On Sasquatch and the fun of oral tradition

"I believe in Sasquatch

just as much as I believe in God
which is not logical
since more people have seen Sasquatch
than have seen God."

(The Sasquatch Poems.... by Sherman Alexie)

 

Two weeks ago I co-led a Christian Peacemaker Teams Aboriginal Justice Team delegation to Kenora, Ontario and Asubpeeshoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nations). We spent the first half of the  ten days visiting with organizations in Kenora, attending  Monday morning bail court and observing the commemoration of Cecilia Jeffries residential school. The  next five days we lived in the Trapper's cabin in Grassy Narrows, watched and participated in  the pow wow and had conversations with some of the residents of the community. Some of these were long time friends and partners with CPT. Others had not met any CPT members before.

 

However, there was an unusual running thread through some of the conversations. This was a frequent reference to Sasquatch.  For those of my readers who do not know what I am talking about, a Sasquatch is  a hairy manlike creature reported to exist in the Northwestern U.S. and Western Canada and said to be a primate between six and fifteen tall—also called bigfoot. —(Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary) .Now, this may seen strange to those of you who think that Sasquatch  is a fictional creature. The theme of our conversations is that many indigenous people have some belief that they do exist.

 

I also recognized that the tradition of oral story telling is important for passing on knowledge. However, the fun began when we heard the same story twice in two different conversations.

 

The first was a man named B. . As we broached the subject of sasquatch he told us of a devout Christian woman from Grassy Narrows who had doubted that the large primate actually exists. However, one day  she had been out picking blueberries and looked up from her work to see the huge animal. She fainted dead away. When her daughter found her she woke up and told about the amazing thing she had just seen. This was confirmed when they found gigantic footprints, Experts came to make plaster casts of these prints and the evidence was preserved.

 

A couple of nights later S and L came by the Trapper's Centre for tea. Somehow the topic arose again. They began to tell us about a woman who had seen such an animal. I said, 'oh yes, we heard about that incident. The woman was picking blueberries and fainted." They looked at me with astonishment. " No, that is not how it happened." 

 

They went on to say that yes, she was a Christian from Grassy Narrows reserve. But she was driving in her car going to pick blueberries. The sasquatch appeared in front of her car. She did not faint at all. And her daughter saw the beast too. They did make plaster casts of the footprints. But that was not the end of the story. Word got out that Sasquatch had been seen and people flocked to the region to see if they would have the same luck. They moved through the forest and trampled the blueberries. The animal was not seen again.

 

We all laughed at the discrepancy in the story.  The conversation continued when one of the delegates brought out the book of poetry by Sherman Alexie.  She read the long poem about the tales of  sasquatch sightings and the questions it raises-such questions as in the quote below. The whole poem is here. It is worth a read.

 

                                                           "Do you take the bread and wine
                                             because you believe it to be the body and blood?
                                                           I do, as other Indians do, too
                                              because that colonial superstition is as beautiful
                                                        as any of our indigenous superstitions."

 

                                                                      *******************

 



 

                                                'When I asked the Indian elder, she said
                                         with a smile, “I don’t know if I believe in Sasquatch
                                                              but he sure does stink.”'

                                                   (The Sasquatch Poems.... by Sherman Alexie)
 

This is not the footprint from Grassy Narrows. This measured 18 inches long by 8 inches wide.

(Photos- Michael Patrick)

Winnipeg Water Wednesdays

A few months back I was speaking about my work in Iraqi Kurdistan with a friend from Grassy Narrows First Nation  (3 hours north east from Winnipeg). Her first question to me was, "How is the water there"? This was surprising to me because no one else had ever asked me such a question. But it was also not surprising because the community of Absubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) has had their health and livelihood stolen from them by the poisoning of the English River system by corporations deliberately dumping mercury into the water.


For six weeks this summer Winnipeg has celebrated 'Winnipeg Water Wednesdays". This has been a part of Idle No More and led by Michael Champagne of North End Winnipeg. 'These events are not protests and are not only for Indigenous people, it is a community gathering for all people who drink water. Many cultures have their own customs and practices to honor water.'

