What Elders Do:
Elders are "experts on life." Their exact expertise may be dependent on the nature of their experience, but in one way or another it involves some aspect of traditional knowledge and culture, or an interpretation of their experience in traditional terms. What they learned from their experience and how they interpret it is as important to being an Elder as the experience itself. It is also important to be able to communicate that learning to others.
In traditional terms, an Elder is also a specialist in ceremonies, traditional teachings, language, and heritage as it applies to mind, body and spirit. As each individual is unique in their experience, learning, personality and knowledge of traditional culture, each potentially has something different to offer. Some individuals may be specialists in certain teachings, ceremonies or healing practices, while others have another expertise.
The Smokes' Background
Mary Lou is very knowledgeable about the arts and our traditional indigenous knowledge systems. She has been singing traditionally in many sacred ceremonies and lodges throughout North America. She also possess great wisdom for women's teachings and has been absorbing grandmother teachings since this is her new role with her first grandchild, Ryan Isaac Smoke, who is 6 years old. She is an inspirational speaker who intersperses her presentations with traditional drum songs to complement her workshops. Mary Lou's voice is said to be able to open/reach a dimension of sound that connects to the ancestral spirits as a healing medium.
Dan has been working with traditional knowledge carriers from many Nations which include: Cayuga, Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk, Tuscarora, and Onondaga Nations of the Haudenosaunee. He has also been working with the Ojibway Medicine Man Isaac Day to learn the pipe and the fasting ceremonies. Both he and Mary Lou help to conduct purification ceremonies for the people when requested, and have been holding New Year's Eve sweat lodge ceremonies for the past l6 years in the London area.
His knowledge of protocols for men and their roles and responsibility is one of respect for gender relations. He continues to work with Universities and Colleges to provide cultural counselling services along with his wife, Mary Lou. They have worked with the University of Western Ontario, the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo, the University of Manitoba, Concordia University, the University of Toronto as well as McMaster University. In recent years both Mary Lou and Dan have been the Traditional Teachers/Elders for the Native Women's Association of Canada, and have provided ceremonial observances for NWAC annually.
Through their extraordinary volunteer efforts, Dan and Mary Lou Smoke are an inspiration to those who believe in an inclusive community where new knowledge and understanding can lead to healing, harmony and peaceful co-existence."
Mohawk Elder, Ernie Benedict, is originally from Akwesasne and has been extensively involved with the native community all his life. In the past he has instructed at various schools including Manitou College, Trent University and the First National Technical Institute. He also began the North American Indian Traveling College. Ernie was also a recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree and of the Aboriginal Achievement Award.
(Mohawk Nation)
Keeper of Earth Healing Herb Gardens and Retreat Centre at Six Nations, Ontario, Canada.
Jan Kahehti:io was born for the Turtle Clan and raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She has three daughters, one son and ten grandchildren and is keeper of Earth Healing Herb Gardens at Six Nations. During her life, she has experienced the many losses of our values, culture, language, traditional healing arts and medicines.
Jan has worked in education and the healing arts to help bring back what she has experienced in loss. She has focused on the ‘power of the Good Mind’ to bring about well-being in her life and now teaches in her community, as well as in learning institutions around the country. She believes our ancestors have left us a great legacy of knowledge in how to have ‘good well-being.’ Our responsibility is to go back and pick up the pieces that we have left along our journey of 500 years. Jan presently serves First Nation communities in Indigenous practices of Healing and Well-being.
Elder in Residence,
Wilfrid Laurier University
As Aboriginal Counsellor, Jean developed the Aboriginal Services program at University of Waterloo from 2003-2006. She most recently accepted the position as Elder in Residence at Wilfrid Laurier's newly opened Faculty of Social Work
Jean is of Innu, Inuit and English ancestry and a member of the Metis Nation of Labrador. She was born and raised in a small, isolated community where the people lived off the land eating the foods and wearing the clothing much as their ancestors had done for thousands of years. Jean has a Master’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Guelph where her thesis was on the intersection between post-modern theory and traditional Aboriginal knowledge systems.
Jean follows the spiritual traditions of the Anishnabe people, attending ceremonies and learning from traditional teachers in Ontario and Manitoba.
A grandmother, she is a strong advocate for women and children and for the revitalization of Aboriginal traditions, ceremonies and spirituality. She is an advocate for justice for Aboriginal adoptees who were removed from their families and communities and who are now “living between two worlds”, unable to fit into a Native or a non-Native community.
Jean lectures and leads workshops in universities and other organizations encompassing Aboriginal history, traditional values, and contemporary issues.
THE FOUR SACRED MEDICINES
TOBACCO
Tobacco is the first plant that the Creator gave to Native people. It is the main activator of all the plant spirits. Three other plants, sage, cedar and sweetgrass, follow tobacco, and together they are referred to as the four sacred medicines.
The four sacred medicines are used in everyday life and in ceremonies. All of them can be used to smudge with, though sage, cedar and sweetgrass also have many other uses.
It is said that tobacco sits in the eastern door, sweetgrass in the southern door, sage in the west and cedar in the north. Elders say that the spirits like the aroma produced when we burn tobacco and the other sacred medicines.
Traditional people say that tobacco is always first. It is used as an offering for everything and in every ceremony. “Always through tobacco,” the saying goes.
Traditional tobacco was given to us so that we can communicate with the spirit world. It opens up the door to allow that communication to take place. When we make an offering of tobacco, we communicate our thoughts and feelings through the tobacco as we pray for ourselves, our family, relatives and others.
Tobacco has a special relationship to other plants: it is said to be the main activator of all the plant spirits. It is like the key to the ignition of a car. When you use it, all things begin to happen.
Tobacco is always offered before picking medicines. When you offer tobacco to a plant and explain why you are there, that plant will let all the plants in the area know why you are coming to pick them.
When you seek the help and advice of an Elder, Healer or Medicine Person, and give your offering of tobacco, they know that a request may be made as tobacco is so sacred.
We express our gratitude for the help the spirits give us through our offering of tobacco. It is put down as an offering of thanks to the First Family, the natural world, after a fast. Traditional people make an offering of tobacco each day when the sun comes up. Traditional tobacco is still grown in some communities. For example, the Mohawk people use a traditional tobacco that they grow themselves and that is very sacred to them.
SAGE
Sage is used to prepare people for ceremonies and teachings. Because it is more medicinal and stronger than sweetgrass , it tends to be used more often in ceremonies. Sage is used for releasing what is troubling the mind and for removing negative energy. It is also used for cleansing homes and sacred items. It also has other medicinal uses. There is male sage and female sage. The female sage is used by women.
CEDAR
Like sage and sweetgrass, cedar is used to purify the home. It also has many restorative medicinal uses. Cedar baths are healing. When cedar is put in the fire with tobacco, it crackles. When it does this, it is calling the attention of the spirits to the offering that is being made. Cedar is used in fasting and sweat lodge ceremonies as a form of protection: cedar branches cover the floor of the sweat lodge and a circle of cedar surrounds the faster’s lodge.
Aboriginal Services
St. Paul's University College
519-885-1460 ext. 209
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