Hand-Made Spirituality: Seeing Through these First Nations Eyes

As I walked along downtown Ottawa last week, headed to the Byward Market, I stumbled upon a delight. Encased in tall wire fencing typically seen in construction areas, an Algonquin man named Paul, and an Ojibwe woman, showcased the lifestyle of First Nations ancestors.

As I walked through the opening, my eyes lifted to a tall tipi built on concrete city streets. Wrapped in white thick cloth, the tipi almost towered the permanent totem pole across the street.

“We start with three sticks, tie them together and then add another stick. We tie that together and then then continue adding one stick at a time, tying each one,” said Paul on the construction of the tipi. Above the entrance hung a hand drum with a black outline of the sun's rays. Inside the sun was a duck flapping its wings in water. Paul crafted hand drums.

He showed me how he used branches of the ash tree. This pliable wood was soaked in water until the wood separated into sections. If you needed the wood to be thinner, you would use a hand made mallet, with a rock strung to the top, to pound the wood and then soak it back in the water. When the wood strips were thin enough, you peeled a section and bent it into a circle. This was the rim of the hand drum. Hide was then used for the cover.

These pieces of soaked wood had many uses including basket making, snow shoes, wares, and more. He also used the wood along with cedar and more to form his nation's hut – a wigwam. While a tipi is spectacular in size, a wigwam is a mind-bending, wood-bending feat. Wood and hide are made pliable through techniques developed over hundreds of years. While a tipi would take Paul only forty-five minutes to assemble, this oval shaped house would take longer. While a tipi was easier to take down and transport, a wigwam would be far more difficult to disassemble and travel with.

The goal of this duo was to promote an upcoming First Nations celebration and keep their cultures alive through education.

“We travel all over the world teaching people. I try to gather supplies where I am going so I don't have to take them with me.”

Keeping their traditions alive is important not only among their own people, but to share the remarkable beauty of the First Nations with everyone. They teach children. They mesmerize adults. They hold workshops on how to craft these magnificently complex structures and essentials using what grows in nature. The spiritual aspect, however, is kept sacred. It is kept private. “That is only for us.”

I myself have had a draw to Native cultures. I have past life memories even. I have searched for, yearned for, and prayed for learning about the spiritual practices of these cultures. However, very few it seems are willing to share. In my youth, I may not have accepted Paul's answer. However, that overcast day standing with him on the middle of the street, I understood.

Last night, I read an interpretation by Swami Satchidanada on a slokah in his book, The Living Gita. He shared a story about a man who went to a roshi (teacher) to learn. The roshi poured tea into a cup, continuing even after it flowed over. The roshi  said how when one's cup is full, one cannot accept any teaching. One needed to be an empty vessel for knowledge to be poured into.

Perhaps my cup was empty that day. I easily accepted what Paul shared. It was not my place to ask for more, to tap into their sacred beliefs that they needed to keep within their culture. After all, here they were, giving of themselves freely to share the history and skills of their people. Paul said he was a simple man who worked with his hands. I believe he is much more than that. He is a humble teacher.

My husband recently shared how ethnic tourism is a latest growing trend. People flock to various cultures to see their history, how their food was cooked like pouring vegetables into bamboo sticks and steaming them over an open fire. Cultures wanting to pass their knowledge on, to keep themselves alive in history, have found willing students. And while these students may been looking at first glance at the entertainment of it all, these cultures know that they will go back home and share their stories. About how one tribe learned how to steam food in the bamboo around them. About how another one made pottery by hand and inscribed their life story into the pot. About how another one learned to sew from her grandmother who was taught by her grandmother and so on.

The power of sharing life skills is spiritual in itself. We see the working hands of Paul make a hand drum that echoes the sound of someones heart beat.