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CROW CALLS No. 2
The Medicine Bundle The first Medicine Bundle is said to have been given to the Pawnee by the Star Gods, who sent the thunder to give it to the Pawnee. Because it was Evening Star who sent the Medicine Bundle to the Pawnee, the Medicine Bundle is hung in the west of the lodge in the wihari, the sacred spot referred to as "the place where the wise words of those who have gone before us are resting." Medicine bundles are always traced back to a supernatural encounter. The spirit instructed the priest to make the bundle and place in it objects, some to recall the encounter and some to be used in subsequent rituals. Bundles contained two kinds of objects, the symbolic and ritual. They contained a star chart, a pipe, tobacco, cedar, sage, a braid of sweetgrass, paint, one or more ears of corn, skins of various animals, and other things.
The Medicine Bundles are powerful parts of the Pawnee ceremonies, and usually contain the ritual tools necessary to conduct those ceremonies. Most Medicine Bundles were made of elk hide, although other hides were used, especially wolf hide. Today, new Medicine Bundles are more often made of deer hide. The rituals and ceremonies connected with the Medicine Bundles are passed down from generation to generation, along with the Medicine Bundles. Medicine Bundles are owned by women and inherited through the female line, but can only be used by men. To open or use a bundle without the proper ritual observance invites disaster. Medicine Bundle contents can change from ritual to ritual. Medicine Bundles are used in healing and other rituals and opened at certain ritual times, such as when the first rolling thunder is heard in the spring.
The Stars on Pawnee Star maps are usually drawn as four-pointed figures, and in five different sizes representing the brightness of the Stars. Through the center of the map are faint Stars representing the Milky Way, which is divided into the two main seasons. The Star groups on the right of the Milky Way represent the summer night sky and the Star groups to the left represent the winter night sky. A solid line around the oval Star map represents the horizon. Sometimes, the Stars and constellations that are considered more important are drawn in a more exaggerated style to emphasize their importance. Unlike other tribes, the Pawnee did not rely on the positions of the Sun and Moon as much as they did on the Stars. There are many types of Medicine Bundles. Among the Pawnee, the most important is the Evening Star Bundle, representing Creation. This bundle provided the songs and rituals to most other bundles, and it was the foremost bundle in horticultural activities. Traditionally, this was the first Medicine Bundle given to the Pawnee, and in Pawnee mythology is associated with Center Village, the first village built with dome-shaped earth lodges to imitate the heavens. The Thunder (or Creation) Ritual in the spring for the Evening Star bundle is carried out after the Medicine Men have sighted two stars called the Swimming Ducks (the tail and stinger of the constellation Scorpius) on the eastern horizon and the Chaka (Pleiades) overhead. Then, when the first thunder rumbles across the land from west to east, the bundle is opened for the Creation Ritual.
Four villages were built surrounding Center Village in the four directions, and from each of them are descended the Four Leading Medicine Bundles. These are the Yellow Star, Red Star, Whiter Star, and Big Black Meteoric Star bundles, representing the four semi-cardinal directions where the Star Gods of the Four Directions appear above the horizon. Together these five villages constituted the Old Village of the Skiri Pawnee called the Wolf band.
Other Medicine Bundles belong to the entire Pawnee Federation, such as the Morning Star bundle that once demanded a human sacrifice to ensure fertility and success in war, the Skull bundle used in the Four Pole Ceremony celebrating the Pawnee Federation of four bands, and the North Star Bundle associated with the Chief's Ceremony. These bundles are called the cuthariru (literally, "rains wrapped up"). There were also War bundles kept by the warrior societies that are now mostly defunct.
