The Midē´wiwin. This is the “official” society for the mide, or the shaman. It’s Ojibwe in origin, but the religion has been spreading so that it even touches the coasts where my own people were originally from.

They’re supposedly secretive. I’ve seen public lodge pages and drum circles you can pay to go to.

The teachings are sacred. That’s a no-brainer.

Some say it only gets taught to registered tribal people (bark! bark! I’m a registered poodle!). I know of at least one White person who is a member.

I came across their existence by chance. I’ve looked to see if there was a lodge near to me on more than one occasion so that I could at least learn a bit more from the right source as I wander aimlessly through life. I’m too far south from them.

But maybe, I’ve thought in dark moments, that’s a good thing. In my own family, I know that my Medicine ancestors (who I now know had the last name of Charles) fled because they were Medicine. This is what my father said.¹ Whatever the case, the story is that we had to flee. I’m inclined to believe that because even Frank Speck (who I mentioned here before) documented that the Medicine people had to hide their true natures in the end.

I don’t believe in hiding everything. Hiding everything is what helped to destroy a lot of our knowledge.

So we fled with our Medicine and headed west to where our tribes were going. We joined with the Stockbridge-Munsee, of which we’re a part, and the Brotherton. One of my great-grandfathers became a celebrated “Indian Doctor” (so his death certificate says). The pioneer community grieved when he passed away, so the newspapers said. My great-grandmother became a midwife, so my father said. And when I was young I was driven to studying herbalism. It’s in the blood.

There’s another side to this, though. I didn’t know it until I began trying to find the Three Fires. There are people who talk about how their family had to flee FROM the Mide. The society was too powerful in that area and perhaps too corrupt, the way societies tend to become. Their family became Christian because of it.

There was another I’ve come across who denounced anyone who claimed to be of Medicine that wasn’t part of the society – another dogma reaction I’m sad to say. Although I get that there have been a lot of people who put out neo-pagan Medicine information, and of course there are the people who are “pretendians”, to claim someone isn’t shaman enough because they’re not part of the larger church is like a Catholic claiming anyone else no matter what they believe isn’t Christian. (Yes, I’ve met those kind of people.)

So like with everything, both sides have good and bad I suppose.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. I went to the Indian Country Reddit board last night to see if I could get some help finding a local chapter, to see if this path was the right one. Before I made my post, I was sure to check if someone else had asked and gotten the answer. There were two easily-found posts with my exact question on the board (one was recent), but both people were located too far away from me. So I posted my question. I phrased it as carefully as I could and mentioned my tribal affiliation because bark! Bark.

It’s not even 12 hours later and I got two responses. The first: What was my tribal affiliation? Because didn’t I know I was asking about very secretive and sacred things? Well my tribe is Protestant Christian and located very far away from me. Pretty sure restoring the family ways would not happen through them. And recently I’ve sent letters to every single tribe my family walked through with no response. I will get no help from the gatekeepers.

The second was “Rule 10” and the post being removed. Because as with way too many things in life, what’s okay for someone else to do is not okay for me.

I’d been holding off my plans for this blog over this. I’d been holding off a lot of things over this.

Historically the Three Fires of the Medicine Lodge are Ojibwe, and I am not Ojibwe. Historically I will acknowledge that there was probably a lot of overlap from the ways of the Mide to the ways of my ancestors. That doesn’t mean the two ways are exactly the same. The first difference I can point out that’s documented is that with the far Southern tribes, such as the Penobscot, the teachings were individual. In my case, you were given guidance but discovered your own way because it was extremely personal. I can’t say for certain, but the impression I’m being given regarding the Mide is that it’s very organized and structured. That takes the entire wild essence out of it if this is true. So not the same.

But I would go to them for this at least for a start. Except fate has cock-blocked me. For now I remain a lodge of one.

_________________________________________________________________

1. I also know Dad tended to put a dark bent on some things, so maybe they simply migrated and happened to be Medicine. ↩︎