Shingoose: A Visionary Ahead of His Time

 On January 12^th this year, Canada lost an Anishinaabe folk singer and songwriter who had worked his whole life at amplifying Indigenous music.  His name was Curtis Jonnie although he was better know by his stage name Shingoose which was the name of his great-grandfather.

Shingoose was born in 1946 in Winnipeg from parents who had survived the Indian Residential School system.  He was a member of the Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation.  At the age of 4 he was adopted by a Mennonite family as part of the Sixties Scoop.  In his teenage years, he was sent to a boarding school in Nebraska where he sang in the choir and learned music.

Shingoose (photo credit: globalnews.ca)

Shingoose was called “a visionary ahead of his time” for starting his own Indigenous label called “Native Country” at a time when no one else would record Indigenous artists. He played in Roy Buchanan’s band and other rock and R&B bands and later toured extensively across Canada performing his own folk songs.  He cofounded Native Multimedia Productions, a TV production company which created First Nations current affairs programs for CKND-TV (Winnipeg) and CTV.  He hosted a documentary series for CBC Radio, programming for TVO and served as chair of the Juno Awards committee for the Aboriginal Album of the Year after campaigning with Buffy Ste. Marie and others for the award’s existence. Throughout his life he advocated for the recognition of Indigenous musicians.   He was inducted into the Manitoba Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

Shingoose had a stroke in 2012 and had to live in a care facility in Winnipeg where he recently caught COVID and died at the age of 74. He was still planning to come back to the stage.  His song “Silver River” was a collaboration with poet Duke Redbird and was recorded in 1975. A young Bruce Cockburn played guitar and produced the album.  Silver River featured on the 2014 compilation album Native North America Vol. 1 which was nominated for a Grammy Award.

So, to honour Curtis Jonnie, my partner and I wanted to cover Silver River on the Zoom coffee house that we attend each week.  But, we had trouble hearing the words on this recording which was the only one we could find.  Once we realized that the words were from a poem by Duke Redbird, we emailed him and asked for help.  The next day, his assistant replied with a pdf of the poem and permission from Elder Redbird to use it.  We will play the perform the song this week in honour of all the Indigenous artists who have fought so tirelessly to shine a spotlight on Indigenous voices in the face of indifference and for all of those who have died of COVID in our nursing homes.

Here is Silver River by Curtis Jonnie and Duke Redbird.

 

Life Line for Our Times

 Once again this year, I am submitting a piece of art for the Orillia Women’s Day Art Show.  This year, the theme is Life Lines.  The artists are asked to submit 75 words or less with the artwork to link it with the theme.

As I pondered what to enter this year, the words “multi-media” came into my mind.  I have done beading before which is multi-media but I sensed that this time, an acrylic painting was also included as one media.  Soon after came a large image of a Heal-all plant rising out of it’s forest community of plants just as I had experienced it this past summer.  It seemed to shimmer and vibrate with energy so I added some silver sparkles to the area around the yellow “glow” to express that to the viewer.  And then I printed out some studies on using Heal-all to treat COVID-19 and cut the titles of the scientific articles into the shape of clouds which I stuck to the canvas and voila, it was multi-media!

I chose to paint the Heal-all plant much larger than life so that the little lipped flowers all over the flower head could be seen in their their intricate beauty.  Even the flower head demonstrates community.  And then this one Heal-all plant is just one of many in a community.  I had met these plants in the forest during the first lock-down in which the forest community welcomed me to be a part of it.  

My partner designed and constructed the frame for me.  Since I head met the Heal-all plants in the forest, I wanted the frame to express this idea so that the forest community could be represented.  He had a piece of wood that was taken from the floor of the old house next door during a renovation.  The wood had been stored for years, but when the neighbours sold the house last winter, the wood was gifted to my partner.  It is likely the white pine that grew so abundantly here until the settlers cut them all down.  I live in an old lumber mill town that was once a bustling community until the mill shut down 100 years ago.  The forest where I met the Heal-all was also deforested at that time and then reforested about one hundred years ago as well.  Carpenter ants had eaten holes through the old wood from the neighbours so my partner chose to use those holes to an artistic advantage.  He threaded Wild Grape vines through the holes to give the idea of vegetation surrounding the Heal-all plants.

