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Phone: (780) 455-2700
Fax
(780) 455-7639Email: edwind@ammsa.com
The man who stands in two worlds
The man who stands in two worlds
By Pamela Sexsmith
Buffalo Spirit ContributorHis Celtic parents call him Patrick David Sutton. His Cree parents call him Wapstikwanis (Little White Head). Adopted into two Cree families and named by Elder Bill Pechow of Frog Lake, Sask., after a hero that is part mythical, part mortal, Pat Sutton calls himself lucky to have landed in the Aboriginal culture.
His spiritual journey began 15 years ago while watching the soaring flight of an eagle. He was driving in his hometown of Lloydminster, Sask., when out of the blue, a powerful voice spoke to him, told him that he would never again cut his hair, would soon be wearing braids and spending time with Native people.
It was a strong message that left him badly shaken. A spiritual experience, said Sutton, that sent chills down his spine and hit him like a bolt of lightning.
Growing up, Sutton experienced a real duality in his upbringing, a big split between the Roman Catholic religion and his love of the natural world. It was his views on the natural world that would later dovetail with his respect for Native spirituality. Life carried on as usual until he began to hear that voice and experience a strange series of coincidences.
"The second time the voice came into my head, it told me that I was going to have a lot to do with the reserve out at Onion Lake," said Sutton.
All shook up after that experience and unable to go home, he headed to the lake at the local park where he saw a woman wearing fancy shawl regalia. She was part of an event at Cultural Heritage Days. Sutton, fascinated by the dancers and the drummers at the event, talked to a number of participents and was invited to come back after supper with his brother, Paul, who was friends with one of the drummers, to see more of the Native dance troupe.
Gordie Willier, a drummer with the troupe, also asked them to drop in at the local friendship centre, gave them a formal invitation to attend a sweat lodge and asked them to videotape a drum practice.
"We had been warned to stay away from the drum practice, uncertain of how we would be received. We were challenged by a grassdancer, asked why we had come. Out of the blue, one of the drummers said, 'Oh, you two must be those white guys we have been hearing about, wanting to sing and dance.'" [The drummer was well-known in Native cultural circles - Charlie Tailfeathers] and "much to the astonishment of the other Native people at the practice, he gave me a hand drum to play, and with a grin requested a morning song [it was night] and asked me what style I wanted to dance. I had seen an old fellow from Onion Lake dancing traditional grass. It spoke volumes to me. Our new friend graciously offered to teach me and introduce me to that Elder. He told me it was time to braid my hair, four-and-a-half wraps, just stubs. It's a good thing I was in the bathroom when I braided my hair for the first time. I started to cry, happy and sad, totally overwhelmed by a sense of destiny."
At home he had no music with which to practice dancing or hand drums to play. Later that week, someone in Manitoba sent the Suttons a package of powwow tapes. A local Native artisan had a set of hand drums for sale that someone had ordered but not picked up. Exactly what they needed.
"Then I met my Elder, Antoine Littlewolf." That was back in 1987.
"The first day we walked into that old man's house was like walking into a fresh meadow. He was like my own grandfather, the warmest, kindest gentleman I'd ever met in my life. It was a mutual thing. We really hit it off. He was ready and willing to teach us the old time chicken dance, the old ways and traditions. After a while, I came to realize that Antoine and his wife Mary were like many other Elders I had met, really appreciative of a genuine interest in what they had to say, the knowledge they had to pass on."
The Littlewolfs not only hit it off with Paul and Pat. They decided to adopt them, first as grandchildren and then as their sons, something that both honored and humbled them, said Sutton. Learning the ancient grass and traditional dance forms from a master, was also a humbling experience.
"We were taught that when you dance in a powwow, you pray to the Grandfathers and spirits and offer up your body for them to enter into, as a vehicle to dance in so that they can enjoy the physical world again. When my Elder taught me that, it made perfect sense. When I dance, I'm in the back seat. Within a few seconds of dancing, I lose control, something else takes over. I am not the dancer or the dance, there is no 'I' in there, just a witness. Sometimes moves come out of my body that just astound me and I'm just along for the ride. "
Sutton, who cuts a flamboyant and unusual figure in the powwow arbor, says that the inspiration for his regalia is grounded in Plains Cree tradition, the animal-spirit world and his own Celtic heritage.
"All roads lead to the same place. We all meet in the Stone Age. I wear old-style stationary grass and traditional Plains Cree regalia, using images like the Sorcerer of Trois Freres [three brothers] from a cave in France, and combine brain-tanned leather, horn, fur, cloth, bone, cave bear teeth, mammoth ivory and Mongolian horse hair from the pre-historic horses at Al Oemings Polar Park [in Alberta]. My regalia reflects many influences from different times and cultures."
Sutton was given the right to make and wear this regalia by his Elder, Antoine Littlewolf, and his spiritual guide, the animal master.
