Minaajim
Good Stories from Curve Lake First Nation
CHIBWAAMIN
As told by Doug Williams to Julie Kapyrka
It seems to me that we have forgotten certain things in ceremony that were important to our people. And one of those is fasting. We call fasting in the language: CHIBWAAMIN. And this word talks to us about dreaming. Dreaming of a protector that would protect us all our lives against harm. Fasting, remember, is also done by the Christian community although I see that perhaps it has been forgotten there too. But it is very central to receiving a spiritual companion who will stay with you for all your life and who will guide you through those things that will present themselves as being quite difficult to deal with. When I was a child, I spent much time with two of my Elders who went through these ceremonies to gain their CHIBWAAMIN. I asked them about it and they said they could put me out in the bush to be alone for one night in order to experience what it would have been like to fast. So one day they decided, when I was about 10 years old, to put me on Squirrel Island in the north part of Buckhorn Lake, and they would wait on the next island over called Flat Island where they would sit all night and keep a vigil and see that no harm would
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come to me. I didn’t quite understand fully, and it’s one of those experiences that stays with you all your life and you begin to look at it as a process of maturing spiritually. Anyway, they put me on this island and they made me comfortable. I didn’t have anything to eat for two days and they put me out overnight. And they encouraged me to dream. They said whatever comes to you in that dream will be an important being, usually an animal – that will help you, will protect you, and will guide you. And I said OK. And they wanted to do this for me. Nobody else was doing this and nobody else did it after a certain age group in Curve Lake. I was one of the last ones that I know of. So I remember the physical parts of the fasting – that is: the darkness, the quiet, the water. I wanted to drink water so badly but yet I wasn’t allowed to, even though the water was right there beside me. But they said I would be okay. They assured me I would be okay and to concentrate on the dreaming. “Make sure you sleep,” they said. So I trusted them. Bright and early the next morning I woke up. I had beautiful dreams of animals and then the two old men soon arrived to pick me up. They took me over to their fire and they put tobacco down on the fire as a symbol of prayer, of appreciation for what had just occurred. And they talked to me and they wanted to know what I dreamt of. So I talked to them for about an hour about all the
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