Teachings of the Eagle Feather, part 7

"The First Feather"

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Boozhoo,

Today, I present part 7 of a new blog series connecting my jewelry and pencil drawings, and paintings by befriended artists, with the Seven Grandfather teachings of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe People. I chose this story to be the seventh in the series because the number seven, which the Anishinaabeg regard as a sacred number, symbolizes these teachings.

These Grandfather Teachings, kept safe for thousands of years by countless generations of Medicine People of the Midewiwin lodge of the Anishinaabe Peoples, are passed down orally and from the sacred birch bark scrolls that still exist until today.

Today's blog story features a pencil drawing and jewelry of my own making, as well as graphic art by Ojibwe Medicine Painters Chris Angeconeb and the late Norman Knott as well as the late Norval Morrisseau. I also consider it a great honor to be able to show a brand-new artwork by one of the most talented members the Canadian Native Woodland Art School has brought forth: Nakawē-Anishinaabe painter and poet Simone Mcleod. She created it exclusively for this blog post, for which I am most grateful.

CHRIS ANGECONEB, whose spirit name is Ezhinwed, is a talented third-generation Ojibwe Anishinaabe Woodland artist from Canada.

NORMAN KNOTT (1945-2003) was a gifted Medicine Painter from Curve Lake First Nation in southeastern Onario, noted for his outline drawings reflection his personal spritual beliefs.

  

NORVAL MORRISSEAU (1932-2007) was an Ojibwe Anishinaabe artist from Northern Ontario, Canada, who is alternally labelled as "father of the Woodland Art" and "Picasso of the North". His spirit name is Miskwaabik Animikii, which means "Copper Thunderbird" in the language of his People. Miskwaabik Animikii, a first generation Medicine Painter, was the first to defy cultural restrictions by taking the oral traditions and sacred pictography of the Ojibwe-Midewiwin belief system outside Native communities in Canada. Miskwaabik Animikii was the trailblazer of the Native Woodland Art School as we know it today.

SIMONE MCLEOD (her traditional name is Aki’waaboyaani’kwe, which means "Earth Blanket Woman" in the Ojibwe language) is an Anishinaabe artist, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1962 and a member of the James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She belongs to he Name doodem (Sturgeon clan) of her mother's people, the Azaadiwi-ziibi Nitam-Anishinaabeg (Poplar River First Nation) of Manitoba. Simone's work has been appreciated by several art collectors and educational and health care institutions from Canada, as well as by many art lovers from the UK, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Greece, South Africa, Japan, India, and New Zealand.

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In the Beginning

Many moons ago, when the World was not yet born, GICHI-MANIDOO (The Great Mystery, sum of all Mysteries) beheld a vision.

It saw in its dream a vast sky filled with many stars and the day-sun and the night-sun, and it saw the earth in the form of a giant sea turtle.

In order to make its dream come true GICHI-MANIDOO first decided to make rock, water, fire, and wind.

These substances were born spontaneously, seemingly out of nothing, and GICHI-MANIDOO breathed into each one its sacred life breath.

From these four sacred substances, each gifted with a different soul and spirit and nature and shadow, GICHI-MANIDOO created the world it had seen in its vision, filled with the sun, the stars, the night-sun, and the earth.

To the day-sun GICHI-MANIDOO gave the powers of light and heat and rays to warm the earth.

To the night sun GICHI-MANIDOO gave the powers of light and the power to watch over the earth and all her children at night.

To the earth GICHI-MANIDOO gave the power of growth and healing, and on and beneath her surface it formed hills, mountains, plains, valleys, lakes, rivers, streams, bays, wells, ponds, and even underwater streams. To these waters he gave the twin powers of purity and renewal. To the wind GICHI-MANIDOO gave music-making qualities and it infused in it its own power of breath of life.

Then GICHI-MANIDOO made plants and animals (and birds, insects, and fish) and finally its breath created man.

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When the Great Nation of Waabanaki was first created, they were placed along the shores of the Great Salt water (Atlantic Ocean) by Gichi-manidoo. Here, in Waabanakiing (the Land of Dawn) the great nations of the Lenni-Lenape, Abenaki, Mi’kmaq and Algonquin lived a long time in peace and prosperity when Niizhwaaswi Mishoomisag (seven prophets, grandfathers) came among them in the form of seven Miigis shells who taught the Midewiwin way of life to the Waabanakiing peoples and brought them a system of odoodeman (totemic clanship), These clans, based on animals, were instrumental in traditional occupations, intertribal relations, and marriages. 

