Ceremonies

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 13 to 18.

This is the second book in the Dreams series.

Big Ideas: Aspects of Indigenous Cultures: Spirituality and Ceremony, Aspects of Indigenous Cultures: Sweat Lodge, Contemporary Setting, Diverse and Inclusive Representation: Addiction, Diverse and Inclusive Representation: Depression and Suicide, Diverse and Inclusive Representation: Identity, Social Justice: Family Separation, Social Justice: Intergenerational Trauma, Social Justice: Impacts of Colonization and Colonialism

Additional Information
80 pages | 6.50" x 10.00" | 75 colour illustrations | Paperback

Tap into guidance from the animal spirit realm and connect to ancestral wisdom with this transformative 44-card deck and guidebook from Indigenous Medicine Woman and author of You Are the Medicine and The Sacred Medicine Oracle, Asha Frost.

Everything is interconnected. All of creation carries a spirit. Indigenous people have always had a sacred relationship with animals and treated them as honored elders. Animal beings in the spirit realm are part of our spiritual support team as allies and medicine keepers, ready to help, waiting to remind you of your humanity and deep connection to the natural world.

With 44 Elder Animals depicted in a richly detailed traditional Ojibway art style, each card carries its own unique medicine. This deck offers meaningful insights and messages to guide you on your path both from the universe and in the voice of an animal spirit guide from the lands of the Ojibway people—from Elder Artic Hare to Elder Wolf. Whether you're seeking clarity, healing, or a deeper connection to your ancestral lineage, these cards provide a bridge to the spirit world.

Use this deck your rituals and ceremonies, do readings with it for your clients and friends, and share it with your communities. As the medicine ripples out, hold Indigenous people in your heart and honor how their history continues to impact your current reality.

Additional Information
128 pages | 3.50" x 5.00" | Card Deck & Guidebook 

A visual and cultural celebration of a traditional Haida wedding ceremony, exploring its roots, rituals, symbolism, joyfulness, and contemporary significance for a thriving Indigenous Nation.

In 1996, Terri-Lynn Williams and Robert Davidson celebrated their wedding with a traditional ceremony, the first in over a century that was legalized under Haida law. This book provides an intimate photographic window into that momentous day and marks the resurgence of a tradition that was nearly lost to colonial forces.

Relying on recorded knowledge their ancestors had shared with ethnographers and anthropologists, and the few details living Elders could recall about the tradition of guud ‘iina Gihl (“becoming married”) in the time before the arrival of Christian missionaries, the couple carefully planned out a seven-part celebration. It involved a canoe procession, ceremony, feast, dancing, and dowry payment, signifying the coming together of two people, two families, and two clans. The occasion is lovingly and painstakingly recounted through imagery and text in this fascinating tribute to a resilient culture and the unbreakable bonds of love and family.

Additional Information
128 pages | 8.75" x 10.50"| Hardcover 

A collaboration exploring the importance of the Ojibway-Anishinabe worldview, use of ceremony, and language in living a good life, attaining true reconciliation, and resisting the notions of indigenization and colonialization inherent in Western institutions.

Indigenization within the academy and the idea of truth and reconciliation within Canada have been seen as the remedy to correct the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canadian society. While honourable, these actions are difficult to achieve given the Western nature of institutions in Canada and the collective memory of its citizens, and the burden of proof has always been the responsibility of Anishinabeg.

Authors Makwa Ogimaa (Jerry Fontaine) and Ka-pi-ta-aht (Don McCaskill) tell their di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan (Stories of personal experience) to provide insight into the cultural, political, social, and academic events of the past fifty years of Ojibway-Anishinabe resistance in Canada. They suggest that Ojibway-Anishinabe i-zhi-chi-gay-win zhigo kayn-dah-so-win (Ways of doing and knowing) can provide an alternative way of living and thriving in the world. This distinctive worldview — as well as Ojibway-Anishinabe values, language, and ceremonial practices — can provide an alternative to Western political and academic institutions and peel away the layers of colonialism, violence, and injustice, speaking truth and leading to true reconciliation.

Reviews
"Fontaine and McCaskill write in a way our own Indigenous People can understand and feel; their passion is tangible." — Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Distinguished Professor, Massey University - NZ

"There are multiple ways to inhabit our deepest principles. There are also many ways to honor land and our elders by embodying the teachings of both. Here is life found in kindness, loving, and truth. How do we access healing and how do we share this healing with others? Reading this book is one way. Tears of gratitude are for you both, Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill. Mahalo nui no ko ?ike nahenahe. Thank you for this mutual emergence shaped as much by friendship as it is by ?ike kupuna - elder knowledge. What is within these pages are ceremonial gifts offered to all who will take the time to connect with what is inevitable about our collective evolution." — Manulani Aluli Meyer, University of Hawai‘i

Additional Information
328 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

From healing to astronomy to our connection to the natural world, the lessons from Indigenous knowledge inform our learning and practices today.

