Rose Auger is a medicine woman of the Woodland Cree people from Driftpilereserve, near Faust Alberta. We talked about music, although there is noword for music in Native languages. The drum, rattle and flute, the songs,are all used for sacred and other purposes, they are all part of somethinglarger than just music. "People say the Indian way of life is gone after 500years, but look at me. I'm here."
               Her music and her ceremonies are used to bring spirits and help thepeople. The social system today and the lifestyles of people, particularlyin the cities, is putting their spirits and bodies in danger. The nine tofive lifestyle for money, the culture of the TV, the inner city life thatleaves so many people lost, are all killing people. Rose works to helppeople see the reality of the red road.
                "Sometimes I wonder how it can work, with the way we have ourlifestyles, they way we eat, the way we abuse our body in all that we do.You know, a lot of people are so tired from a day's work that they'll gohome and then they'll try to relax with alcohol or whatever. More abuse !And then finally they fall asleep in the wee hours, then get up and take offagain. That's a very abusive life. And then they wonder why they have allthis turmoil in their life, and disease in their body, it's just chaos.
                "I see this, and try my very best to bring it out to people, to say'stop doing that, there is a better way.' You know we were here thousands ofyears, and we know a better way. We have the values of our ancestors, whichare in our genes, which are here. Stop using this harmful drink, thisharmful drugs, and values. Your values are not good, it's driving youcrazy."
                Governments and society are in a state of denial in regards to thesickness that has fallen on mother earth. As a result, purification foreseenby the Cree in the West has begun. "The purification already has happened.If you pay attention, look at the world and the natural disasters, that'spart of purification. Your earthquakes, your floods like the great ones downFlorida way and Texas - that's all part of it. The purification means manylives lost and many, many people totally wiped out. You have your airdisasters, your wars, your fanatics who wipe out people.
                "A lot of people think that purification is the end of the world. Idon't think that's the way it is. It just a way that's going to changethings: The money markets are going to collapse, money is going to have lessand less value, and people are going to have to learn how to survive and goback to the old ways and the land, to relearn their natural traditions inorder to become whole.
                "When the holy people were putting out their teachings of prophecy,they told us: 'Go back to the land. Learn how to find your water. Oldknowledge. Learn how, so that when purification happens you will be preparedfor it.' I've done that, I've led people back to the land to prepare forthat purification, but they're just too weak, too weak. They gotta havetown, town..."
                Rose tries to show people how to live with the land and the spirits onthe land. Not everybody is ready to learn. Some time ago at Timbers (asacred site in Alberta), she went out to help people prepare for thepurification by teaching them about the land there.
                "The first year they put in the garden they didn't get much out of itbecause the gophers got it all, you see ? (laughs) So that's as far as theywent, they didn't learn how they had to do it. They could have put upofferings and fixed it so that those ones would not do that, you see,because you're working with the spirits.
                "And that's the way it went. And that's the way it goes today. Peopleare willing to grasp at our value system, our knowledge, our wisdom. Butthey can only go so far. When it means changing your lifestyle or doingthings differently - that's a very difficult move to make. And then thereare some young people are so super eager about saying 'oh yes yes I'm gonnagive up my job and go back to the land and be like you were, before whiteman came.
                "And I say 'yes that is super, that is wonderful, but let me tell youmy dear friend, you must have support in what you do. You can't do italone.' And you must also know how to relate to mother earth and all thebeings, whether it's trees or medicine or water. You have to make thatconnection. And don't jump into it. Your body cannot take it. Your mind istoo unbalanced. Your mind will get the worst of you. So you have to do it ina way that makes the transition wise.
                "Continue to have some place where you have this (your life today) andthen, work at it over there. Because when you get over there and you want tolive the right way, you have to know that it's not just for today, but fiftyyears from now. You will build that place for the generations coming, thatthey will have a place. To have the natural water, and to have themedicines.
                "I built a round house, and the beavers kept making dams because thatwas their area and we came and invaded it. And so they kept making theirdams and our land was flooding and we couldn't keep our horses and ourcattle there because their hoofs would suffer, it was too damp. So finally Ihad to do a ceremony and ask the beaver to pity us, and go somewhere else.And they did. They moved, you see... that is the teaching of our ancientancestors, that we have a way of living in harmony with the beings.
                "The thing was, some of the people who were there building, said 'Wellgo get us some dynamite and we'll dynamite the beaver dam and houses andthat's how we'll get rid of them.' And I said 'No, no, you don't need to dothat, that's destructive, to disturb all the plant life, all the waters."
                Some people are now waking up, says Rose. "People are just now saying:'What happened here ?' (speaking of the crisis in the world today). And thenwhen we come in and tell them, they may accept it or they might try to findother ways of looking at it. But most times people just will not make thosechanges that they need to make in order to know a better way of life.
                "That better way of life was here for thousands of years. Those days,those times, there were no prisons or hospitals. We always lived in harmonyand our people who were medicine people, or people of visions, people ofdreams, they played all those parts to keep the nations alive and inharmony.
                Rose plays her part through her music, her ceremonies, and travels.These things are done to reach people. She has 126 spirits, and she carriesa yuipi ceremony, given to her by a Sioux medicine man who had carried itfor 42 years. "He came to my land, and passed it to me and one of mybrothers.
                "I have my own sacred songs and they're addressed to different spiritpeople, and different things. Most of them came to me and the others, thatwere passed to me, came when the ceremony was passed to me. That's how itworks. The music and the ceremony are all one. If you profess to know aceremony and you don't have the music, then it's not a ceremony."
