Can you pray while dancing?

Canoeing in the Algonquin

There is nothing provincial about “Algonquin Provincial Park”. Admittedly it is far from any great cities but this is the whole point – it is an area of carefully protected wilderness so that inhabitants of the great cities could taste it. So that they could put up a tent at a camp site with hot showers, hire a aluminium canoe and paddle among the wild lakes. It works more or less like a national park but was created by the provincial authorities, hence the middle part of the name. The first part is derived from the name of an Indian tribe which once lived there. This was long time ago, nowadays one does not hear about Algonquins, they must have vanished somewhere. All that is left is the name and the forest whose virginity is carefully protected.

When after the American Revolution the loyalists moved to Canada, they settled in Southern Ontario. It is a fertile country so the forests were cut down and land ploughed over. The northern part of the province has not been ploughed over because it is rocky and uneven, but it is extremely picturesque. Rocky hills covered with virgin forest, innumerable lakes and rivers between them – a paradise for landscape painters if they are prepared to spend some time in the wilderness. The most picturesque corner of Northern Ontario, which now forms the Algonquin Park, was indeed discovered early in the 20^th century by Canadian painters known as “The Group of 7”. Charming canvases of those painters must have contributed to the popularity of the park.

It is an area of carefully maintained wilderness. Apart from highway 60 that cuts the park in two there are almost no roads. There are no hotels but there are camp sites - some of them with hot showers – where you can put up a tent if there is space. You can hire a canoe and paddle somewhere deep into the wilderness. Once upon a time a canoe was the most important means of transport in Canada – in Algonquin Park it still is. The area is covered by a network of interconnected lakes and rivers, you can get your tent into a boat and paddle as far as you can and then camp on a lake shore. There will be no hot showers there and you will have to watch for bears – they may want to steal your food. Don't ever keep your food in the tent or a bear may want to join you there. You don't want that kind of a Teddy in your sleeping bag – they are fluffy to be sure but they have other qualities as well.

Sacred fire

There are a lot of paddling trails criss-crossing the park. There are not many walking trails, though, which is a pity as the area is really beautiful. There are rocky hills over the lakes, sometimes forming granite cliffs just over the shore. The views from those cliffs are stunning – virgin maple and spruce forest, islands in the middle of the lakes, rivers winding through swamps. The view from the cliff over Whitefish Lake is so breathtaking that one can almost feel the majesty of the Creator manifested there. I was walking the trail along this cliff with Ania and Ola when we heard somebody laughing in front of us.

“Hahahaha! I thought I heard voices!”

It was a man dressed a bit like an Indian but without Indian features and speaking with distinctly English accent.

“You heard our voices, didn't you?” I said.

“I meant spiritual voices. This is a sacred rock on the Indians, they come here for a vision. The Indians are here today, on that peninsula on the lake, they have a pow wow today and tomorrow.”He pointed to the triangular peninsula in the middle of the lake. There was indeed the sound of drums coming from that direction.

“A pow wow? Here? And what tribe is it?”

“Algonquin.”

“Algonquin? I thought they didn't exist any more.”

”Oh yes they do. And they have their pow wow right now.”

“Can the non-Algonquins go to their pow wow as well?”

“Of course. Tomorrow at six in the morning there is the ceremony of greeting the sun and at noon the dances start.”

Veteran with his orders

It poured down at six and we didn't want to get out of the tent but it stopped later and at noon we were by the lake. There was quite a big camp at the peninsula, tents, cars, families with children. Some young men under a free standing roof structure tried the sound of a big drum. Away from the camp near the woods there was a camp fire where two girls in what looked like Indian dresses slowly moved their drum over the smoke. We wondered, though, were the Indians where. Most of those who camped there had neither facial features nor skin colour on Indians. Some people wore some kind of Indian clothing, there was even a new shop-bought tipi there, but it all looked a bit artificial. Some outfits look odd to say the least and didn't look Indian at all. For example there was a man in fringed leggings, trainer shoes and a red shirt with a long row of military orders. He approached us and said:

