Sacred medicines from Waterloo region meant to help heal families of James Smith Cree Nation

A box with sacred medicines has travelled many miles to heal and comfort families living in James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.

The medicines were prepared by members of a women's circle from in and around Waterloo region for the members of James Smith Cree Nation, who are still rebuilding their lives after a mass stabbing in September 2022 that left 11 dead and 17 people injured.

Nina De Shane, a Haudenosaunee elder from Wilmot, said the local community was devastated when the tragedy happened and wanted to find a way to help.

"A lot of people contributed in different ways especially," she said. "The medicine came from the different gardens, traditional gardens and sacred gardens in our area and the medicines were harvested according to the cardinal points on the compass that the medicines represented."

Sweet grass came from the Dish with One Spoon Garden from Conestoga College's Doon campus. Tobacco was grown at Crow Shield Lodge in New Hamburg. Sage was collected from École élémentaire L'Harmonie in Waterloo. The cedar came from a grower in Brantford.

After each medicine was harvested, De Shane said other community members divided up the tasks of sorting. drying and packaging the medicine into 48 bundles.

"Then, even after that occurs, there's further things that we have to do before we can put them into the bags. To smudge them and pray over them and so on. So it was a huge community effort to do this," De Shane explained.

"This brought our whole community closer. We really experienced, created joy in doing this for our brothers and sisters at James Smith Cree Nation."

Volunteers spent several days over the winter cutting and sowing the medicine bundles at Mannheim Mennonite Church. Each bundle has special coloured ties to represent the four colours of the medicine wheel.

One community member also built an intricate cedar box to hold the medicines, with sacred symbols and traditional designs engraved onto it.

The journey to James Smith Cree Nation

After the medicines were carefully placed into the box, they were ready to begin the long journey to their new home.

Community members chose Maggie Dieter, a Cree woman with family living in a nearby territory called John Smith Cree Nation, to help hand-deliver the package directly to the residents of James Smith Cree Nation.

"My uncle, who is a traditional knowledge keeper and has a lodge ... he'll keep the medicine bundle and care for it until their community has their powwow at the beginning of August," she said.

She says members of the Mennonite Central Committee have lent their services to ensure that both she and the box get to John Smith Cree Nation safely. They helped her safely handle the heavy box at the airport where she began her journey on June 29th.

From there, she began a full day of back-to-back travel, with multiple flights and a bus trip, determined to help with the relentless pain the community of James Smith Cree Nation still feels today.

"There's so many stories," Dieter said, thinking of the many hands that contributed — of all the community love, support and solidarity wrapped up inside the medicine box.

"This is what this is: story after story after story."