Mi'kmaq Pipe Vision

Kwai kwai nidobak,

OK, so back to my story. I had that first vision of The Seven Fires in July of 1997. This prompted me to find out more about the inipi and commit myself as a Fire Keeper. I started going to Uncle Nick’s lodge, Dennis’s lodge, and attending the Sun Dances being conducted by Uncle Indio. I started to learn the songs and sang at the big drum during the Sun Dance ceremony.

I now wish to tell you about another series of dreams/visions I have had regards the Mi'kmaq Pipe. This vision started around September of 1998. I wish to make it clear that before this series of visions, I had not ever heard of the Mi'kmaq pipe, nor ever seen any pictures of it. I did not even know such a pipe existed. All I had ever seen was the Lakota chanupa pipe from the book, The Sacred Pipe by Black Elk and smoked the chanupa wakan for the first time at the Manzanita Sun Dance Ceremony of 1998.

Additionally, before these series of dreams, although I had heard and seen the Medicine Wheel, I really knew nothing about the symbolism of the colors, directions, spirits, medicines and life stages. Furthermore, up until these visions, I was not certain if the Wôbanaki had the sweat lodge ceremony prior to the European invasion.

As I said, this was a series of dreams/visions that I had over a couple of years time. I have condensed all of them into the following narative.

In this vision, again the hawk lead me to the same elder of my first vision. By this time I knew he was one of my Mi’kmaq ancestors. The elder is wearing a peaked cap Mi'kmaq robe. The language he speaks is strange yet familiar - it is not english, but I understand what he is saying. I fell warm--the fire is taking away the chill of the early evening and the chill of the fall season. There are many herbs burning - sage, sweetgrass, ceder and tobacco - the four sacred herbs. We are sitting around a sacred fire. I am sitting at the south. My son, Alex (age 5 at the time), is sitting at the east, a black bear is in the west and the elder is sitting in the north. A hawk and and eagle are circling clockwise above and praying with their shrill voices - their flight is a prayer. The time of day is evening and the season is fall. The color is of the forest, leaves are starting to turn colors - the many colors of fall - red, yellow, and very dark brown (almost black) - all of the sacred colors - except white (I think to myself that I represent the white as I am Metis). We are in a forest clearing. The bear is a black bear. The hawk is a red-tail, and the eagle is golden-brown. The elder is explaining the medicine wheel that we are all sitting around (I will talk more about the medicine wheel as he explained it to me in a later post). The black bear is holding a sacred pipe. It was not a typical Lakota style chanupa wakan, but is a style I had never seen before. As the elder talks the black bear filled the pipe with a mixture of tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar. I then sometimes become the bear, at other times I become the eagle, or other times I become the hawk. The dream then ends.

Many times over a series of a couple of years I have the same dream, with minor additions for clarification added by the elder. The dream evolves over time and soon, in the dream, several years had passed. This time, Alex was a young man and is now sitting at the south. A young boy (who I did not recognize) has replaced him at the east. I am at the west with the bear, and again the elder is in the north. The elder explains the reason we have moved on the wheel. The bear fills the pipe with the sacred herbs. When the bear had finished he lights it and passes it clockwise around the circle. When it gets to the young boy at the east, he smells it, and makes a face and says it stinks. When it gets to me the elder asked me, “Will you accept this pipe for the healing of the people?” I said yes and the elder says, "Use this--you are going to be a great chief" (I know this sounds real egotistical--but this was what he said in my dream). As this is happening I hear the thoughts of the bear, hawk and eagle. They are praying "Great Spirit, this is how we honor you. We do this for the good of the people". During this time eagle and hawk soar ever higher to carry the smoke and our prayers to Great Spirit. I then become the bear. This is the end of the dream and I wake up.

I drew a picture of the pipe and emailed it to one of my eastern elders. My drawing looked just like the one on the following website:

http://www.myezstreet.com/Shop/Shop.cfm?StoreID=124989&content=Details&ItemID=1020

My elder immediately emailed me back and told me that what I had been offered was a Mi’kmaq pipe. Boy did I freak out to find out that such a pipe did indeed exist. My elder asked me about how I had seen this pipe and I told him my vision. He and I consulted with many other of our elders and they subsequently interpreted the vision for me.

Well enough for now, I will finish this story later.


Walk in Peace,
Steve



Copyright © 1995-2008 Stephen L. Miller