Praying With Sacred Plants, Pipes: Aurora University Displays, Lecture To Showcase Native American Sacred Plants, Pipes

AURORA, Ill, October 3, 2007—Aurora University will open two new exhibits with a reception and a lecture on Native American sacred plants and sacred Pipes on Thursday, Oct. 11.

The displays and presentation are free to the public. An opening reception for both "Lifting Prayer: Sacred Plants and the Schingoethe Pipe Bag Collection" and "The Native American Church: Tradition and Adaptation" is from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, at the Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures at Dunham Hall, 1400 Marseillaise Place in Aurora.

At 6:30 p.m., Ojibwa elder Nick Hockings will speak on "The Creator's Gifts: Sacred Plants and Tradition of the Pipe." Hockings, a Native American artist, operates Waswagoning, a 20-acre recreated Ojibwa village on the Lac du Flambeau, Wis., reservation.

The Pipe exhibit includes 11 Pipe bags, a Pipe, a tomahawk Pipe, a quilled Pipe stem, and two Pipe bowls. Tobacco, sage, cedar and sweet grass are sacred plants displayed. Native Americans believe the plants provide healing and cleansing and continue to be used in ceremonies by American Indians throughout the United States.

Written interviews with five Pipe carriers are included in the display. American Indian tribes choose Pipe carriers to provide Pipe ceremonies for persons who request prayers. Meg Bero, executive director of the Schingoethe Center, and David Spencer, center curator, conducted interviews with each carrier.

Pipe carriers featured are Rita Reynolds, DeKalb, Lakota; Joseph Standing Bear, Westchester, Ojibwa; Terry Standing Buffalo Reynolds, DeKalb, Lakota; R.J. Smith, Lac Cour te Oreilles, Wis., Ojibwa/Assiniboine, and David Tlateollin Pesquiera, Opata/Mexican/Chicano, Chicago. Reynolds, Standing Bear, Buffalo Reynolds, and Pesquiera are expected to attend the opening. Bero said, "The Pipe was interwoven in to every phase of Plains Indian life. From youth to adult, to elder to death, the Pipe was present, lifting the voice of the people to the Creator. In trade, in war and peace, and in nearly every sacred ceremony, the Pipe was there."

The Pipe was a gift from the Creator and was necessary for the continuation of the tribe, said Oglala Lakota pipe carrier, Black Elk. "With this profound responsibility, smoking the Pipe was not undertaken in a casual manner for individual pleasure, but rather was a group activity, which unified humans with the universe and the Creator in a tangible way," Black Elk said.

Bero added, "The Pipe remains a vital practice to American Indians today. There are many different tribal traditions. For the Plains people and the Ojibwa people, both represented in our Pipe bag collection, the Pipe tradition remains fundamental."

The Pipe display was developed by Bero with assistance from curator Dave Spencer and Nathan Reimer and Sarah Gwynne, Schingoethe Fellows. The Native American Church display includes a goose feather fan, a gourd rattle, a roadman's kit used by a Native American to conduct religious ceremonies.

Hockings helped construct a life-sized Ojibwa wigwam for permanent display in the Schingoethe Center in 2004. The wigwam, of maple saplings, birch bark, and bull-rush grass is the centerpiece of "Native People of Illinois 1673-1835: There's No Place Like Home," a permanent exhibit.

In addition to the wigwam, the display also features other items to show visitors what life was like until 1835, when French explorers met the Illinois American Indians.

Included are a complete campsite, a scale-model long house (where multiple families lived) and woodland artifacts. Children are invited to use museum-provided materials to build a wigwam frame and cover it with mats. A large wall display details the history of American Indians in Illinois. The display received an Award of Merit from the Illinois Historical Society.

Center hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Group tours are available by appointment.

Admission is free although there is a suggested donation of $3 for adults, $2 for students and seniors, and $1 for children under 12 ($7 maximum per family).

Call (630) 844-7843 for information.

--END--