Patrick Sutton: A man who stands in two worlds

Page 6

His Celtic parents call him Patrick David Sutton. His Cree parents call him Wapstikwanis (Little White Head). Adopted into two Cree families and named by Elder Bill Pechow of Frog Lake after a hero that is part mythical, part mortal, Pat Sutton calls himself lucky to have landed feet first in the Aboriginal culture.

His spiritual journey into Indian Country began 15 years ago while watching the soaring flight of an eagle from his car window. He was driving down 49th Ave. in his hometown of Lloydminster, when out of the blue, a powerful voice spoke to him, told him that he would never again cut his hair, that he would soon be wearing long braids and spending a lot of time with Native people.

It was a strong message that left him badly shaken, filled with an overpowering sense of destiny. It was a spiritual experience, said Sutton, that sent chills down his spine and hit him like a bolt of lightning, right through to the core of his being.

It was as a rough and tumble kid in the late 50s that Sutton first romanced the colorful Native culture, albeit through the distorted Hollywood point of view.

"When I was very young, we used to watch the Saturday afternoon matinees, cowboy and Indian Wild West shoot-ups where they killed all the Indians. Raised as a Catholic, I could see that this wasn't very Christian. This was terrible. I felt appalled by the whole situation. When my brother and I played cowboys and Indians, we would always play the Indians. We were bent on defending the right and not buying into the wrong."

Growing up, Sutton experienced a real duality in his upbringing, a big split between the Roman Catholic religion and his love of the natural world. It was a split that would later form his life philosophy.

"As a child, I spent a lot of time learning catechism. While I was being brainwashed by Catholicism, I would go to this wind- blown field every afternoon after school, cut through the bush and climb a certain tree. It seemed to me everything was alive around me, talked to me in a way that was beyond words. This love of the natural world drove me to think about other cultures of the world. I didn't buy into the Catholic myth package. Religion had taught me that God had created the Earth for man to go forth and have dominion over. I knew it wasn't true. That's where they went wrong. Under Christianity, we had become an agricultural society, not respecting the good spirits that were in the earth. That was the real fall from Eden, digging up the mother's breast, raping the land, not giving back."

It was Sutton's early views on the natural world that would later dovetail with his deep respect for Native spirituality.

In his early 30s, Sutton had been studying the world's differing cultures, art and philosophies. A girlfriend told him that although he was familiar with many great religions and philosophies, he had ignored the North American Native cultures sitting right under his nose.

Giving little thought to her remark at the time, Sutton carried on life as usual, that is, until he first began to hear that voice and experience a strange series of coincidences.

"The second time the voice came into my head, it told me that I was going to have a lot to do with the reserve out at Onion Lake," said Sutton.

All shook up after that experience and unable to go home, he headed to the lake at the local park where he saw a woman wearing fancy shawl regalia. She was part of an event at Cultural Heritage Days.

Sutton, fascinated by the dancers and the drummers at the event, talked to a number of participents and was invited to come back after supper with his brother, Paul, who was friends with one of the drummers, to see more of the Native dance troupe.

Gordie Willier, a drummer with the troupe, also asked them to drop in at the local friendship centre, gave them a formal invitation to attend a sweat lodge and asked them to videotape a drum practice.

"We had been warned to stay away from the drum practice, uncertain of hw we would be received. We were challenged by a grassdancer, who asked why we had come. Out of the blue, one of the drummers said, 'Oh, you two must be those white guys we have been hearing about, wanting to sing and dance.'" [The drummer was well-known in Native cultural circles - Charlie Tailfeathers] and "Much to the astonishment of the other Native people at the practice, he gave me a hand drum to play, and with a grin requested a morning song [it was night] and asked me what style I wanted to dance. I had seen an old fellow from Onion Lake dancing traditional grass. It spoke volumes to me. Our new friend graciously offered to teach me and introduce me to that Elder. He told me it was time to braid my hair, four-and-a-half wraps, just stubs. It's a good thing I was in the bathroom when I braided my hair for the first time. I started to cry, happy and sad, totally overwhelmed by a sense of destiny."

