Smoke rises up from the fire at the heart of the gigukwdzi (Bighouse), lifting sparks up past the big, faceted beams and out the opening in the roof.
Cherry blossoms cheer the trees outside Wawadit’la, the gigukwdzi of Mungo Martin. His hands adzed the beams, and today his great grandson, Hereditary Chief Maswayalidzi David Mungo Knox (Kwagu’ł) tells us gathered, the only way to take what is “so wrong, to make it right – is to work together as one, because we’re all connected.”
On the spring equinox, the unprecedented Sała ceremony to mourn the forest came to a close in Wawadit’la, on the traditional lands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations on southern Vancouver Island. The process began in the summer of last year, in Kwagu’ł territory, on north Vancouver Island. It was the first time, ever, the Sała had been taken out of the potlatch container, and held for non-human kin – to mourn the forest and all the life that depends on it.
Creating and holding space to properly grieve the destruction of forests is important, explains Hereditary Chief Makwala, Rande Cook (Ma’amtagila). He’s an artist and a founding director of Awi’nakola, a charitable foundation for forest preservation resting on four pillars, the arts, Western science, Knowledge Keepers – and transformation.
Photo by Ashley Borders Zigman, graduate student researcher Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School
Cook shares the teaching that being able to express and understand grief is essential, to be able to move through it, to do the necessary work ahead. “We have to acknowledge where we are right now – where you stand, where I stand, where our children stand,” says Cook. “We can romanticize what it was like, but the land is not the same. It will never be the same as when our grandparents were young.” It’s not possible to harvest the same areas, because they’re gone – Cook gives clam beds damaged by fish farms as an example. “All of our resources have been impacted. The revitalization needs to come from within us as Indigenous people.”
The equinox is fitting timing, marking a transition from winter to a summer of harvesting, gathering, and nurturing relationships with the land. A growing network of Knowledge Keepers, scientists, environmentalists, and art-ivists is gathered to complete the unfinished work from the ceremony, to move forward.
Love song for land, water, kin
The ceremony involves participants expressing sadness through song, and then “shaking it off” to continue with their efforts. The Sała is composed of five songs. During the summer ceremony, only four of the songs were shared, leaving the fifth unsung and the ceremony unclosed.
Chiefs’ Speaker Ma’ema’łp̓a̱ng̱a̱me’, Matt Ambers (ʼNa̱mǥis, Ma’amtagila) explains that in Kwakwaka’wakw culture, “we never hold onto our grief for too long. We have a very intense expression of grief when people pass away and after a while we let it go. It leaves us. We don’t carry it with us for all our lives.”
He took care to acknowledge that some people left the clearcut last summer holding the mourning “in their heart, that weight. And so it is our wish that you don’t hold onto that in your heart anymore.”
“The grief we feel is so immense, it can’t be dealt with in just a short period of time.”
That part of the process is complete, and it’s okay to let go of the grief now, he says. There’s too much work to do these days, and Ambers explains “we can’t do it with sadness in our hearts, with anger in our hearts– because that would taint our work.
“We believe that everything we do, we have to do with a good heart and good mind. Otherwise our work will reflect that.”
In this Sała, the mourning songs were sung for land, forest, and all the non-human spirits of the forest. Lifting the veil was powerful for many, and the chiefs’ decision to leave it open was uncommon.
“The grief we feel is so immense it can’t be dealt with in just a short period of time,” Ambers explains, “We left that portal open to the spirit world, so that we may feel this sadness for much longer time than normal – eight months. And now it is time to close that portal, to shake off our sadness.”
Photo by Odette Auger
With that, the hereditary chiefs pool their voices in the full set of Sała songs, starting with the four mourning songs shared in the forest. Their deep voices remind us of the gritty raw roads built for logging trucks, and the power of Knox’s voice ringing across the cutblock.
The fifth song swells with warmth. It is a love song. Ambers explains later that the root word of Sała relates to sala̱m, which means love song. It’s called k̓a̱ła̱liła or “shaking the house,” to shake off our grief long enough to do the work that’s required. The lyrics let loved ones who have passed know that “we want them to go on to their next journey. Whatever that may look like. We don’t want them to feel that they need to stick around for us.”
“We’ll be alright. And we know they’ll be all right,” reassures Ambers.
Cook says singing this love song for the forest is profound, “as we have connected with trees as family, as loved ones, as leaders, as spiritual guides,” he says, explaining there is no distinction between human loved ones and nonhuman kin. “Our connection to the natural environment is one and the same.”
Rande Cooke and dancer with deer mask carved by David Knox. | Photo by Mark Worthing
Renewal
The ceremony also “ties into reincarnation,” says Cook, “The sooner we can process and let go of loss is the sooner we’ll be blessed with birth, a new baby carrying a spirit ready to carry on doing amazing work in our communities.”
Awi’nakola embraces a 500-year plan, Cook says, centred on regeneration, governance, sovereignty, and honouring traditional wisdom alongside scientific innovation. It all begins with Indigenous people back on the land.. “We can’t solve this through more science. We can’t solve this through corporations. We can’t solve it through government. We just have to believe in Indigenous people and the reclamation of land and values and culture,” he says.
There’s too much work to do these days, and Ambers explains “we can’t do it with sadness in our hearts, with anger in our hearts.
Restoring faith goes hand in hand with healing identity, and healing ourselves. Similarly, we can believe in our relationship with the land again, through reparation, explains Cook.
“How do we heal our lands, and how do we, the people of the lands, heal? So we’re going to heal our lands and we’re going to be healing with our lands, and this is part of the ceremony,” says Knox.
Cook shares an invitation: “Let us ignite a movement of restoration and renewal. Let us honour the past, engage the present, and courageously envision a future where both people and the land thrive in harmony.”
Living culture is strengthened, Cook smiles, “when we start creating new songs around regeneration, new songs about new flowers.”
Odette Auger (Sagamok Anishnawbek) is an award-winning independent journalist and storyteller living on Klahoose territory in the Salish Sea. Follow her work at www.authory.com/OdetteAuger.
