Indian Rituals Help Begin Healing Process at Red Lake

							  Indian Rituals Help Begin Healing
        Process at Red Lake
By Kevin Duchschere/Bill McAuliffe

Star Tribune

    It's hard to say whether the deep wounds inflicted on the Red Lake Band by
Monday's shootings will ever fully heal. But the process is already underway, aided by
the customs that have comforted Indians in the face of tragedy for centuries.

    "On the reservation right now, family members probably are gathering food for the
wake, cooking up a storm ... and digging graves with shovels," said the Rev. Claudia
Windal of Minneapolis, an Episcopal priest and funeral director-in-training who’s Indian
Burial Assistance Project helps Indians organize affordable and culturally-correct
funerals.

    On Tuesday night, about 150 people gathered for a healing pipe and drum
ceremony at Ponemah, a reservation hamlet on the peninsula separating Upper Red
Lake from Lower Red Lake.

    After filling the gymnasium of the community center with smoke from burning sage,
elders lit pipes filled with tobacco and spoke, in English and Anishinabe, the Ojibwe
language, to the grieving relatives of three of the victims, who were seated in a
semicircle around the central drumming group.

   "We hope this awakens us to become the community our ancestors left for us," said
one. "We hope this makes our community stronger and open to one another. This is
what our kids want to see."

   The rituals and customs differ from tribe to tribe, said Windal, whose father was of
Lakota and Delaware descent. Funeral services often contain a mix of Indian tradition
and Christian practice, with lead roles shared by minister and medicine man, she said.

    According to Windal and Larry Nesper, an anthropology professor at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison who has a specialty in contemporary Indian society, there are
elements common to Indian rituals of grieving:

      Native languages are often spoken.
      Musicians play songs on drums, representing "the beating of the heart of Mother
       Earth," to honor the dead.
      Prayers ask the creator's aid in helping the deceased make their way to the Spirit
       World.
      Wakes may extend from afternoon through the night and even longer, enabling
       mourners to share their memories and their grief.

    Windal said she often begins a funeral with a purification rite called smudging,
burning sage to create smoke to carry prayers to the creator. At such funerals, she said,
she leaves the Book of Common Prayer at home. "It becomes more of a time to speak
from the heart," she said.

    Tobacco plays an important role in healing, Nesper said. The last Ojibwe funeral he
attended offered mourners tobacco, tied in birchbark baskets, to burn and sacrifice in
prayer. Some Indians tend a fire for four days in memory of a loved one, keeping vigil
throughout day and night.

   "Some of the greatest consolation comes in the coming together of the family,"
Windal said.

   After the speeches Tuesday night, a group of about a dozen young Indian men and
boys drummed and sang for about an hour. Around them, elders and relatives of the
shooting victims performed a traditional, shuffling dance. The healing had only just
begun.