Black Kettle: Powwow lifts spirit, and mends scars from the past

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You see her at the powwow, sitting. Her hands are folded gently in her lap, her buckskin dress carefully smoothed. It glistens with the soft green and blue beads that have been carefully stitched across the hem and the yoke. Her eyes are bright and they sparkle as she watches every step and sway of the young girls performing the intricate fancy dance.

With a nod, a gesture and a smile she sparks all those old memories of favorite aunties and grandmothers. She smiles and it lights up the heart.

A young boy leans over to whisper in her ear. She lifts her head, listens, then tosses her head back and laughs loudly, her dark eyes shiny with humor.

Maggie Black Kettle takes life seriously, especially laughter and fun.

"We never had powwows when I was young. The nuns said they were the Devil's work," she smiles sadly and reminisces about her childhood on the Blackfoot reserve east of Calgary.

Maggie was born on the reserve in 1919, the daughter of traditional Chief Sitting Eagle. Although neither of her parents could read or write, Maggie was sent to the convent school at Cluny when she was only six and was only allowed to see her parents for two hours each week.

Maggie still has bitter memories about those early days and recalls how the girls and boys were separated.

"We couldn't even talk to the boys. The nuns said you would have a baby if you talked to the boys. And they cut the boys braids off and wouldn't let us talk in Blackfoot."

The days were long and harsh for young Maggie Sitting Eagle. One of her earliest memories are of the Sundance that used to be held on the reserve in the sacred sandhills just behind the old convent.

"We would run up to the top floor of the convent and look across. Sometimes we could see the tops of the tipis. But the nuns would come and get us and scold us for looking at the 'pagan rituals.'"

Maggie's happier memories are of her wagon journey to Calgary. She can still remember it so vividly. She recalls how they would hitch the wagon and slowly drive to the big city. And then see the streetcars and the big stores.

"We used to be much richer in those days and we had a special train come for us at the Gleichen station. But I remember the old people were too frightened to sit on the seats," Maggie giggles, her hand over her mouth.

"They were used to sitting on the floor and they thought they would fall off or fall out of the window."

But the trips and the festivals were few and far between for Maggie. When she was only 14 years old, her mother died and two years later, soon after leaving school, she married.

"It was hard work. But I was lucky. My mother-in-law began to teach me our traditional ways. She taught me the beadwork that I now teach to the young people."

Maggie and her husband were so poor during those days that she had to work along side him in the field.

"I learned to hitch wagons, drive the horses, plough the fields with the old-fashioned plough as well as mend fences. But I didn't mind, I was young."

Maggie worked for more than ten years as a farm laborer. Clearing the land, doing all the back-breaking jobs usually reserved for men as well as keeping a home and raising the first of her seven children.

"I have four girls and one boy," she says proudly. "I had seven children but two of them died."

As the children grew, Maggie took other jobs, such as the job she had cooking at the Crowfoot school.. But it wasn't until sometime in the 1940s that Maggie attended her first powwow.

"The powwows had died out. There wasn't any. Then we heard of one in Banff or Morley and we all went."

It was Maggie's first powwow. She had never been allowed to dance as a young girl. Now a mother of small children herself, she had to be taught how to dance.

"I watched at first. Then I tried it. Other people came over and helped me. Then I began to really enjoy myself."

Now no powwow is complete without Maggie. Maggie attends as many powwows as she can each year and if for some reson she is unable to make one powwow, she is always missed.

"I have my own dresses for dancing. I made them myself. And all my children and grandchildren dance. It is part of our way of life now."

Maggie doesn't feel that the powwow will ever die out as it nearly did at the turn of the century. "It is so popular. All the young people go and they dance and they meet friends. So do I. I like to meet new people and old friends."

Maggie has her own tipi at the Indian Village in the Calgary Stampede Grounds. Each year she ensure the tipi is erected properly and is clean, tidy and smells sweet with fir branches which she carefully gathers to line the sides of the tipi.

Maggie is also well known for her famous bannock. Every year she oversees the bakers at the Stampede who make the bannock according to Maggie's secret recipe.

"I make sure we don't run out of supplies and I check the bannock."

Maggie makes sure the bannock is prepared and cooked properly. Her standards are very high because she wants to make sure everyone gets the best bannock ever tasted.

Maggie is now teaching the Blackfoot language and traditional beadwork to the students at the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School, just known as PICSS to the students.

"I have been here eight years. And I still enjoy the work," she confesses.

Maggie teaches the traditional Blackfoot beadwork and has learned the traditional wildrose beadwork common among the Cree nations. But she shrugs off her talent, saying anyone could do it.

"Once you learn the beadwork you can work out how to do any design."

Her colleagues and the students share their special memories of Maggie. Principal Jerry Arshinoff points out that Maggie always has a cheerful smile for everyone. But adds that she certainly has her serious moments.

"I recall a teacher was trying to erect a tipi but he wasn't doing it right. Maggie gave him instructions. But it still wasn't going right so she took a stick to him. He sure learned very quickly then,"he laughs.

Instructor Lloyd Ewenin comments on Maggie's kind nature but again points out that she teases, in a humorous manner.

"She is really sharp. And she is always really helpful with the students."

Student Shirley Hill, who is originally from the Blackfoot band is taught the Blackfoot language by Maggie. Shirley never had an opportunity to learn the language herself and now sits with Maggie who carefully instructs and listens to her pronunciation. Shirley's tongue often cannot curl itself round the long syllables but Maggie is patient and good humoured.

"She never gets annoyed with us as long as we try," says Shirley. "But she doesn't like people who don't bother to try," she laughs.

Most of Maggie's family now live in Calgary, including many of her 19 grandchildren. All her family participants in the powwow and Maggie certainly wouldn't miss a powwow for the world.

One of her favorite memories are of a powwow in Hobbema where her granddaughter gave her a pair of plastic Groucho Marx nose and glasses.

"I tried them on. And we all laughed. And you know, that Bert Crowfoot. He took my photograph," she laughs and slaps her thighs. "Wait till I catch him," she giggles.

Maggie is well-known for her sense of humour. AT a recent Petro-Canada Native Business conference, Maggie was asked to give a speech.

After the speech Maggie made one of her famous jokes about the Indian who went to an Italian restaurant and ordered pizza. When the pizza arrive he asked his friend 'who puked on his bannock.'

But for all her humour Maggie says she will never tell her life story.

"It is our tradition that when you tell everything, you are no more. So that's all I am telling," she giggles. Then picking up her needles and beads, walks back into the classroom ready to teach the next class how to bead in the traditional way.