Some indigenous women in the United States are working to reclaim tribal menstruation ceremonies and practices as a means to revitalize and empower Native women. Mostly, women are doing the revitalization work quietly within their communities, offering opportunities for young Native women to gather with female elders and learn the teachings that once guided and supported them. For instance, Ojibwe women traditionally secluded themselves in a moon lodge during menstruation. Women retreated to a small wigwam, where they slept separated from their husbands and infants. They refrained from sex, food preparation, and ceremony. They were careful not to step over young children, touch babies, men, or communal food. Female friends and relatives ensured the menstruating woman was safe and fed, and they helped care for her family in her absence. “Traditionally, if you arrived at a woman’s house and saw that her cedar boughs were missing from her front door, it was a sign that she had taken them to create a pathway to her moon lodge,” said Patty Smith of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Ojibwe. “Cedar is a medicine to keep women safe. The missing cedar was a sign for other women to visit her, feed her, and check on her.” To an outsider, these practices may cast menstruation as evil and threatening. But for Ojibwe women, their moon can be a healthy time of rest, regeneration, and recognition of their important roles as life givers and community leaders. “Women have great power during their moons,” said Smith, whose Ojibwe name is Bagwaji-kwe (woman of the wilderness). “As they bleed, they are sloughing off the accumulated experience and stress of being a woman. Some of those experiences are painful or may contain negative energy, so we want to be careful that we don’t interrupt that process.”
Read More on the Story
Mary Annette Pember: ‘Honoring Our Monthly Moons’: Some Menstruation Rituals Give Indigenous Women Hope
(Rewire.News February 20, 2019)
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