Article 3: An Interview with Elder Kelsey Bighetty on Indigenous Philosophy and Culture

Jefferson Cook

This interview was conducted on March 31, 2021 to fulfill the assignment of the course “Philosophy and Culture” (ANS 3400) by Dr. Jennie Wastesicoot.

K.B: You’ve got some questions for me (laughter)?

J.C: Yes; ok; so, it’s recording right now; they’ll hears us. Interviewee Kelsey Bighetty, interviewer Jefferson Cook. The three questions I have for my friend Kelsey. I hope you don’t mind that I don’t want to call you an Elder (whispering).  My questions are: What is the process of fasting? What is the significance of smudging? And why is our language dying? So, we’ll start off with the process of Fasting.

K.B: Okay, I’ll introduce myself before I talk about the process of Fasting. My name is Kelsey Bighetty; that’s my English name. My Cree name is Astaweehatchak, meaning “Shooting Star.” The significance of fasting – we do this every spring. Fasting ceremony is the first sign of spring, which is usually in May when all the snow is gone and it’s usually with the coming of the thunder birds. So, the first week of May when thunder beings come in, that’s when you start the fasting ceremonies. And the reason for fasting is you’re cleansing your body, mind and spirit, which are the three major factors behind fasting.  It’s a four- day process but within that four-day ranges from two nights and two days when the sun comes up and sets, that’s considered one day. From sundown till morning that’s your second day. So, they do this fasting within a forty-eight-hour period, and some of them do two days some of them do the whole four days, which is eight days; some of them can go to sixteen days; it all depends on what you’re fasting for. And most of the time when you go on a fast, you’re doing a vision quest, and some of them call it vision quest but it’s just a way of life for Indigenous people to do fasting. It’s been outlawed before but now it’s coming back, resurfacing and a lot of Indigenous people are going back to their roots, roots of fasting, ceremonies and learning their culture and language. But the process of Fasting is to do them for four days, two days two nights, and it’s called a vision quest. It’s the cleansing of the mind, body and the spirt. Ekosi (that’s it).

J.C: The second question is what is the significance of Smudging? The significance of smudging: usually when we smudge, we use tobacco, sweet grass, cedar and sage. Or you can mix all three and smudge with them. The significance of smudging is just the same way as you shower and wash your body when you get up. But with the smudging, you’re cleansing your spirit. That way, it cleans your mind; you have clean thoughts at the same time you smudge; you’re pretty much [saying] like a prayer, you’re praying, everything’s a prayer. As we get up, we pray for the day ahead and as we go to bed, we pray for the night ahead. Same thing as smudging. You’re praying for the day, you’re having good thoughts; you’re having clean thoughts and you pray for people around you and it’s mostly prayer. It’s all based on prayer. The ones we use for smudging are sweetgrass, sage and cedar and tobacco. I forgot tobacco; you mix all four of them or you can use sweetgrass to smudge. And that’s the significance behind it.

J.C: And the other question was language, the Cree language. Do you think we are losing ourCree language?

K.B: Pretty well the Cree language has been taught, like with us growing up we learnt it because we heard it, like on  daily basis. We were always taught to speak our language. Speak your language, know your language, practice your language! Growing up, I often heard that a lot, when we were told that someday you would lose your language if you didn’t use it, but as a kid growing up I always thought that: how can I lose it (the Cree Language) when it’s a part of me? Now I see it with my children, where they don’t talk at all, but they understand what I tell them in Cree. They understand simple words, but they’re not fluent. Language is a must to identify who you are, where your roots come from and what not. And language is attached to your custom and religion, and I guess your beliefs. It identifies who you are as a human being, and it’s a must because it’s something that you grew up with. But if your children and grandchildren don’t have it, it’s kind of sadness for me ‘cause right now, I’m teaching them how to speak their language, which is like a taught process. It’s like when we grew up watching Sesame Street, that’s where I learnt to speak the second language of English, then school. So, either way, you can go to school and learn your language. At the same time, if it’s taught, and I’m pretty sure it’s taught now, and that is something that must be encouraged. Our language is taught now in universities, which is a bonus for me ‘cause I knew my language and I knew the importance of speaking our own language. I went through the process when others were struggling with the fact that they didn’t know what certain words meant or what animal names were or what plants were and stuff like that. But language alone goes beyond for me, it goes beyond to the afterlife. If you don’t know your language, then you’re lost in the afterlife they say ‘cause you’ll meet up with relatives that will speak Cree to you – fluent Cree – and you got to know some words at least know one word, to be able to understand their direction. And it’s all a matter of direction like the Cree

word for our original name is Nithitowi- Ithinew, which means four directions. As a people, we pray to the four directions; that’s our real name Nithitowi- Ithinew. See, a lot of them don’t understand that ‘cause they don’t speak the language and the concept of their meanings. The Cree language is so descriptive that no English word can interpret its true essence.

J.C: Yes, so I’ll say thank you for letting me interview you and I appreciate the help.

K.B: Thank you Jefferson for inviting me to do your questionnaire, Ekosi and

good luck in your studies. I often heard that growing up academically, students needed

education as such.

