The Land We Walk On

Many people are curious about Native spirituality. I was born and raised in a remote Native community on the James Bay coast. You would think I was exposed to an Aboriginal spirituality but you would be wrong. There was plenty of confusion about what to believe in. I was surrounded by Elders and traditional people with great knowledge of and experience in Native traditional spirituality, but little of this knowledge was ever really shared openly. Native belief was talked about among those in small groups. It seemed as though there were very few people with this knowledge and they lived in a more or less secretive world.

My home community of Attawapiskat had been set up with a Roman Catholic system that was introduced with the coming of the Europeans. There was never any doubt as to what belief system was operating in Attawapiskat as that was easily demonstrated by the towering Catholic church that overlooked the river. The St. Francis Xavier Church is the oldest, tallest and most revered building in the community. The church has great meaning to our Elders since it basically has not changed in almost 100 years. It is the one constant in the community.

The church is also a reminder of our Roman Catholic connection, for better or worse, depending on your view. It has long been a prominent part of the daily life in Attawapiskat. I recall hearing the familiar church bell ring every evening at seven to call the faithful to mass. On Sunday mornings it was mandatory for our family to gather and join mass with everyone else in the community at the call of the bell. I have memories of the church filled to capacity on many Sundays as the male and female Elders led the congregation in hymns and prayers in our traditional Cree language. During the readings, the more distinguished Elders would take the pulpit to read the bible and then spend a few moments to counsel the congregation. There were no strangers among us and we all shared a history of Catholic assimilation. Many of the congregation had been stolen away as children to attend residential schools.

Although most of us followed the Catholic beliefs we also still felt a connection to an older Native way of thinking. Once we stepped out of the church and ventured out on the land we were reminded of our original beliefs. While we were in the community we felt pressure to adhere to a more regimented way of life and more modern beliefs.

I can recall spending time on the land with my parents and other Elders from my family. Even though a Roman Catholic view was constantly referred to, I couldn’t help but notice the Native spiritual values that were shared in the traditional activities we followed. When it came to animals, we could not keep any animal for a pet as this was considered an unkind act towards a creature. We could not kill anything without reason. We could not take more than we needed. Everything revolved around respect for the environment and animals and if we broke these rules, then we could expect bad fortune to fall on us. These beliefs had nothing to do with the church. They had more to do with being connected to the land and an older way of spirituality. There was no Satan or the devil on our minds out on the land. If we experienced something negative we could attribute it to our own actions in interacting with the people, the animals and all life living around us on the land.

In recent years, I have learned more about Native spirituality. As I come to know Native spiritual people and I read historical documents and research spiritual leaders from the past, I have discovered that they were referred to as Meedeh. When I came across this word in my research I was reminded of hearing the same term used by my people back in Attawapiskat. They always used it to refer to a medicine man. This was a familiar word to me from my past since I have heard several Elders refer to these people. Much of the time this term was used in a negative way as a result of Catholic indoctrination that told us that traditional ways and medicine men were not good for us. This was always something as a topic that remained mysterious.

After my research, I started making connections to the word Meedeh (traditional or medicine man). I remember hearing about the Meedeh people performing Meedeh-oo in order to commune with spirits, to talk to ancestors, to see the future and the past or to speak to people in far away places. Elders described this long-distance communication as an ancient telephone system. It was like an epiphany when I connected the word Meedeh to the Cree word for traditional drumming, Mee-deh-s-koh-keln. I always associated this word to Pow Wow drumming, but suddenly I realized that it was not just simply drumming. It had more meaning as the beat of this percussion was part of the traditional belief system of the Meedeh or traditional people.

In many ways, while my people have been assimilated by the church and the European way of thinking, we have also blended these beliefs into our own. Today there is a more open approach in our First Nations as we are rediscovering our roots and traditional ways and culture. There are drumming groups and traditional teachers in most First Nations across the Americas. Our spirituality has always been as close to us as the land we walk on.