"We were given the ways of making, what it meant and the right to wear it. Some people see it as plain, but every little knot and stitch has a meaning, an old pre-contact flavor. There's a natural beauty in the old outfits and materials. The newer styles look gaudy in comparison. The Native ancestors made beads, long before the white man came, using bone, shells and carved stones. . . . As far as being a 'wannabe' goes, I've met a lot of dancers who don't know the first thing about the ancient traditions behind the dance, how to dance properly or make real regalia.
"Everyone appears to be a chief these days, according to their regalia, have appeared to have won all the war honors possible, achieved the highest official positions and loaded down with all the honors that can be won in a lifetime, according to the number of feathers they are wearing," said Sutton.
"No grassroots buck privates out there. And they start out dancing that way! I used to wear an eagle feather bustle. There was respect at first but then it became unsafe to wear one in the arbor, people bumping into it, little kids showing no respect. After talking to many Elders and learning what the eagle feathers meant, I realized that in all good conscience I could not wear something that I had not earned."
Earning eagle feathers in the old time warrior sense meant having hand to hand combat with the enemy, explained Sutton.
"The Cheyenne have recently started up the 'Black Legging Society', an ancient society from more than a hundred years ago, to commemorate the veterans from the First and Second World Wars. Some young guys returning from Vietnam figured that they were pretty hot stuff and had earned the right to join the Black Leggings. The Elders refused them flat out because they had never had hand to hand combat according to the old tradition, and had not earned the right to wear feathers in the truest sense. They had been fighting in the way of the white man."
As well as the sacredness of eagle feathers, Sutton also has strong beliefs about Aboriginal spirituality and what he calls the natural world.
"I believe that the natural world is filled with spirits. By the time we get to be five or six years old we are told that we can't have invisible friends. There is a weird duality in Roman Catholicism. We are taught that we are supposed to have a guardian angel to watch over us for life. I believe that the guardian angel is a more modern bastardization of the guardian spirit. I believe that each one of us has a guardian spirit, be it a bison, an eagle, a fish or a badger; that we can get in touch with these spirits and be taught by them and on a deeper level, get rid of the spiritual middleman. You don't need to go to someone else for this kind of learning."
Sutton says that he listens with humbleness and respect to his Elders, that they validate him and his shunning of the white world for all the right reasons, and always tries to do as they say. But on a deeper level, he looks to his own guardian spirit as his guide in a different reality.
"I wear this buffalo horn head dress with antlers, given to me from Him. There is a spirit, an animal master used by the Shamans in ancient Europe over 20,000 years ago. The image on my shield comes from a cave in France called Trois Freres. He appeared to me on four successive nights in my dreams. Each night I thought I was awake when I saw him standing beside my bed and was terrified. The first night he had hooves for feet and hands, a muzzle for a mouth, completely animal with no eyes. He had empty eye sockets from which burned a bright yellow light. He seemed to beckon to me to follow him but I refused. Each successive night he appeared more human. The second night he had hands, hooves for feet, the muzzle and the yellow eyes. The fourth night he had human hands, feet and face with a body, a combination of different animal parts and yellow lights in his eyes. That night I agreed to go with him and his eyes turned human as he danced out the door. I followed him right through the door and we went places and did things I'm not allowed to tell anyone. He gave me my regalia and I wear it in honor of him."
As a stranger in a strange land, a white man standing in two worlds, Sutton has been called a lot of things, including a wannabe. But for him, seeing where the cultures connect is what it's all about.
"Does anybody really have the right to call all the shots on spirituality? I know a lot of Natives are very prejudiced against white people and think that we don't have any inborn ability to make contact with the natural world, the spiritual world. I mean, that is a load of bunk. Every human being on every continent in human history has had this ability, we all bleed red. It's part of our rightful heritage - the spirit world - and if you are respectful and seek it out, it will respond to you and seek you out. You have to be totally humble. If you start hating people for one reason or another, then that is a cancer and there's too much of that around. We all have to learn to respect each other's differences, appreciate them for what they are, open our hearts and minds. You can learn things you never thought possible.
"I didn't ask to be here. It was like a whirlwind that swept me up. There was no way I was going to fight it. It was far too powerful for me. They used to think we were wannabes at Onion Lake, but it didn't take people long to realize we weren't, when they sat down and talked with us. We were just genuine human beings with a genuine respect and appreciation for nature. That's what drew me to the Aboriginal culture in the first place. I could see how much they respected Mother Nature in all her forms and they developed a rich culture to express their respect through ceremonies and dance.
"Heartstrings can be pulled both ways. It's harder for them to stand in two worlds than it is for me. I find it a great blessing that the Native community has accepted both me and my brother. My loyalty is Cree and that's why we were adopted by the Littlewolfs and the Cardinal-Moyah family.
"I try my best to pass on this understanding to younger dancers and friends. It thrills me to hear that they are making progress, starting to visit their grandparents more often, getting more grounded or more focused in their spirituality.
"Words are like pointing to the stars. It's hard for someone else to see exactly where you are pointing. Words can only point people in the right direction."
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