Afterword

Magic and Power

This is an oral narrative that my dad, Joe Crowshoe, Aapohsoy’yiis [Weasel Tail], smudged and shared. We transfer knowledge and stories with the sweetgrass and the smudge. So this story is told in honour of my dad’s knowledge. He was probably in his eighties when he shared this story with me. A couple of generations ago, the Medicine Men were very powerful, and when they practised healing they actually performed magic. An old man, Píítaa i’poyi [Eagle Talker], was a Medicine Man that my dad knew when he was younger. One day he asked my dad to come and drum for him for a healing ceremony. My dad sang the old man Eagle Talker’s healing song, and there were some rocks in the fire in the middle of the tipi. Eagle Talker reached into the fire and took out the stones; they were red hot. My dad didn’t see him get burned by the rocks. He talked about the power of healing. When Eagle Talker hit the rocks together, butterflies came out. Then he put the rocks in a basin of water, and when the steam came up he took his eagle bone blower, and he blew steam on Máóhk ápi [Red Old Man], who was sick. My dad told me, “I don’t see those kinds of powerful Medicine Men anymore.” I asked him, “What is magic, and what is power in our language?” He said, “The power is knowledge.” The old man, Eagle Talker, had so much knowledge about how to heal and how he would use the rocks and the medicine and the herbs together through his song and ceremony. That was his knowledge of medicine and healing, and that was his power. When he hit the rocks together to start healing and the butterflies came out, and the people in the tipi lodge saw that at the same time (the minute they understood what he said and what he was doing), that minute of understanding is what he called magic, because they all saw the same thing, and they all understood what he was saying. And that is where the belief system and power in our medicines are strong because of that knowledge and magic. When I am talking to people and they understand, at that point of understanding, that is where the magic is. Those were the stories that my dad told me about, when Medicine Men had power and magic. And we still need those people today. We have power and knowledge among our relatives; it’s still there, we just see it in a different form.

Reg Crowshoe