Teaching the Right Way

Right off the bat a ‘wrong way’ is suggested by the title of this blog entry. Someone will inevitably be wrong when there is a right way. Right? For some the question jumps out: what is the wrong way? Or, is my way the right way. Hmm. Is there a Middle Way?

This summer has been a learning experience for me personally but also for the whole community, all the neighboring tribes, and strangely enough, even those who did not have the same collective experience as I will share in what was learned.

The summer began with our annual Spring IHUK ceremony which is held to recognize the coming of the ceremonial spirits back to our land. The spirits leave from this world during the winter (according to our beliefs) leaving us, the humans, to our beliefs, cultural livelihoods and knowledge. We are left alone with the fierce and mean spirits during the winter months. It is our time to face our fears and to face our doubts and to challenge the spirits that might make our lives miserable. So we look forward to the Spring IHUK ceremony to remember the good spirits homecoming.

This year we had the hardest time finding the girl to perform as IHUK, the spirit girl who owns the girl’s puberty ceremony. Several girls were recommended to us but in the end were not selected for differing but important reasons. We found a girl and she agreed. The day of the ceremony she came and said, I can’t do it. We proceeded with the ceremony leaving it to the spirits. A girl was called and she agreed and was prepared both mentally, spiritually and physically to take on the job. And she did a good job giving all a boost of spiritual strength and sense of gratitude for being a girl who lived according to our beliefs.

Young singers helped make the Brush Dance ceremony for us. So many elders passed in the last few years so that there was gap of singers—all deferred to the elder singers. So many of them passed on and then the young men singers began stepping forward with their songs. Nice songs. Those of us in between saw our roles emerging as the “elder” singers. So the ball was set in motion—there was a natural evolution happening. This observation gave us a renewed hope and sense of joy.

During a youth camp that we organized we brought together youth in age 8 to 13 to begin relating the behind the scenes look of what it takes to put on a ceremony. It is not a matter of arriving and standing in the circle to see if you might be selected to dance or not. The ceremony requires many hands to make it happen. Those hands often differ from one ceremony to the other. Yet there are things that can be learned: from packing water, gathering and making wood for the several fires: the cook fires, the dance fires, the men and women’s house fires. There is gathering that must happen. There is also the time to practice singing and dancing. As we stepped back to observe the camp we saw so many young people working together in unison, helping each other and accomplishing several great feats: The young girls made some of the best acorn soup I tasted this summer, new singers were created during the camp, Indian law and maintaining our beliefs was achieved (even if only in a small way).

We presented at a G.O.N.A. (Gathering of Native Americans) for youth. Thiswas a new experience and we realized how important the sharing of our tribal ways can be to young people. We reserved the ceremonial experience to teach. The GONA taught us that we need to reach beyond and outside of our ceremonies—sadly, many young people are unable to attend ceremonies. Still the teachings are not only meaningful for the ceremonies but for our everyday lives as well. Our positive and beautiful ceremonial experience informs how we live throughout the year. It gives us strength. So we began exploring ways to share that ceremonial experience.

Finally we participated by working for the White Deerskin ceremony held at Weitchpec and at specific sites up the mountainside of Kewet Mountain (aka Burrill Peak). It had been 6 years since we last attended. The elder singers are all gone now. So it was a delight to hear the new singers: young men with fine songs. A 10-day ceremony, the Deerskin dances are arduous and require a high degree of coordination and cooperation. Again the ceremony revealed a scene of people working together to fix the world. Each dance site was more beautiful than we recalled. The generosity and willingness to sacrifice for the good of the world and the people was awe inspiring.

It was a good summer with many precious gifts. And it was a good example of the Right Way to live.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2010 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Culture, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.