The Medicine Bag A personal form of the Medicine Bundle is the Medicine Bag, called a karusu ("sack") by the Pawnee. Every member of the tribe possesses their own Medicine and they keep their Medicine in their personal Medicine Bag. Often, this is very small and carried on the person, around the neck or on the belt. This should especially include objects encountered during powerful personal experiences of a spiritual nature. If any object in it seems to have lost its Medicine power, it is discarded in a wild place. The Medicine Bag also often contains healing herbs or a smoking mixture, and a Medicine Man never goes anywhere without his personal Medicine.A common item in the Medicine Bag is the quartz crystal. The quartz crystal is prized as a power object and powerful spirit helper because it appears the same in this world and the spirit world. It is used for divination, healing, communication with spirits and inspiration. The crystal is carried concealed from others and the sun. The crystal will diffuse its power throughout the Medicine Bag. Before keeping a crystal, you should first cleanse it with running water, then take it to a high place and place it point upward in a split stick to be recharged by the sun for eight days. Periodically the spirit of the crystal should be aroused by lightly tapping the non-pointed end on a rock that sits in running water.
The Medicine Pipe The Medicine Pipe is the principal ritual object. The Pipe and tobacco were used by the Mayans and other South American tribes in antiquity and later passed to the tribes in the North. Pipe bowls are often made of red catlinite (pipestone), soapstone, greenstone or black slate. The stems are made of ash, sumac or cedar. The Pipe is always kept in a pipe bag, with the bowl and stem separated, along with a tobacco pouch or gourd and a tamper. Sometimes, the Pipe is kept in a Medicine Bundle. The Pipe is made sacred by the prayers of the Medicine Man. This may be accomplished at a sweat lodge ritual, or as the Medicine Man addresses the Pipe, picks it up, gestures with it, or uses it in ritual. The term 'carrying the Pipe' is often used when the Pipe is not actually present, but one is engaging in an important spiritual activity, such as making a request of a Medicine Man.The gestures of the Pipe are accompanied by prayer and song, such as when the Pipe bundle is opened, the bowl is fitted to the stem, the bowl is filled and the six directions are addressed. Passing of the Pipe, which is often done four times, is accompanied by saying, "Greetings, father," and "Grandfather, Great Mystery." Carrying the Pipe is usually done clockwise. Ritual also accompanies placing the Pipe on the altar, lighting the Pipe, refilling it, and retiring the Pipe from the sacred space.
Ancient Pipes were made to be the length of the maker's arm, from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the longest outstretched finger. Today, Pipes come in different lengths. The Pipe stem is often decorated with quill work or carvings, plus four tail feathers of the immature golden eagle. The eagle's tail feathers are used for navigation, and symbolize the Pipe's role as a messenger between the two-leggeds and the Great Spirit. Two of the more common types of Pipes that were made were the peace Pipe and the war Pipe. The peace Pipe could be carried across enemy territory and would assure safe passage for the carrier. The war Pipe had red feathers signifying blood and was passed around and smoked before a battle was to take place.
Before the coming of the white man, the Plains Indians believed that the sacred Pipe was brought to them by the thunder. Only after they got horses and began hunting the buffalo did the story come along that the Pipe was brought by White Buffalo Calf Woman. Medicine Men often had a white robe in their Medicine Bundle and wore it when healing. Today, this tradition of the buffalo is beginning to give way to the older traditions, now that the Indians don't hunt the buffalo anymore.
The Pipe acts as a communicator between the humans and the spirits. All separate-stemmed pipes are "sacred pipes." Before smoking the Pipe, the Pipe is presented stem first to the powers invoked, usually the sky and the earth, and a prayer is made for the Great Spirit to hear your desires and grant them.
The Tobacco People (spirits) were given consciousness to gather in spiritual knowledge. When you want to acquire a gift of knowledge from the Creator, take a small amount of Tobacco with your right hand and place the Tobacco in the palm of your left hand. Then allow the thoughts from your mind and your intent from the heart to enter into the spirit of the Tobacco. This allows the Tobacco to fulfill its purpose as a messenger of the Creator. Tobacco is passed from heart to heart, from your left hand to the left hand of the receiver. This rite symbolizes the sincerity and sanctity of this act, for the passing of Tobacco signifies the seeking of truth. In your heart is where the Creator placed the truth. It is with your heart you know the truth and from your heart you should seek the truth.
