In 2019, Stellan Vinthagen visited a gathering in Maine, witnessing a Native-led process to heal traumas of colonialism. Everyone was invited to listen, learn and heal together, towards exploring new ways of living together, acknowledging the genocide of Indigenous peoples, searching for new beginnings. The next gathering is on Nov. 4 in Maine, and later this fall the fire will travel to Alabama, as part of a 21-year-long healing process.
The Native territory of Nibezun at Passadumkeag, North of Bangor, Maine, is a good drive of about six hours from my office in Amherst, Massachusetts. We were on the way to take part in the third annual gathering of “Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island” where Native Americans and allies had planned to experience a ceremony to heal the historic and ongoing trauma of colonialism in North America. My friend Steph and I arrived one day before to help set up the camp. Some others had worked for months building the infrastructure.
These Healing Turtle Island gatherings were initiated by Sherri Mitchell, an Indigenous rights activist, spiritual teacher and a transformational changemaker from Maine. The ceremony aims to visit all corners of North America over a period of 21 years. Sherri had a vision some years ago, outlined in her book “Sacred Instructions” about the need to do a healing process. She discussed the vision with her Elders; they told her to wait. Eventually, they said the time was right and that there was an opening to do the ceremony. The Elders said that it should begin in Maine as it was one of the places of first contact with the white settlers. Therefore, it is the Penobscot Nation — formerly known as the Penobscot of Maine, the federally-recognized Tribe of Penobscot in the United States, who are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy — that initiated this ceremony in 2017. So, while the Penobscot are the hosting Nation, other Tribes and Nations are participating, among them Hopi, Diné, Native Hawaiians and many more. Even Maori people from Aotearoa (New Zealand) attended. Over the past years, Indigenous people from six continents have participated. As is said on the website of Healing Turtle Island:
“Our ancestors tell us that the Eastern Door is where we will gather to begin the healing of this land. It is here in the East where first contact was made between the Native peoples and the newcomers. It is here that the first blood was spilled between our people, and the long history of violence began. And, it is here on this same land that the healing must begin.
Our prophecies tell us that when the people of the world rise up and begin standing for the protection of life, a great healing will begin. In order for that healing to take root, the people must return to the place where the initial wounding on this land took place, and join together with one heart and one mind to heal the wounds that they carry within them, and those carried by Mother Earth. When they do, the Eastern Door will re-open and we will be able to renew our sacred contracts with one another as human beings, and between human beings and the rest of creation. The opening of the Eastern Door will usher in a new beginning, and begin building a new way of life for all living beings.”
This two decades of ceremony is a gathering in which Native people are leading the annual four-day ceremony, over a weekend. They share creation stories as well as stories of suffering and the recovery of traditions and conduct spiritual healings. Allies are welcomed and “invited to appreciate the ceremonies,” to learn and get in touch with Indigenous traditions.
The ceremony is open to everyone who is interested. Donations of money, equipment and food make it all possible. On that Saturday, there were over a thousand people attending, mostly white allies. It’s a small miracle that the kitchen was able to find ways of not just serving everyone, but also good food.
The area of the gathering is an old horse farm with a surrounding forest and the Penobscot river. There is the farm house, a stable building and a big barn for meetings during rain, meals and evening programs. This whole property was bought back by the Tribe with some help from a university as a way to gain access to the traditional Native land of the Penobscot Nation. There are also several tiny houses, among them Mongolian Yurts. However, the main construction was made particularly for the ceremony. It is a round ritual space made of wood, with entry paths in all four directions and the sacred fire in the center. The roof is covered with Cedar tree branches that have sacred and medicinal meaning for many Native Americans, among them the Penobscot.
We non-Indigenous allies were “invited to attend and appreciate,” without taking photos, or notes, or in any way appropriating the knowledge of Natives.
Adhering to this principle is also why I will limit the retelling of the rituals that I was able to bear witness to. A key part of the ceremony was the centrally-placed sacred wood fire that burned for all the days and nights that we were there. Pieces from the fire from previous years of ceremony had been used to light this one, with an attempt to keep the same fire alive throughout the 21 years. At every sunrise hour, we welcomed the sun by offering tobacco to the fire and saying our prayers in the way that made sense to each one of us.
One of the more powerful ceremonies was a healing between genders. As men and women stood and faced each other, the historic and ongoing violations against women were accounted for, as well as denials of the humanity of men. While this was taking place, trans and queer persons — or what the Native Amerians refer to as “two-spirit” people — stood in the middle, between the men and the women. During the ceremony, discrimination and violence against two-spirit people was recounted and acknowledged within the same rituals. What mostly made an impression on me was the way two-spirited people were brought in. We listened to painful accounts of violations some people had experienced, and they put forth a passionate demand on all of us to stand up for the rights and protection of all the two-spirited people in our life, beyond gatherings like this. The two-spirited participants were then embraced in their role as the future Elders. Those who were young and two-spirited were instructed to take on the role of guiding and being visible role-models for a new generation of younger ones. It was very powerful and the whole ritual became an illustration of how two-spirited people can act as a bridge between men and women as healers, since they embody both male and female spirits.
