My Câpân
- Jordyn Burnouf | April 05, 2021
The March edition of Eagle Feather News was dedicated to Indigenous women. We asked several Indigenous women to write about Indigenous women. This is one of those stories.
Sometimes I daydream of my heros. I paint a picture in my head of a healer, a medicine woman. She is my Câpân, my great grandmother. She passed before we had a chance to meet, but through memories I’ve collected from family and friends, I have met her.
She dances in my daydreams. I see her long dark hair gathered in a scarf. I see her strong hands, her soft eyes. The caribou shared their sacred medicines with her. She raised a family that learned many lessons from the land.
Like the tales of unimaginable heroics – the Greek myths of victories fought in the clouds, the Bible stories of prophets and healers, the heroes in my storybook are the land protectors, the medicine people, the renegades, the Câpâns.
The stories I like best usually begin on the water, with kohkums and mushôms surviving by the land, paddling the shores of the ancient highways in search of food and medicine. This is the greatest gift my Câpân left us. Her legacy is in the land. The teachings remain, and our opportunity now is to pick up those gifts and to move forward together honouring those gifts by protecting the land that we learn and grow with.
As I do work on energy and environmental initiatives, my inspiration and passion come from these stories. I am driven by the teachings and power I feel when surrounded by nature. So, as I shake my head out of this daydream to find a computer in my lap and a story at my fingertips, I am challenged with a legacy I must continue to honour. I am reminded of my role in this story. I hope you take the time to see the value in the Earth, to feel the power of your ancestors’ stories, but also in the story that is your life. You are the writer and the visionary.