Mâmawinew [She/He Assembles Them]: A Curation of Wahkomâkanak kiskeyitamowi, Ancestral Knowledge
Sîpihkokîsikowiskwew
Blue Sky Woman
Presents you with a Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) view of knowledge dissemination that is bound not by western colonial methodologies but those found connected in our bodies and prayers linked to ancestral and spiritual kinship.
As I light my sage, I sit with my head leaned over my small cast iron pan and let the smoke cradle my head as the white smoke lifts to the sky. The smudge grazes over my lips and I feel the kisses of thousands of ohkomimâwak [grandmothers]. Our women’s medicine that connects me to past and future and brings a feeling of power embedded in the knowledge of the grey hairs that sweep down my shoulders as each grandmother passes around me. The sage spoke to our people and shared insights into its healing properties and gave guidance as one of our earliest Elders. Our medicines hold generations of knowledge that are manifested in the words you read and the voices that echo in our own thoughts. The sweet taste of tobacco is reminiscent in the kisses given by the grandmothers. Subtle hints of cherry tobacco line the creases on my lips and I am humbled to be able to know that they are around me.
I ask for guidance for a presentation I am planning. The focus is on how to engage with Indigenous knowledge acquisition and sharing for Indigenous students. I begin to speak out lines to future scholars thinking about what I want them to hear. What I want them to feel. What I want to give. But then I think, maybe it’s not just what I want but what memory flows through my blood that builds kinship to those I will reach. Do their ancestors connect to my thoughts? Can their families see them through my eyes?
I look around me wanting a sign and my eyes lock eyes with of the woman in front of me. The sunlight that sets in my window reflects the dark obsidian color of her pupils; she looks like nimosôm/my grandfather mixed with nohtawiy/my father.
Kihayân cî mînisa [do you have berries]?
kaskâpiskahikewin [canned].
tawina [open it].
Each berry I eat releases knowledge that is transcended from the stars. Ancestral wisdom laced within the sweetness of the berries own juices as I remember stories of love, kindness, and laughter. Not all stories of Indigenous peoples are damaged. We live within our traumas given by the settler state, but it does not mean that we must accept them though they manifest themselves in every doubt that encapsulates our mind of our existence both personal and collective. Be aware of them, learn from them, but never embody them because this is not our way of thinking or being.
Our spirits are made of star dust, earth, water, and fire, a combination linked to universal creation and that is why these places of authority have difficulty with our presence and being. Much like the Thunderbird, we must learn to hide within the clouds until it is our time to release the electrical charge of our wisdom and knowledge. And when that happens in spaces we are not to be in, it is filled with awe and inspiration that brings healing to our pains and laughs from those who walked before us.
Our knowledge is not bound to the books that authors have wrote. Our knowledge is shared amongst the seasons and called upon in our emotions. Listen for the calls within your being, listen for your strengths, let your emotions drive you for all that you are worth. You are embodied by the power of your mother, your father, your grandparents, and so many others who you unknowingly stand with. Your eyes reflect their experiences, your face is reminiscent of all their journeys and stories, good and bad. Their lived experiences continue in your being, they are there even when loneliness enters your thoughts.
I won’t tell you that you are capable because you already know you are. Fear is not of us and not our creation – fear holds us back from what could be and what will be. Our knowledge is to be heard through our own voices. Who we are is a curation of generations embolden by the prayers spoken, medicines that have been lit, and the ongoing connection to time and place, past and future, but importantly you. Manitou, our creator, is all around us. We continue to persist because the blood of our mothers drives the bounds of treaty we have engaged in since time immemorial. A treaty between us and our lands, the animals and the plants, and the skies that we do not see.
The juice of the berries drips down my face as I sit in an empty room. And I know you will take your place like we always would, for we have been collecting our knowledges and sharing them through our dreams, songs, visions, and prayers waiting for you. We are in constant ceremony that challenges the bounds of colonial existence, iyisaho [have patience], they are coming to you for you are the regeneration and I leave you with a kiss on your lips that connects my being to you.
Dr. Paulina Johnson, Sîpihkokîsikowiskwew (Blue Sky Woman), is Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and a citizen of Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, AB. She completed her PhD in Anthropology at Western University in London, ON focused on Nêhiyaw law and governance. Her current research is focused on the importance of Indigenous womxn’s voices and matriarchal resistance to oppressive systems that are embedded in our colonial societies. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Peoples and Society at the University of Alberta in the Sociology Department.