Journey to Meet the Last Shaman of the Mi'kmaq

3 years ago People

Tsimshian Indian shamanPhoto:
Bini, a Tsimshian Indian shaman / (British Columbia, Canada)
Photo - hallman.org

Many years ago, the author and a close friend took a summer road trip from New England (USA) through the Canadian Maritime provinces. The vehicle was a 'trip' unto itself, a 1950s Studebaker whose rocker arms were shot. The only way we made it around the Gaspé Peninsula was to race down the hill road we were on at highest speed, then floor the accelerator as climbing the next hill began. We cursed and prayed, and eventually ferried ourselves over to Prince Edward Island, the smallest province in Canada - and one that lacks steep small mountains.

Afternoon on Prince Edward Island

Yupik shaman / AlaskaPhoto:
Yupik shaman, exorcising evil / Nushagak, Alaska 1890s
Photo - Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George) Yksin / Wikipedia

One afternoon on the west end of Prince Edward Island, driving down a lovely country road, I spotted a sign for an Indian village tourist attraction. There was one old car in the small parking lot and no one visible as I pulled in, parked and got out to take a stroll.

MiPhoto:
Mi'kmaq man (Canada), 1859
Photo - Library and Archives Canada

A late middle-aged man in his 60s soon appeared. His clothing was a costume designed to attract attention in which most items were Plains Indian objects and attire. He introduced himself as a Mi'kmaq shaman and we sat down on a log bench. Fortuitously only one visitor appeared during the next four hours. We 'talked story' for most of that time, and it was a sad, mythic tale of a culture lost that could now never be retrieved. I deliberately took no notes or photographs, and I no longer remember the name of this last shaman.

MiPhoto:
Mi'kmaq Wigwams / Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 1857
Photo - Library and Archives Canada

The first recorded contact with the Mi'kmaq people on Prince Edward Island was a visit by the famous French Explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534. In addition to Epegoitg - Prince Edward Island - the Mi'kmaq historically occupied Nova Scotia, eastern and northern New Brunswick, parts of the Gaspe Peninsula (Quebec), and northern New England. Mi'kmaq cultural integrity had been destroyed by 1800. Luckily, the Algonquin language spoken by the Mi'kmaq people had withered but not died out. There is only one publication where a native Mi'kmaq talks about his people's culture before European contact and there are no photographs or prints of Mi'kmaq shamans that the author is aware of.

MiPhoto:
Mi'kmaq family / Whycocomagh, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
Photo - retrorocketrick / flikr

This last shaman described himself as the last of two full blood Mi'kmaqs alive at this time. The other was a long time friend, a woman, then living in Quebec city, whom he had not visited for several years. He spun a tale of great pathos, his sadness was deep and at times it seemed overwhelming. He fully knew that his time was ending, and with his death and that of his friend in Quebec, the people would pass over a boundary from which there could be no return. The last of Mi'kmaq culture would further shatter into fragments, or be consigned to a closet of academic artifacts. I was witness to someone who was pre-occupied by death, the death of a language and rituals, and the closing of a door upon one more indigenous people whose time should have been always timeless.

We talked for nearly three hours and I left feeling haunted, knowing that another hole in the universe would soon be opened. The deaths and causalities of these holes are an immortality and as history marches forward, they multiply.

Koryak (Kamchatka) shamanPhoto:
Koryak (Kamchatka) shaman dancing with drum / dance troupe
Photo - Kasten 1966 / siberian-studies.org (Russia)

Shamanism

Tribal shamanism originated in central and northern Asia (Siberia) during the Upper Paleolithic. Following the herds of megafauna eastward toward the rising sun, Siberian indigenous peoples migrated over the Bering Straits Land Bridge and brought shamanism to a new world.

Neither a religion nor a cult, shamanism is a precisely defined protocol. If learned correctly, it catalyzes out of body, spirit journeys in which the soul can leave the physical body and journey into the Dreamtime, meet and talk story with gods and ancestors. The larger objective is to learn more, to increase one's reservoir of valuable knowledge so as to better serve the clan. Healing, predicting important events that have yet to arrive from the future time track of the universe, and decisions about auspicious days for important events – war, hunting, marriage, etc. – are at the top of any shaman's obligations.

Koryat (Siberia) shamanPhoto:
Koryat (Siberia) female shaman w/ children
Photo - Jochelson / Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1905 (430pp, 32MB)

Shamans were, and are, unusual individuals in that they possess a heightened and uncommon ability to undertake spiritual journeys to the world of the gods. Shamanic journeys are literally out of body; the shaman’s spirit leaves his/her body and travels through time and space to the gods/spirits/ancestors who are often called 'masters' with good reason. The Spirit talks, listens and learns and then returns to the everyday dimensionality of time and space where it reintegrates with the shaman’s physical body and pre-existing mind. A more powerful teacher and healer is then available to the clan. The power accessed by capable shamans is very strong and capable of rendering an individual permanently insane in a worst case scenario. The god or clan choose candidates very carefully and the training is extremely rigorous.

