Our birthing tipi near the Tar Sands.
KIMOWANIHTOW’S BIRTH
We chronicle here our family’s journey to take part in the Tar Sands Healing Walk, which led to the birth of our eighth child.
May 29 (Nitanis)
This journey with my family has been a true learning experience for my children. We left the ocean where we are against the development of a copper mine by Imperial Metals and open-net fish farms in our Territory . . . went through Hupacasath, where our Nuu-chah-nulth friends are in a legal battle against the FIPA (Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements) China agreement with Canada . . . went off to the mainland . . . went up to K’san, in Gitsan Territory, to watch my daughter sing at the Rock the North benefit concert for Mother Earth . . . met people who fought their own band to stop the Enbridge pipeline . . . met people who fought for the Skeena headwaters . . . travelled through the beautiful territories of many great Indigenous nations where this proposed pipeline is to be built . . . connected with family and warrior friends along the way . . . and traveled all the way to the biggest environmental gaping wound I have ever seen or felt in my ancestral homelands.
Our birthing tipi near the Tar Sands.
Young activists at the Tar Sands!
I have hope. My children are learning all about these battles that are being fought all along the coast and through the countryside. We are fighting for a better life for all. Water is life and within me a new baby is being formed with water in me. It is when the water breaks that we are all brought into this world. Let us all honor that gift.
June 11 (Nitanis)
We decided it would be too much to travel home and try to get our home ready in time for our new baby. I guess the wind blew us here to a place I rarely visit but have deep connections to—the ancestral homelands of my mother. I was born Cree but was raised and lived my life on the west coast. So I will take this time with our family to learn about our other heritage. My aunt is going to show me how to make traditional mossbags and I will prepare real moss for diapers! I am excited. My uncle will show us what is harvestable right now so I will not miss out on any foods. I am going to find a tipi and have my baby by the fire, old-school style. It is hard to find a midwife out this way but John is confident we can do it. I miss the west coast, but it will be there when we return with another addition to our clan.
Laboring in the tipi.
Nitanis labors with her mother and daughter, while her aunt sings.
July 7 (John)
Thursday, July 4:
6 a.m. Wake up and cook breakfast for one hundred people.
Clean up kitchen.
Noon. Prepare and serve lunch for one hundred people.
Clean up kitchen.
6 p.m. Prepare and serve dinner for one hundred people. Clean up kitchen.
7–8 p.m. Presentation on Nuu-chah-nulth way of life, foods, and decolonization.
8:30 p.m. Kalilah performs.
9 p.m. Nitanis goes into labor (drive to tipi).
9:30 p.m. Wash up and prepare/sterilize equipment.
Midnight. Deliver a beautiful baby boy.
Try to sleep.
Pushing!
Tipi delivery!
Friday, July 5:
6 a.m. Wake up and begin preparing a meal for five hundred people that includes a whole deer, part of an elk, and a moose.
6 p.m. Serve feast.
7 p.m. Run back to kitchen to make a few extra pots of stew and soup (just in case there wasn’t enough).
8:30 p.m. Serve extra food.
9—11 p.m. Stay with newborn son until ready to collapse.
Saturday, July 6:
6 a.m. Wake up and begin preparing a meal for five hundred people that includes a whole deer, part of an elk, and a moose.
6 p.m. Serve feast.
8 p.m. Family presentation to Healing Walk Crowd.
10 p.m.—midnight. Hang out with baby.
Midnight. Collapse.
I am so glad this is all over and done . . . Time to just enjoy our beautiful baby boy!
July 6 (John)
There are no words that can truly capture the elation and joy that I feel!
Every moment, every beaming face (new or familiar) that comes to share their love and happiness with us, every helping hand that helped bring everything to a complete halt so that we could be comfortable and prepare to usher in a new life. Strangers, friends, and family alike dropped everything and lent their whole selves to this experience.
Surrounded by a community of healers from around the entire planet! Surrounded with the medicines and living teachings of the beautiful Cree culture. In our own tipi, atop a bed of spruce boughs and a buffalo robe, our newest addition arrived. Songs and prayers were offered from many walks of life throughout the night.
He made a thunderous entrance into this world. As lightning and thunder crackled in the midnight sky, he drew his first breath and the rain waited for that precise moment to shower and cleanse as he entered into my arms and a tear slipped unheeded down my face.
We waited for what felt like an eternity to hear his first cry.
His subtle and subdued cry was instantly met with a loud chorus of cheers from the entire community. He is here! He has a message: there is hope for our future.
