Sacred Medicines of the Anishinaabeg By Jan Beaver (April, 2019)
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e begin this medicine sharing with tobacco (semaa, as it is called in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabeg, the First Peoples of the Great Lakes region). Semaa is the plant medicine that always comes first, activating all of the other plant medicines. It is the sacred medicine of the eastern direction of the Anishinaabe Medicine Wheel, a teaching that represents all of life and all of Creation. The seven directions of the Medicine Wheel are north, east, south, west, above, below and within.
In the eastern direction, Mgizi, the eagle guards the doorway. The eagle is the bird that flies
Star Nations Magazine • February 2021 • 8
closest to Creator, Gzhemnidoo, acting as the messenger between the people and Creator. Eagle saved the people from destruction once by interceding for us with Creator. It was a time when the people had forgotten how-to live-in harmony with the Earth and so Creator was going to cleanse everything and start over but the eagle pleaded with Creator to wait and see if eagle could find some people who still remembered how to live in a good way. Eagle told Creator that he would fly out each morning at sunrise and if he could find one person who
Credit: Jan Beaver
All of our new life and understanding comes to us from the east. The smoke from semaa carries our prayers into the Spirit World. It is used in sacred pipes, as offerings to the plants we are harvesting, to the sacred fire or to elders when we are asking them to help us with something, such as performing a ceremony.
