Kuwesi-medicine

Our newsletter has a new title ~

KUWESI-MEDICINE NEWS
Kuwesi [GOO-weh-zee] –medicine means "white pine tree medicine"

 Kuwes [GOO-wehz], is the Passamaquoddy word for white pine tree,” and means “sap that heals.” The white pine has many diverse healing properties and has long been an important medicine for native people. It is also known as the “Tree of Peace.”

After three years since our last issue, the 2010 newsletter is ready. Our time has been busy with the project to document medicine stories from the elders, gathering and making traditional medicine, and the never-ending building project at our home on the reservation. This 16-page issue contains stories told by Passamaquoddy elder, Fredda Paul, from his life experiences learning and using traditional medicine. Also included are contributions from others whose lives have been impacted by the medicine that has been used by Wabanaki people (a confederacy of tribes in Maine, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces) for thousands of years. For now, most of these stories from other elders will remain within the tribe, but there are some who have given their permission to share.

You can read about ~ How white pine has been used for pain as well as an alternative to back surgery; cobwebs for bleeding; how the elders used mullein; the spiritual power of the ocean; giving an offering; what it has meant to Fredda to receive an honorary doctorate; as well as highlights on the project to document the medicine used by the Passamaquoddy.

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A suggested donation of $25 will help this work of preserving and sharing traditional medicine knowledge to continue. (see page on “Preserving the Heritage”) Woliwon [W’-lee-w’n] (Thank you)

For a copy of the 2010 newsletter or past issues, send your name address & donation to:
KUWESI-MEDICINE
PO BOX 274
PERRY, MAINE 04667
or contact us at kuwesipisun@gmail.com

Below are excerpts from stories told by Passamaquoddy elder, Fredda Paul (from the 2010 newsletter

Kuwesi-’pisun

Tree of Peace

This is a story the elders told me about a time when there was a lot of fighting among the tribes. When it thunders, they told me, it means the Grandfathers are angry.

Many chiefs from different tribes came together to hold council to try to bring peace so that future generations would be stronger in spirit. The children were asked to come, too. During this gathering, there was a tremendous thunderstorm. There was a lot of thunder because the Grandfathers were very angry. In their anger, they threw lightning to the earth.

A huge white pine was lifted up out of the ground. When it fell over, none of the roots were broken ― even the smallest fragments were intact. At the large hole where the tree had been, the grand chief threw in his weapons and asked the others to throw in theirs. They held back, but the children pushed them closer. Then all the chiefs threw in their weapons. The evil leapt out of the hole making a sound like a terrifying scary laugh.

When it was all over, the grand chief thanked the Creator in his own language for driving the evil out. When he finished this prayer, the pine tree lifted up on its end and settled into the hole as if it had never been touched. The grand chief must have been a shaman.

Grandmother’s Favorite

My grandmother was always using white pine, and it is one of my favorite medicines. White pine has the strongest and purest medicine of any of the pines. My grandmother used to say it had 150% morphine and I don’t doubt her word. Actually, there really is morphine in the inner bark of pine. Pine works really good for any kind of pain and it helps with healing, too. White pine sap is used to make poku [B’-goo], a kind of thick paste used for healing broken bones and serious back injuries, as well as drawing out infection.

One time gram used poku on a man who was in severe pain from a disc in his back that was splitting. He told her the doctor had given him painkillers, but they weren’t helping. She put that paste on him, and after 45 minutes, he said he never felt such relief. White pine is like that – it will go right where the pain is in your body. She told him to leave it on, and in time, it actually healed the injured disc. About a month later, when she went to see how he was doing, he said he’d like to dance with her, and that’s what they did. Gram always had poku on hand, to help people get off the painkillers doctors were giving out.

The inner bark from white pine can be made into a salve that helps with muscle pain (including arthritis and sciatic pain), muscle spasms, and chapped skin. The needles are packed with nutrition can be made into tea or dried and ground into powder and made into a super-food. My gram used white pine needles to make super-food for people who needed their body strength built up.

Honorary Doctorate

Sharing the knowledge . . .

Receiving an honorary doctorate from Unity College (May 2007) is a good feeling – not just because it honors me, but because it shows me there are students eager for this kind of knowledge. The kind of learning I did was not in school; I was taught by my elders. It’s not the way young people are learning today. Taking children out in nature, especially native children, is deeply satisfying to me. You have to teach kids when they are young so it will stick to their inner spirit. We have elders in our community who have knowledge; they are waiting for our young people to reach out to them.

