Gathering strength through the water

Gathering strength through the water

By Greg Peterson, Today correspondent

Story Published: Jul 1, 2010

Photo by Greg Peterson

Ojibwa Sunrise Ceremony along Lake Superior at Little Presque Isle Point to honor sacred Eagle Rock, the Yellow Dog Plains and Lake Superior for National Sacred Places Prayer Days.

LITTLE PRESQUE ISLE POINT, Mich. – As if emerging from the icy depths of Lake Superior, the fiery yellowish-orange sun rose the morning of June 19 to greet American Indians and non-Natives praying during the “Honoring Our Water” ceremony by Ojibwa women and gave them the strength to continue battling an international mining company that is desecrating sacred Eagle Rock on the nearby Yellow Dog Plains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The sunrise service at Little Presque Isle Point in northern Marquette County was one of many Native events across the country during 2010 National Sacred Places Prayer Days as the tribes try to protect their threatened religious sites.

The ceremony happened only three weeks after the May 27 police raid on the month-long encampment at the base of sacred Eagle Rock (Migi zii wa sin) during which two Ojibwa were arrested for trespassing on orders from officials with the Kennecott Eagle Minerals sulfide mine. Kennecott bulldozers have cut a large swath across the Yellow Dog Plains and cut down countless trees and destroyed vegetation including at the base of sacred Eagle Rock, where the portal to the underground nickel and copper mine is planned.

The Creator’s creation was abundant on the peaceful calm morning. Ever-present flocks of seagulls mixed with cormorants darting on thermals as a lone white-tail deer strolled up the sandy remote beach within 30 yards of those preparing to begin the ceremony nestled between flat shale ledges and outcroppings of granite boulders. Some believe they felt the Creator’s presence during the last moments of the event on an otherwise still morning when a single strong gust of wind blew through the dunes and trees as 50 people were singing the “Chi Miigwech” (many thanks) song thanking Gitche Manitou (Great Spirit).

They expressed thanks for sacred Eagle Rock, Lake Superior (Gitchi Gummi) and its tributaries like the Salmon Trout River under which Kennecott plans to extract rock from the six-acre, 1,000 foot deep “Eagle Deposit” the company says will yield 16,000 tons of nickel and about 10,000 tons of copper annually.

The ceremony was hosted by Stand for the Land and Oshkinawe-Ogichidaag Akiing (New Warriors for the Earth), a new environmental organization “grounded in Anishinaabe traditions with a mission to educate and empower our communities to take action on mining and other social-ecological issues facing our communities.”

Holding flowers and wearing traditional Native skirts and blue prayer ties and blue shawls to honor the water, the women formed a circle on the edge of Lake Superior.

They prayed for the “sacredness of the water and Mother Earth,” said co-organizer Jessica Koski, a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and master’s candidate of environmental management at Yale University.

As the women prayed, the men held a drum on a cement slab circle about 50 yards away in the dunes.

Three generations of women participated in the ceremony that included praying “to the Creator to heal the water and thank the water for being here and everything that it gives us,”said ceremony leader Eagle Heart Woman, who requested her spirit name be used instead of her English name.

The women, who traveled from as far away as Wisconsin, brought jars filled with water from many different lakes and streams including fresh spring water from the aquifer underneath Eagle Rock.

“We are going to ask the Creator to bless not only the Lake Superior water but the water that’s in the bowl,” said Eagle Heart Woman, standing next to a sacred eagle staff planted firmly in the sand.

As the women’s ceremony ended, they spread out along the beach and waded into the crystal clear waters to pray and “offered the flowers to the water” by setting them afloat on Lake Superior.

The second to the last song played by the men’s drum was a Lakota deer song to honor the white tail who visited the beach.

Eagle Rock is a “sacred place to Anishinaabe people,” said Koski, who encourages all people to be “part of the movement to protect our sacred places, water and way of life for future generations.”

After the Lake Superior event ended, many traveled nearly 80 miles to a related community potluck picnic lunch and Sacred Places Prayer Days gathering at the KBIC Powwow Grounds Pavilion in Baraga, Mich.

Organizers of the events in northern Michigan encourage women across Indian country to make and wear blue shawls to show solidarity with their cause to help protect the water from sulfide and uranium mining across the Great Lakes Basin and from oil disasters like the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The integrity of Eagle Rock is in jeopardy as Kennecott’s planned mine portal, to be blasted into in order to access the nickel, copper and other precious metals underneath the Salmon Trout River,” said Koski, who traveled to London to condemn Rio Tinto – Kennecott’s parent company – for putting one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world at risk. “Unfortunately, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment determined this place unworthy of protection as a place of worship because it does not consist of any buildings or church-like structures.”