01 June 2009
Ceremony
By Joseph Bruchac
His Abenaki Indian heritage inspired Joseph Bruchac to become a Native American storyteller and devote his life to illuminating the traditions of diverse Native American tribes. Abenakis are one of five tribes that formed the Wabanaki Confederacy in eastern North America. Bruchac is author of more than 70 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for adults and children, and has received numerous awards, among them the American Book Award, Scientific American Children’s Book Award, Cherokee Nation Prose Award, and Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children’s Literature. He is founder of the Greenfield Review. He has performed widely as a storyteller throughout the United States and abroad.
Beauty before me I walk
beauty below me I walk
beauty all around me I walk
in beauty all is restored
in beauty all is made whole …
— from the Diné “Nightway”
“Every morning when I get up to get a drink of water from the sink, I always remember to thank the water.” Those words were spoken to me 30 years ago by Dewasentah, an Onondaga Clan Mother who was always reminding me of the sacred relationship that exists between all things and the responsibility we humans have to acknowledge that relationship.
One of the ways that relationship is expressed in American life is through what Europeans call ceremony. The dictionary defines ceremony as a formal act or series of acts performed solemnly as prescribed by ritual or tribal procedure. Although that is certainly true, it can also be said that, for American Indian people, ceremony is life itself. Tom Porter, a Mohawk elder, told me that one reason why we have so many ceremonies is that humans are forgetful. If we just remembered to give thanks every day and then behave in a thankful and respectful manner, that would be enough. But each time we forget, we need to be given more ceremonies to help us remember.
American Indian ceremonial practices can be as simple as the offering of tobacco with a prayer or as complex as the healing traditions of the Diné. Those traditions, known as “Ways,” involve a highly trained hataaXii, or “chanter,” who has spent years memorizing the words and the protocol for one or more of those Ways, each of which is used for a particular healing purpose. The most common, Blessingway, is often used to restore physical and spiritual balance in an individual. Enemyway is used for a Diné person who has been in battle and touched an enemy, thus causing a spiritual imbalance. For the healing, a dry painting is created on the ground using colored sand and pieces of ground-up bark. This sand painting is a mandala that depicts some event from the Diné Creation Story, perhaps the victory of the Hero Twins over a monster. The person to be healed is seated on the painting as the hataaXii chants the particular Healing Way. These Ways may take several days to complete. Because the presence of others who wish to offer their support makes the Healing Way more successful, many people are invited to attend.
Even events that are viewed as nothing more than games are often part of Native ceremonial practice. One example of this is the American Indian game now known as lacrosse. Called Tewaarathon in Mohawk, it is the “Great Game” or the “Creator’s Game.” When it was played, the field might have been miles in length, and the entire population of one or more villages might have taken part. Such games were usually played to help restore the health of a person to whom the game was dedicated. When the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake became ill on his final visit to the Onondaga Nation in 1815, a game of lacrosse was immediately planned and played in an attempt to bring healing to the mortally ill elder. (Although he was not cured, he responded to the honor they gave him by saying, “I will soon go to my new home. Soon I will step into the new world, for there is a plain pathway leading me there.”)
Some of the best-known ceremonies among Native people have been either sensationalized or misinterpreted. The potlatch ceremonies found among many of the Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest have been referred to as “fighting with wealth” by anthropologists who describe potlatch ceremonies in which a prominent figure tries to outdo a rival by either giving away or destroying vast amounts of personal possessions. The Canadian government and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs were both so alarmed by their perception of potlatches as wasteful that potlatches were outlawed for much of the twentieth century. Although potlatches were, indeed, ostentatious affairs used to build or restore prestige, there was more to them than Europeans understood. Potlatch itself comes from the Nootka word patshatl, which means “giving.” It could be said that while the accumulation of personal wealth is a desirable social norm in mainstream American culture, just the opposite is true in American Indian cultures. Sitting Bull, the great Lakota leader, once said that his people loved him because he was so poor.
The tradition of the giveaway as a ceremony to give thanks by showing great generosity is widespread throughout Native North America. I know of a Cheyenne family in Montana who promised to do a big giveaway if their son returned safely from Vietnam. All the while he was gone, they accumulated huge amounts of things to give away — blankets, canned goods, all kinds of things. When he returned home safely, their giveaway took place. Not only did they give away everything they’d gotten together, but also they were so happy that they gave away their refrigerator, their television, their record player, their radio, their pickup truck, and all their own clothing. Finally, they signed away the deed to their house. They not only showed how great their love was for their son, but how truly grateful they were to Maheo, the Great Mystery, but they also made a great name for themselves in their community. Though they were now poor, they were rich in the eyes of their people.
At its best, a potlatch was a way to redistribute material wealth, rather than leaving it in the hands of a few. The imbalance of potlatches in the late 1800s, at which blankets and other goods were not just given away, but burned, seems to have resulted from the influx of European goods and the potential to accumulate excessive wealth on the part of those who traded with the whites. Today, the potlatch has been restored in many of the Northwest tribal nations as a ceremony to give thanks and gain honor by giving.
Ceremony reminds us, through song, story, dance, and dress, through ritual behavior and sacrifice, that we are one with everything around us. To be in balance within ourselves and with that world around us is the proper and natural way. Through ceremony, we may both acknowledge and restore that balance.
Our Stories Remember, by Joseph Bruchac.
Copyright © 2003, Fulcrum Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