“It will start a bit later, the grand entry will be at one. We ask not to take pictures during the Grand Entry. You don't know what the Grand Entry is? Every pow wow starts with one, when all the dancers enter the holy circle around the drums. We always dance clockwise around the drums, this is the direction in which the sun moves round the Earth. The veteran warriors open the procession. These days they are usually the ones that serve in the army. Behind them are men dancers in various styles, followed by the women and the children. No pictures are to be taken during the Grand Entry as well as during the Veteran Dance and the Flag Dance. The spiritual aspect of the ceremony has to be respected. You also have to stand during those dances and take your hat off, unless you have an eagle feather in it. During other dances you can take pictures and during the inter-tribal dance you can join in. The songs we sing have no lyrics, we chant just meaningless syllables. This is because the pow wow was traditionally a meeting of various tribes speaking different languages. We sing without words so no language is privileged.

The Grand Entry started at one o'clock – some fellas sat around a big drum and started playing monotonous rhythm. They also sang, this was the traditional Indian choral music with piercingly high falsetto voices. There was no single dance step that everybody would dance, each dancer danced in his or her own style. The veterans walked majestically touching softly the ground with their feet before each step as if checking if the ground is hard enough to stand on. The grass dancer behind them danced wildly shaking the huge amount of fringes he had at his arms and his legs. Women dancers in traditional dresses with arm fringes reaching the ground stepped gracefully, the fringes swinging there and back with each step. Young women dressed in bright colours with equally bright shawls in their hands jumped high and the shawls unfurled behind their backs. There were also girls in jingle dresses who jingled as they jumped because they had hundreds of little bells attached to their shifts. Last went children who tried to emulate dance steps of the adults.

Jingle dress

Well beyond the circle of dancers, near the woods, there was a camp fire carefully tended by two men. I wanted to approach this fire but the fire keeper told ma that this is the sacred fire and it can only be approached from the east. The circle around the fire is sacred as well. The eastern approach has been marked by two stones and one can circle it only clockwise – the way the sun circles the earth. By the entry to the sacred circle there was a container with prayer tobacco. If you want to pray, take a handful of tobacco, stand beyond the fire facing east and when you finish praying throw the tobacco into the fire – the smoke takes the prayers to the Creator.

While I was talking to the fire keeper some girls in jingle dresses came with handfuls of tobacco and threw it to the fire. Why?

“Because the jingle dress is a prayer for somebody's health. The jingle dance is in itself a prayer. Usually the family of the sick person ask a a girl for a prayer and gives her a handful of tobacco, after the dance she comes and throws the tobacco into the fire.

What? Is he serious? Can you pray while dancing? These Indians are crazy, aren't they?

If these were stately dances at least. Some of them are not only not stately but hardly serious. For example the potato dance. It has to be danced in pairs – the potato in question is held in place between the two foreheads. Hands of course are to be held behind their backs. There is a prize for the pair which holds the potato the longest.

In the evening there is food – everyone is invited. Of course traditional Native American cuisine is served. There are rules about who is being served first – the elderly first, then women and children, then the warriors and the chief in the end. Of course those who come first have to remember that there has to be enough for those who come last.

I learned also who are these Algonquins who organize this pow wow, apparently every year in the same place. They are descendants of the Algonquins who once hunted here and now live in the surrounding towns. Racial purity is not important. The fact that Canadian authorities do not consider them “Native Americans” is not important either. The musicians, dancers and veterans sometimes come from far away. Pow wows like this are nowadays organized all over America, it is a pan-Indian movement both in the U.S. and Canada. Some of them are organized in the middle of the wilderness (sometimes carefully maintained, like the Algonquin Park), sometimes on reservations and sometimes in the centres of big cities. And the music – which for a white ear sounds like a wild scream – is a proof that this is not tourist attraction. This is modern Native American culture created for Native American consumption.

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":