How I learned

When I was a teenager, my grandmother began to teach me about medicine. She would give me detailed drawings of plants and send me out to collect them for her to use. At the time, the teaching had to be done in secrecy because medicine ways were looked down upon by the Catholic Church. Maybe this was partly due to the fact that there were shamans who practiced black magic, as well as shamans who used traditional ways of healing and all were thought of in the same way.

The years I lived in the house with my grandmother and the rest of the family will always be special to me, but most of what I learned about medicine was when I visited her in the nursing home during the last two years of her life. I would drive to Lubec, Maine from New Hampshire and spend every weekend with her. There, she passed things along to me – information about medicine, about spiritual things, about the future. She chose me as the keeper of the medicine knowledge, believing that it should be shared.

Nine years of a childhood in Indian Residential School

The road was not smooth . . .

All things do not always go well when you are growing up. When you are down and fall apart you might do things you regret. Sometimes you hit rock bottom and you start to realize this is not the life. You have to pray to the Creator to find help, and then you have to pull yourself up. You can come out of the darkness – it won’t hold you forever.

I arrived at Schubenacadie, Nova Scotia in the summer of 1950, over three hundred miles from our home at Sipayik [zee-BAH-yeeg]. I was five years old, scared and alone. Even though our father dropped off my brother and me together, we were separated right off and I never got to see him until years later, when we left the school. Indian Residential School was not a nice place to be. As soon as you arrive, they try to take your culture away and make you somebody you are not. Some parents put their children there thinking it was going to be a better place than they could provide; others for various personal reasons. The priest and nuns would put on a good show when people from the outside came in, but all along there were terrible things they did to us. Sometimes we found maggots in our food. We were punished for speaking our language. The punishments were severe – when they strapped you, it was always 25 times with a leather strap. They would strip you and lock you up in the “dungeon,” a dark concrete room about 3’ x 6’. There was sexual abuse that I experienced and watched happen to other kids. My special little friend died there because of a punishment we both received. Even today, I can see him crying for help. The darkness is difficult to forget.

I know my grandmother and Clarence, the shaman who lived on our reservation, were helping me because I could see their faces sometimes and hear them telling me what to do.

Telling the story

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:1–2

I have a better life now, but it is time to step up and get the stories out. For many years I have kept all of this to myself. This newsletter is the first time they are in print. They are hard stories, but they tell about spiritual power given to young children in difficult and painful situations.

Until I got together with my wife, Leslie, none of these stories got written down. I come from an oral tradition and writing is not something I have confidence about. I would like for my children and grandchildren to know these stories. I would like any of our tribal members and other people who want to know to have the opportunity to learn what happened. My hope is that it will help the relatives of the survivors (of Indian Residential School) and other people who have lived through tough times. My special friend, who I called my “little brother,” died as a young child at Schubenacadie, but he has come back in spirit, fully grown, and spoken to me, "This book has to be written and it should be the color red, for power."

AWARDED ~ an opportunity

Fredda brings a rich, yet tragic experience here. The obstacles that were created in his path were often an opportunity because it caused him to tap into an incredible strength within him and within our culture. These stories do exactly that. They give you a lot of strength when you most need it; they reenergize you. There is a potential for positive change. Wayne Newell

Fredda was recently awarded a $3,000 grant from NEFA’s Native Arts New England program.* The grant will help with documenting his story of Indian Residential School. Part of the grant will enable Fredda to attend the Wildbranch Writer’s Workshop at Sterling College in Vermont in June (2010) to learn from professional writers how to polish these stories that need telling.** In the future, NEFA has expressed interest in supporting telling the stories in the community. (NEFA is the acronym for New England Foundation for the Arts)

*Native Arts New England is made possible with lead funding from the Ford Foundation's Indigenous Knowledge and Expressive Culture program, with additional funding from Anonymous donors.

** For those interested and willing, there are needs to help this project come to fruition. See page on this website, “Donations Appreciated”

The Power of the Ocean

I was probably the only one that saw my grandmother (photo) float; she would close her eyes, stretch out her arms and there she was. It was a meditation for her. She would pick up vibes from porpoises and seals about what kind of winter we were going to have. She loved going by herself. It was very spiritual for her and she liked to be alone.

It was high tide when we arrived at Gleason’s cove. Without a word, my grandmother took off her shoes and stepped into the water. I stood further back on shore; this was a time to listen and observe. I joined her, as is our tradition, in facing each of the four directions. I was fourteen; it had been seven months since I returned to Sipayik [zee-BAH-yeeg] from Indian Residential School.