George Kicking Woman and the passing of a true era of the Blackfeet people: a brief story from our meeting on the Big Sky Country, Montana plains in 2001

Blackfeet Tipi Rites

Over the years of my connection with my Blackfeet roots I have always been anxious to paint my personal tipi with multiple -- cool ndn designs. It was ten years in the waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to give me the “Blackfeet rites”  to paint the tipi designs I had in my mind’s eye.

The elders are connected in a special spiritual realm after they have gone a great distance in life and the enormous struggles that go with it. We young “boys” – GKW was 92 – still make our same damn mistakes (you young men who want to be spiritual leaders should wait until you are at least 90 years “young”)… Before I regress, Buster Yellow Kidney and my father Buggs pointed me in George’s direction to be taught in the Blackfeet way/tradition of painting a design that would be in keeping with the ways of old Blackfeet elders before them.

I will skip many steps in GKW’s teaching because this is a rite that you must earn! I will say some steps in a generalized way to go with the photos which George insisted on my taking in agreement to have an “eye witness” to the receiving of the rites to paint a tipi and pass on these rites to others who might have earned them. (If you go through ten years of waiting like I did. Believe me! That is not even half the story!).

In the photos you will see George’s tipi -- a design that came to him in circa 1932 when he was a young man. It is in the Blackfeet tradition of a medicine bundle holder because images can only be placed in the center area of the tipi if there is a medicine or holy man holding a great medicine bundle of Blackfeet significance. GKW was a “Thunder Pipe bundle” holder, since 1949.  It is a most powerful medicine among the tribe and greatly respected.

click to enlarge

Ceremony

Welcome, spirits from all the directions! I am offering my prayers inside George Kicking Woman’s tipi and I am lost for words. George just says, “Pray from your heart for what you want.”

I answer, “What if I want to include a prayer to win 2 million dollars in the lottery?” George says, “That’s too low. If  you really want to win a lottery, then pray to win the biggest lottery ever!” We all laugh at this and he says he is serious. More laughter.

At George’s request I have brought my personal pipe to offer up prayers to all our past relatives who have made this day of passage possible. George prays for me in Blackfeet and I am struck with disbelief that he is really passing on to me a part of my – OUR – Blackfeet past. Waiting ten years was nothing for this humbling experience. He takes the pipe and goes through the motions of the ceremony… (Here I cannot say what he did . You must earn that right to know the rites). We smoke together and George coughs over the tobacco and wants to know where I got it. I tell him it’s from eastern Russia and the women there grow it and gave it to me to share with my Native brothers and sisters and elders. George says, “Those Russian women must be like Blackfeet women. Strong!”

Our ceremony is short and to the point. I give George gifts which I will keep secret, but will say what to give someone for this occasion is simply what you think this rite is worth to you. In the old buffalo days I might have given a good horse!

click to enlarge

Thanks George Kicking Woman!

Well, ol’man. It is with a sad, yet fulfilled heart with knowledge that you have to undertake your journey to join your beloved wife, Mollie, and other mutual friends. Know this, that I will continue the tradition of what you taught me in a “gooder” way. You gave me something invaluable, the tipi rites, and the responsibility to carry them forward into this century, with the help of some wise friends. For this, I will forever be grateful and again I will lift the pipe we shared together to pray for your journey into the spirit world...

Thank you

SkyHawk, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation

(A special thx to Wilfried Schuller from Alsdorf, Germany for the “eye witness” photos)

Photos copyright Wilfried Schuller 2001