On Wednesday 21 August I was finally in the city on a Wednesday. So my good friends Peter, Brad and I headed down to Memorial Park in downtown Winnipeg to see what was going on and to celebrate water. Apparently this week the gathering was smaller than the week before but as 5 pm came people wandered into the site. The wind sprayed water droplets from the fountains and Mr Golden Boy on the top of the legislature looked over us. I wondered if the MLAs who work in the huge stone building knew of this gathering and whether they cared at all about it.

                                     Brad added his talent to the large (22 x 9 Kelly feet) mural.

                                       We all  need to  to pray for and celebrate the water where ever we are.

'The last Water Wednesday is August 28th. We will gather at 5pm in Memorial Park  and then have a WATER MARCH at 6pm down to the Forks where the water’s meet. We will also be putting together a TIME CAPSULE to be opened in 100 years so our children will know that we were thinking of them in the work we do today. If we all get involved, your great grandchildren will open that capsule and see that we were successful in our fight to protect our waters. It gives all of us an opportunity to answer, with action, the question ‘What kind of an ancestor will you be?’

                                     . We can figure out a way to live without petroleum products.
                                          There is no substitute for water in the continuation of life.

I asked for peacemakers and no one came...

 

The rooftop of the small monastery in Sulaimani

 

Over the last month  Christian Peacemaker Teams has received requests from at least two communities asking for CPT accompaniment. My colleague Tim Nafziger wrote in his blog about these requests ( article here). CPT has sent people to these areas, but is asking for reservists to continue the  support.

These requests strike me hard right now, especially as Tim mentions Syria in his article. Several weeks ago team mate Pat and I sat down for tea in the small monastery in Sulaimani with a Chaldean priest from Syria. Father Paolo Dall'Oglia has been living and working in a monastery in Syria called  Deir Mar Musa al Habashi for 30 years. I wrote a couple of posts about Mar Musa last year.(here and here).

Father Paolo Dall’Oglio is an Italian cleric with a Ph.D. in comparative religion and Islamic studies. He championed Christian-Muslim dialogue for three decades in a region where the line between state and religion is often blurred. He did it from his monastery some 80 kilometers north of Damascus. “I have worked to  create a monastic community dedicated to the service of harmony between Islam and Christianity,” he says" (taken from Micah Café blog here ).

Mar Musa (near Damascus, Syria) taken by Andres Rump


The community at Mar Musa has also walked the journey of practising and teaching non-violence. In September  2011 as the conflict in Syria was heating up they  called for a week of "spiritual jihad, through fasting, prayer and sakina (God-inspired peace of the soul) for reconciliation between the children of Mother Syria.". They implored for " reconciliation between citizens, on the basis of a common option for non-violence as the only method able to ensure sustainable reform and to avoid the slide into civil war and the vicious circle of revenge."





The people at the monastery pleaded for reconciliation and dialogue. They asked for two things. First, for the freedom of the international press in order to create objectivity though plural sources of media. Second,  they refused to accept military might as a way to supress the conflict. They suggested that " the Syrian government invite the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent as well as other impartial international humanitarian organizations (such as the global movement of scouts, Gandhian movements or nongovernmental organizations for the defense of human rights) to cooperate with Syrian nongovernmental organizations".

 

As we sat with Father Paolo that day he expressed that he had a deep affection for the Mennonites. But he hesitated to talk about non-violence. Soon we found out why. After the week of fasting in 2011 they published a document asking for 50,000 unarmed nonviolent  activists of the  global civil society. Dall’Oglio travelled and pleaded with international agencies to send these people to use the window of opportunity. But as he said, "no one came". (In an interview in April 2013 he does say that one group sent 100 peacemakers and another 300, but this was far from enough.. here.) The conflict escalated. Now he is advocating for an armed response on behalf of the opposition. "..Now we should assist the Syrian people in their right to defend itself. A no-fly zone would be the minimum of responsibility. All the modern weaponry is being used against the Syrian people."