At home he had no music with which to practice dancing nor hand drums to play. Later that week, someone in Manitoba sent the Suttons a package of powwow tapes. A local Native artisan had a set of hand drums for sale that someone had ordered but not picked up. Exactly what they needed.

"Then I met my Elder, Antoine Littlewolf."

That was back in 1987. The rest, as they say, is history.

"The first day we walked into that old man's house was like walking into a fresh meadow. He was like my own grandfather, the warmest, kindest gentleman I'd ever met in my life. It was a mutual thing. We really hit it off. He was ready and willing to teach us the old time chicken dance, the old ways and traditions. After a while, I came to realize that Antoine and his wife Mary were like many other Elders I had met, really appreciative of a genuine interest in what they had to say, the knowledge they had to pass on. Inevitably, they would ask me how I came to be involved and interested."

The Littlewolfs not only hit it off with Paul and Pat, they decided to adopt them, first as grandchidren and then as their sons, something that both honored and humbled them, said Sutton. Learning the ancient grass and traditional dance forms from a master was also a humbling experience.

"We were taught that when you dance in a powwow, you pray to the grandfathers and spirits and offer up your body for them to enter into, as a vehicle to dance in so that they can enjoy the physical world again. When my Elder taught me that, it made perfect sense. When I dance, I'm in the back seat. Within a few seconds of dancing, I lose control, something else takes over. I am not the dancer or the dance, there is not 'I' in there, just a witness. Sometimes moves come out of my body that just astound me and I'm just along for the ride. Antoine also taught me how to sweat with the dance and to dance every dance as if it is your last. You never know when the Creator is going to take you. He told me, 'Don't be ashamed to sweat. It's part of the dance, like in a sweat lodge.'"

Sutton also learned from the old man how to sing and play the hand drum.

"When I dance or play the drum, it feeds me energy, makes that spiritual connection. He taught me to say a little prayer and that the drum will connect with you and give you all the energy in the universe."

Sutton, who cuts a flamboyant and unusual figure in the powwow arbor, says that the inspiration for his regalia is grounded in Plains Cree tradition, the animal-spirit world and his own Celtic heritage.

"All roads lead to the same place. We all meet in the Stone Age. I wear old-style stationary grass and traditional Plains Cree regalia, using images like the Sorcerer of Trois Freres [three brothers] from a cave in France, and combine brain-tanned leather, horn, fur, cloth, bone, cave bear teeth, mammoth ivory and Mongolian horse hair from the pre-historic horses at Al Oemings Polar Park [in Alberta]. My regalia reflects many influences from different times and cultures."

Sutton was given the right to make and wear this regalia by his Eder, Antoine Littlewolf, and his spiritual guide, the animal master.

"We were given the ways of making, what it meant and the right to wear it. Some people see it as plain, but every little knot and stitch has a meaning, an old pre-contact flavor. There's a natural beauty in the old outfits and materials. The newer styles look gaudy in comparison. The Native ancestors made beads, long before the white man came, using bone, shells and carved stones. . . . As far as being a 'wannabe' goes, I've met a lot of dancers who don't know the first thing about the ancient traditions behind the dance, how to dance properly or make real regalia.

"Everyone appears to be a chief these days according to their regalia, have appeared to have won all the war honors possible, achieved the highest official positions and loaded down with all the honors that can be won in a lifetime, according to the number of feathers they are wearing," said Sutton.

"No grassroots buck private out there. And they start out dancing that way! I used to wear an eagle feather bustle. There was respect at first but then it became unsafe to wear one in the arbor, people bumping into it, little kids showing no respect. After talking to many Elders and learning what the eagle feathers meant, I realized that in all good conscience I could not wear something that I had not earned."

Earning eagle feathers in the old time warrior sense meant having hand to hand combat with the enemy, explained Sutton.

"The Cheyenne have recently started up the 'Black Legging Society', an ancient society from more than a hundred years ago, to commemorate the veterans from the First and Second World Wars. Some young guys returning from Vietnam figured that they were pretty hot stuff and had earned the right to join the Black Leggings. The Elders refused them flat out because they had never had hand to hand combat according to the old tradition, and had not earned the right to wear feathers in the truest sense. They had been fighting