Koryat (Kamchatka) shamanPhoto:
Koryat (Kamchatka) shaman
Photo - Jochelson / Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1905 (430pp, 32MB)

Shamanism is the protocol; assigning a name to the religion it serves is tricky because the religion will be different in different culture regions. Because everything in the universe possesses spirit energy, the masters, guides and personal totemic relationships that each shaman develops are not restricted to animals. The number and strength of these relationships determines the power that each shaman can access, and most importantly the strength of his/her healing practice.

Strikingly in some tribal cultures, these powerful entities to which the shaman must be attached live in a land beneath the Sun which carries the name of the Pleiades. The out-of body-spirit journey takes the shaman's soul to the Pleiades where these multidimensional ancestors teach. Often a key ritual in the formation of shaman is the stripping of all flesh from the body, to separate all bones in the skeleton and then rebuild the skeleton as the first event when masters construct a shaman.

Nganasan / DenmimePhoto:
Nganasan / Denmime's shaman mask, 1977
When in ritual, some exceptional shamans were possessed by a spiritual force so strong that clan members would be injured if able to look upon the shaman's face. Hence he/she would wear a complicated headdress/mask that hid the eyes and facial features.
Photo - Folklore (Estonia) / A Lintrop

Tribal shamanism survives the longest with indigenous peoples who live in the most inhospitable climates that contain few resources of interest to western mining and industry: the taiga and tundra of Central Asia, Siberia and Scandinavia; the Arctic; a few pockets deep in the Amazon; Maya and Indians of Mexico/Central America; and those Australian Aborigines who are most isolated. This list is not complete and shamanism is not extinct in the 21st century. Archetypal shamanism is tribal and as a rule one cannot become tribal if one is not born to it. There are rare exceptions of course, and all of us were indigenous and tribal if one's family history is traced far enough back in historical time.

Gitksan shaman, 1909Photo:
Gitksan shaman, Kispiox, British Columbia (Canada), 1909
Photo - RL65 / George Thornton Emmons Collection no. 131 / Wikipedia

Dig the ground, dynamite the rock and sell the iron, or copper or uranium; cut the forest and sell the lumber; ranch the denuded land for beef and profit; plant the land and sell the crop, the hell with biodiversity and beautiful, odd and expendable creatures; alcohol to enslave; capture the people and sell slaves and prostitutes. Finally, put the shaman’s drum in a museum case. The all too familiar religion of the invaders has been present a long time and embraced by many. We know the story of the First World's Collision and domination over the Third World.

Oroqen (China) / female shamanPhoto:
Oroqen (China) / female shaman
Photo - Lissner-Man, God and Magic / Don's Maps

Try to counter cultural imperialism and genocide with tears, money, artisan cooperatives, doctors, schools, solar energy, clean water, micro-economics, job training, ecotourism, and a smaller, sustainable agriculture. Everywhere they live, indigenous peoples are profoundly energized. “The Last Wave”, "Rabbit Proof Fence" and “Ten Canoes” are about what they seem to be about. The New Story has only begun to be written. Can you hear the renewed shaman's drum?

Solon (Mongolia) / shamans wearing tiger bellsPhoto:
Solon (Mongolia) / shamans wearing tiger bells
Photo - Vienna Ethnological Museum

Tungus (Siberia) shamanPhoto:
Tungus (Siberia) shaman
Photo - Lissner - Man, God and Magic / Don's Maps

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Sources -
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Written by: merlynne6

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merlynne6 says

May 6th, 2010 at 12am
For a report about the cutting and important edge of Mi'kmaq political activism, and FBI attitudes vs a vs Native American civil and other rights, readers of this post might wish to visit this page: http://www.counterpunch.org/hendricks04232010.html. Some of the events described are graphic and 'violent', and not for those with a sensitive stomach.

