from the results of his field research, done in two trips in 1934 and 1935, his only mention of women Healers was, “There were many women doctors” (p. 162). There is no clarification by Mandelbaum if the women doctors were gifted by Helping Spirits to Heal, or women who worked with plant medicines.

Kehoe’s (1973) work with the western Saskatchewan Plains Cree made a comparison between the Plains Cree perceptions of Spiritual Healing abilities and the limitations placed on women, to the European tradition of higher ranked physician being associated with men, and the nurturer/nurse being associated with women. “Woman” was associated with maternity, and motherhood. The Manitous do not give birth, therefore they are perceived as “male.” A woman is kept at a distance from the Spirits and Sacred Tools, and is expected to “remain apart from the traffic of men and manitos” (p. 268). Women held the lower rank of herbalist, and Shamanic work was left to the men. A woman who aspired to become a Shaman had to postpone her training until her children were grown. A man was free to spend hours and days away from home as long as he left his family with adequate provisions. In most cases, this belief remains as part of Plains Cree Ceremonial life.

The Saulteaux and Plains Cree are closely related in language and in custom, both becoming horse-based plains cultures around the same time. In Saulteaux, a woman “Conjurer” or Shaking Tent Shaman would violate the belief that (from the 1930s informants), “men in this society are looked upon as the ‘natural’ intermediaries between the supernatural and man so that women are categorically debarred from the exercise of professional services that require supernatural license” (Hallowell, 1971, pp. 19–20). Plains Cree hold this belief about Shaking Tent Lodge Holders as well.

Tarasoff’s (1967) research with the Saulteaux and Cree of Saskatchewan reveals the views of women’s Spiritual abilities. Statements made about Elizabeth Wasacase, a Medicine Woman and herbalist, demonstrate the gendered view of healing,

Respondent [Elizabeth] has never used any drums or rattles in effecting her cures, unlike some old medicine men. Instead, she relies on a prudent selection of roots and then prays as she smokes the peace pipe. In no case can she use her own medicine to cure her personal ills; “it just will not work.” On her trips to Carlyle and the USA, she takes medicine with her and exchanges it for other Indian medicines made elsewhere. Unlike Peter George and Felix Panipekeesick, Elizabeth Wasacase claims that she neither has the knowledge nor the power to initiate a Rain Dance, Sweat Bath Feast or Smoking Tepee; nor can she give special Indian guardian names to infants. When asked why, she replied, “Oh, no. Because I don’t know nothing about it.” She suggests that someone like Peter George and Felix Panipekessick have the power to do this. (Tarasoff, 1980, p. 12)

Since Mandelbaum’s time when there have been many women doctors and the Plains Cree understanding of the role of a Shaman has become interchangeable with the terms Healer or Medicine Man or Elder. These three interchangeable terms refer specifically to a man. The term Elder, has two definitions, the first is an individual who has knowledge of the past traditional ways of life, and the second is an individual with Spiritual gifts to Heal. The second definition of an Elder can be a woman who began her Spiritual training after menopause, but it is more likely that she will specialize in plant medicines, and she will not be viewed to be as powerful as a male Elder because of the delay in her training.

The reality is that few Elders begin their Spiritual training as children, so contemporary men and women now generally train equally long.

Elders with knowledge of the past, accept tobacco but cannot request payment. Elders who are Spiritually gifted as Healers, are judged by the effectiveness of their healing. If patients do not improve or get worse, then those who are Spiritually gifted may have their reputations damaged or may even be asked to abandon their healing work.

There is another layer added to contemporary understandings of Healer: the New Age belief in sudden Spiritual gifting. Acceptance of such events means that people can be Spiritually gifted, but it eliminates the need for training with a skilled Healer or Medicine Man or Elder.

Traditionally, Elders within the community identified a child as Spiritually gifted, and an Elder man was sought to train them (at considerable expense to the parents). Sudden Spiritual gifting removes Elders from close observations of the child and it abolishes the need for the child to apprentice with an Elder man once they reach an appropriate age. Because this modern form of sudden Spiritual gifting can happen without subsequent training, the value of Spiritual Healers within Plains Cree society has been significantly reduced: In the past, needing to see a Healer/Medicine Man/Elder was very costly.