This sterling silver  hairpin, symbolizing the newly-formed Earth in the ahape of a Snapping Turtle, is adorned w.ith five turquoise, and six red coral cabochons. The turquoises, three mounted on the silver turtleback and two on the head representing the turtle’s eyes, are emblematic of the five main odoodemag (animal totems) of the Anishinaabe Peoples: Ajiijaak (Crane), Makwa (bear), Waabizhesh (Marten), Maanameg (Catfish), and Mikinaak (Snapping Turtle). These (archaic) totems denote the five needs of the People and the five elementary functions of society. MEDICINE, represented by turtle and symbolized by the oval turquoise stone in the center, is flanked by LEARNING (Catfish; top) and SUSTENANCE (Marten; bottom); the turquoise eyes signify LEADERSHIP (Crane) and DEFENSE (Bear). The red coral cabochons symbolize the six animals that make up the MEDICINE DOODEM: Mikinaak (or Mishikenh, the turtle) Nigig (otter), Omakakii (frog), Midewewe (rattle snake), Omisandamoo (water snake), and Niibiinaabe(kwe) (mermain or mermaid). The stamped designs on the domed turtle’s back symbolize the flora and fauna, fishes included. The rim of braided silver wire placed around the oval turtle shield represents the strong clanship ties (odoodeman) and the unity and survival strenght of the Anishinaabeg as a people.

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GICHI-MANIDOO placed first man on a land near the borders of a great sea, which soon would be known as WAABANAKIING, the Dawn Land. It was here that many winters later the offspring of first man, the great Anishinaabe Nation, would thrive before Seven Grandfathers came out of the Sea and gave them their Midewiwin belief, established five doodemag (clans), and a set of seven laws to live by. These same grandfathers also warned the Anishinaabe People of a threat arriving from the East that would bring sickness, starvation, and extermination and they convinced many to leave the Dawn Land and follow the waterways to a land far to the West, "a place where grows manoomin (wild rice) upon the waters (The Great Lakes)."

Once GICHI-Manidoo had placed mankind on the borders of the Great Salt Sea in the East, it knew that everything was in its place and that everything was infused with its sacred breath that brought about beauty and harmony and order.

Satisfied with what it had created, GICHI-MANIDOO then made the Great Laws of Nature. These laws regulated the seasons and all patterns of existence, governing the position and movement of the physical bodies (sun, moon, earth, stars) and the four sacred substances (rock, water, fire, and wind), controlling and safeguarding the rhythm and continuity of birth, growth, decay, and rebirth, ensuring they all lived and worked together interdependently.*

GICHI-MANIDOO, in short, created BIMAADIZIWIN, life as we know it.

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Gakina gegoon bimaadan

Gakina awiya bimaadisiwag.

"Everything is alive

Everyone is alive."

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Gift of the Eagle Feather

GICHI-MANIDOO, understanding that it had successfully brought into existence its vision, soon realized there was still one thing missing, something that it would have to do in order to make its work complete. Because the humans who in those days lived in the Dawn Land did not know how to survive in nature and, being weak in bodily powers and thrown to the mercy of evil spirits were afraid of adversity and misfortune, they started to questioning everything that GICHI-MANIDOO had created.

Pondering what it could do to give the humans ways to express their hopes and fears and dreams and build in them a sense of direction and self-worth, GICHI-MANIDOO decided that it would give them the power to dream, and the power of prayer. As GICHI-MANIDOO was pondering through which category of beings it could confer these powers on the humans – the rooted ones, the crawling ones, the four legged, the finned ones, or perhaps the spiritual beings? -, MISHOOMIS MAKWA (Grandfather Bear) stepped up from his abode in the North and suggested that he, as the embodiment of birth and new life, would be the one to bring the humans dreams about new beginnings, so they would have a powerful medicine with which they could influence their fate and fashion their destiny.

Then MISHOOMIS MIGIZI (Grandfather Eagle) came forward from his dwelling place in the East to suggest that he, in order to reassure the insecure humans, would carry their prayers high up into the sky where they would be heard by the aadizookaanag (spirit helpers).

GICHI-MANIDOO smiled thinking how bears embody virtues like bravery and spiritual healing and that eagles show strength and vision and clarity of mind. So GICHI-MANIDOO entrusted Mishoomis Makwa with the authority to govern the people’s dreams and it gave Migizi the title of messenger of their prayers.