When Tobacco is offered to a Medicine Person, or to one of a host of natural teachers, such as earth, wind, fire, water, plants, rocks, rivers, trees, mountains, seas, and sky, it enables their spirits to understand your request by reading the feeling of your heart's intent. To petition and acquire knowledge are the uses of Tobacco. Tobacco is sacred only when you wholly accept it for its purpose. It is customary to offer Tobacco whenever one has received the power of the Spirit, such as after a drumming, when a pinch of Tobacco is laid on the sacred Drum.
Natives Celebrate Return of Sacred Bundle Spirits are being awakened for the first time in 60 years. I can see it in the faces of those around me, Blackfoot Indians from both sides of the border, gathering on Canada Day at a ranch in northern Montana to celebrate the return of a vital link to their past. The men sit nearest the fire, the women forming a circle behind them. Sweetgrass burns and turns to ash, filling the teepee with an ancient aroma. Expressions filled with reverence and awe, their attention is fixed on a metre-long stone and reed pipe, decorated with the mummified head of a harlequin duck on one end, and a fan of eagle feathers on the other.
By Larry Johnsrude, Journal Staff WriterNamed for the last holy man to possess it, the Theodore Last Star thunder medicine pipe was an essential part of Blackfoot spiritual beliefs dating to times of the buffalo hunt. After falling into disuse from cultural degradation, the pipe and bundle of religious artifacts, including rattles and braided animal hides, were sold to a private collector, then sold again to the provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton, where they languished for more than a decade before making the long journey back. The bundle's homecoming and first ceremonial opening since 1942 is being witnessed by 200 people, Blackfoot from Alberta and Montana (who call themselves Blackfeet) and a significant minority of non-natives like myself. Some have come for physical healing. Others have come for the healing of the soul.
"These are holy bundles given to us by the Creator to hold our people together," explains tribe member Patricia Deveraux, as she waits outside the teepee, craning her neck to see what is going on inside. "They're the same as the relics from the Catholic Church," continues the pleasant, round-faced woman of 36, whose faith straddles Catholicism and Blackfoot spirituality with equal vigour. "They are a demonstration of the holy spirit. They can heal people." Before the day is over, she will "dance with the pipe" - a primal ceremony channeling positive energy from her ancestors through the sacred object - while she prays to the spirits to help family members through troubled times.
Les Whitford is a testament to its healing power. The 50-year-old Cree-Chippewa Indian, who isn't even a member of the Blackfoot tribe, lost one kidney to cancer and found out a year ago he had a spot on the other. After making a vow to dance at the bundle opening, a checkup four months ago showed the spot had disappeared. "As far as I am concerned, it can perform miracles," he says.
They are among 17 who have made vows to perform the traditional Blackfoot healing dance. It's an unusually large number, which promises to keep the ceremony going late into the night. "The people believe it's very powerful because it's the only medicine bundle that has made it back to Montana from your museum in Edmonton," bundle keeper Bob Burns tells me. "It's an important part of getting back our culture. The healing has already begun." Burns, a descendent of Last Star, gained possession of the bundle as the result of a rather creative application of Alberta's two-year-old native ceremonial artifact repatriation legislation. Narcisse Blood, of southern Alberta's Blood tribe, which played a key role in its return to the Montana tribe, regrets that it took so long. "If you're Catholic, you can go to mass whenever you want," he says. "Yet we had to go through so much trouble and heartbreak for something that is such a natural part of our culture."