Now, if a man who performs Healing he is no longer deemed valuable enough for substantial payment, this means that a woman’s value as a Healer is even less. Tobacco, money to cover travel, and a small gift are the culturally-accepted payments now, while the patient is still expecting the Healer to be an expert. It is a paradox that has led First Nations to seek Healers outside of their communities, not trusting that their own have any authentic Spiritual power or gifts.

The Spirits and I

When I was a child, I felt a connection to the Spirit World. I believed the Spirit World held the key to finding my mother. My first Spirit visit at 19 affirmed to me that Spirits were not just imaginary beings. Unsure if a Spirit would ever visit me again, I started to prepare. I joined a women’s medicine circle, I attended Sweat Lodges, I Sun Danced, I Fasted.

In my academic life, I earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Religious Studies with a concentration in Indigenous Spirituality. The majority of my preparation was done away from my community, so they did not witness it. Like menstruation taboos, I felt that something was not right for me.

I realized I could spend decades participating in Sacred Ceremonies led by others, and I still would have to wait until the Elder male practitioners thought I was ready to learn more—rather than Spirits determining readiness.

Tradition was obstructing what I felt was so close to me. My last Traditional Fast in Alberta left me crestfallen. I had been experiencing back problems, and had trouble walking and getting out of bed each day. I asked for a chair to sit on while I Fasted knowing once I got up from the ground, I needed to stay upright until it was time to sleep again. Midway through the Fast, I went to a women’s circle for a teaching, and saw half the young women in the circle had Sacred Pipes.

I did not understand. I had devoted my entire life to my culture. What was I doing wrong? At the end, an Elder woman came up to me and said, “I see you leading Ceremonies in the future.” Not feeling like I belonged anywhere, I smiled at her but felt she was mistaken.

The next year, when I wanted to Fast again, the man overseeing it told me to come healthy because he would not permit me to have a chair. I did not go. How could my Spiritual work be dependent on a chair? I felt more lost than ever.

I felt the only option I had was to forgo any more attempts to be a part of my Plains Cree culture. I attended a New Age weekend event to see if there was anything there for me. During a simple exercise I suddenly had a vision of the world: I was shown how everything is alive and how all Beings moved at different speeds. Rocks traveled but took centuries compared to wind. It was all an orchestra, working together for a universal song.

Years of studying Indigenous and world traditions came together in moments. I was so happy, but felt I could do nothing with this new understanding. To my Plains Cree family, because I was not raised around them, the assumption was that I had to spend a lifetime to learn all I needed to know. Elders of my culture believe a person such as myself cannot be gifted by the Spirits for two reasons: I do not possess the language to commune with Spirits connected to the People, and, as a still-menstruating woman, any gifting would be from Spirits unfamiliar to the People because the Manitous would not come to such a woman. However, I knew that the Spirits were back, and that I had done what I needed to be prepared for another chance with the Divine Powers.

Once I made the decision to step outside the cultural confines of my gender role, the Spirits rushed in.

Despite the three strikes I had against me—mixed-ancestry, non-fluency, and having been raised off-Reserve—the Spirits became a part of my life in ways that were different than the experiences I had as a young woman in Ceremony. Whereas in the past I would Fast, Sun Dance, attend Sweat Lodges with the hope of having a Spiritual experience or vision, the gifting now was very different. I was shown a world of stories, teachings, love, compassion, pain and joy. When I was a child, I had a sense of my future occupation, but had no idea how I would accomplish it.

Over the years, I had been told that a real Healer does not claim to be one, the community identifies them. The difficulty with these constraints, is that there is the assumption the Spirits play no part in who they choose, and that colonization and the Indian Act never happened. However, as the years have passed, I have come to believe that this false-modesty is not what the Spirits want. Why would they gift someone, but require them to hide it? It makes no sense.

