Voices From The Prairies

By Ginikachi Obah, 1st year MDP student

 

My current sojourn at Blue Quills has inspired my lost creativity in poetry which was re-enkindled by the amazing cultural experience in the college. I wrote the following poem to whisper in my personal feelings on the history of residential school and the cultural camp experience. 

Echoes From The Eagle Spirit Society

The reverberating sounds of the Drums and the sweet melodies

The wavering movements of the tree suggest that they enjoy the rhythm that they hear

Tepees and feathers creating an artistic view of cultural connotation

Men and women blown away in preparation

I can see generations connecting to the ways of their forefathers

I can see the land and its spirituality through the teaching of Neyihaw

Mother Earth smiles to the spirituality and reciprocity hovering round the indigenous mind

I can see disembodied walls coming together to create a wonderful atmosphere for social interaction

I can see children and youth strolling back to cultural identity

I can hear the healing process echoing through the circles

I see the world views flowing within my mind through the cultural teachings of ceremonies

When I stand in the mirror am drenched in the reflection of the similarities that exist between the two cultures

The similarities keeps crawling back like a recurring decimal each time am lost in cultural oblivion

Culture indeed is an art that sits patiently in our heart waiting to be expressed by ceremonies

Culture is a parrot or porte-parole that speaks volumes of our identity

Culture is the sustaining power of our four dimensions that keep our body and soul together

Culture was brutalised and kicked out in the hands of residential schools

Children becoming strangers to whom they are

Oh my God it killed their culture it killed their spirit          

It dismantled the social fabric of family and community

Like lost but found item my creativity has found me in this wilderness of cultural revitalisation

Which I wish to empty with my busy hands dancing to the songs of my creativity

These are the echoes from the Eagle Spirit Society

Ginikachi (L) with Ferlin McGillivery, Cree Language Instructor (R)