Ceremonias Nativos Canada.pdf

8/11/2019 Ceremonias Nativos Canada.pdf

1/6

MIKMAQ CEREMONY

So after the passing of seven winters, those seven original clans come back withtheir seven fires to rekindle the original fire, which represents the first four levelsof creation - to honour the Giver of Life, Grandfather Sun, Mother Earth andGlooscap, and to remember the bolt of lightning and sparks that brought him tolife and created the Great Spirit Fire. nd the! put seven rocks in the fire torepresent the first seven levels of creation, and seven more for the seven original

families created from the first spark, and seven more for the clans of each ofthose seven families, and finall!, the! will bring together their medicines, theirplants and roots and leaves, and seven morerocks to represent the seven greatmedicines that those families bring together. nd so we have twent!-eight rocksin the fire.nd seven saplings are bent to frame our Sweat Lodge, with the door facingeast. nd the seven hereditar! chiefs go inside that lodge, which is the womb ofour Mother Earth, and callon the people to cover the lodge with seven skins ofanimals. nd the chiefs call upon the first seven rocks to be brought in, whichrepresent the Grandmother. nd we close the door and pour water on thoserocks, to remember how Grandmother was created from a rock, when dewformed on her and was heated b! Grandfather Sun " how she was created fromthe merging of those elements of light and heat " thatfire - with the water,

converging on the rock. nd the steam cleanses our bodies and our sweat goesback to our mother, connecting us to ourcreation, and our shadows. #hen thedoors are opened and we sing our songs and share the pipe and the sweetgrass.nd then we call upon seven more rocks, and seven after that, and seven moreagain, and make offerings to the cardinal directions in turn, and all those thingsthat come with those directions$ the Grandmother and the elders% teachings, andthe &ephew, and our mothers.nd when the door opens again ever!bod! goesaround in a circle, and comes back out, like babies born again into the world.So the seven levels of creation and seven sacred directions are recogni'ed inour ceremonies$ in the Sweat Lodge( in the sweetgrass ceremon!, which is inhonour of the nephew( in the tobacco offering ceremon!, which recalls thecreation of the Mother from a leaf( and in the pipe ceremon!, which s!mboli'esthe teachings of the Grandmother and the mother combined, b! )oining the rock

with the plant, the stone pipe bowl with the wooden stem.#he words and pra!ers of all those brought together in our ceremonial circle areput together in the smoke from the sweetgrass or the pipe. nd that smoke andthose pra!ers are offered to the seven directions$ looking above, we give thanksto the Giver of Life, for giving us life( looking within ourselves, we give thanks toGrandfather Sun, for giving us our shadows( looking below us to Mother Earth,we thank her for allowing part of herself for our creation( and we look east to givethanks to Glooscap, for his leadership, andto remember the eagle and the birdlife( we look south, to Grandmother, who came from the rock, and remember hergifts of wisdom, and the animals( and we remember the nephew, who traveled tothe west, bringing the gift of strength and looking to the future with the e!es ofthe ancestors, and arriving with the fish( and we look to the north, where theMother arrived from the leaf of a tree, representing the plants and the colours

and the teachings of love and how to care for one another.*n this wa!, as we look above and within and below, and to all the four directions,we involve these spiritual entities in our ceremonies. nd we include the worldthat we can see, with all the elements of life that we share on the surface of ourMother Earth all around us( and we have one mind in the ph!sical world, and onemind in the spirit world, one foot in the world of our ancestors, and one footlooking to the future. nd so in the centre we are communicating with the wholec!cle of life in all its aspects, in respect for how life begins, and is all tiedtogether.*n honour of m! elders and grandmother " +ela%lin.


2/6

MORNING PRAYER

ne of the first things we would do is teach a child to pra!.ne time, when * was still ver! small, * was l!ing in bed earl! in the morning.nd Grandma came over and sat on the bed, and woke me up. nd she sa!s,o !ou know that Sonkwaiatison, our /reator, is coming from the Sun, who wecall our ld 0rother1 nd his )ob is to watch over us, and that%s wh! he%s wa! upthere$ so he can see us ever! da!. nd when he%s watching us, he sends his

light here. nd thatsunlight is what makes the trees grow, and the corn, and themuskmelons and berries. nd in fact, it makes us grow too. nd if the sun doesgo out, all life will cease to e2ist.3nd then she sa!s, id !ou know that when the sun is shining, when !ou seethose roads, those ra!s going out from the sun, that those are the hands andfingers and arms of our /reator13nd so,3 she sa!s, when !ou%re still sleeping on that bed, earl! in the morning,when the sun hasn%t even shown his face !et, that light is coming down beforehim. nd that sun comes through that window. nd when he finds !ou, that%sour /reator%s hands and bod! and arms. nd where !ou%re l!ing in bed, he holds!ou on !our head with his hands and fingers( then he holds !our bod!, and !ourlegs, and feet. 4e caresses and envelops !our whole bod! with his arms. +h!10ecause that%s !our father, and 4e loves !ou.3

5So what are !ou going to do about it13 she sa!s.nd *%m )ust a kid, so * sa!, * don%t know.3 nd she sa!s, +ell, *%m going to tell!ou. Ever! morning, as soon as !our e!es open, before !ou even put !our footover the bed to get up, because the /reator has embraced !ou, !ou sa! this$6&ia$ wen " #hank !ou - 7ou-+ho-Made-Me( * thank !ou, * greet !ou, and * give!ou m! love.% #hat%s all !ou%ve got to sa!. nd the /reator will be happ!.3So *%ve been sa!ing that for all the si2t! some !ears *%ve been living, since shetold me. nd the real *ro8uois people, we must do about fift! or si2t! pra!ers inone da!. nd this was natural. *t wasn%t like a chore. +hen !ou were trained b!!our elders, !ou don%t have to think twice about it( it%s )ust part of !ou.