The Hard Year: Apprenticeship

In late 2014, I asked the Spirits to help my spouse with his numerous addictions. I did this without his knowledge. The result was that over the year of 2015, I was visited in my sleep by Spirits who communicated with my husband, to help heal him, and guide him through the ceasing the many addictions he had. By not having his permission, the Spiritual exchange or “payment” for his healing was taken from me. The visits left me in a constant state of exhaustion, I had to hover in a dream-state requiring intense concentration to stay within the dream I was having while a Spirit was speaking to my spouse.

That year was the hardest apprenticeship I have undergone, to date. My spouse, sensing something special was happening, recorded the communications. By the end of the year, with some being lost, there were 288 voice and video recordings. When it was over, my exhaustion left me feeling disconnected from myself. I had gaps in my memory, and my emotional and psychological health deteriorated significantly. My own connection to my Helping Spirits was almost non-existent. I could not speak to anyone to help me with the experiences because the Plains Cree accept mediumship, and Spiritual visions, but not Spirits occupying someone spontaneously. When I had recovered enough, 20 randomly chosen recordings were used for my Dissertation study. The recordings I chose were stories and communications told to my spouse, but were meant for me.

When the visits began, I was not aware they were happening. My husband told me after the first couple mornings that a Spirit had been speaking to him through me. Each night, as I slept, the story I watched within the dream was also being narrated to my husband, and he would interact with the Spirit. When I began writing my Dissertation, I listened for the first time to what the Spirits had to say to my husband, but also understood that the random choices for my study were not random at all. Rather, I was guided to recordings that would speak directly to me. There were feminine Spirits that came through repeatedly, and who developed special relationships with my husband. When 2015 was over, I asked my Spirit Teacher the purpose of the year, and how these feminine Spirits fit into my life along with my husband’s.

In Plains Cree cosmology, all the directional Spirits are understood to be male because the Manitous do not give birth. My Spirit Teacher explained, each one represented a different direction and created a cosmology for us as a couple (referred to as “my cosmology” in this discussion).

While in the presence of my Spirit Teacher, we floated in space, and watched as the feminine Spirits each positioned themselves in a direction. Three were positioned as the East-West-North, one was high above them representing the skies/space/universe, and the last was positioned beneath representing the Earth. The directional Spirit of the South I could not see. As I watched, I was then brought into the cosmology to represent the South. It was explained to me, that each feminine Spirit, along with myself, represented a wife to my husband and an important aspect to a human being.

Plains Cree cosmology always begins with prayers to the Great Mystery or the Creator. The traditional understanding of an all-powerful creator dominated the belief system. Kitcî Manitȏ, and all of creation is under “his” will, though the Great Mystery has no gender. “He” did not have a personalization and did not appear in visions to the People, “he” was believed to be too great to be asked directly for anything.

The Spirits that came to the People in times of struggle, were the ones who were prayed to directly. Today, it is the Creator who is directly addressed and rarely are the cultural Spirits prayed to. This is one of the impacts of Christianity. If there is a Spirit that is all-powerful like the Christian God, why would anyone pray to lower Spirits? The directional Spirits are revered in a Pipe Ceremony, when all the Spirits are asked to attend an important function people are participating in. They are also paid homage to in a Sun Dance, though most prayers by the people are for the Creator. In my cosmology, the Spirit of the universe is referred to as the Light of Life, and like the traditional Great Mystery, it had no gender.

When speaking with my spouse, this Spirit spoke so low and slowly, it was difficult to understand what it was saying until after the transcription was complete. The essence was to understand the purpose and journey of life, and how addictions function in our lives; how they can be used to manipulate oneself and others. Also represented in the sky in Plains Cree cosmology are the Grandmothers, and they are asked to watch over the people, or guide young women.