During the meal and other breaks, I had many interesting conversations with different people, mostly white allies like myself. We reflected on what all this means, how we are part of this whole process but do not know what our role is. Of course, people that attend a gathering like this are already progressives, liberals or radicals—whichever phrase you might use. At the very least they are people searching and wanting to shift their own way of being as white people of European descent, as settlers on stolen land. At the same time, it was clear that people came for very different reasons and very different backgrounds. I met one man who is a descendent of the very first colonizers. After being at the previous ceremony in Maine, he had researched who his relatives were. He learned that many were people in powerful positions both in politics and the military, even directly responsible for massacres of Native Americans. For him, this disturbing knowledge compelled him to write a letter to all of his relatives. He explained what he had found and appealed to them to join in this healing process, to acknowledge their guilt as a family. Not all relatives were happy to hear about this, but some of the younger folks were. I was impressed to hear his story and how he is trying to make amends, however little and delayed they might be, towards taking responsibility for white privilege and one’s personal complicity in colonial history. I also met with people that were engaged in environmental work, with Indigenous solidarity activism. I also found those that seemed to be lost spiritually, which to me seems to be a common problem within white culture. First, we perform a genocide of Indigenous people, then we look for our lost souls and ask the survivors for help… To me, it seems more appropriate that we try to do our own inner, transformative work, and when we are on the way, we can act in solidarity with Native Americans who have been doing their own inner work since a long time.
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Water protectors turn to Minnesota’s Line 3 pipeline as their next target of resistanceOne day we welcomed a group of water protectors that had been walking from a campsite of struggle to our gathering. We stood at the dirt road drumming and rejoicing when they came along the road. In this way there was some connection to the ongoing struggles against colonialism. However, overall, I felt that the practice of resistance to colonial structures was quite absent during our gathering. Perhaps that is necessary when the focus of the gathering is on reconciliation, but I am not convinced.
One evening I took part in a sweat-lodge together with other men, among them the visiting Maoris. I have done this before but this time I got an explanation of the ritual, which made the enjoyable ritual more meaningful. This time we were guided and got to know more about how and why the sweat-lodge is done and its importance within Native American cultures: as a metaphor for revisiting your mother’s womb and being reborn. When you sit in the total darkness around the hot steaming stones chanting, sweating and breathing in the smoke from the sacred herbs and sharing personal stories, it is indeed a powerful experience. Afterwards we went out and were washed. We then greeted each other with broad smiles as we walked around feeling the air and stood in groups talking, enveloped by the dark night with shining stars above us in the sky.
On the last day those of us who had volunteered in the making of the camp received a tribute in the form of a Maori haka: a ritual war dance. It was the first time I saw both women and men do it together, which was really powerful. Every time I see a haka it feels clear to me why so many view the Maoris as a role model for how to resist colonialism, and also why they are kind of the “rock stars” of the Indigenous. And of course, when each one of the Maoris that visited us in Maine opted to wear black sunglasses, their star appearance was emphasized.
On the last day, I took a swim in the river next to the camp, which has historic importance for the Penobscot. It was a refreshing experience on a beautiful summer day with a sun that shone through the forest leaves and the water that was low but streaming and cool.
When Steph and I traveled back home on the long drive from Maine to Amherst, we had a lot of time to discuss what we experienced. A key thing for both of us was to explore our roles as non-Indigenous white allies to work against the ongoing colonialism and “white savagery” (the term that Steph prefers to use instead of “white supremacy”). We agreed that it felt incredibly powerful to be part of this ceremony, to experience the amazing generosity and warm invitation to participate, to be offered the chance to appreciate the rituals and the ceremony, and to have been able to build new relationships.
At the same time, it felt clear to us that something was missing, and that was a clarification of what the role is or should be of non-indigenous allies like us. In order to make sense of our participation it felt like we needed to do something more than just listen and appreciate. If a healing of colonial trauma is going to work, then all the process and transformation cannot be made by Indigenous peoples. Something equally profound needs to be done by white settlers. Perhaps the transformation of us needs to go even further. Like the Native Americans, we too have to work on our culture. Fundamentally, we need to figure out what and who we are, where we come from, and what we need to do now in order to contribute to the making of a new sacred agreement between all the people living in North America, in addition to acknowledging the colonial crimes made throughout history.
For Steph and I, it means trying to find ways of transforming our culture, to resist the white savagery that is part of our culture and bodies. It means trying to form an authentic solidarity and co-conspiracy in alliance with non-whites to resist ongoing racism and colonialism. How this could be done and what we can do is of course unclear, and something that will take time to figure out. This is of course our job to figure out, not that of the Native Americans. This is something we need to do and be part of as our process of healing relations, of taking responsibility for our white privilege, and in the future to decolonize North America in the long run.
Thank you for sharing this. I understand the restlessness and wanting white people to DO more. But what if white people DOING is part of the problem. What if the real and true challenge is for white colonial settlers, and ALL new settlers here, is to BE, to listen, to hold space, to allow, to stop resisting, to follow. So that indigenous people can lead effectively, clearly, without white people and their busy-doibg energt getting in the way. That would require shifting the dominant culture on its head. That is the work. What if…