 

Pat and Father Paolo in Sulaimani

I asked him at which point he changed his mind. He said that it was more like an evolution. After the peacemakers did not come the artillery of the regime began to kill the sons of all the people that he had grown to love. Then he felt the time of nonviolent intervention was past. He has received a lot of criticism for his new plea, but he is firm in it.

As I sat there I had many thoughts going through my head. I did not feel equipped to lecture him on the apologetics of nonviolence. He knew them very well and  I have never ever been close to the situation that he has witnessed.  He was expelled from Syria by the regime for his ideas and support for the opposition.

  I thought back to the speech made by Ron Sider  in 1984 that provided some of the impetus for the birth of Christian Peacemaker Teams. He said,

 

 "What would happen if we in the Christian church developed a new nonviolent peacekeeping force of 100,000 persons ready to move into violent conflicts and stand peacefully...  Together the Christian church could afford to train and deploy 100,000 persons in a new nonviolent peacekeeping force. The result would not be utopia, or even the abolition of war. But it might tug our trembling planet back from the abyss. (Ron Sider, 28 July 1984)"

 

The community at Mar Musa asked for 50,000 unarmed nonviolent  activists of the  global civil society. If we, as Mennonites or Christians and others who believe in nonviolence,  had managed to meet the challenge of Sider then there would have been 50,000 peacemakers left over for the conflicts that are happening in other regions of the world- for the Mikmaq nation in New Brunswick and the community of Las Pavas in Colombia and many more. 

Friday prayers at Mosgowti Hazrati Ibrahim

Today is Friday. Around 1130 am the environment around the mosque that is across the road begins to change. The sound of the occasional car and the twittering sparrows is taken over by more cars and people (mostly men) heading toward the mosque. About 12 noon the call to prayer comes and then immediately the message for the week is delivered to those gathered as well as all of the neighbourhood within earshot.

This can become irritating, if I let it. Sometimes I complain to myself that my peaceful day off is interrupted by a very loud message that I can not yet understand. But I can also appreciate that it is a community wide event. . The women's entrance is on the opposite side of the building, so I can not see the women coming. But I do see men and boys of all ages gathering for prayers.

A couple of weeks ago I stood on my roof with my camera. Most of the videos I took were not very good, but this short one gives you a taste of the wonderful voice of the man who calls the prayer.

After the last prayer is said the microphone clicks off and the people find their shoes and move quickly out of the mosque. But then something new happens. While the prayers have been going on merchants have gathered outside on the street. On the day I took photos there was a truck full of watermelons (shutti), and a vehicle with a pool on the back filled with live fish (masi). A green carpet provided the place for the scaling and filleting.

 Right beside it was another salesman yelling, "chickens- ?? per kilo". The hens were loaded squawking onto a scale and then were carried home to provide Friday supper.

I was thinking that this was a market opportunity for farmers in Manitoba. They could stand outside churches on Sunday and then parishioners could buy fresh food for their meals for the next few days without having to go to the supermarket.

Today I had a Kurdish conversation with my friend, Nazanin, from the plumber's shop. I think that we understood each other- that I am Christian and she is Muslim but that does not matter. And I would like to go to Friday prayers with her someday.

Landmines in the fields--an ever present danger

I am reposting a reflection I wrote after a recent delegation that came here to Iraqi Kurdistan. The delegation was made up of 5 German people and a new member of our team.  I co-led it with my son in law Laurens. (Many of our partners had seen photos of my family and recognized him. It led to many mother-in-law jokes as well as amazement that we are also friends.) We could not have done the delegation without the wise advice and translating skills of Mohammed Salah Mahdi.