3/6

TIPI CEREMONY

+hen * make something, it%s not )ust to make it( it%s got meaning to it. *t%s likewhen * pick sweetgrass, and when * braid it, there%s a pra!er that goes in there.+hoever * give that sweetgrass to, when the! burn it, those pra!ers come out,and the! help that person.*t%s the same with a tipi. +hen * make a tipi, when it goes up the first time, it hasto face the east, because a tipi to me isnot )ust a s!mbol, it%s a ceremon!.

#he doorwa! is ver! important in ceremon!. For ceremonial purposes, the /reeface the doorwa! east because that represents the beginning of creation.#oda!, people forget that. #hat is wh!,when * am asked to make a tipi forsomeone, * take them through the ceremon!so that the! can embrace the truemeaning and teaching of the tipi. * hope that it is a wa! to touch their spirit andprovide guidance for them on their )ourne!.0efore making a tipi, * offer tobacco. * don%t )ust stand and let that tobacco fall( *sit on the ground with humbleness, because * am offering something forsomething * will use from Mother Earth. 0ecause it%s not ours( ever!thing wetake is borrowed( we%re borrowing time( we%re borrowing all the things we need tomake a tipi.* also ask whoever * am building the tipiwith to offer tobacco with humbleness. *usuall! ask the women in that famil! to offer the tobacco, because the tipi is a

woman%s s!mbol( and the ceremon! is a woman%s teaching. #he men can bepart of the ceremon! and can help to put up a tipi but the! can%t hold theteachings, because the! are not women. #he men need the women to bepresent during the making of the tipi to take in those teachings and to offer thatsacred tobacco to Mother Earth because that is all part of the ceremon!.* learned this through doing it, and through the instruction of m! mother, whotaught me that tobacco must be given for each stage of the process. So when *go out to the land and cut down the tipi poles, * make offerings of tobacco eachtime. #his is how we honour the resources and gifts of our Mother Earth. Shehas gifted us for a ver! long time.#oda!, people use tipis more or less for s!mbolic reasons. 0ut * have made thecommitment to share the teachings of the tipi each time * put one up. * do thisbecause the tipi is a ceremon! that remindsus of the balance we must bring to

our lives and of the powerful teachings that the women have.


4/6

TIPI STRUCTURE

#oda! * make tipis that stand twent!-two feet high, but !ears ago, tipis werema!be twelve or thirteen feet. #he! didn%t have the material for large structuresbecause the! used hide instead of canvas and rocks instead of ground pegs.#hat is wh! toda! !ou can still find circles of rocks, or tipi rings, on the land. *twouldn%t make sense to have !our tipitoo high, because the winds and stormswould catch it.

s time passed, the rocks were replaced with chokecherr! ground pegs becausethe! were one of the harder woods once the! were dr!. #oda! * cut and peelspruce for the tipi poles and * use sticks to ad)ust the front flaps of the tipientr!wa!. M! mother used a bone from the moose leg toclose the tipi in thefront.M! mother never used a measuring tape, or mapped things out mathematicall! "she )ust cut out her tipi and made it. nd each time it was perfect.#he /ree people use 9: poles to make the structure of the tipi. For ever! pole inthat tipi, there is a teaching. So there are 9: teachings thathold up the tipi.ther &ations use 9; poles, and ma!be more, * don%t know. ll * know is what *know * was taught and that is the teachings for 9: poles.#he tipi does not have to face east all the time( it can rotate in an! direction. *t isonl! the first time that * re8uest that the tipi face east, because of the opening

ceremon!.#o start, we take three poles and bind them together to make a tripod. Each polealso has a ver! specific meaning. #hese three together fortif! the structure.#he! are obedience, respect and humilit!. &otice the poles, the wa! the! stand.*f the! stood straight upand down, the! couldn%t support a tipi. 0ut balancedproperl! together, the! are able to reinforce each other. #here%s a teaching inthat. *n order to make a famil!, !ou need three$ the two parents and the child, tomake that balance.#he tops of the poles have man! teachings. Each one points in a differentdirection. +e are like those poles. +e all need the strength and support of ourfamilies and communities, but we accept that we all have different )ourne!s andpoint in different directions.#he poles also teach us that no matter what version of the Great Spirit we

believe in, we still go to the same /reatorfrom those man! directions and beliefs!stems( we )ust have different )ourne!s toget there. nd where the poles comeout together at the top, it%s like the!%re creating a nest. nd the! also resemble abird with its wings up when it comes toland, and that%s another teaching$ thespirit coming to land, holding its wings up.


5/6

CEREMONIALIST

#his circle structure and all our oral s!stems are basedon ceremon! and rituals,or rites. #wo basic rites are gifted rites and transferred rites. gifted rite is anauthorit! that was gifted to !ou( ma!be the spirits gifted !ou on a vision 8uestwith a rite, or a certain amount of knowledge that needed to be protected. transferred rite came from the time of /reation and is tied from that original timeright down to how we maintain that rite toda!. ll of these rites are

responsibilities we carr! that make us part of the communit!.


6/6

DANCE

+hen we talk about our

Ceremonias Nativos Canada.pdf

Documents

Transcript of Ceremonias Nativos Canada.pdf