Links to Past I meet Bob Burns and his wife, Charlene, for the first time the night before at the Babb Bar and Cattle Baron, one of the three restaurants the couple run along with their ranch on the Blackfoot reservation just east of Glacier National Park. As Charlene fills bags with groceries in preparation for the bundle opening, Bob tells me about his great-uncle, Theodore Last Star, Blackfoot religious leader, tour guide, historian and bit actor in early westerns.A photo display on the wall of the bar depicts the local legend in full native headdress and buckskin from his Hollywood scenes, including a role with the legendary Shirley Temple. Bob Burns, 59, with long raven-black braids and cleft chin, bears a striking resemblance to the man in the photographs. After Theodore Last Star's first wife died in the 1940's and he married a strong Catholic, the medicine bundle sat dormant until his death in the 1960's. His econd wife's children sold it for $5,000.00 to collector Bob Scriver in the 1970's.
Blackfoot traditionalists believe religious items cannot be owned by individuals, but are held by "keepers" for the good of the tribe. "Do I own it or does it own me?" Burns asks.
Traditional Dress People start arriving at the Burns ranch mid-morning on July 1, half-ton trucks bouncing over possibly the roughest five-kilometre stretch of road in Montana. Many license plates are from Alberta. The women are exquisitely clad in colourful long dresses, hair covered by bright kerchiefs, hand-woven shawls wrapped around their shoulders. The men kick off cowboy boots and put on beaded moccasins, draping blankets over their shoulders and around their waists.Thunder pipe bundle openings are all the same. But there are differences unique to the contents of the individual bundles. The central item is the pipe, which, according to legend, was given to the people by thunder and is as old as creation itself. Other items - rattles, animal skins, feathers - correspond to dreams and visions of the bundle's keepers and have unique songs and rituals which go with them. Traditionally, each Blackfoot extended family or clan had a spiritual leader and bundle keeper.
I ask Leonard Bastien, former chief of the Alberta Piegan in Brocket who is conducting the ceremony, how much he knows about the Last Star bundle rituals. He grins and crooks his thumb and finger to show about a centimetre of daylight between them. "About this much," he says. "But I'm still the boss." It's not a boast but a self-deprecating expression of how much more there is to know.
Thunder pipe bundles are opened every year in the spring or early summer after the first thunder. Although the Blackfoot elders are sympathetic, they insist the ceremony and pipe cannot be photographed. At 15 minutes before noon, Bob and Charlene Burns emerge from their ranch house - Bob, in front, clutching a fan of eagle feathers to his chest, Charlene, in a burst of yellow floral patterns and red tartan, following with the bedroll-sized bundle on her shoulders. They march slowly and silently to the teepee about 50 metres away to begin the ceremony.
Songs and Feasting The primitive songs rise like wood smoke. Some are haunting screeches, some are low throaty hymns, some rhythmic war whoops. Some 30 are sung while the elk skin cover of the bundle is unrolled and each item laid out on top of it in its proper place.There are two teepees pushed together - the large one for the elders conducting the ceremony, the smaller ones for the helpers. The guests sit in chairs lined up outside. After about an hour, the helpers pass out plastic bowls and begin filling them with berry soup, a dessert-like mixture of local saskatoon berries in sweet syrup. "It's for cleansing," a helper says, instructing me to take out the largest berry and bury it as a sacrifice. Why do the bowls come with lids? "So you can take it with you," she replies. "You won't want to eat it all at once. It's a laxative."
The berry soup is followed by a feast of buffalo ribs, potatoes, sausages and boiled eggs. The helpers then pass out bags of groceries for the guests to take home - fruit, canned goods, packages of macaroni, pastries and candy. Blackfoot tradition dictates that the bundle keeper takes responsibility for the physical needs of the guests as well as the spiritual needs. Veteran guests come prepared, bringing large cloth sacks to haul away their take. Nothing is to be left over. With the bundle open and the food blessed and distributed, the individual blessings and medicine dances begin. During a break, an elder looking no more than 30 explains the importance of the spiritual revival going on in the native communities across North America.
"When you look at the problems affecting our people, it's mainly alcohol and drugs," says the young man, dressed in black from head to foot, who gives his name only as Chris. "Why is that? Because of a loss of a sense of purpose. This gives us purpose. These are powerful objects that we pray with and they get their power from those who have prayed with them before us."