CPTnet
6 June 2013
IRAQI KURDISTAN: Landmines in the fields--an ever present danger

 by Kathy Moorhead Thiessen

Field where the mine exploded

As the recent CPT delegation climbed the road into the Quandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan we felt the coolness of snowfields still present at the end of May.  The tips of the rocky range marked the border with Iran.  We emerged from our minibus in the idyllic mountain village, Kani Spi, to spy the blue tractor moving below us on the field.  It made its way up to the yard and stopped.  Fifteen-year-old Halgurd (named for the highest mountain in Iraq) climbed out.  He greeted us and we all introduced ourselves.
As he spoke to Mohammed, our translator, he quietly and matter-of-factly told us that the day before a mine had exploded under his tractor.  “I was very scared.  But not even the tractor was harmed.  The mine made a big hole deep into the ground.  I was OK too.”  Halgurd’s father lost a leg to a mine and he knows people who have lost their lives to the same destructive weapons.
Later, his father, Mahmoud, told us again about their situation.  The shelling from Iran has stopped for now, and he hopes it will end forever.  However, the mines remain an ever-present danger. 
CPT Iraqi Kurdistan has visited with this family many times and written releases about life in Kani Spi.  The incident of four days ago impressed on the team again that their situation with the mines has not changed.  Mahmoud said, “We must keep a careful eye on our children, especially those who visit us.  Sometimes even the adults get absent-minded and may walk into the area of mines.”

Halgurd and two CPT delegates sitting at the head of the White Spring ("Kani Spi" in Kurdish.)

He requested that we go to the office of the authorities who are in charge of mine clearing in the region to ask them if they would come again to Kani Spi.  He said, “The mines that are far away on the mountains do not bother us.  We can avoid them.  But there are mines close to our house and we have asked them many times to clear them.  They still have not come back.”  He also asked that they come to look again at the field,although it was cleared again last year.  The mines have been there since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s when the mountains were littered with these tiny, inexpensive, and volatile weapons.  The weather and seasons sometimes bury them deep or bring them to the surface.  Then an incident can happen like the recent explosion.
That evening, we spoke with his wife, Maryam, and expressed our gratitude that the detonated mine had not harmed Halgurd.  “Thanks be to Allah,” she said.

The next day the delegation stopped at the mine clearing office in the nearby city.  We presented the director with a letter asking him to consider working again in Kani Spi.  We have not yet heard his reply.

Peace is a woman and woman is peace

I am reposting a reflection I recently wrote for CPT Net and that we posted on our Iraqi Kurdistan team blog.

 http://cpt-iraqikurdistan.blogspot.com/2013/05/peace-is-woman-and-woman-is-peace.html

But I will also post it here for those who have not seen it in the other places. Like I said in my last post  it was an incredible day.

May 14, 2013

Peace is a woman and woman is peace.

"The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring". Isaiah 58:11

The high mountain ridges, still covered in a blanket of snow showed the borderline of Iraq and Iran.  A tiny newborn goat with the umbilical cord still drying on its belly wandered around by our legs. The unceasing sound of the artesian spring gave background noise to our conversation.

There we were, sitting around a table under bright green grape leaves and infant grape clusters that protected us from the hot sun.  Unusually, the women outnumbered the men. However, even more unusual was that the first question came from a woman to me. “I am asking you because you are a woman’, she said. “Violence against women happens all over the world. How do you think that we can change that?” I admitted that considering making changes to such a huge issue was beyond me.  I thought that we must work at a level of helping one man to see things differently, or to empower one woman at a time. She agreed.

I marvelled that I was able to be here on this awesome spring day, having a conversation with a Kurdish woman who had lived and fought in these mountains for 21 years.  I knew that our ideology and methods were quite different, but I felt a kinship with her. Her organisation strives to provide equal opportunity for all, no matter which gender. She had been trained extensively right alongside the men.   She was secure in her beliefs that the way to start making a difference in the world was working on attitudes toward and treatment of women. “We should all should work together, young and old women. We need to include more women in these reforms because the peace is a woman and woman is peace.”

We spoke of the hope for the end of the conflict, when the peace agreement with Turkey really materializes. Her dream was to someday go beyond the borders of Iraq, to speak to people of other nations, to train women and to share her knowledge and experience. When we asked her how she saw peace, she gestured and looked around at the plot of land, the grape vines, the spring and the goat. She said, “When everyone in the world has this.”