The Grandfathers are different, and are referred to as the rocks in a Sweat Lodge. The second Spirit that was represented in the skies in my cosmology was a Star Spirit representing hope. She had observed earth for millions of years, and as human beings appeared, she observed the connection that forms between couples, and how hope was renewed through love. Humans, she observed could do amazing things and be rejuvenated when love was present.

Next in Plains Cree cosmology is the east: the Sun, and the Creator’s representative and son. The Sun represents new beginnings, the start of an apprenticeship, and honoring of a new day. In my cosmology, the Spirit that was representative of the East was a Plains Cree woman who had lived before the Reserves. When she lived, she was a great Healer who was asked to prove her Healing abilities, with the condition that if she failed, she would be killed. She represented healing, and being a Healer. She was my role model, and embodied feminine outrage when people decided they knew more than the wisdom of the Spirits. She also revealed that she was the Spirit attached to my drum. She reminds me that women are often challenged to prove their gifts. She was and remains an Indigenous feminist.

To the south live the Thunderbirds. When they arrive each spring, they bring rains to cleanse the earth. In some Cree stories, the crack of thunder is the Thunderbirds blinking. In my cosmology, I was positioned in the South, and represented love. This took me a very long time to understand how I could represent this aspect of humanity.

Often times, my relationship with my husband has not felt loving. It has suffered the impacts of two people with significant relational trauma trying to connect, but often failing. In order to inhabit a direction, I needed to understand what love was. It started with a gentle lecture from my Spirit Teacher about my unwillingness to accept that my Spirit was more than the confines I had created for myself. I came to this definition and after months of researching: Love exists when life is hard or easy, when people are vicious or kind. Love is the tolerance of ferocious rage, despair, and grief. It is the container that allows each person to move through those awful states and ensures that they are only temporary because there is faith that a loved-one hurting will come back to them and to themselves.

In the west resides the Wind, and in Plains Cree cosmology the Wind is prayed to for breathing problems, to clear thoughts and bring the whispers of the Ancestors.

In my cosmology, the Spirit of the West is in my Pipe and represents the power of the earth. She commands the Okîmawak of animals, the “boss” Spirit of each animal in the ocean and on land. She represents the restoration of power and protection to a person after a trauma has occurred by calling forth an animal spirit to assist with a person’s healing and to protect them. When I use my Pipe, She comes forth to restore power to women–women who have been bullied, who are grieving, or who have lost their confidence. She reminds them of their innate power, when they forget it.

To the north in Plains Cree cosmology is the Buffalo, and is honored for providing all the things necessary to survival for the People. The buffalo were our tipis, our food, our tools, our clothing, and our wealth. In my cosmology, in the North resides my Spirit Teacher. She is an ancient Celtic Ancestor and possesses guidance for me in all areas of my life. She supports me when I feel victimized, and challenges me to look at my part in conflict and what I am responsible for. When she lived, she was known for her ability to calm storms, and heal with plants. She encourages me to accept my gifts without limitations. She represents wisdom.

The feminine Spirits that inhabit the East, West and North greet me together when I travel to the Spirit World, and it is their council I seek when I am struggling.

The earth is honored in Plains Cree cosmology, as the place where “All My Relations” reside. We give thanks to the earth, but do not directly pray to it. In my cosmology, the Spirit of the Earth represents protection and the feminine Spirit presents as a tall warrior with a long spear and shield. She guards a place where women who have passed can come forward and tell their stories in safety. Over the year 2015, women’s lives and deaths were told to my husband. The stories were meant to teach my spouse about women, what they endure, and how they continue to love. After each woman told her story, the Spirit of the Earth asked my spouse what he learned from the story. One of the recordings for my study had the following story,