And so, this piece represents relationships and community on many levels and it amplifies the voice of the plant world that is still offering healing and relationship to us despite it all.  The choice is ours.

This is what I wrote to accompany the piece:  “During the 2020 lockdown, I encountered a vibrant community of tall Heal-all plants in a nearby forest.  They seemed to be offering medicine to me.  I dried their leaves and flowers for tea to treat the flu.  I also made a flower essence from the tiny flowers.  I later learned that this plant (Prunella vulgaris) is used medicinally world-wide and it is being researched as a treatment for COVID-19.  Renewing our relationships with healing plants is truly a Life Line of our times.”

 

Alder: Ogham Tree for January

 

The ancient Celts used the first alphabet in Europe which is called the Ogham script.  Each letter is associated with a tree or an important plant.  The alphabet was used as a mnemonic device to encode knowledge, the Celtic song of the universe, Ceolta na Cruinne (Diana Beresford-Kroeger).  The thirteen months of the year (pre-Gregorian calendar) were each represented by a particular tree.  The new year began on Nov. 1^st with Birch, followed by Rowan in December.  The tree associated with January is Alder.  It's Celtic name is Fearn and it was represented by the letter F.   It seems to me that in the midst of chaos and change, some ancient knowledge might lend a guiding hand or at least some perspective.

Fearn or Alder Ogham script

Alder is a member of the Birch family.  It often grows on riverbanks or lakeshores which it stabilizes with its fibrous root structure.  Alder is an early colonizer tree of barren ground.  Through its symbiotic relationship with the bacteria Frankia aini which is found in the root nodules and absorbs nitrogen from the air in return for sugars from the tree, the soil around the Alder roots is replenished with nitrogen.

On the shore of Georgian Bay, Ontario, Alnus incana (Tag Alder, Speckled Alder)
The British variety Alnus glutinosa is a much taller tree.

The oily wood of the Alder does not rot in water.  In fact, it becomes harder in water, so its has been used for centuries to build roads over wet places, provide pilings for buildings in Venice and some Medieval cathedrals as well as wagon wheels, milk churns and wooden clogs.  The wood makes good charcoal which was used in smithing and metalworking. The wood which is not good firewood is however used to smoke food such as salmon. When cut, the wood turns pink or orange resembling blood or fire and so the wood was also used to make shields with the belief that the wood would bleed instead of the warrior.

You can see the grey bark on the trunk and the reddish brown twigs.

Medicinally, inner cambial Alder bark contains salicin which turns into salicyclic acid in the human body.  The bark has therefore been used for pain relief for the gums, the mouth, for the pain of scalds and burns, or externally for joint pain.  A leaf inside the shoe was thought to help aching feet.

Alder was also used to make dyes – green from the flowers, red from the bark, brown from the twigs and yellow from bark, young shoots and ferrous sulphate.

The tree has both male catkins that provide pollen and female catkins which when fertilized (by wind or bees) turn into tiny woody cones.  When these cones open, the seeds may fall into the nearby water where they float due to air chambers inside of them and an oily exterior.  Thus, the seeds are spread by air or water.  Alders represented balanced male and female energy so they were thought to help in knowing when to move forward and when to find inner stillness.

Here you can see the long male catkins and the tiny cones which have released their seeds.
The small female catkins will appear in the spring.

Here you can see the tiny Alder cones in relationship to my thumb.

Pan pipes were made of Alder twigs and Alder wood was also used in Fender electric guitars.

Alder was thought to help people “take up challenges, move into new situations and face things previously avoided.” (Glennie Kindred).  And finally, from Elen Sentier: Alder is “about forgetting the little personal self, your personal wants and needs and focusing instead on the needs of the earth…. [This] Wisdom means you know that you are just a part of the whole, and that, by thinking of the needs of the earth, you can help things work out appropriately.” (p. 27-8)

And so, through the Alder tree, the knowledge of protecting the earth, balancing our male and female energies and finding our place in the whole is shared.  Ancient knowledge and yet very timely for the place and time we find ourselves in.

References:

Diana Beresford-Kroeger (2019) To Speak for the Trees. Random House: Canada.

Glennie Kindred, (1997) The Tree Ogham. Glennie Kindred: UK.

Elen Sentier (2014) Trees of the Goddess. Moon Books: Winchester, UK.

 

 

We Are All One