Blue Bear Woman

by Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau

  Patricia gives a deep-throated laugh. These two are definitely at home in their bodies, running counter to my biases as a Christian who converted to shamanism late in life. Both firmly grounded and vibrant!

  30

  THE CEREMONY

  SEPTEMBER 2004

  THE KANATAWET COUPLE and I sit in a large room in the basement of their home. Ceremonial objects are everywhere, lying on the ground or hanging from the wall— drums, rattles, medicine pouches, herbs in plastic bags. The scent of tobacco and sage wafts through the air. The healing ceremony began several minutes ago. Behind me, Patricia softly beats a drum. Facing me and holding an eagle feather, Malcolm cleanses my aura with the smoke rising from bitter-smelling herbs burning in a shell. The sound of a rattle joins the drum. Somewhat anxious, the sound reminds me of a rattlesnake. Yet I agreed to their suggested “cleansing,” the word the shaman uses. He said, “For the ceremony in the White Cave, you have to be free of negative emotions, otherwise your visions will be affected.”

  My sense of unease grows as though I’m about to lose something essential, life itself. My thoughts scrabble around inside my brain. I sense that I’m close to reaching an unbearable level of anguish. I want to run away. In a husky voice, unlike the one he used only half an hour ago, Malcolm rivets me to my chair. “A spirit stands next to you, a man who has just died, who is he?”

  My entire being startles and tears run down my cheeks that I’m incapable of making any attempt to wipe away. I don’t know whether my words are spoken out loud or not, “My husband … an accident a few weeks ago.”

  The instruments accelerate the beat to an alarming pace. Malcolm lays a hand on my knee, his touch bringing instant calm. His voice is a blend of kindness and authority. “Let him escape into the Universe. Don’t hold him back. His place is no longer here with you.”

  My feeling of loss deepens. Kanatawet lays one hand on the front of my chest, the other on my back. A shard of ice pierces me, anguish replaced by a sharp pain immediately followed by wild, reckless sobbing. Part of me watches from a distance as my being empties itself of sorrow, casting off, shattering all resistance and defences.

  How long have I sat here shedding what seem like unending tears? I weep for Koukoum Louisa, Clarence, Jimmy, Maman, Sibi, Daniel. As pain sets fire to my solar plexus, Malcolm lays his hand there saying, “It’s all right, it’s over.” This time, his hand radiates heat that spreads from my belly to the rest of my body. My sobbing ceases. I’m spent. My eyes refuse to open, the salt from my tears burns my eyelids. The drum and rattle sound no more. Patricia helps me to my feet and guides me to an adjoining bedroom. She hands me a glass of water, then tucks me in as though I were a child, telling me to sleep for a while. I have never before felt so liberated. A hollow forms beneath my diaphragm like the one I felt forming inside every time I gave birth.

  I float, half-asleep. In my dream, I skip through a field of colourful flowers. I can hear myself laughing like a young carefree girl. A telephone rings, wakes me fully. Someone knocks on the door to the bedroom. Patricia’s handsome, smiling face. “It’s Clara. She’ll eat here with us, okay? I invited her. Malcolm wants to tell you something before lunch.”

  Still slightly woozy, I join the shaman in the ceremonial room. He looks at me with tender irony, my face must look pretty bad. He tells me he has just done a huge amount of work with me, something that usually takes much longer. My excellent health and openness to the mission my great-uncle’s spirit has entrusted me with convinced him to proceed, as well as the strength of my totem. “We’ll go to the White Cave tonight—spirits like the dark and a full moon.”

  Clarisse and I leave the Kanatawets. I have the key to her house where Malcolm suggested I rest up. We’ll leave later this afternoon. I’m to bring warm clothes and my sleeping bag. As we’re about to leave, Patricia stops me. Her green, piercing gaze envelops me with compassion.

  “N’moui esh’k katapegoushan … Nit’i wabamaw ka wabasitt Maikan nabeh. Egoudeh outem’. Petiyï….” She tells me to be patient, that I won’t be alone, a white wolf man is on his way to me. A man who will respect my ancestors’ ways.

  I ask her if he’ll be from my people. “Kiti Eenou, ow?” She refuses to say anything more. I don’t insist and hug her to me. Malcolm comes up, not making a sound. He tells me again to make sure to rest. Too bad he’s in love with Patricia since I’d like him to be my White Wolf!

