A Little About Myself

Greetings Relatives,

I would like to tell you a little about myself as a matter of introduction and so that you may better understand my reasons for opening up a sweat lodge.

My Dad died before I was three. We (my mother, brother, and sister) were living in Oregon at the time near my father's relatives. When he died, my mother was extremely depressed and decided to move us back to Maine where her relatives lived. My brother and sister were older than I and they started attending school, while I was home with my Mum. She did not work preferring to be with us kids to raise us. We were poor growing up, surviving on my Dad's VA pension and Social Security.

Mum used to take me out every day to a nearby wood that we called the Small Woods. She knew all the plants, both medicine and food. She taught me how our native ancestors used them. She knew how to identify them, pick them, prepare them, and use them. It was amazing how many plants she knew. She continued these teachings for a couple of years before I was old enough to go to school. I guess today she would be called a Medicine Woman.

She also taught me about our native ancestors. She taught me that they loved the land as though it were their mother. She told me I was an Indian and that I should always be proud of that fact. She also said I was Canuck and that I was Métis. In her mind, all three of these terms meant exactly the same thing. She said I should not listen to those people who said the Indians were godless, heathen, and murderous savages. She taught me that our Indian ancestors loved their families, their women, their children, and their homelands and were only protecting those things when they went to war. She said that her father had taught her these things in the same way she was teaching me. Her father had asked her to make him a promise that she would pass down this knowledge to her children just as it was passed down to him. My mother asked me to make the same promise to her – that I would pass on this knowledge and her teachings of the medicines to my children.

When I had just turned five, Mum started to suffer from severe depression. She was unable to care for us kids and none of her relatives was able to care for us either. The VA Hospital in Augusta hospitalized her, and she arranged for us kids to be sent to St. Joseph’s Orphanage.

In the next installation, I will tell you about my time in the orphanage.

‘Till then, walk in Peace,
Steve

Copyright © 1995-2008 Stephen L. Miller