merlynne6 says

Apr 15th, 2010 at 12am
Sher's comments are especially welcome to the author of this post. Two full blooded Mi'kmaq left in Canada in the 1970s ... of course that figure came from my new acquaintance that fateful day years ago on Prince Edward Island. It cannot be substantiated by modern research as Sher remarks. What is most important is that Mi'kmaq culture in eastern Canada is hardly extinct as Sher remarks. It is vibrant and flourishing even as Mi'kmaq continues to be misunderstood and treated with severe prejudice by all too many 'outsiders'. "A threatened culture - yes. A dead race - no." You bet, that is precisely the point made by the last three sentences of this article. I fully agree that comparing the onslaught against indigenous peoples by western cultures with the challenges faced by a consumer obsessed, western, secularized techno/media society is a far, far stretch. Everything is relative but everything is Not relative. Look back far enough and we all have indigenous ancestors. In my case those ancestors are Balts, the tribal peoples who lived in the regions adjoining the Baltic Sea. Research identifies at least 10 Balt tribal nations of which the name of three are still well known: Latvians, Lithuanians and Prussians. These indigenous peoples resisted conversion to Christianity for several centuries after genocidal religious warfare had forced most of Europe to bow to the 'Christ'. A hostile, cold, wet climate was a very effective barrier against invasion from Christian Europe to the south until the German knights planned military campaigns in the winter, finally realizing that thick winter ice in swamps and marshes would support the weight of mounted armored knights. The Baltic (Northern) Crusades, Livonian Crusades and Wendish Crusades (against the Polabian Slavs) that began in the 13th century continued the military aggression and forced conversions in the Baltic region of the previous century. Baltic kingdoms and tribal principalities around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea were invaded by Christian kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies. The Vatican provided active support and directives starting with Pope Celestine III's call in 1193. A Papal Bull declared that fighting against the Baltic heathens was equal in status to joining a crusade to the Holy Land. Thousands were killed, many were sold into slavery and thousands more were converted at the point of a sword. Indigenous Baltic religion nearly perished although remnants of ritual and belief persisted in remote forest villages for several centuries. See http://www.ahrtp.com/MedievalWarfareOnLine/Livonia.htm On my father's side are the White Russians (Ukrainians), a Slavic tribal people of the northern European forests. In contrast to the Baltic region, Christianity made an early appearance in this region. St. Andrew may have prophesied in the Kiev area in 55 AD, and Christianized Goths were present in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Not until the late 10th century did the ruling elite, now dominated by Rus, began to impose a Christian Church throughout the region. Ukrainians and the Rus (descended from Vikings and Norse invaders) who came to dominate the ruling elites of Kiev and other early Russian states hated each other. The historical context to Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago is the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1923 in which the White Russians (Ukrainians) fought the ruling Bolsheviks (who were Rus) after the 1917 October Revolution. But I digress. Of the many 'pagan' peoples targeted by the Baltic Crusades for forced conversion, only the Lithuanians, [Old] Prussians and Estonians are familiar names to the 21st century.

sher says

Apr 8th, 2010 at 12am
Very poorly researched. Only 2 full blooded Mi'kmaqs left? I think not. There are many, many full blooded families in eastern Canada - my family is one of them. There are many, many of mixed blood but there are still full-blooded families out there... A threatened culture - yes. A dead race - no. Try looking into the many Reservations around eastern Canada and you will find Mi'kmaq (or Migmaw as they are otherwise known) families. The Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland - now there's a sad story, there are none of them left...Shanawdithit (pronounced "shannah-ditty") was the last of her kind... Here's an interesting piece for you to read that may shed some more light on this topic. http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Newfoundland/beothuk.htm

sher says

Apr 8th, 2010 at 12am
You said "If cultures didn't evolve and change to meet the needs of the people, where would we be?....I just hope they are both replaced with cultural practices that better meet the needs and represent the mores of the people. They will because that's what cultures do." I beg to differ - that's what society does, not cultures. So - am I to understand that history, culture and it's preservation doesn't mean that much to you? We learn from our past and it's very important to preserve it, respect it. The Mi'kmaq culture didn't get the opportunity to "evolve", our culture was never embraced and tolerated - our beliefs, language, practices, traditions and our very people themselves have been systematically destroyed since the time of the European colonization. You know what that's called? Genocide - and they came damn close to reaching their goals with the Mi'kmaq and most other Native American Tribes...and they did succeeded with the Beothuk. Did you know they used to beat babies skulls in with their boot heals to save on bullets? There are a lot of things to mourn in the story of the Native American Tribes.... I mourn this as much as I mourn any other great human tragedy and to compare the destruction of a race and their culture with the fading of American culture is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? But we have taken great strides to try and reclaim what was once our own. I hope I never see that day when my heritage and culture are lost forever....

chuck says

Feb 24th, 2010 at 12am
We never mourn a culture until it's too late. There are only two full blooded Mi'kmaqs left so it is a tragedy. There are many Americans left but every day there are more hispanics in my country- more signs in spanish, more latin restaurants, more acceptance of all things hispanic. We are taught to be tolerant and to embrace other cultures. The Mi'kmaqs are the end result of this. When will we be the Mi'kmaqs here in America? The reality is that cultures have a shelf life. Eventually new ideas and social mores arrive that supercede previous practices. This is normal. If cultures didn't evolve and change to meet the needs of the people, where would we be? I don't mourn the fading of American culture any more than I mourn the loss of the Mi'kmaqs, I just hope they are both replaced with cultural practices that better meet the needs and represent the mores of the people. They will because that's what cultures do.