The conversation was far too short, but the sun was sinking lower in the sky and we had a long drive over a rocky road ahead of us. As we hugged and kissed goodbye she commented,” You should be a leader in a women’s organisation”.  I received her affirmation and treasured it.

Basta, beautiful Basta.

A week ago I had the privilege of going to a place where few non  Kurdish people have been. There is a tiny village named Basta that is in the foothills of the Quandil mountains. From our friend, Bapier's house you can see the peaks that are the border of Iran and Iraq.

Bapier has  invited the team to visit many times. But unfortunately, the village is past a line  that the Iraqi Kurdistan security forces are reluctant to let us cross. We are not sure why they have a problem. Maybe they think that we will be in danger? This time Lukasz and I had friends with us who knew who to phone. So, after a number of calls, including the mayor of  a larger town, they let us through. But they did keep our residency cards to ensure that we would not flee over the mountains to Iran (I guess).

The day showed the glory of spring.

The highest mountains still had a covering of snow, but we could feel the heat of the sun beginning to exhibit its strength and the fields were green, green, green.  Bapir was so excited that we were finally able to come to his village. invited us into his simple house and we sat on the carpet in the sitting room. His older daughters stayed in the kitchen, but the middle ones came and served the tea.

 The little boys wandered in and out. There was a mild problem when I shared some little plastic dinosaurs with them. The "roaring of the animals" caused Bapir to gently push them out of the door with a command to play elsewhere. It worked for a few minutes, until they came back to see what else of interest the visitors might have.

Two of Bapir's sons and Angel (our friend)'s brother in law looking at the marvels of games on a mobile phone.

We asked Bapir how he felt about the recent cease fire between the opposition forces and Turkey. If this really happens it will have a massive positive effect on this village, like many others along the border regions. CPT has supported the villagers of Basta since 2006. Every summer he village has emptied  as the shelling and bombing season started. They evacuated to  an Internally Displaced Persons tent camp further down the mountain beside a rushing mountain stream. Summer 2012 was the first growng season in 7 years that they were able to stay beside their animals and gardens. It was was also the year that the Kurdish Regional government finally provided more permanent dwellings for the camp that have remained empty. Bapir dreams of the day when his family will be able to be secure enough to stay in the village with him.

Bapir and me and his little son.

 

 

This is a brand new mosque that the villagers have built. It is almost finished and will provide a place for prayer.

 







They served us  a lovely meal of chicken, rice and a soup called quirew that is made out of yogurt and spices. We have been told that this is a very special soup made for guests.

Then we went out for a tour of Basta.

 

This is the second house we visited (and had our 4th cup of tea). The man in the dark brown Kurdish suit is the sheikh of the village-another leader.

 

 

A reminder of a scarier day in the village. Schrapnel from shelling came through the window into the house.

 

 

Bapir's daughter climbed the kezhwan tree to get the green fruit for us. They were a little sour and made the mouth pucker up. I ate a few for the experience and then gave the rest of my bunch to my little friend.

My little friends. The one in the yellow shirt desperately wanted to stay with me, even when I had the use the toilet. It was a 3 sided enclosure without a door. I tried to convince him it was a bad idea, but it took his sister to hold him back so I had a vestige of privacy!

 

 

On another visit Bapir had gifted Lukasz with a traditional men's hat. So L. gave him a CPT cap. I guess this daughter decided that it was perfect for her.

 

At the last house we visited we were offered "mast-aw" (yogurt mixed with water). A refreshing change to tea.

In the days before Sadaam Hussein's "Anfal"- his attempt to eradicate the Kurds, Basta had 75 houses. Now there are 21.

 

I was curious. I told the young people present at the second house that often in Canada the young adults can not wait to get out of the villages and to go to the city. I asked how they felt about being in the village. They all replied that this was the place they loved. They hated the city and wanted to live in the mountains despite the remoteness. Many of them work as shepherds or caring for other livestock.

 

The villagers still are not secure that peace will come. They are waiting to see what how the neighbouring countries will handle the agreement and whether the bombing and shelling will be finished for ever.