My mothers’ mother was a Healer, she was a strict woman. My mother and grandmother did not get along. She was a strict teacher, and my mother, wild in her younger days, had given birth to two daughters out of wedlock by two different men; they were estranged, but my grandmother would come to see us when my mother was away and teach us plants, spells, things to scratch in the dirt, and blow on, and bury to help people, and to heal; offerings we would need to make, to help people get over sickness, or teas to make for women that had women’s issues, or men coughing up blood or going to the bathroom with blood. She taught us for years in secret. One day my mother caught my sister and I, we were about 15 and 16, young women by then, she caught us wrapping up sticks in the shape of little people to make a spell. And seeing her mothers’ handiwork, she got very angry. She beat us both. I promised to never do it again, my sister, my sister got very angry, said, “We’re helping people, we’re healing people, we’re making money for ourselves doing this.” But I was the younger sister and I did not want my mother’s wrath… and my sister… walked out behind the house, down the dock to the swamp. She looked at my mother, there was a little skiff there, a little boat, she looked at my mother, she said, “I will do this work, no matter what you say.” And she got in the boat and left. (Spirit Clara, as cited in Kingfisher, 2019, pp. 116-117)

In my own life, losing my own Plains Cree mother so young, then my Kôhkom in my early 20’s, I felt as though I had no longer had roots. I wondered if my mother would have been supportive of my Healing work, being a devout Catholic. The story of a mother demanding her daughter give up Healing work, made me wonder if my mother and I would have been estranged? With such different spiritual views, would she have seen herself in me, or seen a stranger? In the story, I heard words that made weep:

I looked at my own hands when I got that news [of her sister’s death]. I saw my hands. I saw my sister’s hands. My mother’s hands, and my grandmother’s hands. And I suspect back, back, back all these women’s hands are in my own, and in my daughter’s, and in my granddaughter’s and it will keep going. I made myself some tea and cried. How different all our lives are, and yet we all have the same hands. (Spirit Clara, as cited in Kingfisher, 2019, p. 131).

To this day, I look at my hands and feel connection to something ancient.

I am connected to the Healers in my lineage, to the midwives, to my Kôhkom who kept her family alive when tuberculosis was devastating the People, and to my mother, a nurse: Healers, all of them.

They are alive again, and always with me, in my hands. The Spirits, my community, have taught me that I am worthy: that I belong. The possibility of my human community accepting me has at times appeared as far, far away and I now trust the Spirits and how they guide my life.

Over the year of 2015, while filled with resentment and self-pity for the suffering I was enduring without Spiritual support, I was given two things that let me know I had not been abandoned. I was gifted with the Shaking Tent Lodge and my Pipe, indicators of respect and acknowledgement within my culture, although neither came from my community directly. My Pipe, as Spirit attached to it tells me, began its journey to me before I was born. Part of its journey included being hidden away, and kept as part of someone’s private Indigenous art collection for 25 years, then continuing on when the collector passed. I loved the stories my Helping Spirits told me. One of my teachings, told over and over, is study. No one can meet new Spirits with specific Healing powers, if they do not know of their existence. My study of world religions and of Indigenous peoples around the globe has allowed me to meet and work with Spirits of many cultures. I believe cross-cultural learning has always been a part of Indigenous Peoples’ Ceremonial Life.

My Spiritual gifting was not without conflict. When I shared my pride at being gifted with the Shaking Tent Lodge, my female friend stated that she had heard bad spirits come through in that Ceremony. And then she asked, “Were you drunk?” I was crushed and in disbelief that my friend was so indoctrinated into cultural beliefs that she could so deeply disrespect me, confident she knew “true” Plains Cree culture. She assumed that there was no way Divine Helping Spirits would come to a woman. Another trusted friend to my husband declared, “She can’t do that!”

Spiritual Power

There remains the cultural assumption that a woman’s Spiritual power is not as great as man’s because they have not apprenticed as long. A woman should wait to pursue healing work until after menopause, when she no longer has her moon-time. When I received my drum, I continued with the cultural protocols regarding women and Sacred Tools. Only men played my drum in Sacred Ceremonies. I was prompted numerous times to give away my drum to a male Elder, but sensing it would be a mistake, I never did.

When I met the Spirit of my drum, I felt embarrassed—all those years, I had let men use my Sacred Tool with a feminine Spirit attached to it!

