“What once was outlawed, now is celebrated!”

Wilma Kenny | Oct 27, 2021

Loughborough Public School’s massive stone circle was to have been the site of a ceremony recognizing the significance of Orange Shirt Day earlier this month, but due to circumstances, that had to be postponed.

Instead, on October 19 members of the aboriginal community and several class cohorts assembled for a celebration. Two dancers were featured: Kevin, a tall, strongly built man, has danced in many pow-wows throughout Canada and the US. “For many years, it was a crime to wear our regalia, or dance our dances or speak our language,” he said; “but today we come together to celebrate our history and our stories!” He described parts of his regalia, which he had made himself: three upright eagle feathers on his feathered headdress which identified him as a member of the Bear Clan of the Six Nations Mohawks; a breastplate armoured with rows of what would once have been bones, but today are plastic. He wore the white and purple flag of the Six Nations, whose members came up across Lake Ontario two hundred years ago to what’s now Canada, as military allies to the European-American people who became known as United Empire Loyalists. On his left arm was a shield made from the huge shell of an (already dead) snapping turtle. Kevin emphasized that no creatures had been killed to become part of his regalia: “I only used what they no longer needed.”

He explained that his dance told ancient stories of hunters: shielding his face with a feathered wing while creeping up on prey, then leaping up to full height and brandishing his club.

The second dancer, ten-year-old Maddox Davidson, chose very early to become a grass dancer. It was explained that grass dancers carry a spirit bundle, and prepare the land for others to gather, warming the land and making it safe. Maddox’s regalia was completely different; he wore a headdress with a tall fringe of bright fur.