Grandfather Eagle, who thus became symbol to the People of prayers being carried high, came flying from his abode in the East and as he swooped down over the earth one of his feathers fell from his mighty tail, gently floating down. GICHI-MANIDOO caught the feather, a majestic plume, long, finely formed with a black tip, mid-air and as he held it up it spoke as follows:

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“In a sacred way I hold this feather.

Because of all the creatures

you reach the highest out

in bringing pure vision to those who seek it,

your feather will not only be a living prayer,

it shall symbolize human life itself.

The quill symbolizes the life path.

Each strand stands for a lesson.

Whoever will hold this feather

Will speak honestly from his heart.

Like life itself, your feather is sacred.”

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GICHI-MANIDOO then spoke of NIZHWAASWI GAGIIKWEWIN (the Seven Sacred Teachings, or laws) that would soon arrive from the Sea, explaining that each teaching would be a guideline that honors one of the basic virtues intrinsic to mino-bimaadiziwin, a full and healthy life. GICHI-MANIDOO told the People to build around these seven laws the traditional concepts of respect and sharing that eventually would form the foundation of their way of life.

GICHI-MANIDOO explained that these teachings, or Grandfathers, were, in chronological order, as follows:

- Nibwaakaawin (Wisdom)

- Zaagi’idiwin (Love)

- Minaadendamowin (Respect)

- Aakode'ewin (Bravery)

- Gwayako-bimaadiziwin (Honesty)

- Dabaadendiziwin (Humility)

- Debwewin (Truth)
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GICHI-MANIDOO then explained that although these seven sacred teachings were equally important, the virtue of Aakode’ewin (bravery) was especially meaningful, for being brave is not about being audacious or acting the most daring or mighty, but being brave enough to incorporate all other teachings into one’s life, even if that means standing alone in the community. So, Makwa the bear was chosen to represent the law of Bravery.

GICHI MANIDOO also explained the importance of zaagi'idiwin, saying that to feel true love is to know and love the Great Mystery because its very breath is considered the giver of human life. Love given to GICHI MANIDOO is therefore expressed through love of oneself and if one cannot love oneself, it is impossible to love anyone else. Therefore, GICHI MANIDOO explained, love is an exceptionally important virtue. 

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“Look within yourself for love.

Love yourself, and then love others.

You cannot love another until

you first learn to love yourself.

You must understand and live the other

six Teachings before you can love.

Love is worth working for. Love is worth

waiting for. Love is the key to life.

There is no short-cut to achieving the

state of love and you cannot know love

unless you are courageous. You cannot

know love unless you are honest. 

Love is based on the wisdom to understand

one’s self and the humility to accept

weaknesses as well as being proud of one’s strengths. 

Love has as its very core the other Teachings.”**

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Migizi the Bald Eagle was chosen by the Great Mystery to represent the Teaching of love because Migizi flies high above the earth and sees all that is true, and is therefore closer to GICHI MANIDOO than any other creature. Love is the most elusive of all virtues and no other creature is so elusive as this mighty spirit-bird, and love has the same light and airy nature as his plumes.

GICHI MANIDOO also explained that Grandfather Bear and Grandfather Eagle are connected spirits. Doesn't Migizi teach humankind that wisdom and courage cannot exist without each other? Isn't there great wisdom in understanding that one cannot know love unless one is courageous? Isn't it so that one cannot walk the path of life without making changes once in a while and doesn't it take great courage to actually bring about the change?

For this, explained GICHI MANIDOO, the eagle and the bear ought to be honored, always. No symbol is more powerful than then an Eagle feather and a Bear paw combined...

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Such is the creation story of the Anishinaabe People. By giving the Bear and the Eagle a special mandate GICHI MANIDOO’s work was complete as he had provided all the means for their well-being, growth, and accomplishment. GICHI MANIDOO was now finished with the world and from that moment on it would be the task of the humans and all other creatures, whether their nature was physical or supernatural or transcendental, to continue the work its sacred breath had put into motion.