                She doesn't use a drum, she uses a rattle. "Me, I have turtle rattles,and I've had a turtle rattle since I can remember. Someone coming up herewill say 'how come there's turtle rattles here, there's no turtles here...'you know, but the spirits are universal. We knew the turtle and we had theturtle in our ceremonies... it's a real ancient spirit. The same as you seeshells, we use shells... all these things are everywhere. How it came aboutis... back there somewhere. I'm just a baby, I don't know."
                She says that people have been travelling a long, long time. "Turtlerattles, they have them in the West and in the East. I've had differentrattles given me like the small ones, I like the small ones, the ones that Iwork with. I also have a big one, which was given to me by the Onondaga(firekeepers of the Iroquois Confederacy). A grandmother brought me thereand I did some doctoring and they gave me this rattle and they gave metobacco and they gave me a lot of sacred stuff. It's because of love of ourceremonies.
                "Spirits are so holy, that's why we have rattles. That's why we have aceremony. We put all these sacred objects there for them to use. To touchus, that's how holy they are. That's why we have what we have, you know -the pipe, the rattles, the sage, all these sacred things.
                "We put them there for them (the spirits) to come, and to cleanse us,heal us - all that we need. And we always ask for everything, in ourceremonies. We ask for forgiveness for the mistakes we made, anything thatwe may have inflicted on somebody that caused them pain, or maybe put themoff course on their path.
                "What mistakes we make, we have to ask for forgiveness and ask, youknow, to learn. Show me, teach me, have no pity on me - how else am I goingto learn ? In my early years I made a lot of mistakes. I kept worrying: 'Ican't do this, I'm not holy enough, I wont be able to do this - I've justdone too many things that are not good.' And the holy man who passed thelodge to me kept saying 'it's not your choice, the spirits chose you, youhave to do it, you have no choice.
                "Most people have their own free destiny, they can choose. I'm not oneof them. This is what I was told, and so, regardless of how I may try to runaway and ignore what comes through, it'll keep coming until I respond. Andin the beginning I used to really put myself through a lot of pain because Iwas ignoring the spirit. But I finally learned to realize that there's noother way to go that will leave me this great sense of well being.
                "In my life, I've gone through so much, so many places, met so manypeople. So I'm always prepared to hear what people say, what people think,and I want that. I honour it as much when somebody's upset as whensomebody's happy. I just honour what's happening with them, and sometimesit's painful, especially when it's from our own people. Those kind of thingsare painful.
                "But I know a way to free myself from that pain. I just take a smudgeand smoke my little pipe, then I'm back on track. Because to work in a holyway you always have to be holy, in order for the spirit to work throughyou."
                A constant healing process is needed for a healthy life. Her helperCeleste Strikeswithagun equates that with learning kindness: "There are people who say: 'Oh I'll do that, I'll do anything (to get thespirituality).' But they don't know what it takes. It takes your whole lifeto learn about kindness, about being happy."
                Rose says that "once you're on it (the road) you just flow with yourlife. And the part that most people find difficult is the part to give. Togive of their time, of theirselves, to give without expectations. When yougive you give from your heart. And you know that the creator sees you andwatches you, and the creator's going to give you what you need. And you alot of the time don't even know what that is. But you just know that you dothis and it will be given to you.
                "Someone who is always giving away things, he just walks free. Hedoesn't accumulate a bunch of stuff that weighs him down. They're just free.They're just so free in life. That's how our people were. They just roamedthis world, everywhere. Because they never got weighed down by thematerialistic world. They just had survival, what that was about - and themost important part is the spirituality, being able to get from here tothere anytime.
                "I have a car, which was given to me. When I get in my car, I light mysmudge, I offer my tobacco for protection from anything harmful. Also forhelp so I can get where I'm going soon. In that process the police mightcross my path, but he's busy with someone else or he fell asleep at thatmoment I went by there, breaking the speed limit.
                "When we're in that power, it's just so awesome. Myself, I don't wantto be there alone so I work really hard to teach my children, mygrandchildren, and all the people who wish to come and learn. Learn and befree to pursue that lifestyle. In this world, it's all connected. We don'tseparate ourselves from anything. We venture into life with this kind ofsupport and help from our ways.
                "Learning to be in harmony, especially with the water... you have tobe in harmony and connected with all these things because should it be thatsome kind of disaster happens, then you're going to have that knowledge, andthe spirit people helping you. It's not going to work to just go and bethere on the land, and not be connected."
                She has had many good times, teaching the people and bringing thespirit to give guidance. Her way of life and her songs are shared by manypeople. She describes an experience at Waterhen Reserve in Alberta:
                "It was so beautiful... we had just put our pipes up and we werefasting, and it was in September, the leaves were just beautiful and thewater was incredible. And so here we were, we were coming down from thefast, and the women had brought the food, we were going to have a feastright on the shore of that lake.
                "And a whole school of loons were there because that's where theylived, these loons. And so they started coming, and they were just talkingand telling each other what we were about, what we were doing. And they werevery pleased, because the loon man was there, that's my son Dale, he hasthis gift of the loon call. So he started to call, and they just came rightto the shore, and they were just going in and talking back and we were allin awe of what these loons were doing before our eyes. This wasn't justloons, this was sacred beings and we were in their territory.
                "And my son has the loon song, and then the people sang the loon songand we were in unity with these loons. That was so profound for me, I hadnever seen that before. That unity, that these beings, these loons, knew whowe were. And we had a vague idea what they were about. We know they are verysacred, they are the medicine people of the waters, of the land. We knewthat, but there was much more than that between us.
                "Most people will never really get to know the extent of whateverything is about. But everyone can learn things. You learn to be gratefulwhen you have that opportunity to be passed these songs, these rituals and ceremonies - being able to work with these beings. It's a great gift. Evenjust one spirit."