A sweat lodge frame.--Photo courtesy Lewis Cardinal, Indigenous Knowledge & Wisdom Centre
This story continues from last week.
On the prairies, sweats are held in a dome-shaped lodge carefully constructed with willow saplings covered with cloth canvases or blankets. Historically, animal hides would cover the structure. Depending on varying tribal custom, the willows might be crossed to form a square at the middle, or a star, or bent to resemble a woman’s ribs.
Before entering the lodge, we are invited to individually walk around the sacred fire, offering the flames a pinch of tobacco with our prayers and intentions.
A line of cedar connects the sacred fire to the lodge, symbolizing the umbilical cord that ties us to the fire of life. The sweat lodge door opens to face the fire where the rocks come from, the path between called a spirit road. The placement of the lodge is oriented to consider the cardinal directions, which hold differing importance for varying nations.
Outside the lodge, young men are in training to become firekeepers, oskapios, in Cree, a male Elder’s helpers in ceremonies. As they make mistakes, they are gently chided to listen more closely to their instructors.
Women enter the lodge first and are seated on the right, followed by the men, barefoot on hands and knees to take our places divided by gender. The women have been directed to dress modestly in ribbon skirts, long tops or dresses; the men wear shorts for comfort. We seat ourselves surrounding a hollow in the middle of the lodge where the grandfather stones will be laid.
Cree Elder Wil Campbell tells the lore of the lava stones, how the rock people were here first, and how the old people said they were alive at one time.
“Around them gathered the dust that formed this planet. So when my people get sick, it’s to the rock people we turn to. They had no eyes, no ears, no mouths, but they see, hear and know all. We do ceremony and we put them in that fire.
“We heat them because fire represents life,” continues the Elder. “When they’re red-hot, then we bring them into the centre of the lodge and they represent fire. There’s water. The earth that you sit on, and the air that you breathe. The four elements are in there.”
The firekeeper oskapios gingerly carry the stones to the lodge entrance and a male participant uses a pitchfork to place them in the central pit, just so, under the direction of a knowledge keeper.
A woman is given ground cedar, a sacred medicine, to sprinkle on the rocks.
By traditional teachings, the volcanic stone may be used safely up to six times, as it passed through fire once when it was created, for a total seven times. It is important never to use river rocks, as air pockets or excessive moisture inside could crack and possibly explode in the fire or when hit by water.
When all is in place, the doorway is covered and all the daylight in the lodge is extinguished. It is utterly dark to represent the womb of Mother Earth.
Using a spruce bough pulled from a pail of water, Elder Wil sprays water onto the hot rocks to send steam billowing through the lodge. Prayers, teachings and traditional songs sung to the beat of the knowledge keeper’s drum pass the time through four 15-minute rounds.
The total darkness ignites our other senses. One can smell the scent of ground cedar on volcanic stones and smoke from the fire outside; the breathing and voices of the others are heard, and the beat of the drum, the hiss of the water hitting the hot stones; the feel of sweat trickling down one’s cheeks, arms and back, and reaching for the icy ground at the edges of the lodge to cool your palms, damp clothing clinging to legs, bare feet on the rug.
Between rounds the door is opened, the brilliant winter snow glare outside momentarily blinding, but the cold air offers a small mercy from the heat. In the daylight, we can see the shining faces of the others in the circle. The taste of cool water offered after chilling in the snow outside is a blessing.
In an expression of selflessness, we are encouraged to pray not for ourselves but for our companions. In the dark, we cannot see the colour of each other’s skin, or our gender or size. We only perceive each other’s hearts. There is a feeling of safety and emotional comfort among the group, though many of us were meeting each other for the first time. In sharing this ceremony, we become tiyospaye, Lakota for spiritual family, creating a closeness with whom we pray.
At the beginning of the ceremony, traditional tobacco, the first sacred medicine, was collected from each participant and offered to the Elder leading the ceremony. In closing, two pipes are lit and shared.
“Tobacco is the medicine that the spirit world understands,” explains Elder Wil. “When we smoke tobacco, and we put it out, it takes our prayers and sends it to the spirit world, to our relations who can help us to live a good life and to help those that need help, and to guide us to think and to speak in a good way. We rely on them to listen to our prayers and to help us through.”
Indigenous people thrive spiritually when they have access to their traditions. Being bonded to one’s cultural identity and honouring one’s heritage strengthens not only the individual, but their entire community.
As we depart the warm lodge into the cool winter sunshine, the Elder cautions us not to look back, and to go forward in a good way. For this writer, there is no better analogy for my year ahead.
JoLynn Parenteau is a Metis writer based in Medicine Hat. Column feedback can be sent to jolynn.parenteau@gmail.com