Individual Blessings I line up with the others - native and non-native alike - for my individual blessing, kneeling as a sign of humility while draped in a brightly coloured blanket to show obedience. Peter Weasel Moccasin from the blood tribe in Alberta touches my shoulders and the back of my head with the pipe stem. He recites the blessing in the Blackfoot language and dips his tight thumb into a rust-coloured paste of buffalo grease and ashes, smearing it on my face - an arch on my forehead, a line following my chin and crosses on each side of my mouth.On his instructions, I cup my hands over his head and make an arching motion, gathering the spiritual energy of our combined auras. He clutches his hands in front of his chest and says in English: "Hold it to your heart." I do as he tells me. The face painting, an acknowledgement of having received the blessing, is followed by the healing dances, a bouncing two-step on blankets draped over the floor of the teepee while clutching the pipe to the sound of drums and singing. The pipe, made of reeds and stone and brightly decorated with feathers, beads, brass bells and dyed animal skins, is not smoked. It looks like a musical instrument. It doesn't have a bowl. It's unclear if it ever did.
The 17 who made vows to dance wait patiently for their turns. Each brings blankets, some bring cigarettes, symbolizing the tobacco leaves that were traditionally wrapped in the medicine bundles to preserve their contents. "It's a great feeling," says Scott Wetsel, a 24-year-old father of two, who danced for healing after injuring his back at work. "You can really feel the spirit working."
Precious Artifacts My interest in Blackfoot medicine bundles began as a quest of curiosity rather than a search for spiritual enlightenment. While researching the First nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act, passed by the Alberta legislature in the spring of 2000, I stumbled across an unexplainable contradiction. The legislation, intended to return native religious artifacts to their original owners, applied only in Alberta. Therefore, it would have no bearing on the treasure trove from the Montana Blackfeet laying in storage at the Provincial Museum of Alberta.The collection, including 1,500 individual items and six medicine bundles, had been purchased by the museum for $1.1 million US in 1988 from Bob Scriver, a musician and artist from Browning, Mont., at the centre of the reservation. In his history and picture book called The Blackfeet: Artists of the Northern plains, Scriver describes the Last Star bundle as "the best of the best… created by people with an artistic sense who strove to produce an object of real beauty and great power." Scriver, who died three years ago, valued it at $125,000.00
The Montana Blackfoot had been stymied for a decade in their attempts to get their artifacts back. But their efforts gained momentum after stories about their predicament appeared in The Journal in March 2001, including a comment from premier Ralph Klein, a convert to native spirituality, calling on Alberta officials to "extend the spirit" of the legislation south of the border. With a new sense of co-operation from provincial bureaucrats, the Montana tribe skirted the legal hurdle barring the bundle's removal from the province by having their Alberta cousins on the Blood reserve repatriate the bundle from the museum on their behalf. Burns drove it down to the U.S. last September, getting it past border guards who were either sympathetic or indifferent to its contents.
A Good Day With the sun now long gone over the mountains and the wood fire in the teepee burning out, the pipe and other sacred items are put back on the elk skin and bundled up until the first thunder next spring. The helpers distribute the blankets and the cigarettes. "What did you think of it?" asks one precocious 11-year-old, a grandson of Bob burns. "Pretty cool, huh?" Yes, pretty cool.The Alberta tribes members leave first, anxious to get to the border before the crossing closes at 11 p.m. Everyone rises out of respect as George Kicking Woman gets up. The octogenarian Blackfoot spiritual leader, the last holy man who knows all the songs and rituals, has been sitting at the front all day quietly offering guidance. I first met George Kicking Woman on a blustery January day in his cabin in Browning, where he was lamenting the loss of Blackfoot culture to the Edmonton museum. As he leaves, I approach and grasp his hand. He responds with a grin of recognition. "It is a good day," he says.
ÓCopyright 2002, Edmonton Journal
Reprinted under Fair Use
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