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This acrylic painting by Simone Mcleod, titled 'Niizho-migizi-miigwanan Miinigowin' (Gift Of The Two Eagler Feathers'), done exclusively for this blog story, depicts the newly-formed world in the form of a sun containing two eagle feathers and ceremonial ribbons colored yellow, green, red, and black, and yellow, brown, and gold. Yellow, green, red, and black symbolize Simone´s Midewiwin colors, while yellow, light brown, and gold represent the Waabizheshi doodem, the Marten clan of my Ojibwe ancestors. Simone explains the ribbons as follows:

“The ceremonial ribbons, merging my colors with the clan colors of Zhaawano’s ancestors, express the strong kinship between us on a personal as well as artistic level, and also celebrate the long-standing ties existing between my People who live in the West and Zhaawano’s ancestors who lived in the East. Although I myself belong to Name doodem (Sturgeon clan), I depicted the colors of the Marten out of respect for their doodem, because Martens are warriors who defend and keep alive the traditions, language, and stories of their People.”

The two feathers in the painting represent a personal experience, which Simone describes as follows:

“Some years ago I held this long walk across Canada in honor of my deceased brother and to ask attention for mental and sexual abuse within Native communities. As I went to Prince Rupert in British Columbia, I walked to Terrace in four days where I did an interview with the radio station about ending sexual abuse and incest. The community was welcoming me and many people came and talked to me over that year. I made many great friends that I still have.

I needed to run off my hurt about my brother’s death, wanted to run until I dropped, but when I arrived in Prince Rupert I could see the end of the world, the ocean, the vast waters, and it was like the edge of the world and I felt so small. As I went to the radio station I was given two eagle feathers, they were beautiful. When I got to the edge of the ocean I saw so many bald eagles that I thought the trees had snow on them. When they flew out to catch fish I could see thousands of them. I remember when I got the two eagle fathers I felt faint.

When I returned from the Ocean I went to my brothers gravesite and I left them with him. Around the same time I was given a ceremonial bear hide and did a sexual abuse ceremony with a man from Fraser BC.

As I came out of the ceremony I looked up and there was a spotted eagle circling above me.

Others saw it too and were surprised that it was there for we only see bald and golden eagles here; however, the ceremony was done with a spotted eagle whistle. I took the bear hide to the valley in which me and my brothers used to hide and play when we were kids and I did the second half of the ceremony there, sitting on the bear hide in the bushes. It was then and there that I decided to live calmly. However I am not a solid rock, I feel sad a lot but it is okay.

So that is how I got two feathers and a hide but I gave them away. ”

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The Offering of the First Feather

As GICHI MANIDOO spoke about the importance of mino-bimaadiziwin, living a life according to the Seven Grandfather Teachings, Mishoomis Migizi became inspired and told Great Mystery that he, since his feathers symbolized the intermediate region between things of the spirit world and the earth, would like his feather to be gifted to the Anishinaabe person who’s the most brave and who’s guided the most by the Teachings conferred on the humans by the Spirit Grandfathers. Migizi’s generous offer prompted GICHI MANIDOO to tell the Anishinaabeg of the teachings of the feather and the power of spirit flight, and he instructed them that no Eagle be harmed for their feathers since they were manidoog (spirits) in themselves, and that whenever a person saw an Eagle fly overhead, this mighty spirit-bird must be honored with asemaa (sacred tobacco) in hand. GICHI MANIDOO added that any person, no matter what age, living their life according to the Seven Teachings would be gifted with a feather!

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Oshki-miigwan (First Feather) by Zhaawano Giizhik, March 2013. A Mide Oshkaabewis (Spiritual Messenger) offers the first eagle feather to humankind, along with the Seven Grandfather Teachings and the five original odoodeman (clans): Crane, Bear, Marten, Catfish, and Turtle/Snake, all hidden in the drawing, depicted in the X-ray style of the Woodland Art School. These X-ray views reveal inner structures of the depicted figures and express hidden representations of inner spiritual life. Also depicted are the head of a bald eagle and a stylized symbol of the sun, representing Universal presence of Great Mystery.

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Upon hearing this, the Anishinaabeg were filled with awe and great gratitude and they soon began to wonder who among them would be the first to receive such a powerful manidoo (spirit) feather. When GICHI MANIDOO sensed the eager anticipation of the Anishinaabe people it called upon two elderly medicine people of the Midewiwin to step forward, and it presented the Eagle feather to these oshkaabewisag (spiritual messengers) for inclusion in the Mide biinjigwasan (medicine bundle) that one of them carried. Then GICHI-MANIDOO instructed that the teachings of these two oshkaabewisag and the feather itself be passed forward to the next generation, and that the teachings of the successors of the Mide oshkaabewisag be passed to the generation after the next generation, and so on and so on into eternity.

One of the two elderly medicine people, after having received the feather and the instructions of the Great Mystery, then called a promising youth forward and said as he took the feather out of his biinjigwasan:

“Your first name is Giizhigowaaboyaan (Sky Blanket), your doodem is Name (Sturgeon clan).