  Both of them burst into contagious laughter. They really can read my mind!

  Blushing, I rush outside followed by a surprised Clarisse, who can’t figure out why I’m embarrassed or what they’re laughing at. The fresh air does me good.

  31

  THE WHITE CAVE

  SEPTEMBER 2004

  WE LAND ON THE BANKS of the Témiscamie River linking the lake of the same name to Albanel Lake. The late September twilight announces a cold night. I’m wearing felt-lined boots. On the bank, Malcolm lays out our three-star sleeping bags, our lightweight self-inflating mattresses, a backpack full of sandwiches, fruit, and a thermos of hot tea. Patricia and I grab the rolled mattresses and sleeping bags while Malcolm shoulders the backpack. He grabs his huge medicine bag with one hand and mine with the other, then heads toward the Colline Blanche whose summit with its patches of white emerges behind a row of spruce trees. Patricia follows close on his heels. The moon shines round above the coniferous forest. I recognize the feeling of plenitude inside, the same one I had with Humbert Mistenapeo. My breathing finds its source deep below my navel. Between my eyebrows, a small invisible circle spins. I put my hand to my forehead to check, its motion so tangible, as strong as the hill’s draw. Specks of quartz sparkle in the moonlight.

  Just shy of the summit, the Kanatawets set to work making a fire in a hearth that, based on the pile of ashes surrounding it, has been in use for a very long time. “Victoria? Please, come closer.” Malcolm’s firm voice brings me back. He hands me a metal cup full of tea. The fire crackles. We take a seat on large flat rocks.

  “How do you feel?” I feel well. I mention the sensation of a wheel spinning on my forehead. He asks his spouse to enlighten me. They both use the deep shaman tones that are so different from their usual voices.

  “Beings chosen by the Bear Spirit are endowed with several gifts,” the medicine woman tells me, “the gift of sight being one of them. What you feel on your forehead is what white people call the third eye, or what Buddhists call Brahma’s cave or the Bear’s Cave in our culture. Since your mother kept you from using your gift during daylight hours, you turned to it at night in your dreams. Nothing can stop you now from using your gift to help those who ask, either from the visible or invisible world.”

  I hear drumming. Yet Malcolm has only his cup in his hand. Gradually, the sound enters me and I become one with it. My vision blurs. Malcolm turns into a caribou with red antlers, then back into himself. As for Patricia, she transforms into a fat silky otter then, when I shake my head, back into a medicine woman. The shaman says, “Don’t be afraid, you see our totems, just as we see yours. Let yourself go, trust in it, all will be well. The full moon will soon be out, we have to get ready.”

  Despite the gravity of the moment, my sense of humour kicks in. The image of a red-antlered caribou, a fat otter, and a blue bear sipping tea around a fire comes to mind! I try to stifle my laughter, but my shoulders begin to shake. Malcolm suggests I make sure to stretch my drumskin, giving me a friendly tap on the shoulder. His voice rumbles above the flames, “Hey now, this is serious stuff!”

  “It’s nerves,” I say.

  “No kidding!”

  In the firelight, I watch his smile reveal the white of his teeth, which stand out clearly in the semi-darkness.

  We resume our climb up the hill toward the cave’s gaping entrance. In the moonlight, it looks like an eerie mouth open for a soundless howl. Using a flashlight, I inspect the cave that the Cree call the Hare’s Cave. I see a
recess in the back wall, probably bored by a hard rock during the last ice age. Its white surface, darkened by grey and black plaques of quartzite, reflects the light. The space could easily house a dozen people crouching. I raise my arms but still can’t reach the vault. Here I stand in the heart of what was once, before it became a sacred site, a simple workshop for making arrowheads, scrapers, and other tools.

  For now, all I can feel is the wheel spinning above my nose. The Kanatawets open up the inflatable mattresses and lay them down in a circle with the sleeping bags on top. The atmosphere cools and humidity penetrates my thick jacket. As a precaution, I pull on my wool tuque. Malcolm invites me to make myself comfortable. I roll up the unused part of my sleeping bag to make myself a cushion, my crossed legs hidden inside the rest of the bag. Malcolm lays out his sacred objects on a moose hide and invites me to do the same. The hide’s smoky fragrance wafts through the air. My drum, tiny next to his, gives off deep vibrations despite the cold. We each have a Cree caribou-hide rattle, his handle is painted red, mine blue.