How do knowledge systems get passed down over generations? Through the knowledge inherited from their Elders and ancestors, Indigenous Peoples throughout North America have observed, practiced, experimented, and interacted with plants, animals, the sky, and the waters over millennia. Knowledge keepers have shared their wisdom with younger people through oral history, stories, ceremonies, and records that took many forms.

In Sky Wolf’s Call, award-winning author team of Eldon Yellowhorn and Kathy Lowinger reveal how Indigenous knowledge comes from centuries of practices, experiences, and ideas gathered by people who have a long history with the natural world. Indigenous knowledge is explored through the use of fire and water, the acquisition of food, the study of astronomy, and healing practices.

Reviews
"An authoritative tribute to Indigenous knowledge systems that's a must-have for every library and classroom." - Kirkus Reviews

“Sky Wolf’s Call has an astoundingly broad scope introducing Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in North America from time immemorial to the current day … This fast paced celebration of Indigenous innovation and technology is riveting.” - The British Columbia Review

Educator Information
Interest Age: 11+
Grade: 6+
Reading Age: 11+

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Table of Contents
Author’s Note

1: Sky Wolf’s Call: The Gift of Indigenous Knowledge: Foundational ideas behind Indigenous Knowledge and the importance of retaining, maintaining, and learning this sacred knowledge.

2: Water Knowledge Ways: Water links us all and is sacred. Indigenous people have fought to protect the gift of water from harm, and the critical role it has played in transportation, agriculture, irrigation, and food.

3: Fire and Smoke Knowledge: Fire and smoke are great gifts, including the burning of tobacco. In sacred ceremonies, smoke connects our breath with the heavens. Fire cooks our food, helps grow our crops, and even keeps our waters clean. Cultural burns are used to benefit the land.

4: Indigenous Knowledge and Food Security: Sharing, growing, and receiving food with family, community, and visitors is both an honour and a tradition. By understanding the traditional practices of salmon fishing, clam gardens, planting and harvesting certain crops, or hunting buffalo, Indigenous Peoples have respected what Mother Earth has to offer.

5: Healing Knowledge Ways: The use of the medicine wheel and the sweat lodge have been used over centuries and still help sick and troubled people. Games such as lacrosse and chunkey have helped in building individual strength and community spirit. And braiding together Indigenous healing and western science has opened new learning opportunities.

6: Sky Knowledge: From the earliest Indigenous astronomers to modern astrophysicists, these sky watchers have studied the sacred gifts of the sky: the sun, moon, planets, and stars that have produced maps, calendars, beliefs about how to govern, and even directions for building homes.

7: Keeping the Knowledge: Indigenous People hold oral narratives in high esteem because that was the way knowledge passed from one generation to the next. People in North America recorded important events with symbols, pictographs (paintings), and petroglyphs (carvings). Language Keepers and Knowledge keepers are making sure that Indigenous knowledge is never forgotten.

8: Sky Wolf’s Call: Indigenous knowledge is based on the idea that this world is a gift. Understanding the idea of connections (the skies with the earth, people with animals, the practical with the spiritual) is an important lesson with the challenges of climate change, pandemics, and wars. The wisdom of Indigenous Knowledge can help the whole world.

Thanks and Acknowledgments

Glossary

Selected Reading

Sources and Contacts

Additional Information
120 pages | 7.50" x 9.25" | Paperback

Fourteen-year-old Jaysen Flett-Paul's true story of how Elders guided him through his first Sundance ceremony to heal the anger and grief stemming from his mother’s violent murder. It sensitively tackles the heart-breaking problem of suicide in Indigenous communities, an issue of great importance to this community and for communities across North America.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 13 to 18.

This book is part of the Finding Waka series.

Keywords / Themes: Ceremony, Elders, Family Issues, Grief, Anger, Loss, Spirituality

Additional Information
52 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback 

A personal account of a young Indigenous girl who experiences intolerance, a sense of not belonging and family struggles. She learns from her grandfather the traditional ways of ceremony and fasting to go beyond the needs of the body to where she begins to know her higher self.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 13 to 18.

This book is part of the Finding Waka series.

Keywords / Themes: Acceptance, Anxiety, Ceremony, Family, Fasting, Growth, Healing, Spirituality, Racism, Intolerance.

Additional Information
52 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback 

“The most profound truth in the universe is this: that we are all one drum and we need each other.” —Richard Wagamese, One Drum

A posthumous volume of stories and ceremonies -- and a fitting tribute to Richard Wagamese's spiritual and literacy legacy. 