As a young woman I gladly took up the role of support for the men, alongside other women in Ceremony. However, I started to see that all the cultural protocols I followed, the menstruation taboos, and mandatory Ribbon Skirts⁷ did not personally benefit me. I had small children, I was in school full-time, I participated in cultural Ceremonies, and none of that made me Spiritually equal to a man. It was only after the realization that I am worthy because of what I do and who I am, not less-than because of my gender, that my life changed.

European patriarchal influence is undeniable in Plains Cree culture, but no one agrees on the extent. Cultural Traditionalists outright deny any Christian influence and assert that Plains Cree Ceremonial life has always been this way. Women who question why Ceremonial leaders are always men are viewed as outsiders. In this current era, it is nearly impossible to be gifted with Healing skills unless the federal recognition accompanies the gifting. As though Indian Status determined degree of Indianness. Often questions asked are, “Where are you from?” “Who is your family?” “Were you raised there?” “Do you speak your language?” “Who are your Elders?” From the outside, these are reasonable questions to validate a man’s authenticity as a Healer. But to me as an insider it seems obvious that these are questions that are used to invalidate a woman’s authenticity, because if she is still menstruating, she will not be trained by anyone within Plains Cree culture.

I personally believe that Cree women prior to European arrival followed menstruation taboos, as many hunting and gathering cultures did. It is the Plains Cree language, which is genderless, that holds the key for me. Gender roles are cultural, but much of that has been impacted by the patriarchy of European cultures. Because the Cree language itself does not possess gender distinctions, it is possible that women may have been equally accepted as Healers in the long-ago past, however, it was the link to the moon, the menstruation taboo, that may have held women back from access to training. My Kôhkom was a strong Traditional woman, but in regards to her cultural gifts she always deferred to men. She held a Sun Dance Lodge, and she was a Pipe Carrier, but the Ceremonial leadership positions were held by the men in her family. Colonization continues to sever family ties to community. Past Indian Act legislation has banished generations of women and their children from their Reserves and thus factured their communities. Many people have suffered under colonization and have lost their language, cultural connections, and Ceremonial knowledge. What is community now? Who defines it, and who is a member?

Even if people are gifted by the Spirits, they may not be recognized by First Nations communities.

It has left gifted people like myself with the sense that no matter the Spirits’ influence in their lives, they will never be enough, or authentic enough for their community members.

Not too long ago, I was asked by an Elder to participate in my community’s traditional health program, and join other Healers and Seers for a few days to assist community members. I later gave a talk about training youth to be our future Healers. One of the Elders stood up, and spoke in Cree to the audience in response to my talk. I gathered I was not acceptable to him. He stated in English that the Elders identified children who were to be the Healers.

The Elder who brought me in, stood up and replied, “We raised a Pipe, asking the Creator to send someone to help us… And she’s here! She’s one of us.”

I felt the Spirits speak through the Elder that day, reminding me that I had a purpose. Despite feeling that acceptance would never come, I continued to prepare because I felt I had no other option. What else was I to do when offered such a powerful gift? Now I am content in my life and with the way the Spirits guide me, protect me and counsel me. I can say with both pride and humility that I have been gifted—and I am grateful.

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Endnotes

¹ Môsom is grandfather, and my grandfather is nimôsom. However, most people just say Môsom.

² Kôhkom means “your grandmother” and the correct term would be Nôhkom, but because children are told, “Go see your grandmother,” children call their grandmother Kôhkom.

³ The “Sixties Scoop” was the large-scale removal of Aboriginal children from their homes: “scooping” during the 1960’s. The children were placed up for adoption into non-Indigenous, middle-class homes in Canada and the US, with some being raised outside of North America.

⁴ Four days spent in isolation without food, water or anything to occupy one’s thoughts: phone, journal, books, etc.

⁵ Sacred Tool is an object used in Sacred Ceremonies, that has a Helping Spirit attached to it.

⁶ A Spirit or Deity

⁷ Ribbon Skirts have only recently been viewed cross-culturally as indicative of Indigenous womanhood.

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References

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