Reflection from the interviewer:

After the interview, I turned off the recorder, and Bighetty continued to talk about how he, as an avid outdoorsman and a hunter, could tell how the day was going to be just good for doing certain things, just by observing the weather. He also further explained the meaning of Nithitowi- Ithinew by pointing to the plant that I have in my living room, “look at your plant, you see the way it’s leaning to that direction? You know why?” I replied that I did not know it did. Personally, I thought the weight of the leaves made it lean to that side although I did not express this to Bighetty. He then said, “all plants lean to wherever the sun is. That’s why the plant is leaning towards the window. It’s like that for all plants, even the grass. When you see grass in the morning, it’s leaning towards the sun; when it’s the afternoon, the blades of grass are pointed straight up because the sun is directly above it. And when the sun sets, the grass follows the sunlight till it gets dark.” He also mentioned that sunflowers are the most noticeable during this process because of their height and the colour of the flower itself.

Bighetty also told me a story about his late brother, who when on a trip to Jerusalem pulled out his drum and started to play a Cree song. There was an elderly man who knew what he was singing. Bighetty said, “our songs are not theirs, but this is an underlining correlation between the two cultures.” At this time, Bighetty started to sing the song in my small living room – I mean, I have a small living room, it is probably 10 x10 feet – his voice, when he started to sing, made my body physically go back into my couch. His singing was so powerful that I was taken aback. I felt his voice hit my body.

He also told me that the same brother would not put up with racism or prejudice from people, and he would call them out on their looks and comments. There were a few times this happened in restaurants, so they had to leave and pay, even though they hadn’t finish the food they had ordered because of those individuals who made negative comments on Aboriginal people.

At this time, his phone went off and he had to leave. I thanked him again for coming to see me instead of me going to see him at his place on the reserve. The reason I picked the three questions for the interview was due to my lack of knowledge about fasting. When I was younger, I witnessed a sweat ceremony, but it was nothing as near as Mr. Bighetty description – the process of putting one’s body through dehydration and the physical weakness a person goes through to achieve their vision quest. After the interview, I now understood that one must be mentally, physical and spiritually prepared to undergo such an extreme cleansing experience. He also mentioned that the person doing the fasting has a helper that checks on them to make sure they are all right and to give them wood for the fire. Bighetty also mentioned that there was a boundary a person doing the sweat could not cross, which was outlined by cedar surrounding the person’s camp.

In terms of Smudging, initially, I thought the significance of smudging was to simply put the smoke over someone because this is all I was shown. I do not practice this belief personally. As a child I was taught about Christianity. After the interview, I thought about the words he used to describe how it cleanses the body, mind and spirit – how the person smudging is constantly praying through the whole process that the prayers are not just for people you know, personally, but for the others around you.

As for the Cree Language, when I asked Bighetty, “do you think we are losing our Cree language?” he was mostly engaged with addressing this question. He stressed the importance of knowing your language because it identifies who we are. He did not come out right away but said that we as Cree people were losing our language.  He exemplified my question by mentioning that his children and grandchildren did not know the language.  I, myself, also think we are losing our language. I was not taught the language growing up. It was constantly spoken in my grandparents’ home, but it was not spoken directly to me. I later learned as I grew up that they were arguing in Cree. Overall, during the interview and from listening to Mr. Bighetty, I thought about myself. I thought about how I could learn and understand my language, and how my children could get to know and understand their language, and how my grandchildren would get to know and understand their language.

Author’s Bio: Jefferson Cyclone Cook was born in The Pas, and raised in Big Eddy Opaskwayak Cree Nation community. He recently graduated at UCN with major in Aboriginal and Northern Studies and minor in history. Currently, he is working at a summer program. His future goal is to graduate from the Kenanow Faculty of Education program and work as a middle school teacher in Northern Manitoba.  

Instructor’s Remarks:

Jefferson Cook’s interview came from one of the assignments of “Philosophy and Culture” (ANS 3400). The purpose of this kind of assignment is to provide the students an opportunity to engage in dialogue with an Elder.  Students are tasked to find an elder and interview the elder focusing on a project theme “telling our traditional stories.” Working with Elders to listen to their stories of the First Nations of Northern Manitoba enables students to understand Philosophy and Ways of Knowing, Values of the Cree, Dene and Oji-Cree, Creation Story, Relations to Animals, Code of Ethics, Violations and Consequences, Spiritual Knowledge and Survival, Lessons in Life and Traditional Cosmology.  A story can include hunting, fishing and trapping, drum-making, origin of the pipe, beadwork, midwifery, pictographs, medicine picking, lodge-making, and artwork.  Students are then tasked to connect their Elders’ stories to ways of knowing, and how their stories connect to spirituality. Most of the students who take this course are connecting to the traditional stories and Indigenous philosophies for the very first time. This is due to the repression of their traditional culture and practices.  After taking this course, students foster understanding and appreciation for the sacredness of the land and traditional cosmology of the Cree, Oji-Cree and Dene First Nations, which are the foundation of Indigenous Philosophy and Culture. (Dr.  Jennie Wastesicoot)