  We’ve been playing our instruments for some ten minutes. Patricia turns on her flashlight, pulls out a notebook and pencil from her jacket pocket. This is the moment when, without moving a muscle, I feel myself projected outside my body. I stop drumming as does Malcolm, yet the cave still echoes like a huge heartbeat. It’s lit by a turquoise-blue light. I’m back with the caribou and the otter, but now we’ve been joined by a crow. Noumoushoum Humbert! He appears inside my head, I don’t utter a single word and yet we speak. Free of all emotion, I find myself at the heart of Life and my being dissolves into its surroundings. I feel as one with them. Our menagerie grows. Here’s a red fox, a huge skunk, a moose, a golden eagle, and a grey wolf! I know none of them. Red Caribou tells me via telepathy that they have come to offer me their support and welcome me to the world of shamans. Gradually, glittering silhouettes appear around us. My conscious mind knows these are not human beings, that they are manifestations of the Great Mystery, unlike the animal shapes of Red Caribou and Silken Otter who are flesh and blood shamans.

  Now I’m soaring like a bird above a wide river. I see the forest along its banks. Then a long banana-shaped island cleaving the water comes into view. Where it begins stands a monumental rock, split in two by frost damage. At the other end, three tiny islets face each other. Bulrushes grow in the water around the island as do sweet gale shrubs onshore. I hover a few metres above the ground across from the islets. I know Uncle George’s skeleton lies here, in the earth under the sweet gale, covered every year a little more by the river’s residue.

  My mind grasps the Kanatawets’ request. “Find a more specific detail, a landmark.” Right away, I rise for a more elevated view. I calculate the islands’ angle, then notice a lone birch tree on the big island, standing directly in line with the islet to the left. Between the two is the spot where I feel the bones’ presence.…

  Sucked up by a violent draft, I find myself back in the cave across from Patricia and Malcolm. In the light thrown by the lamp, our breath’s condensation hovers in front of us. The shaman lays his hand on my shoulder and, in his warm, deep voice that seems to come from a great distance, he says, “You’ve done a magnificent job! You’re blessed, Victoria! Welcome to the fold.”

  Could it be that the handsome red-antlered Caribou has been moved by me? Reading my mind yet again, Patricia laughs with her husband. My conscious self seeks escape from the confines of my body. Malcolm says, “Hey! Stay with us. Victoria! We still need you!”

  He helps me to my feet. My legs have stopped obeying me. What feels like thousands of ants nip at my feet and calves. I’m definitely back in my body now! I’ll have to climb down the hill in this state since the Great Spirit’s house is near the summit. Slowly, the Kanatawets fold the sleeping bags and roll up the mattresses. After the emotional cleansing ceremony, I felt totally drained. Here, now that the circulation has returned to my legs, I’m bursting with vitality as though fresh from a long night’s sleep. Happiness glides inside me like an otter full to bursting with plump golden trout.

  Having started the fire, Patricia serves us hot tea. We wolf down our sandwiches as though we are starving. The forest’s silence encircles us and the radiant moon casts long shadows behind us. No one says a word, no sound makes it past my lips. Suddenly, I remember the red-antlered caribou in the dream during which I thought Humbert had appeared during our last night camping before we returned to Waskaganish. It had been Malcolm, Atik Nabeh, the Caribou Man, followed by his harem. A symbolic harem since most of his students are women. As though in answer to my thoughts, Kanatawet says, “We’ll talk tomorrow. For now, we’re going home to sleep.”

  Bathed in moonlight, diamond drops sparkle on the river’s waves. We navigate in a motorized boat, light and easy to handle, that Malcolm transfers to the top of his 4-wheel drive jeep. Then we head toward the gravel road to Route 167 to Mistissini, leaving behind the Colline Blanche, the Témiscamie River, and huge Albanel Lake.