I have witnessed how you represent our People in a good way.

I have seen how you incorporate the Sacred Teachings into your life by walking the straight path.

Seven days ago you undertook a makadekewin (vision quest) that took four days to complete.

You fasted in solitude in a glade in the middle of the forest.

Surrounded by tall cedar tree sprits you fasted until after four days and three nights

you received your first life-guiding dream.

In the late afternoon of the fourth day of this quest for self-discovery you

 looked up into the blue sky as it suddenly changed colors.

The sky went from  blue to a brilliant white, the color of the light of the rising sun

to green, the color of the grasses of mother earth in the springtime symbolizing growth

as well as that of the cedar and the spruce symbolizing life continuity and a promise for the future

to red, the color of the setting sun sinking in the great waters in the West

as well as that of the sacred fire awaiting when it is time for you to leave this world

to black, the color of the cold North

where there is sickness and decay yet where you can also seek self-reflection and purification of the spirit

then to white again, symbolizing birth, rebirth, and illumination of the mind.

As the sky had regained its original blue bright color you felt something lifting you up.

Carried by columns of air and wafting in circles lifted by currents and whirlpools of winds you ascended.

You became light and airy and nothing but a vast blue sky surrounded you.

Here, high up in the sky you felt the presence of an Eagle

lending you his strength, swiftness, and clarity of mind.

And from the sky on high, your soaring spirit alive and vibrant,

you perceived yourself sitting on earth, seated on a bear skin

painted the colors of white, green, red, and black

and you heard yourself chant in a language you had never heard before.

Then, slowly, your voice echoed away and the image of you sitting on the bearskin faded.

A transition from bird to human took place and you found yourself seated on the earth again.

Then you noticed a blast of warm air and the mighty screech of an Eagle filled the sky.

You looked up and saw the Eagle whose shape you had taken on earlier on soaring high up in the sky.

Then you saw a feather the color of pure snow gently flowing down, landing in your lap.

You woke up in that glade amid the cedar trees, the bearskin had gone.

The feather of your dream was not there yet its image was so vivid and its presence still so strong

that you intuitively understood that it was an object of a spiritual nature

exceeding and transcending the immediate and the concrete world around you

and that it was a powerful symbol marking the beginning of a new existence.

The true significance of this dream is in the colors of the sky you saw and the bear skin you sat on,

but above all it is in the feather you received during it.

Therefore I gift you with this Sacred Eagle feather that GICHI MANIDOO gave me to pass on

so that you can live your life according to your life-guiding dream and be an example to others

and so you can pass the Teaching I confer on you today onto the next generation.

May your dream and your life continue to be a message of inspiration for our People.

Never try to be someone else,

live true to your sprit always,

be honest to others and to yourself,

and accept who you are the way the Great Mystery created you.

Your name will be from now on Oshkimiigwan, First Feather.

May your journey always be richly blessed.” 

At last, the Eagle Grandfather had come to the world and to this day his feathers enrich the spiritual lives of the Anishinaabeg.

Giiwenh. That's how far this blog story goes. Miigwech for reading & listening!

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*Loosely based on Basil Johnston: Ojibway Heritage: The ceremonies, rituals, songs,dances, prayers and legends of the Ojibway. McClelland and Stewart 1976, reprinted 1998; Toronto.

**Taken from The SevenSacred Teachings by David Bouchard.

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Pencil llustration, jewelry and jewelry photography by ZhaawanArt Unieke Trouwringen.

About me and my sources of inspiration:

My name is Zhaawano Giizhik. I am an American currently living in the Netherlands. As an artist and jewelry designer, I like to draw on the oral and pictorial traditions of my Ojibwe Anishinaabe ancestors from the American Great Lakes area. For this I call on my manidoo-minjimandamowin, or 'Spirit Memory'; which means I try to remember the knowledge and the lessons of my ancestors. The MAZINAAJIM or ‘pictorial spirit writings’ - which are rich with symbolism and have been painted throughout history on rocks and etched on other sacred items such as copper and slate, birch bark and animal hide - were a form of spiritual as well as educational communication that gave structure and meaning to the cosmos. Many of these sacred pictographs or petroforms – some of which are many, many generations old - hide in sacred locations where the manidoog (spirits) reside, particularly in those mystic places near the coastline where the sky, the earth, the water, the underground and the underwater meet.