He is beautiful. A strong and healthy baby that truly knows how to make an entrance! I love you, Nitanis Desjarlais, and as I still struggle to wrap my head completely around the entirety of this experience, I know in my heart that this is the product of love and our hard work to become the people that we are today.
And to my mother, Charl Rampanen, to you I am also eternally grateful. It saddened me to be so far from your presence, but I always carry in my heart the love and care that you endlessly supply. I am eager to return home and for you to meet our mighty little man!
July 7 (Nitanis)
I am so in awe of my baby. He is so perfect. He was conceived when our family moved out on the land. Throughout my pregnancy, I did not see any Western doctor or midwife. No ultrasounds or blood tests all the way until he was born. His father was the only one who checked me. He delivered him and tied the umbilical cord with sinew. We have faith in our abilities to birth naturally, safely, and traditionally with lots of prayers. It had been a long time since anyone had given birth in a tipi on the land, but I know it will not be the last. I am in love once again. . . .
Welcoming a “Thunder Spirit”!
July 11 (Nitanis)
Yesterday in the quiet of the afternoon, my son’s belly button fell off. It was tied with hide by his father and my Aunty Cheeko. The cord that connected us was cut with a knife that will now be mine to gather medicine with. It is wrapped up in a special place till I make a cover for it. For our family, when the belly button falls off, we get ready to have his naming and introduce him to the family and community. This is a Nuu-chah-nulth tradition that we have used for our children. We will be sharing his name on Saturday, then we will be returning to our other home. We are anxious to go home to the west coast!
July 13 (John)
Our son’s Cree name is Kimowanihtow Pisiwachahk. Thunder Spirit brings on the Rain—Pisiwachahk (“Thunder Spirit”) is the name that he received the day after his birth by the elders that were present at the Healing Walk. At the time of his birth (midnight July 4), the skies crackled with lightning and rumbled with thunder. He was actually born twice, as he was first delivered in the placenta, and after his head emerged he exited from the placenta—a veiled birth. Born in water! Once he entered into this world, it began to rain. Thus, Kimowanihtow (He Brings the Rain). His arrival impacted many people from far and wide. The Dene people present were very touched by his birth and have invited us to return in the fall for another naming (his Dene name). One Dene elder is consulting others to determine a fitting name that may focus upon the element of lightning, or, as he explained it to us, “the silver ball that strikes the earth with the lightning strike.” They mentioned that he is a very special person and they want to provide him with a proper name in their tradition. We will also consider a Nuu-chah-nulth name after we return home. This will come in time. A woman from the local Fort McMurray First Nation mentioned that she dreamt of him and suggested that he will speak many languages. So perhaps it is fitting that he receives several names from differing regions. A Dene elder who was present during his birth in the tipi sat by the fire and shared her vision of his future once he was born. She saw that he will become a very strong leader that will help connect many people. So many stories. So many people impacted and he is only days old! We also buried his placenta today at the lakeside where he was born (locally known as Nipsi in the Cree language). Nitanis, all of our children, and I were present and we shared our thoughts and prayers for his future. One thing is certain: in addition to the continuous presence of rain, thunder, and lightning throughout the pregnancy, during the birth, and even now afterward, “Kimowanihtow” has reconnected us with Nitanis’ ancestral Traditional Territory and this connection will only grow stronger.
Kimowanihtow.
Nitanis, John, and their children live near Tofino and are all transitioning to an Indigenous foods-based diet. Nitanis is a documentary filmmaker and is the owner, producer, and editor of Shape Shyphter Studios. John has been actively involved in a number of areas that are all connected to the enhancement of the overall health and well-being of First Nations Peoples. Both believe many of the physical and emotional imbalances that many First Nations people face (especially among children and youth) could effectively be addressed through relationships that we hold with our lands, culture, and foods.
“Being a doula has been, up to this point, the most satisfying thing I have ever done. It has been this magical and secret gateway into some of the most beautiful, profound, and intense facets of the human experience. In doing this work, I have been blessed to be direct witness to undeniable strength and innate courage in women that I never knew existed before. It is this same strength and courage that carries women through their journeys of motherhood. There is something so very special about birth. I am not really sure that I can pinpoint what it is exactly, but I can feel it deep within me. It’s a sense of absolute humility and connectedness— it’s as though everyone present at the birth of a human is swept with a sense of awe, wonder, and unity. Even in the most heartbreaking situations I have been present for, there is still an air so thick with love that the heart can’t help but be ripped open.”
—SACHA SAUVÉ