  32

  OFF TO NEMASKA

  OCTOBER 2004

  FOR TWO DAYS NOW, I’ve followed a crash course in wielding the Blue Bear’s power. Patricia offered to guide me during my late-in-life shaman course. She advises me to practise my ceremonies every day and rehearse my power chant. I have to learn to master my power by grounding it in the body-nurturing energy of earth. Patricia claims I’m gifted. In a hurry to make up for lost time, I trust her completely.

  By all accounts, I was a mystical child who prayed to the sun and moon whenever she felt the Great Spirit was no longer listening. In Catholic school, I grew attached to the Virgin Mary, finding her beautiful and kind. I wore blue to look like her. I often asked her for favours and never asked anything of her son, whose bleeding heart frightened me, and even less so of his father, represented either as a sinister-looking bearded old man or behind clouds surrounded by rays of light. Patricia says my totem has taken on the Virgin’s colour. My mind created this entity, a symbol of my gifts: the Blue Bear Woman, an original way of uniting my two cultures.

  The medicine woman insists on the detachment required when faced with the person asking for help. Referring to the way I lost control during the accident that led to Daniel’s death, I ask her what attitude to adopt toward a loved one. “You’ll learn,” she says. “It comes with the grounding exercises and your ceremonies and meditation. One day, you’ll encounter a situation that will call on your capacity for compassion. That day, if you manage to remain centred and effective, you will be a true medicine woman. But be compassionate with yourself first; don’t ever exceed your limits. Ever. Always listen to the inner voice guiding you.”

  Knowing my brothers will arrive later that afternoon, I worry about everything I still have to learn. Patricia reassures me. “You’re welcome to visit us whenever you want. We don’t want you suffering from spiritual indigestion!”

  The doorbell rings to our peals of laughter. Maikan’s prying eyes peering through the windowpane in the front door make me smile. Behind him, Édouard’s attitude is more reserved. “Welcome,” Patricia says in English. Malcolm comes up behind his wife. Despite their own height and slender build, my brothers are visibly impressed by the shaman’s imposing presence and beauty. After introductions all round, Édouard says to me, “We have a surprise for you. Go have a look in the truck.”

  As I step onto the verandah, I catch sight of Mouski’s pointed ears in the passenger seat. With a cry of joy, I race down the few steps and to the jeep. Ours is a boisterous reunion. My dog squeals against my neck, nudging his muzzle into my loose hair. How I’ve missed this mutt! My brothers and the Kanatawets have a good chuckle seeing us so happy. Proud of his surprise, Maikan laughs till he cries watching Mouski do a few of his signature twirls in mid-air.

  The next day after a hearty breakfast, we get ready to leave for Nemaska as Mouski turns on the charm for Clarisse, who adores him. We have to cover the four hundred kilometres
of gravel road in five hours because of a scheduled appointment with Sydney Voyageur, the Nadostin project coordinator. Before contacting my second cousin Stanley, I want to keep the promise I made to David Fraser. Clarisse kisses us goodbye, “I’ll see you in three or four days’ time, right?”

  Quite the optimist, that one! We stop in at the Kanatawets to take our leave. I thank them for healing me, for the ceremony in the White Cave, and for their teachings. Malcolm shakes his handsome head, signals for me to stop. Patricia hands me a ribbon-wrapped box that I hurry to open. My mouth gaping, I find inside a magnificent turquoise and lapis-lazuli stone necklace with a silver-encased stylized bear pendant. I’m flabbergasted. “I found it in a store in Sedona, Arizona. I think it was meant for you,” Patricia says.

  She then holds out the notebook she used in the cave. I read the description of the spot where my great-uncle George’s skeleton is to be found. Without the two of us exchanging a word, she’d been able to transcribe all those details as they surfaced in my mind. “I thought this could help your second cousins locate the island on the maps they surely have. Unless they know the trapper whose territory it is.”

  To save time, I decide to phone Stanley right away and describe the spot on the Rupert River that I flew over during my vision quest.

  We drive along the north road that connects Route 167 to James Bay. My brothers are used to taking it every winter during caribou hunting season. There are so many herds crossing at that time, they bring traffic to a halt. A windfall for hunters. The winding road is wide and well-maintained. In the front seat, Édouard and Albert keep silent. Mouski sleeps at my side curled into a ball. I left my car at Clarisse’s so I’ll have to come back the same way.