Fans of Richard Wagamese’s writing will be heartened by the news that the bestselling author left behind a manuscript he’d been working on until shortly before his death in 2017. One Drum welcomes readers to unite in ceremony to heal themselves and bring harmony to their lives and communities.

In One Drum, Wagamese wrote, “I am not a shaman. Nor am I an elder, a pipe carrier, or a celebrated traditionalist. I am merely one who has trudged the same path many of this human family has—the path of the seeker, called forward by a yearning I have not always understood.”

One Drum draws from the foundational teachings of Ojibway tradition, the Grandfather Teachings. Focusing specifically on the lessons of humility, respect and courage, the volume contains simple ceremonies that anyone anywhere can do, alone or in a group, to foster harmony and connection. Wagamese believed that there is a shaman in each of us, and we are all teachers and in the world of the spirit there is no right way or wrong way.

Writing of neglect, abuse and loss of identity, Wagamese recalled living on the street, going to jail, drinking too much, feeling rootless and afraid, and then the feeling of hope he gained from connecting with the spiritual ways of his people. He expressed the belief that ceremony has the power to unify and to heal for people of all backgrounds. “When that happens,” he wrote, “we truly become one song and one drum beating together in a common purpose—and we are on the path to being healed.”

Additional Information
160 pages | 5.50" x 8.00"

Indigenous perspectives much older than the nation itself shared through maps, artwork, history and culture.

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, in partnership with Canada's national Indigenous organizations, has created a groundbreaking four-volume atlas that shares the experiences, perspectives, and histories of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. It's an ambitious and unprecedented project inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action. Exploring themes of language, demographics, economy, environment and culture, with in-depth coverage of treaties and residential schools, these are stories of Canada's Indigenous Peoples, told in detailed maps and rich narratives.

This extraordinary project offers Canada a step on the path toward understanding.

The volumes contain more than 48 pages of reference maps, content from more than 50 Indigenous writers; hundreds of historical and contemporary photographs and a glossary of Indigenous terms, timelines, map of Indigenous languages, and frequently asked questions. All packaged together in a beautifully designed protective slipcase.

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 13+.

The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada includes a four volume print atlas, an online atlas, an app, and more!

Additional Information
322 pages | 10.50" x 12.87"

Written from an Anishinaabe perspective, First Nations Ceremonies explores various Anishinaabe teachings that have been handed down from Elders, encouraging mino-pimaatisiwin, the good life. These practices are still used today, crossing time from the past to the future.

Spirit of Powwow has evolved as we have talked with dancers and drummers until we feel we now have a powwow book that goes beyond the usual mere description of regalia and dances. The photography and text cover every component of the powwow, not just the dance competition. The Nahanee family and their friends make this book a very personal experience for the reader as we have maintained the true voices of the dancers, drummers, officials and volunteers throughout as they speak of their experiences and beliefs. You will follow a powwow family and their friends into the dance arbor, learn of their experiences and meet the behind the scenes people who hold the event together. You will see how the powerful circle of elders and youth closes by visiting Chan Es7a7wats (Yes, I Can Do It). You will meet young dancers learning how to dance and how to make their very first regalia as they are being taught about their culture by Gloria. We have tried to create a book that will become a bridge between cultures. Come over the bridge with us. Come into the kitchens and taste Maizy's bannock, help set up the powwow ground, walk tall in the Grand Entry. Mix with the dancers and drummers and listen to them speak to you.

Additional Information
144 pages | 8.60" x 11.20"

William Beynon was born in 1888 in Victoria to a Welsh father and a Tsimshian mother. He was an accomplished ethnographer and had a long career documenting the traditions of the Tsimshian, Nisga'a, and Gitksan. In 1945 he attended and actively participated in five days of potlatches and totem pole raisings at Gitksan village of Gitsegukla. There he compiled four notebooks containing detailed and often verbatim information about the events he witnessed. For over 50 years these notebooks have seen limited circulation among specialists, who have long recognized them as the most perceptive and complete account of potlatching ever recorded.

In Potlatch at Gitsegukla the almost 200 pages of the notebooks are published for the first time. Sketches and a selection of photographs taken by Beynon are also included (augmented by photographs taken by Wilson Duff in 1952). In addition to meticulously transcribing and annotating the text of the notebooks, Margaret Anderson and Marjorie Halpin provide a comprehensive introduction that puts Beynon's account into a Gitskan cultural perspective, as well as extensive appendices listing names, places, and Gitskan terms in the notebooks. There is also an excellent timeline of key events in Gitskan history by James McDonald and Jennifer Joseph.

William Beynon's notebooks are among the most significant written records of Northwest coast potlatching and are an unsurpassed resource documenting these activities among the Gitskan. This rare, first-hand, ethnographic account of a potlatch reveals the wonderful complexities of the events that took place in Gitsegukla in 1945.

Additional Information
296 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback